Mega City Book Club - a new podcast about 2000AD books

[Colin YNWA]

Oh its fantastic to hear the conversation about Hugo Pratt, one of my absolute favourites. Couple of things to add if I may be so cheeky while I have a moment. I have the last 5 minutes of the podcast still to listen to so if anything is covered there my apologise.

Clearly he is most famous for Corto Maltese as discussed. IDW under the imprint Euro Comics produced a full series English translations of the stories over a number of years from 2015 (I think it was) in quite beautiful volumes. They seem to be getting a little tricky to get hold of but the aftermarket is likely to be your friend there as you do see them come up from time to time. We discussed them as they came out on a thread here. If you are patient I'll be discussing these at some point in the future in some thread or other as they are absolute favourites of mine.

There are also 5 volumes of reprints from the Treasury, well there will be when the fifth you mention comes out in April. The one you missed has literally just landed at Taylor Towers The Crimson Sea which as I've mentioned elsewhere is a whooper of a collection of maritime tales and is out tomorrow as I type this.

There are also a few other translations of his work out there 'The man from the great north' also from IDW is about. Dark Horse (I think) also had a series called The Manara Library featuring the art of Milo Manara and the first volume of that has another of Pratt's most famous works in English 'Indian Summer' which he wrote, with another story written by him. Again alas these are starting to get a little tricky to track down, but with any luck.

Finally, I promise, there's a slight 2000ad link with Hugo Pratt as well. Carlos Ezquerra has always cited Pratt as one of his favourites and inflences. Pratt did a version of Treasure Island, incredibly popular on the continent and I've often speculated that Carlos' pen name 'Long John Silver' might have come from that. No evidence just a quiet desire.

Fantastic episode as ever and I'm so jealous you are going to Angouleme. I dream of going there one day. Hope you had a fantastic time!

[Eamonn Clarke]

Oh its fantastic to hear the conversation about Hugo Pratt, one of my absolute favourites. Couple of things to add if I may be so cheeky while I have a moment. I have the last 5 minutes of the podcast still to listen to so if anything is covered there my apologise.

Clearly he is most famous for Corto Maltese as discussed. IDW under the imprint Euro Comics produced a full series English translations of the stories over a number of years from 2015 (I think it was) in quite beautiful volumes. They seem to be getting a little tricky to get hold of but the aftermarket is likely to be your friend there as you do see them come up from time to time. We discussed them as they came out on a thread here. If you are patient I'll be discussing these at some point in the future in some thread or other as they are absolute favourites of mine.

There are also 5 volumes of reprints from the Treasury, well there will be when the fifth you mention comes out in April. The one you missed has literally just landed at Taylor Towers The Crimson Sea which as I've mentioned elsewhere is a whooper of a collection of maritime tales and is out tomorrow as I type this.

There are also a few other translations of his work out there 'The man from the great north' also from IDW is about. Dark Horse (I think) also had a series called The Manara Library featuring the art of Milo Manara and the first volume of that has another of Pratt's most famous works in English 'Indian Summer' which he wrote, with another story written by him. Again alas these are starting to get a little tricky to track down, but with any luck.

Finally, I promise, there's a slight 2000ad link with Hugo Pratt as well. Carlos Ezquerra has always cited Pratt as one of his favourites and inflences. Pratt did a version of Treasure Island, incredibly popular on the continent and I've often speculated that Carlos' pen name 'Long John Silver' might have come from that. No evidence just a quiet desire.

Fantastic episode as ever and I'm so jealous you are going to Angouleme. I dream of going there one day. Hope you had a fantastic time!

Thanks, Colin, I had a great time at a fascinating festival and will be discussing it with Tony Esmond on a bonus episde next Sunday. And thank you for the extra information. I did overlook the Crimson Sea reprint, and I'm going to have to look out for some more english language versions of Corto Malteses on the second hand markets. Cheers.

[Colin YNWA]

Thanks, Colin, I had a great time at a fascinating festival and will be discussing it with Tony Esmond on a bonus episde next Sunday.

