And the new organiser of the Web Comic Secret Santa Exchange is...

...me!

Because clearly I don't have enough to do already. : )

Link!

The Web Comic Secret Santa Exchange, which was until recently ran by Sheryl Schopfer of Deer Me (Go check it out!), is exactly what it sounds like, a Secret Santa for webcomic creators. Your name goes in two hats (don't worry I have plenty of hats to choose from) and every creator gets assigned a random comic to produce a Christmas present for.

You're eligible to join up if you have an active webcomic with 20 or more pages in the archive by the time sign ups start next month. If you don't then you can still help out if you like by becoming a safety net elf. What that means is that whilst you won't receive anything you can act as a stand in and jump to the rescue if a participant fails to deliver, because you're such a nice person.

Anyway, you can read more about it here.

Go read more about it.

Go.

Shoo!

Comics I Read Last Week - Week 3

Welcome to the third installment of my weekly feature thing Comics I Read Last Week where I briefly (or not so briefly) talk about comics I read last week. Pretty simple really. I had an unusually hectic week last week so the list's pretty short this time.

Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake #1-6
Natasha Allegri, Patrick Seery, Britt Wilson, Betty Liang, Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, Lucy Knisley, Whitney Leopard, Rebecca Mock, Kate Leth, Jen Wang, Amanda Thomas, Terry Blas, Kimball Davis,

This is what a messy pile of comics looks like.

Damn there are a lot of people involved in a print comic. That list doesn't cover the cover artists for cover variants I didn't buy, the bizarre error on one inside cover claiming that Amanda Palmer is responsible for colouring a cover or the cover artist(s) for the cover to the cover variant of issue one that I have because it's got a new cover for the second print version and the inside cover only lists the cover artists for the standard cover variants.

That sentence features the word cover twelve times, in case you were tempted to go back and count.

Anyway, I finally got issue six, the final issue of this series on Tuesday, and of course what do you have to do when you pick up the last issue of a story? Read through the whole lot again of course.

In case you've somehow managed to avoid ever hearing of it (What? Do you live under a rock or something?) Fionna and Cake are the gender-flipped versions of Adventure Time's Finn and Jake created by Natasha Allegri (the main writer for this series). They first made their appearance along with their own supporting cast of gender-swapped characters in an astoundingly awesome episode of the third season of the show.

The comic isn't quite as aweome as that episode, but it's still pretty awesome. The main story starts with Fionna and Cake stuck inside because of the rain when they're distracted by a bunch of baby fire lions (which are adorable) fleeing an attack by the Ice Queen. Before our heroes can intervene a boy jumps into the fray, a boy made of fire!

It's a fun, slightly odd, meandering story featuring silly swords, daft costumes, a candy dungeon and a disturbingly bizarre looking Lumpy Space Prince.

Wierdo.

There are also back-up stories in four of the six issues featuring stolen sweaters, sinorses, a disturbing glance at the Lemongrabs and a severe lack of bathing.

The trade for this series isn't out quite yet, but it should be soon and you should buy it when it is.

Son of a Father
Nam Dong Yoon, Translated by Kim Hyun Sook

Son of a Father by Nam Dong Yoon is this week's odd one out being the only one not based on a kids' cartoon and also the only digital comic and the only translated comic. It's the odd one out for a number of reasons really. Coming in at 157 pages, Son of a Father is a collection of stips about a young boy and his parents.

It's one of the comics I got as a backer of the last Kickstarter for The Whole Story, which is a series of collections of completed comics organised by Ryan Estrada, starting at a dollar for the basic bundle, which is still hundreds of pages anyway. I went for the one above that, the Double the Comics bundle, which meant I got this and another of Nam Dong Yoon's books along with a bunch of other stuff.


I didn't particularly enjoy the comic the first time I tried to read it. I don't know why really, because it is actually a pretty good comic. I think it's just one I really have to be in the right mood for. Some comics I can read any time and some not so much. I gave it a second chance though and I enjoyed it a lot more, so yeah, it's definitely worth giving his stuff a try.


