Mixed feelings about Dynamite's Dan Dare

I was an enthusiastic Eagle reader as a boy and I still have a healthy collection of Eagle Annuals, all of which I read many times. There were many strips that I liked, all of them basically, but Dan Dare was a clear favourite.

There were two reasons that Dan Dare was special for me; the artwork by Frank Hampson was fantastical and it had long stories that ran for many weeks.

After the Eagle's demise in 1967 Dan Dare disappeared for a ten years before being reborn in the new 2000AD (before I started reading it) but that experiment lasted only two years. I was reading it by then and quite liked what they did with it.

Dan Dare made a few other appearances before Virgin got hold of him in 2008 and produced a seven part story written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Gary Erskine. I bought the first issue at the time but it did not do enough to get me to buy the second.

Then, late in 2014, the collected volume popped up on a ComiXology sale and I bought it.

The first surprise was that the cover to issue #1 was drawn by Bryan Talbot. Obviously I knew that in 2008 but had forgotten it so it was a pleasant surprise for the second time. Being a goldfish must be like that.

The collection include an interesting introduction by Garth Ennis in which he explained why he chose to write the story. It was to write about Dan Dare, not the places he went or the machines that he used.

He even said of Frank Hampson's version, "the classic Dan Dare is nice, but doesn't really grab me."

So, instead of a story with exotic locations and bizarre creatures we get a story about a modern hero.

And that is my problem with this version, I loved the world that Frank Hampson created and did not care that much for Dan Dare the man.

That being the case, this version of Dan Dare was never going to rekindle my love for the original stories but judged just as a story it certainly had its good points.

I liked the new more menacing Mekon who used to be something like a Batman villain in the 1960s TV series, more cad than credible. Here he was the despot in charge of a fanatical army and he was prepared to sacrifice many of them to further his own ends.

It was also good to see Digby and Peabody again and I also welcomed the new character Ms Christian, a young officer who grew under Dan Dare's leadership. Some surprising things happened to some of these major characters, things I did not see coming, and that gave the story a buzz.

The artwork reflected the new narrative of the comic and it looked much like a standard comic book with rectangular panels drawn mostly from close-range. There were lots of Treens and some monsters but no there aliens and no other creatures. That, combined with Dan Dare's bomber jacket, reinforced the feeling that this was a World War II story moved to outer space.

This may sound like faint praise but I did read all the story, which is not something that I can say about every comic that I've bought on a whim in a sale. The story did plenty enough to keep me swiping the pages to read the story in a single sitting.

Dan Dare has not made an appearance since then and I have no idea who owns the rights but the legacy is still strong and he deserves to come back. I hope he does and I'll give the next Dan Dare a try too.

Sally Heathcote, Suffragette signing at Gosh!

I had the opportunity to speak to Mary and Bryan Talbot at Comica Comiket Autumn 2012 and I got Bryan to sign Grandville Bette Noir. Unfortunately I could not get their joint book, Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, signed as it was inexplicably not on sale at the event.

So when they made a joint appearance to sign their new book Sally Heathcote, Suffragette I was keen to go. So keen that I turned up the day before, but that was because Bryan's website had the wrong date on it and I had not checked the Gosh! site. And I had taken a half day holiday.

Never mind, I spent the unexpected time off looking at Comics Unmasked and went back the next day for the real event.

Joining Mary and Bryan was Kate Charlesworth who is the main artist on Sally Heathcote, Suffragette. Mary wrote it and Bryan is credited with the layouts.

Gosh! soon had a little system going where we started with Mary (right) before moving on to Kate (centre) and Bryan (left). There was some organisation to do on the table too as all three were signing Sally Heathcote, Suffragette, Bryan and Mary were signing Dotter of Her Father's Eyes and Bryan was signing lots of other things.

But note that Bryan does not sign books, he draws little caricatures in them, and obviously this takes a little longer. Nobody was complaining though as that just meant more time to talk to the three of them.

Most, if not all, of my Bryan Talbot books are already signed by him so I bought another one, The Tale of One Bad Rat. This tackles the difficult subject of child abuse and has one much praise for the way that it has done so. It is to my shame that I had not bought it earlier.

