Is he still alive?

-sigh-

I am!

I have not blogged for 4 months now and it's killing me; on the plus side, I've almost finished my PhD (a couple weeks left), and I will be back in full force then!

Until that time, be sure to follow the weekly updates over at my edited blog: www.comicsnexus.com ! spread the love :)


Read more!

Holidaying

Hi all!

a quick update from Brighton. I've started my week-long holidays, passing through Brighton-Oxford-London-Bath-Hasting.

Regular blog updates will resume from Sunday 24th unless I find myself really desperate for web-time (not bloody likely!).

Read more!

Spring Summer Cleaning

So... I've been trying to streamline the blog's design and move further away from the standard template. The banner is now in the sidebar (with Future Feline headlining the top of the page), and I've tweaked the colors a bit. I'm not very capable in color theory, or blog design, so any pointers and colour suggestions are most welcome!
Read more!

NEWS: First Gay Man to Climb Mount Everest

Read more!

Blogging (not) from Athens

Back from London (Avenue Q and Kelly Clarkson! photos soon with videos) on Thursday, then off to Athens on Friday, and settling in today.

Let me catch my breath and regular blog updates will resume tomorrow!


Read more!

Mermaids For Sale

Fake Mermaid Corpses (made from real human skeletons, fish scales and teeth) are available for sale on the internet, and apparently have started cropping up not only on chain spam letters, but also on Mexican tabloids! I admit it took me more than 20 minutes of google searching before I could uncover this hoax, after being sent a chain letter reporting the discovery of a mummified mermaid corpse in a Russian lake! Fun-Fact: these were originally available to buy on ebay! Perfect Feng-Sui for a fisherman's hut, I guess. The bragging rights alone are worth it (if you can put up with the smell).

Buy yours here in time for Easter.


another fun incident on youtube: Russian fishermen catch a mermaid corpse and videotape it. The evidence cannot be examined for authenticity as the mermaid was later served as dinner.


Read more!

Why Isn't Anyone Paying Attention?

THE ORDER #10

Written by MATT FRACTION
Pencils & Cover by BARRY KITSON

Shell-shocked, shattered, and--worst of all—depowered, the men and women that were once the Order stand face to face with the big-bad that's toyed with them for 9 whole issues in various forms and guises and shapes and sizes. They might be broken--but can The Order be beaten? The end of a strange and vicious trip arrives, and God only knows if the Order will survive.
As this is our last issue, y'know, you might think you know the answer. But you might be wrong! You don't know. You DON'T! Hooray! Goodbye!
By Matt Fraction (PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL, Casanova), Kaare Evans (Immortal Iron Fist) and Barry Kitson (Empire, Legion of Superheroes).

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99

Thus ends Marvel's best new property since RUNAWAYS and X-STATIX. Meanwhile, piles of shite like NEW WARRIORS lives to see #11 and beyond?
Read more!

Facebook Chain-letters

I've long rallied that Facebook is the most brilliant internet website that is not owned by google (yet?).

It came in out of nowhere and succeeded where all other previous networking websites simply struggled to stay afloat. For me, the attraction is beyond the networking, in the applications it supports.

You can really do anything on Facebook. You can have live chats, group chats, send e-mails, share videos, you can tag your friends on photos (and find out when you get tagged) -which is by far what won me over in the first place-, you can dedicate songs, rate movies, take quizzes, meet dates, grow virtual pets, play board games or even platform games (Zelda, b*tch!)!

It's the internet shrunk down to only include you and your friends!

If there was ever proof of that, it arrived with the first Facebook spoof chain-mail!

Attention all Facebook membeRs.
Facebook is recently becoming very overpopulated,
There have been many members complaining that Facebook
is becoming very slow.Record shows that the reason is
that there are too many non-active Facebook members
And on the other side too many new Facebook members.
We will be sending this messages around to see if the
Members are active or not,If you're active please send
to other users using Copy+Paste to show that you are active
Those who do not send this message within 2 weeks,
The user will be deleted without hesitation to create more space,
If Facebook is still overpopulated we kindly ask for donations but until then send this message to all your friends and make sure you send
this message to show me that your active and not deleted.

Founder of Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg

Honestly, what do you really need email accounts for anymore, you can get spammed more effectively on FunWall!