My Little Pony Friendship is Magic #9
Katie Cook, Andy Price, Heather Breckel, Neil Uywtake, Bobby Curnow

Yep, another Pony comic. I actually haven't managed to grab issues 7 and 8 yet because my local comic store is useless, but luckily 9 is the start of a completely new story featuring Big Mac going shopping for some nails. Sounds simple enough, right? Of course not! Nothing is ever that easy.

This is another fun, well written and drawn issue and  one of the things I love about these comics is just how much extra stuff there is to notice when you reading through again. In fact I'd say it requires at least one time through without reading any of the dialogue because there are just too many great little details that deserve your attention.

Also, I do like a well presented boom.

Duckula #1-4
Various (uncredited)

I mentioned in last week's entry about there being a much better Duckula comic than Celebrity's attempt and this is it.

The London Editions version of the comic that started a year later in 1990 is a much, much better affair. Like the Dreamstone comic I covered in the first installment of this feature someone at the comic decided they needed to cover the show's first episode in comic form, but unlike the Dreamstone comic they did it well.

Each issue features two different Duckula stories. Most of them are stand alone stories, but the first story in issues one and two is a two part retelling of the first episode, featuring the origin of the good Count, the world's only vegetarian vampire duck. It all comes done, you understand, to a ketchup bottle.

Apparently using ketchup instead of blood in your occult ceremonies to summon the undead has some serious effects.

Other stories feature a Duckula starting a TV station, Duckula starting a band, a disasterous trip to Florida, the lost city of Atlantis, a keep fit obsession and an encounter with the British tabloid media.

I'm joking about that last one. It's really a story about a doppelganger, but y'know, it could have been about the British press.

As well as the two Duckula stories each issue also features an installment of 'Marlin the Magician'. The first part tells his origin where he rescues a time travelling Merlin from a dustbin and he gives him a book of spells in way of a thankyou.  The next three issues are part of a story called "The Back to the Front" in which young Marlin is teleported off to a place where an evil wizard has made everything go all topsy-turvy and everyone say the opposite to what they mean, which leads to a couple of small problems as you'd expect.

I'm not sure why London Editions decided it would be a good idea to include a completely unrelated story alongside the Duckula stories, but it's entertaining enough and who can resist a comic that dedicates half a page to a girl petting a bunny?

Tune in next week for more Duckula, more Bone and a bit of Plagued by Ryan Estrada. Plus whatever else I feel like reading between now and Sunday.

Comics I Read Last Week - Week 2

Welcome to the second installment of my exciting new feature 'Comics I Read Last Week', where I unsurprisingly talk about comics that I read last week. Print or digital, old or new, if I read it in the last week it goes here. Webcomics don't count though unless I've done a massive archive trawl, because really, who wants to hear me talk about the same twenty or so comics ever week? How boring would that be?

Anyway, to the first of the week's comics!

My Little Pony Micro-Series #6 - Applejack
Bobby Curnow, Brenda Hickey, Heather Breckel and Neil Uyetake

Ponies!
Ponies! Ponies! Ponies!
Yay! Ponies! ^_^

...

Right, now I've got that out of the way onto the review. Alongside IDW's normal Friendship is Magic title, featuring longer stories set over 2-4 issues, there's the Micro-Series comics, single stand-alone issues concentrating on one character, or in the case of the Cutey-mark Crusaders issue a group of characters, and whilst the longer stories are nice not having to wait a month to finish a story does have its advantages too.

So, to this issue. It's Hearth's Warming Eve, a major holiday that is definitely not Christmas, and Applejack is freaking out about how much work there is to do, so business as usual then. Well, until someone or something starts replacing a whole bunch of the Apple family's crop with squashes. Something obviously needs to be done and Applejack being Applejack we get this panel:

And Applejack being Applejack it works out exactly as well as you'd expect.

Will she ever learn? Probably not.
Of course things go much better when she lets the rest of the family help.

It's a fun, well written issue with a decent little twist and well worth grabbing if you happy to be a bit of a pony fan.