While waiting for Bryan to sign my books he kindly let me look at a preview of Grandville: Nöel. on his iPad. As I did so he kept asking if I had spotted some reference or other to this or that classic painting. I had not. Bryan seemed to be both surprised and amused by this.

Grandville: Nöel will be out later this year and is going on my Christmas List with another new publication of Bryan's work, a deluxe reprint of the two Luther Arkwright books collected as Arkwright Integral. I'll have to hunt Bryan down in the new year to get these signed too.

It is because of storytellers like Bryan that I read comics and it is because of the enthusiasm of people like Bryan that I like to go to comics events. 

Brainstorm, the art of Bryan Talbort at The Muse gallery

I have been a fan of Bryan Talbot's work for quite a few years now so I was always going to be interested in an exhibition of his art, even more so when it was reasonably close to home in Ladbroke Grove.

The only problem was finding out about it. Luckily I read the Forbidden Planet blog on the penultimate day of the exhibition and so was able to see it just before it closed.

Bryan had been there for the opening night and is pictured here between two pictures of Nemesis the Warlock from 2000AD.

There were samples of Bryan's work from across his career and I was again drawn to The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and I might just have bought this page had not somebody beaten me to it. It carries the menace of a Nuremberg Rally plus the detail of a fine artist.

I came close to buying another page a couple of years ago. I spoke to Bryan about it at one of his signings (I've been to several) and he told me then that it had been sold just a couple of days previously.

Oh well, I'll just have to carry on buying the books and I've already got two by Bryan on this year's Christmas List, Arkwright Integral, due in October, which reprints the two Luther Arkwright novels in A4 hardback, and Grandville Noel, the fourth book in the series due out in November. I won't have to wait that long to get Sally Heathcote, Suffragette.

The best part about the exhibition was seeing the art from the various projects side-by-side to compare and contrast the styles. There were a lot of differences between them. I am hardly an expert on this but some looked like soft pencils, some thick felt-pen and some watercolour washes. That was testament, if further testament were needed, to Bryan's skill.

It was only a small exhibition but the scope of the work more than made up for that and it got me even more excited than I already was for his next books.

Grandville Bete Noire by Bryan Talbot

After taking a break for a year Grandville came back to reclaim Christmas and, judging by my Twitter stream, many people were given it and they all loved it.

In my case it was bit of a cheat as I bought the book myself a couple of months ago when I had the opportunity to get it signed by Bryan Talbot. He has signed all three volumes for me so far and that is a tradition that I have every intention of continuing.

Grandville Bete Noir is a lovely book.

You know this from when you first pick it up. The book is beautifully constructed with a thick hard cover and heavy stock glossy paper.

The pages are A4 which makes the book a good solid size. You know that you have something special in your hands.

I read the book slowly and carefully just for the pure joy of turning the pages. I also washed my hands first.

The structure of the story is a little different this time. Right at the beginning we meet the bad guy and he tells us what he plans to do so the main plot is DI LeBrock trying to find out what we already know and then trying to stop it.

As with the other books the pages drip with references most of which are too arty for me, though even I recognised Paddington Bear.

It is also delightfully steampunk and the autogyro on page 93 is a joy to behold. We also get a quick reprise of the wheeled boots that opened the first book.

The range of animals seems to be a little wider this time with the usual woodland creatures supplemented by a gazelle and a crested newt, among others. We also have some humans this time, or "doughfaces" as the animals call them.

Grandville is visually rich in gadgets, characters, buildings, streetscapes and works of art (part of the story is set in the Louvre). That is another reason to read the book slowly.

Page 56 hit me when I first read it so I have used it as example of why I like Bryan's storytelling so much.

Most of the pages have a white background and the panels are edged in black but when the action gets hot the background turns black.

In all the panels there is solid black that bleeds in to the background disguising the shape of the panel.

Each panel is taken from a different perspective and distance.

The page is a sandwich with LeBrock motionless at the top and bottom and all the action across the middle.


The artwork is all that is needed to describe the action and the single word at the end is all that is needed to tell us what LeBrock thinks about it.

The page is the unit of work for a (printed) comic and Bryan is a master at page composition.

The flow between the pages works equally well and the story changes pace and mood nicely.

Grandville Bete Noire is exquisite in all regards. The wait for volume four has started.

