Blog - On Holiday at Inverness Hi-Ex Comics Festival

The Blog will be taking a break as Omnivistascope heads north (apocalyptic weather permitting) where the Hi-Ex festival will be on over the weekend of 2nd and 3rd of February. OVS will have a stall and there will be lots of famous names from the comics world and events for people to enjoy.

The Blog will be back in just over a week!

http://www.hi-ex.co.uk/home.htm

Events - Web & Mini Comix Thing 2008

This London based festival celebrating web based and small press comics roars onto it's fifth year, on Saturday March 22 2008.

It's a great day out and a chance to see a genuine living and breathing counter culture in the UK.

As it happens, I may be in London that week, and would love to share a table with someone if they have a third going spare :)

http://www.ukwebcomixthing.co.uk/

OVS - The Dirk Despair Fan Club

You can now join the rest of us in our state of Despair with The Dirk Despair Fan Club thanks to fan club president Spooky Sue who lives on a remote asteroid called Glom which is drifting slowly put surely into the event horizon of a nearby Black Hole. Rather than try and save herself from this impending disaster, Sue has put together a pack including membership card, signed portrait and newsletter for all equally dismal fans of Dirk Despair.

Membership of The Dirk Despair Fan Club is free when requested with any comic bought or stamp addressed envelope supplied or send 50p in any shape or form to the address or e-mail given in the shop. Get one before all of the membership packs, Sue and the asteroid of Glom disappear into a super massive gravitational trap.

Anyone who would like to join The Dirk Despair Fan Club but cannot be bothered, gains the privilege of being an honorary member.

When asked for a comment about the new fan club, Dirk Despair failed to utter an intelligible word before sliding off his chair and lay slumped in a close semblance of death for several weeks.

You may now return to your apathy.

New Comic - The Casebook of Warlock Holmes

Warlock Holmes, Consulting Magician returns in The Casebook of Warlock Holmes, the January comic from Omnivistascope.

The Casebook of Warlock Holmes is a 28 page full colour comic, containing three of Warlock Holmes' finest cases. Join Holmes and The Amazing Dr Wizard™ in The Curious Case of the Black Bog Beast, The Jam Smuggler's of Rumaica and A Christmas Case for Warlock Holmes.

Warlock Holmes first appeared in Solar Wind issues #7 and #8, and while the first two stories are reprinted here, an all-new 11 page story is included. The first two stories have been re-edited to fit the new format, but have no fear, no new jokes have been included.



The comic is £2 plus 50p post to the usual address. If ordering with an Omnivistascope, you may ignore the 50p postage. It's not up in the shop just yet, but should be listed in a couple of weeks. I will of course have copies of The Casebook of Warlock Holmes at the Inverness HI-EX comics festival held in the first weekend of February.

Strip - The Omigawd Man 2

See more of freelance artist Chris Askham's work at http://www.chris-askham.co.uk/

TV - Funk to Funky...

It's a god awful small affair... but Life on Mars is back, almost...

The new series Ashes to Ashes has jumped decade to the 1980's and headed 'darn sarf' to London. DI Alex Drake, whose expertise is in psychological profiling, finds herself cast back through time to meet a familiar cast of rogues from the casebook of Sam Tyler.

Forget Doctor Who, and pretend you've never been exposed to Torchwood, Life on Mars was THE time travelling gem from the 21st century BBC. We had all the fun of the dirty grimy nasty 1973 safely viewed from the perspective of hand wringing noughties man Sam Tyler.

We had the often spooky 'am I mad, in a coma or back in time' dilemma, and Sam turning his 21st century skills and attitudes to crimes of the 1970's. We had larger than life Sheriff Gene Hunt and his gormless deputies DC Carling and DC Skelton, and the smart and lovely WPC Annie Cartwright keeping Sam's feet on the ground. We had fights and shootouts, swearing and drinking sessions, in the name of all that is holy we had fun!

So grab yer shooter and fire up the Quattro!

Ashes to Ashes starts Thursday February 7th 9.00pm BBC1.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/ashestoashes/

News - Rocks on Mars?

Ah, if you like your 70's space nostalgia, then NASA are releasing new footage of things that look a bit like something possibly exciting, but will eventually be proved to be a rock.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7205004.stm

The 'face of mars' discovered in a photograph by NASA in the 70's had a convincing enough human appearance until more recent probes revealed it to be just a plain old rock.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast24may_1.htm

It does looks like a figure till you look at the rocks around it and the way the shadows are cast, then of course, it looks like a rock. So you don't even have to wait thirty years to prove it isn't a martian, you just need to just look at the photograph for a couple of minutes. These martian civilisation space mysteries aren't what they used to be. Oh and there's a snake too.

A part of me will always remain confused by my reading of such things in the 1970's as a child, where I was aware there were no such things as UFOs, aliens and Bigfoot, but magazines, books and TV that I often took at face value, said there were.

So yes, more proof that there are indeed rocks on Mars...

As for whether there is Life on Mars? Yes, but they've changed the series name to Ashes to Ashes and relocated it to London and should be with us in February.

