Here’s what we thought of it – followed by preview pages of the first issues and more below…

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Check out our preview of Nick Bryan’s latest comic one-shot published by Comichaus! Copy from publisher: Guy is a Catalyst, an artificial being travelling from universe to universe, genre to genre, instigating the stories. Whether you need a clue to your mystery, a warning from a mysterious stranger or a hint of hope, he’s there. Whatever gets you into the next scene. But why does this helpful robot always end up beaten senseless? Did you need to stab him as you accepted the ancient scroll?

As the realities roll by, Guy’s patience starts to wear thin. But can he ever be anything else?

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In this era of pop culture mash-ups few, whichever finally hit the bigtime mainstream market, leap out as anything special. But MR MEN DR WHO? Oh we were onto this without seeing a single image. The much loved – and still hilarious at any age – Mr Men were of course the creation of Roger Hargreaves, subsequent characters and adventures created and curated by his son Adam. This is his latest and arguably – okay to those of us older than 5 – greatest MM venture, debuting the last week of April 2017 (link below to launch event at Forbidden Planet).

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We spoke to those nice folk at Random House and asked for some preview pages to share. We were onto this without seeing a single image having no doubt how much fun they would be. Damn were we right… 🙂

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Best known for their subversive, leftfield SFF comics, frequent partners writer Pat Mills and artist Kevin O’Neill had more recently been working on a satirical crime prose series ‘Read Em and Weep’. Various formats / media possibilities had been investigated before they decided to release the stories as prose electronically and in a limited print run book form under Pat’s own publishing imprint. The first – Serial Killer – has been available since January but will launch officially at the 2000 AD 40th Anniversary event on Saturday 11th February 2017, the comic being Pat’s creation and the vehicle for his and Kevin’s fantastical comic creations. As part of the 40th Anniversary Pat and Kevin will (at time of writing) also be signing print books this evening at Gosh! Comics who will be the main bricks-and-mortar stockists in the UK. Full title information and ‘Buy’ and other links can be found at the bottom of this page – but first we’re very pleased and proud to present a preview of SERIAL KILLER ITSELF. Read on and weep – or enjoy either way!

PART ONE: OCTOBER 1975

‘Who’s that Bumpy Man, sir?’

CHAPTER ONE

Stoke Basing Star August 16th 2016.

BODY IN BASEMENT IDENTIFIED

Two weeks ago, homeowner and builder John Trigger was horrified to discover a dead body while he was renovating his house. As theStarreported last week, Trigger, 54, knocked down a basement wall revealing a small secret room behind it. Under its York stone floor were the remains of a woman who, police have confirmed, was strangled with a fur boa found lying beside her.

It’s thought to be Mrs Jean Maudling, 32, who lived in Stoke Basing and was reported missing in 1957. Police have appealed to her daughter, Annie, 71, and son, David, 67, to get in touch with them.

The location and identity of the previous owner of Trigger’s property has not yet been disclosed as police enquiries are still continuing.

There was one further discovery for Trigger. Stuffed in the wall he demolished, along with old newspapers, he found a 1957 British comic The Fourpenny One which he described as ‘very rare, in mint condition’. Read the rest of this entry »

	Plenty of sites review books and graphic novels. When I created Carabas I wanted to do something wider, using a few decades of industry experience to intuit upcoming best reads and preview them as recommends. I was waiting for something a little special before writing my first personal review.
	On just seeing the title ‘Scotland Yardie’ coming from veteran indie graphic novel publisher Knockabout I was grinning my backside off, then again perusing the summary. Carabas is much inspired by Deadline, a 90s counterculture music and comics magazine: discovering Scotland Yardie debuted in Bobby Samuel’s contemporaneous Skank magazine, I was sure, for numerous reasons, I’d found that particular title I was after.
	Now just published, here are some preview pages courtesy of Knockabout and the creators, preceded by my first personal review as to why you should be parting with your retail or personal budget and grabbing yourself a stash of Scotland Yardie… As ever, enjoy!

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We just had to shout about this the moment the news came in – especially as we’ve got interior art to share! Well we loved the old Fighting Fantasy Books back in the day, and of course are entirely pleased that Wizard / Icon Books returned them to print. But a story with original creator, the legendary Ian Livingstone from the fab Titan Comics? Stop everything, hold onto your Mad Max, hit the nox and get shouting! Full press release, preview pages and Youtube video below…

From Titan Comics:

TITAN COMICS TAKES FREEWAY FIGHTER OUT FOR A SPIN TO CELEBRATE 35 YEARS OF FIGHTING FANTASY!

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	We’ve been keeping an eye out for books coming through on the vibrant art form of graffiti and street art generally and we spotted the latest from Art of Publishing and photographer Andy Cantillio, this volume focusing on Rio de Janeiro. We thought we’d give them a shout and see if they wanted to share some of Andy’s amazing photography of the ‘Marvelous City’ from it as a taster…
	Check it out below!

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From 2000 AD:  This week, ‘banned’ episodes of Judge Dredd from the late 1970s are being reprinted for the very first time. Published in 2000 AD in 1978, The Cursed Earth was the first great Judge Dredd epic, but the story ran into trouble when two episodes – ‘Burger Wars’ and ‘Soul Food’ – featured parodies of Burger King, Ronald McDonald, the Jolly Green Giant, the Michelin Man, and a number of other prominent corporate characters in a raucous and shameless satire of American consumer culture.

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After concerns of legal action at the time the then publisher IPC decided collections of this classic strip would omit the satirical stories. But now, following recent changes in UK law governing parody, Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth Uncensored reprints the story in its entirety for the first time.