Comica Comiket Autumn 2012

It has been a couple of years since Grandville the badger detective made a Christmas appearance with Bryan Talbot being busy on other things. This year he has returned in Grandville Bete Noire and I needed to get a signed copy to go alongside my signed copies of the first two volumes.

The ideal opportunity came at the Comica Comiket Independent Comics Fair. I have been tempted to go to previous fairs yet somehow I have managed not to get to one. This time the pull of Grandville and the need to be in London for something else later in the day was enough to get me there.

The venue was the Bishopsgate Institute near Liverpool Street station. The journey should have been easy enough but the new Lord Mayor of London had decided to have some sort of parade through the City which meant that I had to walk up from Bank.

That was not all bad news as I used to work in the NatWest Tower (now Tower 42) so this was a welcome chance to retread some familiar pavements.

Arriving at Comiket I almost immediate walked in to Paul Gravett, the driving force behind so many events and books that bring comics to the attention of the public. He is also incredibly enthusiastic and the wearer of some of the brightest and boldest shirts that I have ever seen. I'm jealous.

One of Paul's jobs that day was to introduce the artists who came up on to the stage to draw under the probing eye of a camera that relayed everything on to a screen for us all to see.

Bryan was soon on the stage, I had timed my arrival with this in mind, and he gave us a variation of the opening panel of the first book.

As soon as he had finished I rushed off to the Gosh stall to buy a copy of Grandville Bette Noir and then went to Bryan's table to get it signed. Sadly tradition says that I have to wait until Christmas Day to receive it officially. And that is when I'll read it too.

The hall was full of other tables with other creators and publishers selling other comics. I had no great intention of buying much but there was so much good stuff around a lot of which I was already aware of thanks to my many comics related RSS feeds.

I was also gently nudged towards a couple of titles by Paul and that nudging worked.

Grandville Bette Noir was swiftly joined by several other books including Hildafolk, Hilda and the Midnight Giant, Everything We Miss, The Yellow M, Scars and Ruptures. And those are just the books that I bought from the Nobrow and Cinebook tables. There were more tables and more books.

I managed to escape with credit card not too damaged and a pile of books hopefully small enough to plough through over the next few weeks. I'll prove it by reviewing them as I read them.

One thing that Comiket did for me was ensure that I make it to another one such was the buzz and the passion for comics. It also helped to rekindle my love for the medium that had been slightly dented by Mavel's and DC's incessant relaunches.

Heart of Empire by Bryan Talbot

It has been a little while since I've said anything about comics and even longer since I said something nice about Bryan Talbot so it is time to make amends.

My comic reading is progressing less well that I hoped, mostly because I have been working away, but I suspect that I am just about reading more comics than I buy. Tomorrow's trip to Ace Comics in Richmond may prove me wrong!

I was able to take advantage of one of the long train journeys from Cardiff to Richmond to read my signed copy of Heart of Empire by Bryan Talbot, the follow-up to The Adventures of Luther Arkwright.

I bought this back in February at SFX Weekender so, by my standard, it got to the top of my read pile quite quickly.

At first glance it is a very different animal from Luther Arkwright. For a start it is in colour. And that brings other artistic changes with it as the fine detail of the black and white line drawings is replaced with the bolder coloured block.

The story follows on from the original but can be ready without it. It's a few years later and Great Britain is at a crossroads with several parties vying to push things their way.

Central to all this is the Princess Royal who is approaching her twenty third birthday.

Some of the previous themes are reprised, such as the machinations of foreign powers and the real lives of the poor but that is almost stretching the point as the story is a different beast with a different cast in a different society, but in the same country and the same multi-verse.

The story reads a little easier than its predecessor that, in-line with its underground heritage, had some pages and panels that were thick with text that took some effort to get through.

If anything, Heart of Empire rebounds a little too far the other way and the size of the text in the speech balloons sometimes looked a little large for the panel but that really is being picky.

The story itself sweeps along, throws quite a few surprises, gives us some strange characters and situations, says (or implies) a lot about injustices under the British Empire, and pleases in all the ways that stories should please.

Good though the story is, the art work is even better.

I picked page 22 as an example simply because it is fantastic.

There are obvious hints of Grandville here but it's the richness of the image that makes it so special.