Moloko Plus in Stores Now

Fans of Clockwork Orange, the ultraviolent tale of young reprobate Alex and society's attempts to contain his unpleasant urges may be pleased to know that his favourite tipple, Moloko Plus (Milk plus a little extra stimulus) has appeared on the supermarket shelves.



Drink responsibly.

Comics - 2000AD, up to date in 2008

2000AD has been going for over 30 years now, and has probably been the main impetus behind a lot of people's love of comics and British comics professional's careers over the years. It is undoubtedly an institution.

For those who haven't read the 'prog' for a while now, there has been a steady increase in quality from it's underperfoming 'slacker' years in the nineties. It now boasts an incredible array of artists, along with a mix of the best of the old and as well as new writers.

If you haven't read 2000AD, or even picked up a comic for a while now, then it's a good time to dip your toe in the water. 2000AD is still available in your anologue newsagents of course, but now you can buy it as a downloadable PDF for your computer and read it at home or work (lunchbreaks only of course). This service has started with the end of year bumper 'Prog 2008' and continues weekly.

2000AD currently has an exceptional line up with John Wagner and Colin McNeill on Judge Dredd in a multi-layered story which features the mutants right issue, murdering Mayor of Mega City One - PJ Maybe and daughter of America - Judge Beeny.

John Wagner also teams up with Carlos Ezquerra for further tales of the Strontium Dog bounty hunters and is set in the classic Johnny & Wulf era.

Stickleback is a Victorian East End mastermind in the classic British comics mould and wouldn't shame the company of the likes of Janus Stark or Cursitor Doom. Created by the best double act in comics today, Edgington and D'Isreali.

Shakara is a mysterious revenge bent force of nature, battling eye-boggling sci-fi monstrosities courtesy of top 20000AD artist Henry Flint and writer Robbie Morrison.

Kingdom, on its second series, follows Gene the Hackman, a sympathetic (yet tough) genetically modified man/dog hybrid created to defend his mysterious masters against perverse biological horrors. Kingdom is brought to you by Dan Abnett and Richard Elson.

The comic is having a spectacular run at the moment, so for £1.50 a week why not than cheer up your January with a visit to http://www.clickwheel.net/ for your weekly dose of Thrillpower.

Film - Doomsday is Coming...

First trailers of the new Neil Marshall film are here, and it looks like it's going to kick off big time!

Neil Marshall previously directed the funny/scary Dog Soldiers and the scary/scary Descent and now he has another film out - Doomsday. I have to say, full credit to the man for consistently putting out top notch British genre pieces. We need more Neil Marshalls!

Doomsday begins with a virus sweeping Scotland and every man woman and child trapped there being sealed off behind a sort of New Hadrian's Wall for five years. But just like we've seen with foot and mouth epidemics, the virus gets out of the containment zone and the world is soon in big trouble. However, it turns out there are survivors in Scotland, find them and find the cure.

The trailer immediately evokes images of Escape from New York, 28 Days later, Mad Max, Aliens and Mega-City One. All the good things in life. But coming from Marshall I'd certainly expect this to be more than just the sum of its parts.

Doomsday is going to be out March 14th in the States, with an unconfirmed UK release date.

With any luck we won't have to wait too long for Doomsday.

http://www.doomsdayiscoming.com/

Strip - The Omigawd Man

I've had this kicking about for three years! It was originally intended for a project that never happened. However I guess with the third best adaptation of 'I am Legend' out, it's as topical as I'm ever going to get. I have one more episode in the vaults, but let me know if you'd like more small strips up on the blog. Many thanks to the super duper Chris Askham for the art, hope you like it!

News - Scientists Closer to Impenetrable Void Black (TM)

The BBC has reported that scientists on our world are closer to producing a pigment that reflects almost no or very little light, composed of carbon nanotubes.

Fans of Dirk Despair of course already know that the two darkest pigments in the universe are in fact Ultimate Void Black (TM) and Impenetrable Void Black (TM) 'The perfect fusion of the arts of pigments and super-gravitational physics' - AXO Marketing Board.

Dirk Despair failed to react to the news.

Read more about your planet's primitive advances at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7190107.stm

Attention Goth Stationers!

If anyone can help in sourcing some black elastic bands for a comics related project I'd be most grateful. The only ones I've found so far are from a US website, and in the UK very small ones for braiding hair (and other hair-related activity) which aren't much use. They are to go round some papers either 5 or 7.5cm wide.

Anyone who can help, please e-mail me and you will receive a modest (yet unspecified) prize!

All the best

Paul

Hi-Ex - The Inverness Comics Festival - 2/3rd February 2008

Omnivistascope will be travelling North to Inverness in February for the Highland International Comic Expo: Hi-Ex!

Hi-Ex! is a packed weekend programme of talks, interviews, panels and workshops, an exhibition of original comic art, films and special guests.

We'll have all issues of Omnivistascopes for sale, as well as the Solar Wind Summer Special and the remaining back issues, plus hopefully a couple of new mini-comics to debut just for the festival!

Be sure to drop by for a chat!

www.hi-ex.co.uk