To actually go in depth about how obviously fake this message is, is to stoop down to the level of all those brainless trolls (a.k.a. over 100 of my friends) who keep circulating this message on a daily basis). Really now, Facebook is not only bothered that it is too popular (i'm sure their advertisers are causing a ruckus there), but they have hired people to weed out the extraneous profiles (including anyone who has gone on mroe than 3 weeks holiday). They're of course not gonig about that business by -oh, I dunno- checking the mini-feeds provided by Facebook on every profile, but by hiring people to monitor each user's Fun/SuperWall, an outside source application!

Oops, I couldn't resist a little ran there. Anyway.

Now as soon as they introduce Facebook Blogs, the rest of the internet can go the way of the dinosaur ;)
Read more!

No, I'm not dead, Vasili

...but it's like this:

1st, the server where i have been hosting the images breaks down, along with the entire Comics Nexus website (where I am the editor these days)

this means I have to go ahead, track down all my images from all of the hundreds of blog posts and re-upload them on the new server and cross-link.

That would have been a simple hassle, if only my motherboard didn't pick this specific time to call it quits on me (bad mother) and produce a corrupt BIOS fault, shutting down the entire system.

So what happens now? I've got a new pc in the box waiting to be assmebled this friday, and a backlog of reviews and articles to get posted in my head, so you need to wait until this weekend for LYSAD's triumphant return. After all, it's 7 days to Christmas and our traditional Holiday Roundtable!
Read more!

Site downtime

apologies for the Site downtime since Friday. The Insidepulse/Comicsnexus servers have been down along with most our images cache, making the site unreadable...

Hopefully this will be resolved soon
Read more!

BICS Report part 5: Sketches

Sketches Gallery

Part 5 of our BICS coverage

a look inside my convention sketchbook. I try to get 4-5 new sketches in every convention, some from my big favourites who indulge me at every meeting (like d'Israeli, Bucky and Duncan Fegredo), and others from the special convention guests, if I can stomach the hour queues.

This year, I didn't bother asking for a Mignola sketch, as much as I love the guy, as the queues were massive and I felt bad for the guy who had to make the same Hellboy sketch 200 times that day.

I did queue up for Kevin Nowlan, only to reach my turn and be told that he won't be sketching any more until after lunch. When I returned later, I was asked to wait in queue all over again, which i really didn't have the energy for. Next time, mr Nowlan!

D'Israeli:
Matt is probably the first artist I see in every convention, as he always has a big surprise sketch in his mind for me. I just ask for 'something Greek' and he impresses me every single time!

This year it was a sketch of Achilles, along with the official Achilles theme song (you can sing it to the theme of 'Spider-man, Spider-man, does whatever...'


and as a bonus, the sketch he did for the previous guy in line: Monster vs Bunny


Dougie Braithwaite:
it took me two days to decide what to ask for, and Dougie was a gent, spending a lot of time to get the face details just right and then coloured it in graytone as a bonus! Meet Poison Ivy:


Random Zombie Sketch:
I feel so bad that I didn't get the artist's name, but he was making the greatest looking Zombie Sketches in the hall. The red ink was an especially nice touch! I did get a photo of their table though, and bought a fab 'break in case of Zombies' axe t-shirt


and finally, mr Eisner Award himself, Mark Buckingham!
I asked for one of Snowhite's 7 cubs from Fables, and he threw in an extra one for kicks! Ambrose and Ghost:


BICS Coverage Archive:

Part 1: the Convention & Arrival
Part 2: Comic Artists Flip Out
Part 3: Photo Parade: Creators
Part 4: Photo Parade - Indies
Read more!

BICS Report part 4: Photo Parade - Indies

Photo Round-Up: Indies

Part 4 of our BICS coverage


Emma Vieceli (Manga Shakespeare) and Sweatdrop studios



Geof Banyard and Fetishman, the most disturbing cockytail of cute and kinky


Philip English and Genki Gear T-shirts, available also in their online store


Village People circa 2007, on skates, from Birmingham Blitz Derby Dames


Studio Blink Twice (duh)


Mark Ellerby (Love The Way You Love), scary beard-lover girl and Adam


The Cool Kids table, home of Zombies and the Ninja Bunny


ZipGun Comics


Orang Utan Comics


Selina Lock, and the Girly Comic



Seven Sentinels from Engine Comics


BICS Coverage Archive:

Part 1: the Convention & Arrival
Part 2: Comic Artists Flip Out
Part 3: Photo Parade: Creators
Read more!