And if you think you've understood all the references, you haven't.

To prove it, you can read what Bryan himself says about this page.

I get the impression with pages like this that Bryan simply cannot stop drawing things - there is much much more in this picture than the story needs.

My favourite unnecessary flourish is the sign for the tram stop that is based on the Art Nouveau ones of the Paris Metro stations.

But whether you understand all the thinking behind the pages or not does not matter as it's easy to see that this is the work of a master.

The version of Heart of Empire that I have has a bloody awful cover (it's not the nice one shown above) which is a real shame as it hides a work of genuine class. I just hope that I've done a little to prove that.

Nemesis the Warlock, Volume 1

The reprints of strips from 2000AD continues to provide me with much pleasure.

The latest one to bubble to the top of my reading pile is Nemesis the Warlock, Volume 1, which reprints the first four stories of the epic saga that started in 1980, appeared frequently until 1989 and finally finished in 1999.

The author is Pat Mills who is a 2000AD stalwart for all the right reasons, i.e. he writes a lot of very different strips very well. I've previously mentioned his recent excellent work on ABC Warriors and on Slaine and I've had the extreme pleasure of meeting him a couple of times.

Pat Mills is a genuine star of comics and Nemesis the Warlock is just another example of why this is true.

But comics require artists too and Nemesis the Warlock has been blessed here too.

Kevin O'Neill started the ball rolling with his distinctive sharp angular style.



O'Neil's style defined the look of the strip but, not surprisingly, the detail in his artwork meant that his speed of drawing was too slow for a regular weekly comic and he had to be replaced.

Several other artists were used, including Jesus Redondo, but it's Bryan Talbot (again) who had the most impact for me.

And I'm ashamed to say that I had forgotten that he had even drawn it. My bad.

Bryan is supreme on the fourth story, The Gothic Empire. This plays nicely into Bryan's love of steampunk that he has returned to in Grandville.

The Gothic Empire uses the idea of an alien civilisation that has been listening earnestly to Earth's earliest radio communications to learn about and copy our largest civilisation of the day, the British Empire.

This gives a world that combines Victorian culture with modern technology. Perfect.

Bryan throws himself into the task with glee giving us panels rich in detail and imagery.

I love the way that this train looks like the Palm House at Kew.

It's thirty years since I first read Nemesis the Warlock, and I do remember when it first appeared.

Sometimes returning to an old story is a disappointment as the memory fails and what seemed like a classic through the mists of time is revealed to be merely average, or even worse.

In this case the opposite is true, Nemesis the Warlock is even better than I remember it. And I've got Volumes 2 and 3 still to look forward to.

SFX Weekender: Beyond the US - The wider world of comics

The final session I saw at SFX Weekender looked beyond superhero comics at how the medium can be much more than that and took examples from beyond the UK and USA to show that.

Bryan Talbot was on the panel again (no problem with that) where we was joined by Pat Mills (not pictured) and two others who's names I did not catch as I had rushed upstairs to but Heart of Empire for Bryan to sign (which he did!).

All of the panellists told stories of how comics flourish in other countries which was both encouraging as it showed that the is some really good stuff out there but also dispiriting in that it can be hard to find even if you start looking for it in a comic shop.

Indeed comic shops came in for a fair deal of criticism for sticking unintelligently to the USA format and not learning about and promoting other material.

There are some exceptions and nice things were said about Page 45 in Nottingham, OK Comics in Leeds and Gosh in London.

We were also given some tips on where to start our own comics adventures and I'll be trying out Persepolis, Blacksad, Maus, Phonogram, Laika and Mouse Guard before too long.

Interestingly most of these are anthropomorphic (ok, so Laika was a real dog) but it was not just Bryan that was recommending them.

Another interesting panel discussion and this time one with real value as were given tantalising glimpses of the rich world of comics and shown the first steps to take to get there.

SFX Weekender: Bryan Talbot on the anthropomorphic tradition

Having got a back seat for the previous session I was well placed to leap for a front-row seat when the sessions changed and Bryan Talbot returned for his solo set.

This was the third time in little over a year that I seen Bryan give his talk on "Grandville and the Anthropomorphic Tradition" and it still informs and entertains.

The story does change a little each time, when I asked Bryan about the presentation beforehand he said that this version had more pictures of funny animals, and so it did.

