A quick reminder of two panels I’ll be appearing on at Sci-Fi-London on Saturday (1st May 2010)

60 Years of Dan Dare

A panel on 60 years of the lantern jawed space pilot. Alex Fitch will be talking to: Garry Leach, who drew Dan’s return to print in 2000AD, ten years after the end of the original Eagle, in the late 1970s and more recently covers for Virgin comics’ revival of the ‘Pilot of the future’ in 2008.
Rian Hughes, who drew the Eagle-inspired comic The Science Service in 1989 and then the Mekon’s final revenge in the Thatcherite satire Dare in the adult comics Revolver and Crisis a year later; Gary Erskine, who drew Dan Dare’s most recent official comic book adventures in the Virgin Comics periodical of the same name; Titan Books Dan Dare collections editor John Freeman, who previously wrote The Science Service and now writes the strip Ex Astris in the Dan Dare magazine Spaceship Away; and Rod Barzilay, the editor and one of the writers of Spaceship Away.

• 60 Years of Dan Dare runs from 10.30am on Saturday 1st May

30 years of Marvel UK

Alex Fitch hosts a panel on the British arm of the American Superhero publisher, featuring: Dez Skinn, a pioneering Marvel UK editor who launched titles such as Hulk Comic and Doctor Who Magazine , which featured early licensed work by Alan Moore, David Lloyd, Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons; Dan Abnett, who gave Captain Britain a new, darker spin in the 1990s by adding him to an Arthurian team of heroes with Gary Erskine, co-creator of the Knights of Pendragon; John Freeman, who edited many of Marvel UK’s early 1990s titles such as Death’s Head II, Warheads, Killpower and Motormouth, contributing strips to several issues as well, and also edited Doctor Who Magazine; and Simon Furman, primary writer for Marvel’s Transformers, and a dozen issues of Doctor Who Magazine. He created some of Marvel UK’s most memorable SF titles including Dragon Claws and Death’s Head.

• 30 years of Marvel UK runs from 11.45 am, Saturday 1st May

All the events – there are plenty more comic-related events – take place at the Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, 19 Lower Regent Street, London, SW1Y 4LR. More info at www.sci-fi-london.com

Mike Nicoll – my colleague and co-creator of the Ex Astris strip – has too much work on his plate at the moment and he’s looking for a reliable UK-based inker to work with him.

“There just aren’t enough hours in the day!” says Mike. “I’m currently working on three CGI strips (Ex Astris and two others for a US company) as well as pencils and inks on a new project written by a rather famous UK creator for the European market – but John (Freeman) and I have two more projects which we’re keen to get off the ground.

“Whilst I’m quite fast at pencilling, I’m criminally slow when it comes to inking — so we need to recruit another member for our team who can take care of the inking.”

Mike has sent us pencil samples of his art from one of the new projects (click the image above for full size). Anyone interested in applying should send samples to mikenicoll@hotmail.co.uk.

“Unfortunately there are no contracts up for grabs at the moment and therefore no guarantees of untold riches etc – yet!,” Mike points out. “The new projects have not been approved for publication yet and so we can offer no money up front. But John and I have a pretty good record for getting our projects published so you’ll just have to look at the art and decide if you feel we’re worth taking a chance on.”

One of the background elements of Ex Astris is the growing environmental problems facing Earth, right now. So it was interesting to read this a statement from US Rare Earths, Inc. (www.usrareearths.com), a privately owned company, which commended the US Government Accountability Office on its report documenting that China, supplier of 97% of the world’s rare earths, dominates the supply of rare earth materials crucial to the US defence, computer and renewable energy sectors.

Seems to me that the battle for resources (and their exploiatation) is rich territory for Ex Astris “back story” tales. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

Ever wondered what we’re going to be up to in a couple of centuries time? Science fiction author extraordinaire Stephen Baxter reckons we could have colonised Mars by then, in a feature for the current issue of the BBC science magazine FOCUS which has been out for a couple of weeks but I only spotted it on my way out of the UK for a well-earned break.

In the April issue, ace science fiction author Stephen Baxter writes on how we’d terraform the Red Planet, while Stuart Clark delivers a piece called “Mining the Moon”, looking at the resources we could get – and how. Plus, there’s an interview with a man who researches warp drive and hyperspace travel and a great piece on what our alien neighbours might look like.

Focus is the BBC’s science and technology monthly magazine, described as jargon-free and accessible, so “you don’t need a PhD in particle physics to enjoy reading it”. All you need is a quizzical mind that wants to understand the world around you, and gain a fact or two to keep up your sleeve in a pub quiz emergency.

The issue is well worth picking up if you’re interested in space exploration.

The latest issue of Spaceship Away, the science fiction comics magazine inspired by and featuring the original Dan Dare, includes the first part of the Ex Astris strip “Homecoming”, set in the story’s 2511 time period, on an Earth devastated by both environmental and man made disaster.

The magazine has just gone to the printers and will be on sale in all its usual outlets, and online, soon.

Spaceship Away readers will soon realize that our latest episode of Ex Astris for the magazine is a very different beast to “Secrets of Ceres”, which ran in previous issues. This story, reflecting the huge scope of artist Mike Nicoll’s vision for the strip, is set in the 26th Century, at a point where Earth has long been a wasteland caused by a combination of environmental and other disasters, but humans are now fighting to reclaim their planet of birth from mysterious aliens and antagonistic descendants of the survivors of the world’s destruction some centuries previously.

While “Secrets of Ceres” is set before Earth is finally beset by disaster, Sarah Blake lives on in Katherine Blake in ‘Homecoming’, the all-action leader of an elite military squad aboard the Armstrong spaceship. Is she a direct descendant of Sarah, or are there other secrets yet to be revealed? More to the point, is Captain Charles Bryant the same Bryant followers of Ex Astris have seen in “Ceres” and “Return to the Moon” and, if so, how has he survived for almost five centuries? ↓ Read the rest of this entry…