OK, so there isn’t much happening here, I know. I have a couple things brewing, but have simply been too busy on dissertation work to do much in here. Hopefully I’ll be able to post a few juicy things over the next weeks though. In the meantime, here’s an awesome set of preparatory Tintin pages…
Just watched the three-parter that marked the return of British SF-comedy sitcom Red Dwarf after ten years in the movie development wilderness, which ran on the digital network Dave TV over Easter. I had absolutely no expectations for this — the last two seasons of the show, VII (1997) and VIII (1999), had been rather…
Jean Giraud, one of the major figures in comics history, is still alive and kicking. Neither he nor his alias Moebius seem particularly marked by age. As a matter of fact, it seems his output has never been bigger. Most notable, probably, is his series of self-indulgent improvisations, Inside Moebius, of which five volumes have…
I’ve already linked to Copenhagen cartoonists’ studio Over Floden’s current Batman tribute, but since I’ve been on the road lately and have nothing else to show for it yet, I’d like to call special attention to Bunker contributor Thomas Thorhauge’s contribution, which references John Wayne at the end of John Ford’s masterpiece The Searchers to…
By Henry Sørensen, T. Thorhauge & Matthias Wivel Right, so here were are again with our selection of the best comics of last year. It’s taken a while but we hope you find it useful. Much of what we said about the year in comics 2007 when we did this last year applies equally to…
Kramers Ergot 7 is a product of colossal ambition, it is of colossal size and it was published to colossal expectations. Is it any surprise that the result is less than colossal? There is no doubt that this is a rare achievement in comics production, and it is certainly also a high-quality anthology containing some…
It seems to be the season for the discovery of sensational portraits. A few days ago The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust announced having found an authentic, contemporary portrait of none less than Shakespeare himself. Its persuasive provenance and resemblance to a number of portraits, most presumably copied from lost pictures, that carry traditional identifications to Shakespeare,…
The first thing I remember hearing director Zack Snyder say about his film version of Watchmen — at that time still in the works — was that that they were going to change the Nite Owl character’s costume to make it ‘cooler.’ That seemed to me pretty much to say all about his take on…
Last weekend, the discovery of what is claimed to be a new Leonardo drawing was announced on Italian TV. With the help of digital imaging, it has emerged from behind the text of the “Codex on the Flight of Birds”, held at Turin. The proud discoverers suggest that it is actually a partial self-portrait, citing…
It was a relief to see French cartoonist Maurice Sinet — pen name Siné — acquitted of charges of “inciting racial hatred,” brought by The International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, at the court in Lyon earlier this week. Siné was fired from his long-time employer, the venerable French weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, last…
The fabulous online comics community Scans Daily has been shut down, one assumes by its host LiveJournal. The reason, apparently, was copyright infringement — ie. posting scans whole issues or close to whole issues of new comics on the site. Seeing some of his work there got comics writer Peter David riled, and he informed…
I really should start paying more attention to online comics. Last fall I picked up the 2007 French book edition of Christopher Hittinger’s Jamestown because I found the drawings thrilling at first leaf-through. I’ve only now managed to read it, and I enjoyed it immensely. Turns out, of course, that it’s been available online since…
Winshluss’ Pinocchio was the big buzz book of the Angoulême festival this year and it came as little surprise that it ended up taking the Fauve d’Or award — the festival’s prize for comic of the year, and one of the greatest distinctions of its kind. It’s an impressive package — a large hardback book…
OK, so the prize for weirdest political moment this week goes to the tag team of Gordon Brown and David Cameron, disagreeing in public over the age of Titian when he died. In what in itself is a revealing moment of bizarre self-conception, Brown apparently compared himself to Titian last month, saying the master did…
So, I’ve finally made it home after a three-leg train journey from sunny southern France to an England blanketed in powdered snow and plagued by traffic delays. We were long gone when the prize winners and the Grand Prix were announced, but thanks to a friend on the spot, we learned that Blutch took the…