Sonic The Comic Online #262
Pete Murphy, Stephen Davis, Michael Stephenson, Seumidh MacDonald, Chris Gould, Matthew Bramble and Matt Dittmer

Stephen 'Spydaman' Davis

Stephen 'Spydaman' Davis

So I did say I was going to be doing webcomics and this one is on the web, but it is released in issue form and comes out every couple of months and is a continuation of a print comic that bit the dust back in 2002, so I think it's okay. Sonic the Comic, for those that don't know, was the UK's officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comic (with other Sega characters in some of the back-up stories) published by Fleetway Editions / Egmont Magazines. The title launched in 1993 and was one of the publisher's best sellers, but was killed off by publisher stupidity after they implemented their five year reprint cycle, the idea being that five years was the average reader turnover and so most of the readers wouldn't have ever read the reprints. This policy was stupid for multiple reasons. With a set coninuity and plenty of callbacks to earlier issues running reprints alongside new stories didn't really make a whole lot of sense and from issue 185 to issue 223 the comic just ran reprints with no new content at all.

Then it got canned because nobody wants to keep buying the same stories over and over again.

Jump forward to May 2003 and issue 224. Except issue 224 wasn't published by Fleetway/Egmont, wasn't available in newsagents, wasn't officially licensed and most importantly wasn't a whole bunch of reruns. A fan run affair, though wih the support of some of the original comic's staff Sonic the Comic online carries on where issue 184 left off with a whole bunch of new stories.

Issue 262's a good one with three stories, a seven page lead story and two five page back-ups. It doesn't update all that often, but most of the stories are worth a read or three and with 43 standard issues and 11 specials to read there's plenty to keep you busy.

L.Y.K. and Bear #1 
Ray Sumser

Here's a cute one.

I stumbled across this one on Kickstarter. It looked cute, sounded fun and any support of a dollar or more got you a digital copy of the first issue. A cute all ages comic about a kitten for a dollar? How could I pass that up?

Of course I paid more than a dollar, but you know, it was still a very good offer and that's what matters. Did I mention how cute this comic is? Little Yellow Kitten (that's what L.Y.K. stands for you know) is adorable. An absolute troublemaker, but adorable all the same. Bear is also pretty damn cute and the two of them are based on Sumser's cat and childhood teddy bear (who he still has of course) and knowing that somehow just makes the whole thing even more adorable.

The art style is simple, bright and cheerful and the story has a sort of freewheeling anything goes quality to it. Little Yellow Kitty is hungry. You'd think this would be a simple thing to fix, but no, the fridge is empty and the person who should be able to do something about that is missing and maybe, just maybe something got broken and now L.Y.K. and Bear have got themselves in a spot of bother.

I have one issue with this issue, well two I suppose.

One: There are a couple of Twitter messages shown on one page. One of them contains the hashtag #FML and the use of that acronym that I know ain't all that all ages. Yes, it's just an acronym and no, it doesn't use any actual bad words, but I still wouldn't want to be the one answering the question when a kid asks what it means.

Two: You can't seem to buy it yet if you haven't backed the Kickstarter.

So yeah, generally a great, fun and cute little comic that I would recommend, but that you can't seem to buy right now.

Count Duckula #2
Mario Capaldi, Etta Saunders, Andrew Brenner, John Burns, Nancy Hazel, Vin James, Alan Case, Cal Hamilton and Nick Abadzis

Ah, Duckula. You've gotta love old Cosgrove Hall cartoons.

There are three different Duckula / Count Duckula titles that I know of. One published by Marvel, one published by London Editions and this one by Celebrity. I've never read the Marvel one, but between this one from 1989 and the London Editions one from 1990 onwards, this one doesn't fare all that well.

It's not the art that's a problem. The art's spot on. It's not the writing either. The writing's great. There's a single story comic, a one page gag strip and a two page prose story (which would have fitted easily onto one page if they didn't use such a huge typeface).

No, the problem with this comic is that it seems to be put together all wrong and the first problem is that cover. See, that's actually an illustration of that two page story, but there's a bit of a problem with it. Here's a description of the visitor in the story:

"Before him, on the threshold, drenched with rain and lit by flashes of lightning, stands a gruesome figure. It is eight feet tall. and spectre-thin, wrapped in black robes. The face is harrowing and fierce, half-moon glasses perched on a hooked beak. The grey hair is drawn up in a bun."

