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This via 2000AD on Twitter (Molcher's first task?)

http://geeksyndicate.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/north-east-geek-feast-episode-8/

Really interesting interview with a Twooth legend.

Worth a listen.

This looks interesting for anyone who can make it. I heard about it via a tweet by Dave McKean who is exhibiting some work for it.

http://www.pumphousegallery.org.uk/exhibitions/upcomingexhibition

http://resonancefm.com/listen

Talking about John Hinkleton amongst other things...

So here's the (borrowed and revised) idea. You take your favourite 2000AD story (preferably spread over more than one prog), and condense it into six panels. No more, no less. Feel free to present this in any way you see fit (That includes you, Pete Wells & Buttonman  ). Artist/Writer/Letterer collaborations are encouraged. Duplications too (I'm sure I'm not the only one who has thought of The Cursed Earth already). Sarcasm is practically compulsory...

And then you post it on this here purpose-made thread for all to gaze at and admire. Or slate, (Depending on whose favourite character you've just portrayed as an arse)

No real closing date, let's keep the fun rolling, (or until we use up all the stories over the last 30 odd years)

So on Monday I'll be in sunny Birmingham while Lady Festina goes off to a meeting.

A day to myself to wander the streets looking for somewhere to potter about / sit and doodle / draw something meaningful / dream up world domination is the general idea. Is there anywhere of note that you could recommend visiting? Comic shops? I don't think I've ever been into the city centre so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

And alas, I'll have a car so the pub's out of bounds 

Do tell.

Thought I'd post this up here so's not to mess up the Judge Minty thread, (it was mentioned that scenes shot on and around a beach in Northumberland would make good locations for the fan film)

Wow. Anyone else seen this version? It's loads better! I'm a fan of the original release, and forgot this version was on the Quadrilogy collection. The included scenes (admittedly with sometimes poor audio, simply because there was no clean up as they'd ended up on the cutting-room floor) make more sense of the movie and actually explain why half the cast suddenly go missing in the original.

It also changes some plot angles and Paul McGann's character has a more meaningful place in it. I always wondered why he'd taken a part with barely any dialogue in the original. Now I know.

I don't know what the hell "dynamic" really means anymore. (I know what it means, but that's not the point)

These days it's in job adverts, car design, bullsh*t team-building bumph... Macdonalds press campaigns...

And more importantly, design briefs. Which is what has stumped me this morning. Does a dynamic piece of design (or a dynamic anything else for that matter) mean it just has to look good? Or it goes fast? Or it flips burgers with a smile on its face as it dreams of promotion?

Or is it just a meaningless buzzword? Has it just become another over-used stock-standard description for anything that's supposed to be better than what ever crap it's replacing?

Any of you teacher-types care to venture an opinion? Or designer types? Jim? Banners? Anyone?

I am so getting one of these....   

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8294355.stm

Anyone going to this? I know a lot of people have blown their annual budgets on either BICS or expenses for Hi-Ex, but thought I'd ask.

I'm guessing it's more of a general thing but there is a comics section that'll have among others, Tony Lee, Jock, Leigh Gallagher, Ben Templesmith and the Geek Syndicate boys.

http://www.londonexpo.com/

Dust whipped up from as dry-bed lake turns Sydney red.

Nice imagery for a apocalyptic type film...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8270104.stm?ls

Although the people doing keep-fit in the middle of it are puzzling.

I thought I'd post this thread up to go with the Lettering, Writing and general art threads.

I found this tutorial for Photoshop CS4 recently, and it seems most (if not all) of the process can be done in previous versions (Works fine on CS3 but by all accounts the principles run further back)

http://www.farlowstudios.com/tutorials/digital-inking-in-photoshop-cs4-update/

Quite pleasing results can be found using Pen and Brush Tools, and mixing the levels and angles in the options panels of each.

Feel free to add any other links etc as usual 

Article on BBC here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/8170551.stm

Trailer here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkJZ3FlOWeM&feature=related

£45!! Not bad for a budget is it??

I've been thinking recently (dangerous, I know), about the whole Dredd timeline in 'real time' and how it keeps things interesting with age-related scenarios.

Do you think the powers that be have an eventual "End Game" for Judge Dredd? So he's in his sixties now, and presumably with technology of the era, he can keep pootling along for another 10, but sooner or later - unless there's some "Bobby Ewing" type plot twist* - he's going to run out of steam and either get killed on duty on take another Long Walk.

Do you think there is a plan afoot at Rebellion towers? If so, how do you close the curtain on the 7th best (listed somewhere else) comic book hero of all time? And if that was the way to go, who do you think should be given the task of writing and drawing it? Is there a secret plan drawn up and locked away in a vault already?

