Monday, December 16, 2013

Lew Stringer review.

Lew Stringer reviews Beyond 2000ad on his Blog and he gives a very positive report on it.
The review can be read here on his excellent Blog

http://lewstringer.blogspot.ie/2013/12/beyond-2000ad.html

Friday, December 6, 2013

Friday, November 29, 2013

Beyond 2000ad

Beyond 2000AD gets a review over on ECBT2000AD 
http://2000ad.wordpress.com/2013/11/29/review-beyond-2000ad/

John Wagner mentions it on his Facebook page here
https://www.facebook.com/pages/John-Wagner/22334044612?fref=ts

DJ Food blog here
http://www.djfood.org/djfood/beyond-2000ad-magazine

I also glad to say half the print run is now gone, no more will be printed as the digital version will be still be available, and already working on a new title!
Get it now while you can at http://www.comicsy.co.uk/hibernia/

The One Eyed Jack are starting to run low as well, so get them while you can too :P

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Beyond 2000AD on sale Now!

Available to buy now! Go to  http://www.comicsy.co.uk/hibernia/

Comic art superstar Jock said of 'Beyond 2000AD'
"Any die hard 2000AD fan will find a wealth of stuff to savour in here."

Download  edition with alternative colour cover only £2.50

 Print edition with B&W cover only £6.00 plus postage


Monday, November 11, 2013

Comic Archive: Beyond 2000AD

Comic Archive: Beyond 2000AD is here at last, Richard Pearce, Mike Donachie and myself have spent the best part of a year putting this together, and its a great read. Available to buy from here http://www.comicsy.co.uk/hibernia/
 Promo below with all the details!

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Comic Archive, Beyond 2000AD

We are nearly there with the Fanzine, print and digital editions will be available soon, a few prelim copies have been sent and the initial reaction has been very favourable.
Keep and eye out here of on the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/HiberniaComics?ref=hl
for more details.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Mick McMahon, Epic Illustrated.

Marvel's Epic Illustrated, a favourite of mine for a long time featured an Illustration by the great Mick McMahon on it's sub page. I often wondered if it was for a forthcoming series that never did appear.
I met Mick in Derry a few years back and asked him about the pictures. He said that Epic editor Archie Goodwin wanted him to do some work for Epic, but it never happened, but he did these pictures for Goodwin.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

2000AD ad.

I have put a few more bits on Facebook that might be of interest here https://www.facebook.com/HiberniaComics?ref=hl

This is my favourite, I really love the image. Its an ad that appeared in Starlord for 2000ad. No Idea who drew it, but its possible that its By Kevin O'Neill, he was the art ed at that time, Colin Wyatt joined around that time too.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Genghis Grimtoad, Look Alive

I put this up on Faceboook a few days ago, finally getting around to putting it here! https://www.facebook.com/HiberniaComics?ref=hl

In 1982 IPC launched Look Alive, the title to take over from the increasingly old fashioned Look and Learn. 

The title was a lifestyle magazine for boys edited by Kelvin Gosnell, but neither the newsagents or the readers knew what to make of it and it folded after only five issues. It was a little ahead of it time, magazines that are available now like Kraze and Toxic would have similar content. 
One unusual story was Genghis Grimtoad by Wagner Grant and Angus McBride, a Look and Learn artist. The creators held onto copyright, Wagner says this is down to Gosnell only buying first serial rights. 
The story was revived for Marvel UK's Strip, this time drawn by Ian Gibson. The first two pages of each version are below. Wagner, Grant and Gibsonstill own this story, it would be nice to see it in print again or even continued. Thanks to Richard Sheaf for tracking down copies of Look Alive.



Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Zenith

I have put up an interview with Steve Yeowell from After Image fanzine1988 on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.396700073774829.1073741826.327287150716122&type=1

Glenn Fabry and Kev O'Neill art

I have put a few bits of original Fabry and O'Neill art I found in old Comics International and in CVG on the Facebook page if anyone would like a look.

https://www.facebook.com/HiberniaComics?ref=hl

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

'Outtake' from the forthcoming Comic Archive.

I have a few bits that I wont be able to include in the next Comic Archive, so instead of the sitting on the hard drive, they will be up here and on FB.


Dez Skinn on 'Vulcan'
In my first Comic Archive book, I stated in an article on Valiant comic; "It was probably an attempt by the publisher to get in on the ever-increasing amount of American imports appearing on the newsstands in the UK." ...I was referring to the reprint title Vulcan. Dez Skinn read it and sent me the following piece on how Vulcan actually happened.

American imports numbered around only 10,00 copies of each being imported PER MONTH, hardly an attractive market for the world's biggest publisher of the time (IPC). But Vulcan wasn't really even an IPC product. In his spare time Sid Bicknell put it together editorially for Europe, with Jan Shepherd as art editor.

It came about because Syndication International was making an absolute fortune for IPC by selling Fleetway strips abroad, even though their success was foolishly never costed into the viability of titles. So some bright spark had the idea of selling an entire comic to foreign publishers, instead of individual strips. The big gimmick being the low cost price to each because they'd all be printed at the same time (in Italy I think). So it was an early co-production for various countries (hence all the words, including the cover masthead were in black, so the fifth (language) plate could be changed easily when printing all at the same time for different languages without need to change any of the colour plates. They'd print off from the full four colour plates for everybody including a black artwork plate, giving it a print run beyond a million, then overprint different languages from a second black plate, a different one for each individual territory. This
way you could have a full colour comic, even in a territory which could only support a print run of only 25,000 or so. Very cost effective).

Because it was so cheap (and nasty, on horrible flimsy paper which usually fell apart at newsagents), it was an easy job to run-on copies in English for the UK with a ridiculously low breakeven, provided it sold well enough abroad to keep going. I seem to remember the German edition, Kondor, proved very popular. But it wasn't liked in-house, not being a "proper" comic, with no fulltime staff or any origination, and on that awful cheap paper!.

Everybody felt it undermined their work, being a cheap little reprint, the thin end of the wedge, and Sid and Jan weren't very popular for agreeing to do it.

...so now you know!

Visit Dez's excellent site dezskinn.com for the lowdown on all his titles.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Postage Sale!


To celebrate Comic Archive: One Eyed Jack and the Death of Valiant becoming the biggest selling item on the brilliant Comicsy site, and that St. Patricks day is upon us once again, postage is now FREE on all titles on the Hibernia page through Comicsy at http://www.comicsy.co.uk/hibernia/

to anywhere in the UK or Ireland until midnight on the 17th of March.

Further afield will unfortunatly still have to pay postage, but do drop me a line and I will do the best postage rate that I can :)
 
Cheers!

Friday, March 8, 2013

Coming Soon..ish!

Quiet on this front for a while, but I'm working away on the next Comic Archive, most of the content has been finalised, so it just a matter of pulling it together in a coherent form.
It has a working title of Comic Archive; Beyond 2000, and there will be plenty of interviews, articles, some rarely and never before seen artwork.
Should be good!

I'm also finally on facebook here if you want to have a look
http://www.facebook.com/#!/HiberniaComics