That's a pretty fair description of the character on the cover I'd say, except for one little problem. Black robes and grey hair? Hmm... Nope, I definitely see green robes and light brown hair. There is clearly some kind of communication problem here. Was the writer working from an inks only version of the cover image or did the artist draw it based on the writer's description and then hand it off to the colourist without any direction and where is the editor in all this?

Then there's the speech bubbles. Somehow they've managed to include pretty much every mistake you can get.

You get panels where the speech bubbles have no outlines:

Panels where the speech bubbles have a dividing line cutting their tails off:

Panels where the borders cut off part of the speech bubbles:

Speech bubbles that don't know where their owners are:

(There are only three characters in this entire scene.)

And speech bubbles that were clearly meant to be at the edge of a panel, but have been moved into the middle for some reason:

The writing and art are both spot on for a Duckula comic. This should be a great comic, but it's a mess. I blame the editor.

The Beezer Book 1975 and The Topper Book 1976
Various (uncredited)

When I was a kid the Beezer and Topper was one of my absolute favourite comics. Unfortunately not that many people seemed to feel the same way and in 1993 it was canned with its more popular strips being picked up sister comics The Beano and The Dandy. The Dandy of course has gone the same way now, leaving just the Beano.


Before that though there was The Beezer and there was The Topper, two completely seperate comic that were eventually forced together becaue neither of them were selling quite as well as they used to. Back in the '70s though? Back in the '70s they were doing just fine.

I picked up these annuals for 50p each along with a few old Dandy annuals, Beano annuals and even an old Denis the Menace book. Bargain.

Being the older one, and because the comic I used to read as a kid was called Beezer and Topper, I'll start with the Beezer. It's an interesting read, a mix of stuff I remember, stuff I've never seen before and stuff that I sort of remember, but not quite that way.

One thing that hasn't changed all that much is The Numskulls, a strip about little people that live inside someone's head and basically run the whole show.

 

The Numskulls is still running in the Beano. These days they run a boy named Edd, but back in 1975 they were in control of a balding man who liked to viit museums. The character designs have changed slightly, but not all that much.


One that should have survived, but didn't is Black Bun.

An adorable little bunny rabbit beating up a farmer. Who wouldn't want to read that? I think we should all campaign for DC Thomson to bring back this lovable little lagomorph or at the very least get them to put out a best of volume, because the world needs more comics about rabbits.

On the flipside there are some things that are probably best left in the past, whether it be this thing...

...or the comic's dubious representations of native Americans, and no, I don't mean the cover. I mean this:

Ah, the 1970s!



Now for The Topper!

Yes. Yes, you are Foxy, twice, and you manage to do it without any hugely offensive stereotypes. Well done.

The big survivor from this book is this young lady.

Beryl the Peril (unsurprisingly created by David Law, the same guy who came up with Dennis the Menace) managed to stay in print from 1953 to 2007 when she was finally dropped from the Dandy. It'd be fun to see her brought back alonside Dennis. They're very, very similar characters. I'd like to see them try and outdo each other.

Hoozee the Wotsit, the Dr Seuss-ish thing who doesn't even know what he's supposed to be himself didn't fare so well though.

Is it just me or does this character from The Fabulous Whizzers from Ozz look a bit like Fidal Castro did back in the '70s?

He's a rebel leader trying to blow up a railway bridge belonging to a British run mine, which currently has children crossing it. Later in the story he gets punched out by a remote control flying car. Subtle it ain't.


Well, that's all for now. Next week expect more My Little Pony, some Adventure Time and the better Duckula comic, plus whatever else I feel like reading. In the meantime I'll be organising the campaign to bring back Black Bun.

Ryan Estrada is looking for suggestions for the next Whole Story

So yeah, what the title says.

The Whole Story is a really neat idea, a really, really neat idea. Bundles of DRM free digital comics starting at a single, solitary dollar for the basic bundle (though I'm pretty sure nobody would mind if you felt like paying a whole lot more). For readers it's a good way to discover new creators and for creators it's a good way to get a whole bunch of new readers, and also some money. Everybody wins!