Oh looking forward to that one. Its always sounds like such an amazing event. I mean they even got Bill Watterson do come out of retirment once as I recall!

[GoGilesGo]

What a fabulous episode. Loved hearing about the wandering Ugo's life and finally confirming the connection to The Dark Knight.

I haven't made many purchases from the Treasury but Night of the Devil has gone straight into the cart.

[Colin YNWA]

Ohh speaking of Corto Maltese books being hard to get hold of these days my LCS has a few of the volumes on their shelves at cover price still if anyone wants me to pick any up for them.

[Eamonn Clarke]

Pick me up one and I'll PayPal you, Colin. I've already got Under the Sign of Capricorn.

[Colin YNWA]

Excellent. Next time I'm in I'll get one. I'll nosey through that thread to try to remember which is the best...

[Eamonn Clarke]

Cheers, Colin.
Here are Jim O'Brien's grail pages.
Firstly the cover by Pino Dell'Orco


And then two Hugo Pratt pages.

[Eamonn Clarke]

Some bonus chat from the Angouleme festival in France, recorded over a croissant with Tony "LeMonde" Esmond.

https://megacitybookclub.blogspot.com/2024/02/250-angouleme.html

[Eamonn Clarke]

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/mega-city-book-club/id1116473423?i=1000644110734

https://megacitybookclub.blogspot.com/2024/02/you-can-find-list-of-all-upcoming-books.html

[Eamonn Clarke]

Some Angouleme factoids:

I took Eurostar to Paris Gare du Nord, metro line 4 straight to Paris Montparnasse, and then TGV to Bordeaux stops at Angouleme (about 2 hours for that stage). I booked all the mainline trains through the Trainline app, and even changed my return booking easily while in Angouleme (we live in a version of the future). You buy a Paris metro card from a machine and preload it with 2 tickets to cover there and back.

Festival tickets go on sale two months before the date, I paid 50 euros for a 4-day pass which gets you into just about everything. There are a few events on the programme marked as "Masterclasses" which you need to book and pay for a separate ticket in advance, these are the big name creators doing a class rather than a talk.

If you can go for the Thursday and Friday. Saturday is the busiest I have ever seen a convention and it is very difficult to get in to many places or talks without a huge queue. Saturday might be a good day to walk out of town to the Musee de Bande Designee which is really worth a trip

AirBnB has made finding a room much easier. The centre of town is on a hill so you're generally going to be walking up and down quite a lot. Restaurants do get booked up but if you are looking for something in between fast food and  the high end bistros I have some suggestions. Angouleme is not Paris and it feels safe and friendly around the town, but English speaking is rare. However Google translate is your friend and will even help translate the talks.

If you are thinking of going and have questions, then please message me.

[Colin YNWA]

Younger YNWA used to dream of going to San Diego one year as it seemed like a bit of a comic nirvana to me then. These days that's switched to Angoulme, by terrible French aside this is defo the place I want to get to one day.

Fantastic podcast and I hope you had as good a time as it seems you were going to.

[Eamonn Clarke]

And here is Colin YNWA himself with another British comic to tick off the list as he introduces me to the fantastic Phoenix.

https://megacitybookclub.blogspot.com/2024/02/251-phoenix.html
and
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/251-the-phoenix/id1116473423?i=1000644912833

[Colin YNWA]

So if anyone had the chance to listen to this and is interested in a copy of the the collection Eamonn and I discuss give me a shout as I'm looking to pass this on as I don't really need it and would love to give someone the chance to try The Phoenix out.

Let me know and its yours.

Oh and there are actually 4 Mega Robo Bros collections already and a final 6th on the way. So many factual stumble and memory farts in this one from me I could happily spend an hour typing up corrections here... but I'm too lazy!

[WhizzBang]

Hi Eamonn,

I am currently watching the 2000ad adjacent film Accident Man on Pluto tv - a straight-to-dvd film based on Pat Mills and Tony Skinner"s strip of the same name. It is better than you would expect and I can't remember you covering it on Mega City Film Club so thought I would mention it here. Is Mega City Film Club continuing now Conrad has gone back to the US?