If that were the case, how would you see a fitting end to Dredd? Would it be an all-guns blazing last hurrah? Cloned again or operated on in some cryogenic stem cell crowbar plotline to open up another sixty years on the streets? Or just one final sneer?

Personally I don't like heroes to end up as undefeatable, incorruptable, time-defying lemons (See Marvel). I prefer something a bit grittier.

Curiosity is all.

*If you don't know, ask your parents.

Apologies if this has been a thread before, but I couldn't find it. Feel free to contribute anyway

Thought this was worth another watch, what with all the backslapping going on across the pond. Nice idea, I thought, and fits quite nicely in the 70s sort of paranoia genre...

Doesn't show evidence of empty coke bottles accidentally filmed on the moon like, but you can't have everything.

Anyone else seen it?

Afternoon all.

Thought I'd share this lovely news as it may concern some. The latest Window updates that you may be asked to download are being shipped with their very own viruses (virii??) The first one bug simply disables Flash Player so video sites (eg BBC/Sky/YouTube/Facebook) won't display any Flash-driven content (and smileys on this site, it would appear).

But the second bug is the bastard. I know this as I've just got off the phone with a mate of mine (an ex-Microsoft engineer who was based at Gates HQ) who was trying to fix my pc from his office. The virus knocks out Explorer (So no start bar, programs, nothing) and if you're lucky you can transfer any work you've been slaving over to disc by using Task Manager to load programs individually (hence this correspondence). If you get the nastier version, (as apparently I have) it may involve a reboot. And a tearful ta ta to everything you have.

So if (or more likely, when) that friendly little window pops up and says there are updates ready for you to install, ignore it. And keep on ignoring it.

Hope your day is going better than mine.

I apologise to any lurking inkers/inking fans here but god in a bucket, I really find inking dull.

So here's the thing. You've put together a five page layout and all the pencils are happy and jolly, inking looms on the horizon like a cloud and you basically have to do everything all over again. So how to make it enjoyable?

Meditation? Loud music? Biscuits?

Suggestions? Do tell.

I've been hunting through my old collection and I'm having to accept this one may have gone west in a move many moons ago.

Anyway,

It was a future shock from long enough ago that the ones I still have from that period are all yellow and jagged edge-y. You get the idea.

So there's this Galactic Record Domino toppling attempt and its beamed all over space. The host is called Mik Mikflex (sp?), who proceeds to commentate in a funny, but weird alien, Stuart Hall way. The dominoes travel across worlds and eventually the Domino Toppler is thwarted at the last hurdle with the last few remaining standing forever more on an uninhabited final planet. [spoiler:w1r35srd]They later become known as Stonehenge, but you saw that coming, didn't you?[/spoiler:w1r35srd]

Can anyone trace this prog no. or is there a collection of Future Shocks now selling that this one pops up in? I'm trying to get hold of it for a mate's birthday, as we always used to talk about this one when we were kids. (And a song of the time by Duran Duran was re-titled "The Mikflex" to endless hilarity)

Much obliged

Fester.

Dang... I wasn't quick enough with my photoshop tools of dreams...

Can I post this in a post-ironic non-breach of copyright anyway? Can I?

It would've been accompanied by a suitable use of witicism...

No, I don't think I'd buy them either...

It was a series, ended up in one volume in b&w, a while ago. Deadlock n' co were up against the Mekanics in the tunnels, Blackblood lost his leg, some nutter girl joined them for a very brief stint before picking a fight with a falling boulder.

Is it still on sale?? I lost my copy a while ago and can't find it anywhere for love or money....

Do tell.

Has anyone read Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison & Dave McKean??
This is surely an example, finally, of how to get away from that awful, out-dated and extrememly tired 'neat' way of story telling that looks like it's out of the fifties before you start reading.

The artwork in Arkham Asylum is amazing, and the plot just explodes off the first page. (Never mind the unsettling Alice in Wonderland intro)
This is the Joker in his most unstable, insane incarnation, a trait which most writers seem to forget.
The plot is closer to Seven or Jacobs Ladder than any comic book, but try reading anything straight afterwards and see if you can concentrate...
Admittedly I've read the thing about ten times now, but it doesn't lose its appeal.

Comics are suposed to take us away to somewhere else, aren't they? So why do artists and writers still play to the same safe, tried and tested methods of fifty years ago? No wonder people have drifted away...

Let Dave McKean loose on a Judge Dredd storyline, that's what I reckon!

Uncle Fester.