It also had all the old pictures too which gives me the excuse to pick the Kamandi one this time.

As always, Bryan spoke quickly, clearly, intelligently, knowledgeably, charmingly and enthrallingly on a subject he is clearly very interested in. There is so much content in the talk that it easily bears a second and a third listening.

I got the impression that SFX saw this session as something of a filler, something ready on the shelf that they could reuse, but that mattered not to me as I was just delighted to be able to see the talk again and from the front-row too.

The only disappointment at that time was that I was unable to get Bryan to sign Heart of Empire due to my complete failure to buy a copy. That story has a happy ending later.

SFX Weekender: Dual Britannia

In the second year at secondary school (that's year 8 in new money) there was a period when the boys ran from one class to the next to get the envied desk in the back corner by the window. Winning that was a badge of honour but it also put you in last place in for the next race facing the prospect of a desk at the front next to the teacher.

And so it was that my front row seat for the first two sessions of the day turned in to a pretty poor one when I had to move downstairs to the Screening Zone for the next session.

Never mind.

In Dual Britannia authors who had presented alternative Englands (particularly Londons) discussed the attractions, approaches and issues in doing so.

This was a fascinating talk for me, particularly as the only author who's work I knew was Bryan Talbot.

Over the next half hour or so several ideas emerged, some of which were slightly at odds with each other due to the authors' different perspectives.

London has familiar landmarks, e.g. Big Ben or Crystal Palace, that can be morphed in to new realities to mix reality with fantasy.

London has real places that suggest fantasy. A good example of this was Neil Gainman's Neverwhere which reinterpreted places like Earl's Court, Old Bailey and Knightsbridge.

There are alternative Londons (fantasy) and obscure Londons (real).

Michael Moorcock is generally though of as the inventor of alternative but similar worlds with his Eternal Champion stories. He invented Steampunk too!

I had reasonable hopes of the Dual Britannia session but these comfortably exceeded due to the wide range of knowledgeable contributions from the diverse panel. This was exactly the sort of thing I went to SFX Weekender to see.

Grandville and the Anthropomorphic Tradition continues

Another year, another Grandville book and another signing and talking tour by Bryan Talbot.

Granville Mon Amour is the second in the Grandville series but I'm not allowed to read it until Christmas so I'll tell you about the talk instead.

I saw Bryan Talbot give his presentation on Grandville and the Anthropomorphic Tradition continues at the ICA last year but it was worth a second visit and Bryan had told me that it had been updated for Granville Mon Amour which made it even more compelling.

The occasion this time was the Richmond Literary Festival and the venue was the Orleans House Gallery. As the crow flies this is no distance but the Thames denied me that route but even after a detour through Richmond this was still a local event.

It was a cold evening and the gallery is bloody hard to find, even for us locals who have been there before, but a healthy crowd made there way there and enjoyed a glass of wine before settling down for the talk.

We were told to expect a talk of 45 minutes followed by a Q&A session but what we got was a knowledgeable, erudite and passionate talk that lasted for 75 minutes and could have gone on for longer such was Bryan's enthusiasm.

The content was, as expected, much the same as the last time I saw it but it is such an intelligent and interesting talk that the repeat was as rewarding as the original.

And I dare say that I'll see it again when Grandville Bete Noir comes out.

After the talk came the signings and the chance to have a few words with Bryan. He signed my copies of Grandville Mon Amour and Adventures of Luther Arkwright while we joked about him calling me a "cheap git" in a comics forum. At least I'm pretty sure it was a joke...

Bryan Talbot has an exceptional talent for producing comics and another for talking about them. And he's a charming man too.

The Adventures of Luther Arkwright is a stonking read

Confession time.

I first came across Luther Arkwright in the pages of Near Myths (the UK equivalent of the American Heavy Metal, which is a copy of the French Metal Hurlant) way back in the 70s. And now I've finally read the complete story.

The spur was various conversations with the author, Bryan Talbot, on a comics forum where royalties were raised and somewhere along the line Bryan called me a "Cheap Git". That's a badge of honour that I'm proud to wear!

Having bought the book, I was faced with seeing Bryan give a presentation (that story is to come) which compelled me to use a long train journey to actually read the thing. And what a great thing it is.