To quote from the last Whole Story Kickstarter:

"The Whole Story is all about digital done right. We put our time and money into offering the best first-run comics, new translations, and high quality, complete versions of old favorites. We don’t force you to read them on certain devices or in certain apps, we let you download and keep your comics forever. We don’t force you to pay more than cover price, we let you name your own price.

Our books are bundled together in pay-what-you-want collections, and every book we bring you is a complete, stand-alone story. No cliffhangers that force you to pay more to find out what happens next! You can choose between Retina-resolution PDFs (for the highest quality), Web-resolution PDFs (for easy storage), or CBZs (in both resolutions, for use in comic-reading apps), all of which are DRM-free so you can download and keep them forever."

Check out the official twitter account here for more information or if you want to submit or suggest something email Ryan Estrada at ryan@ryanestrada.com

A quick art request

The Owl And The Reindeer

As requested by a friend on Twitter. It took me about an hour and forty minutes all in, which is probably way longer than it should have.

Stuff and Nonsense has a new website!

...but the same old rubbish comics.

Feel free to look anyway if you want though.

Comics I Read Last Week - Week 1

So this is a thing I'm going to be doing from now on. Every Monday I'm going to post ridiculously brief reviews of all the comics I've read the previous week, old or new, print or digital. I'm not going to be covering webcomics, otherwise I'd end up mentioning the same twenty or so comics almost every week and that would be very, very boring.

I'll talk about those some other time.

Anyway, let's get on with this week's, or more precisely I suppose last week's, bunch of comics.


The Complete Bone Adventures Volume 1

I'd been meaning to check out Bone by Jeff Smith for quite a while having heard a hell of a lot of good stuff about it, so I got volumes 1 and 2 back in December and then, uh, took until now to actually read one of them. I wasn't dissapointed and I'm definitely not going to wait so long to read the second volume.

I must admit the start didn't exactly grab me. I don't know why, but I just didn't really enjoy the first few pages that much, but that all changed at about 23 pages in. The rest of the volume from that point on was great and I'd definitely suggest that anyone that enjoys comics that are fun, cute and full of adventure and terrifying mosters to check it out.

UK Web & Mini comix Thing 2008 Anthology

This is one you might have a bit of trouble getting your hands on, but it's definitely worth it if you can. The Thing was a comic con held in London each year between 2004 and 2010. I only went twice because I was living up the wrong end of the country (still am in fact) and I picked up this anthology at the 2009 (I think) Thing. Obviously this is a reread. I haven't just had the thing sat on a shelf for the last four years. It's far too good for that.

I must admit there are a few comics that I'm not such a fan of, but there are some really, really great ones in there. And giraffes, lots of giraffes for some reason.

It's very good and you'll probably never see a copy.

Adventure Time Volume 1

Do you like Aventure Time? Do you like comics? Do you have issues 1 - 4 of the Boom! Studios comic of the same name? If the answers to these questions are yes, yes and no then you need to buy this right now without question.

Oh, and pay close attention to the botton of the pages. :)

 The Sandman - The Doll's House 

Do I really need to write anything about this one? I suppose I should.

Hmm... Nope!
Moving on...


Odd-Fish Book 1 - Inexplicable Zebras

Here's another neat thing I picked up at the Thing. (See what I did there?) Odd-Fish is a nifty webcomic which you can read right here. It's not currently updating, but if you like three panel gag comics filled with highly detailed monochrome pictures of sea life making terrible puns, and who doesn't like highly detailed monochrome pictures of sea life making terrible puns, then check it out.

The Dream Stone issues 2-6

The Dream Stone was a brilliant cartoon back in the 90s and the fact that it's not currently on air is an absolute travesty. Whilst issue 1 of the comic is pretty rubbish, just a bunch of captioned stills from a VHS copy of the first episode, the next five issues are pretty brilliant, each containing one full, self contained, well paced little story.

Artist Tim Perkins has been quoted as saying that issues 7 and 8 were already in production when the title was cancelled and that sucks because these are some really fun comics. I like fun comics.

Wartortle is the Height of Fashion

Wartortle is a very fashion conscious wartortle.

An Important Public Service Announcement

 commandercottontail.com

Yesterday, in a charity shop...

I found a cuddly me!



You can tell it's me by the hat.