BICS Report part 3: Photo Parade - Creators

Photo Round-Up: Creators

Part 3 of our BICS coverage

Kieron Gillen (Phonogram) and Jamie McKelvie (Phonogram, Suburban Glamour),
winners of the charades award

Dave Kendall (Bad Planet) drawing on the ImagineFX booth,
winner of the second tallest -after me- award

Rich Johnston (Lying in the Gutters)
dedicating the newest -colour- edition of the Flying Friar


Guest-of-Honour Kevin Nowlan
sketching for his fans, and mrs Nowlan


Mike Carey... and Mike Carey on the limited edition cover of his first novel The Devil You Know,
winner of the fan-friendly award for his hours talking and drinking it up with our great unwashed lot


Alan Davis and Mark Farmer,
a penciller and inker team even in the sketch sessions


Adi Granov (Iron Man),
winner of the biggest sketch queue award (take that, Mignola!)


Staz Johnston (Underworld),
winner of the Best Hair award


Ilya (far right) and his army of writers and artists from the Mammoth Book of New Manga, vol. 2,
winners of the 300-UK award


Dean Ormston (Testament, Lucifer, Books of Magick),
winner of the bottomless pint award


Essad Ribic (Loki, Silver Surfer) ,
winner of biggest and sexiest artist award (phwoar)



Mark Buckingham (Fables) and Irma Buckingham,
winners of the friendliest bunch award


Dave Gibbons (Watchmen, Green Lantern Corps),
winner of the Friends of Budgie award

BICS Coverage Archive:

Part 1: the Convention & Arrival
Part 2: Comic Artists Flip Out
Read more!

BICS Report part 2: Comic Artists Flip Out

Day 2 of our BICS coverage

Simple but brilliant recipe for a fun panel:

-Three huge A0 flipcharts of blank sketch paper

-Lots of marker pens

-A raffle book

-Three suckers -- eager experienced and friendly comic artists

A simple procedure: Every fan in the room gets a free raffle. The artists keep churning out giant A0 sketches, and each sketch is raffled out to a member of the audience until time runs out, or the artist's wrist starts bleeding on the sketch pad.

James A. Hodgkins (sexy and stylish) hosted the panel, with special guest artists: Alan Davis, Staz Johnson and Mark Buckingham. Two of them had prior experience in this panel last year, I thought they'd have reconsidered before signing up again for this slave labour (sic)

Some peeps went away with gorgeous artwork, but I lucked out and went home empty handed

[I wasn't as unlucky the year before that, in the first BICS, where the same panel was introduced but unfortunately scheduled as the penultimate event on the last day of the convention. Unlucky for them as the panel had a poor turnout, lucky for the 20 of us who did attend, as we all got to walk away with a giant sketch (they learnt their lesson well this year, as they made this the second event of the opening day, with great results).]

Here's my lucky sketch from last year: Giant-Size Naked Borat by Essad Ribic (Silver Surfer: Requiem, Loki, Children of the Atom), who is a big Kazakh fan.


The panel wasn't without its amusing moments, including Bucky drawing his version of Staz, and all three artists trying to field off questions from the audience while they're drawing (Survivor: Birmingham!).
Meanwhile, James Hodgkins was having his own technical difficulties trying to realise the how-to of pulling raffles out of a bowl, as he kept putting the winning raffles back in the bowl, shuffling, and then pulling out the same number. Multiply this by ten or so repeats, and you get a very amused audience! James took it all in good humour and was a great host overall.

Following is a gallery of the sketches the artists gave away this year, along with a special treat: a video of Alan Davis drawing a giant Phoenix sketch for a lucky winner. Watch a master at work!


ALAN DAVIS sketches the Batman, the Thing and Nightcrawler






MARK BUCKINGHAM toiling away on Rose Red, Flycatcher, Pinocchio Samurai (sweet!), and Bigby Wolf (all from his Eisner-winning FABLES series), Sandman, and Spiderman




and finally, STAZ JOHNSON on the Silver Surfer, the Joker and the Batman (looking very stylish)





Before we wrap up, the video as promised:



and the finished sketch:


Read more!