The Adventures of Luther Arkwright is one of the very best graphic novels that I have ever read. I'll try and explain why.

Let's start with the story itself. It's a steam punk, multi-verse, alternative history yarn that has echoes of Michael Morcock and Dr Who. That's not to say for one instant that Arkwright is derived from either of them, it's just that they all come from the same rich English stock.

The story starts in a Crystal Palace that still sits in Hyde Park, we have German and Russian empires carving out Europe between them, the descendants of Oliver Cromwell run England with an iron fist, and we have references to Bosworth and the like.

The story is very good but the artwork is outrageously gorgeous.

The drawings are dense and intense in a way that makes you read them slowly so that you savour the detail. The page layouts are challenging in a good way. Each panel is a story in itself and the styles of composition and drawing mix subtly across the pages and even on the same page.

There are solid black blocks, almost whimsical dream-like visions, earthy reality in fields and slums, and the complexity you would expect with futuristics marvels.

Picking one panel is hardly going to convey all this but I hope that this gives a flavour of the delights within the book. The composition is striking with the bold flag in the background and Luther is drawn with great detail. And this is just one panel on a page rich with similar images.

People, knowing my interest, quite often ask me to recommend comics for them to read so that they can try and understand the medium, and I usually suggest things like V for Vendetta and Sandman. Luther Arkwright now joins that select list of books that I would happily recommend to anybody. Try it yourself.

Grandville was well worth the wait

I bought myself a signed copy of Grandville back in November but as nobody had any idea what to get me for Christmas, myself included, it got squirrelled away and I had to wait for Christmas Day to get it.

I also had to wait for the Christmas Morning visit to relatives and for Christmas Dinner to get out of the way before I could start reading it. And read it I did just as soon as I could.

I had quite a good idea of what to expect from the Comica talk that Bryan Talbot did and from the atmospheric video he created to promote the book and it certainly lived up to those expectations.

Grandville is several things; it's a steampunk thriller, a homage to the English anthropomorphic tradition (Rupert et al) and, most of all, a cracking story with strong characters.

Detective Inspector LeBrock has some familiar traits. He's a maverick who works with a trusty side-kick and he's a detective in the Sherlock Holmes mould. But he's also a badger and that makes him a vicious killer.

It was a touch of genius setting the story in a world where the French won the Napoleonic Wars and Britain has become a semi-autonomous principality of France. This plays well to the natural England v France tensions and gives scope for some amusing anti-English comments from the French characters.

I loved Grandville to bits. There are further adventures of LeBrock on the way, at least two more, and I'm sure I'll love those too. It's nice to have something good to look forward to.

Learning about comics

I've been reading comics for the best part of fifty years and been a serious collector for over thirty but I still learnt a great deal about the art from a talk at ComICA by Bryan Talbot.

ComICA is a festival celebrating the best of comics today and it is to my shame that I have not managed to get to one of their events before.

ComICA is organised by Paul Gravett who probably knows more about comics than anybody else around today. His knowledge and enthusiasm drive the festival.

In his excellent talk, Bryan explained some of the approach to and influences in his latest book, Grandville, a detective story with animals!

Without the talk I would have got the cultural references in Grandville to Rupert the Bear and Mucha etc. but Bryan explained so much more about the history of anthropomorphism in the graphic media and the other subtle references he has made to famous paintings and drawings.

Almost as a bonus, Bryan also explained the way that he crafts a page through layouts, the use of colours and action lines that guide the flow between panels.

Bryan demonstrated his storytelling skills in the way that he told the story behind Grandville, he even managed to make PowerPoint look interesting!

The presentation showed us pictures that helped to shape Grandville while Bryan narrated the story.

His knowledge of, well everything, was phenomenal and even reached as far as Racey Helps' Happy Families playing cards - I am sure we used to have a set of these.

I went in to the talk thinking that I knew quite a bit about comics but I learned a great deal in the hour or so and was thoroughly entertained in the process too.

I'll definitely be going to more ComICA events.

Many thanks to Bryan for the talk, to Paul Gravett for arranging it all and to Bryan (again) for patiently autographing every copy of Grandville with a drawing as well as a signature. Why did I agree to have my copy as a Christmas present?!