I've got a cool t-shirt. :)

I have a cool thing and that cool thing is a t-shirt and that t-shirt is a Grim Rabbit on and that Grim Rabbit one is in the picture below.



Aargh! No! It's a picture of me!

Oh, wait. There's one of those at the side of the post anyway... Hmm...

I hate photos of myself. I think I need a bigger hat than any of my current hats, one that I can hide under completely so I just appear as a giant hat with a pair of Converse, and maybe my stripy socks, sticking out the bottom like something out of a 1980s cartoon.

Anyway, this shirt came from the awesome people over at Tshirtprinting.net and is currently a complete one of a kind, unless you count the version that one of the cuddly bunnies I gave my mum last Christmas wears.



I made that coat thing from scratch and the t-shirt is a baby one with some extra stitching put in to make it fit. I should really have a go at making some more for my own toy bunnies sometime.

Speaking of bunnies, just look at those front teeth of mine.

Actually, come to think of it, please don't.

Robots, Lego and Hello Kitty

A little while back I did a post about the awesome things I would sell if I had a toy company. Well, I designed an ad!

Then my scanner went and then I forgot all about it, but here it is!



So, who wants to give me money to make them, huh?
They'll be awesome I'm tellin' ya.

Talking about toys, have you seen these?



How cute are they?
Mega Bloks (Yes, I know, but they're really not as bad as some people say) have been selling Hello Kitty sets for a while now. These ones go for about £2 for a figure a brick and an accessory in a blind-pack, and £4 for the slightly larger sets.

There's another one of those £4 sets with Hello Kitty wearing a chef's hat, but I can't really justify buying that one too.

Here's the background bricks, unobscured by cats.



Here are the accessories. They're all pretty nice other than the balloons. The balloons are pretty rubbish to be honest. The rest though, they're very nice, specially the cupcake and the umbrellas.



One of the nice little touches I like with the Hello Kitty sets is that pieces that could just be straight recolours have properly different schemes. Likewise, the fact that only one of the two figures in the raincoat has buttons that stand out and that one of the party hats is patterned and the other one isn't.



I'd like it if the two versions of the sailor suit were a bit more different from each other. Maybe another main colour, although I suppose blue is the obvious colour, or maybe make one of them sleeveless, or something like that. Anyway, it's a minor complaint. I still like them. : )

What's kind of odd is that whereas the Halo and Marvel blind-packs all seem to include a 2x4 brick, only three out of the five Hello Kitty ones I've got have them. One of them has a 2x2 brick to stand on and one has a 2x6 flat piece. Weird.

Also kind of weird is that all four of the bricks have text printed on the end.



I wonder what those numbers mean and whether there's similar ones on the bricks in the Halo and Marvel ones.

All in all, they're pretty funky. There are two characters other than Hello Kitty in the larger sets, her sister (Hello Kitty with the bow on the wrong side) and a sheep character of some description. I don't know what she's called.

I've seen a couple of images of what appears to be series two of the blind-packs including two of the sheep and one of the sister. Hopefully they'll actually show up in the shops soon.

Hello Kitty appears in Commander Cottontail as the ambassador for the Sanrio-Mega Bloks alliance. That isn't much of a spoiler seeing as the entire comic is based around a one off strip featuring her and the commander, which I've already posted about a bit.

Anyway, what's next?

Oh, yes. I have a friend called Pete and he's awesome. See, he knew I wanted this Lego minifigure, but couldn't really justify or afford it. A short while after I mentioned it, one turned up in the post. Brilliant.

Do you want to see what I wanted it for?
Well, I'm going to show you anyway. =P

It's a little Lego me! Complete with stripy sleeves, a Mega Bloks red umbrella and a big black hat.

And a Brick Forge acoustic guitar. Tha-wum!

Of course there's a few part that I have been buying myself on ebay, such as the torso on the figure below.



Can you guess who it is?
I hope so.

If you can't scroll down.

Further down.

Just a bit further down still.

...



If you can't work it out now then there' simply no hope for you. =P

Finally, to finish up, here's Commander Cottontail and some of his crewmates on the space station. :)



Next post on Thursday, probably. Warning, will probably contain a picture of me and not the Lego me. You have been warned.