Published on both sides of the Atlantic this week and priced at £25 in the UK and $35 in North America, this sparkling action-packed parody from Pat Mills (Charley’s War) and John Wagner (A History of Violence), complete with sumptuous colour spreads from Brian Bolland (The Killing Joke) and Mick McMahon (The Last American), is being produced in a deluxe hardcover edition featuring all the previously banned content. Read the rest of this entry »

	In just two years Titan Comics have built an incredible list of comics / graphic novels, cannily acquiring and bringing quality works of yesteryear back into print (The Light & Darkness War), media adaptations (Dr Who and many more) and, of course, original works (Death Sentence, Surface Tension et al).
	With a view to the latter they’ve also been tapping the wealth of untranslated talent on the continent and bringing it to the anglophone market. We’re always keeping an eye out for some select highlights to preview and thought we’d do so for Baudy & Trystram’s PACIFIC, coming in Hardback from Titan November 2016…

As Titan tells us:

See below for preview art – we’ll be updating this page with new material as it comes…

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	Filled with such things as Giggle Giants, zombie fauns (wait for the pun to hit) and fabulous renditions of trees, moons and stars with faces, and with consistent overdubbed foul-mouthedness, Skottie Young’s I HATE FAIRYLAND is, as Neil Gaiman put it “A candy-coloured and vicious delight” for all ages (“and always dangerously funny” Neil adds).
	It hit the stands in April but that’s no reason for us not to shout out about it now we’ve read: here’s our preview of the Image collection to whet your appetite!

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Jay Gunn’s Surface Tension was entirely on our radar – we’d plucked it out as one of our February Recommends and, bumping into and chatting with its creator at LSCC 2016, Jay had written an article for us on his musical inspirations for it. Well apparently we weren’t the only ones who were impressed: because – news just in from Titan Comics – it’s just been optioned for a TV series by Awesome Media!

Anyway we’d been meaning to follow up with some preview material for the series and, given we hadn’t got round to before, what better time than now? So find below Titan’s trailer for Surface Tension and some interior art as well.

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Many congrats to Jay and enjoy!

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	Mythic’s been on our radar since its launch in comic form last year, more from reading this fantastical mash-up of sweary shamans, undead cyborg monsters of legend, libidinous native elementals and other pan-mythological craziness, and also from when we got to chat with series artist John McCrea at LSCC. No surprise the collection is on our June 2016 Book / Graphic Novel recommends then!
	So here’s a 6-page preview of Mythic, prefixed by a bit of title info and endorsements by other creators and the industry more generally in case you has any doubt. Enjoy!

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From Image Comics:

Eisner-nominated writer Phil Hester (Green Arrow, INVINCIBLE UNIVERSE) teams up with Eisner-winning artist John McCrea (Hitman, The Boys) for the fascinating folkloric fantasy MYTHIC TP, which collects issues #1-8 into trade paperback this June. Read the rest of this entry »

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	In a white room on the edge of the Sinus Medii sit six naked teen­ agers. Three girls, three boys. Their skins are black, yellow, brown, white. They scratch at their skins constantly, intently. Depressurisa­tion dries hide, breeds itches.
	The room is tight, a barrel barely large enough to stand up in. The kids are wedged on benches facing each other, thighs pressed against their neighbours’, knees touching those opposite. There is nowhere to look and nothing to see except each other but they are  shy of eye contact. Too  close, too exposed. Each breathes through a transparent mask. Oxygen hisses where the seals are inexact. Just below the window on the outlock door is a pressure meter. It stands at fifteen kilopascals. It has taken an hour to bring the pressure this low.
	But outside is vacuum.

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Lucasinho leans forward and once again looks through the small window. The gate is easily visible; the line from him to it is straight and open. The sun is low, the shadows are long and profound, thrown towards him. Blacker on the black regolith, they could conceal many treacheries. Surface temperature is one hundred and twenty Celsius, his familiar had warned. It will be a fire-walk.

A fire­walk, an ice­walk.

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	We’ve been following Watters and Wijngaard’s LIMBO from the start and it really is a brilliant read. We got the kind of feeling we had all those years back when Vertigo first got going – that feeling of not knowing quite what the hell was going on but enjoying being too dazzled by the wonderful crazed ideas visualised therein to care, safe in the knowledge all would become (somewhat) apparent by the end of the ride. (Text from our June New Book Recommends page)
	So we’re very pleased to have a preview to share, the first 6 pages from the graphic novel collection. Check the art, check the script – then do yourself a favour and go buy a copy.
	Enjoy!

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A really great title from Jonathan Cape this month: Mary and Bryan Talbot’s THE RED VIRGIN AND THE VISION OF UTOPIA, a graphic biography of “utopian dreamer, notorious anarchist, teacher, orator and poet” Louise Michel. You can read more about it on our Jan-Jun 2016 Jonathan Cape titles page or on our May New Book Recommends page – we’ve also got a piece by Mary herself on the origins of it… Or just scroll on for our six page preview!

Mary, Bryan, Jonathan Cape and Louise – we salute you!

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	Last year saw the debut of original, canonical stories of Ben Aaronovitch‘s bestselling Rivers of London in comic form, courtesy of the author, Dr Who show-runner Andrew Cartmel, comic artist and veteran of Who strips Lee Sullivan and Titan Comics. Titled Rivers of London: Body Work (our preview page of that volume), it was released as a collection in March of this year (brought forward a little from April).
	But that’s not the end for the comic adventures of policeman and wizard Peter Grant – because Ben, Andrew, Lee and co have gone almost straight into the sequel. So here it is – issue 2 now just published at time of writing – our series preview page for the latest, Rivers of London: Night Witch! Check out the interior art and check back for more which we’ll add as and when we receive it…

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