Time Online profiles Cambodian cartoonist Ing Phousera or Séra as he is known:

Growing up in Phnom Penh between the worlds of his French mother and Khmer father, Séra routinely escaped into the pages of French comics, and again as a young refugee in Paris. Now the author of a dozen graphic novels — three of which have been about Cambodia’s war years — he is working to rekindle Cambodia’s interest in the art form. Since his debut showing in Phnom Penh, he has been regularly returning to the city of his boyhood to hold workshops for aspiring illustrators. “It’s important to try to approach the reality of our times,” he says. “This is a media that only needs a pen and paper to express something.” He is also helping to publish the nation’s first anthology of up-and-coming comic-book artists, (Re)géné Rations: The New Khmer Graphic Novel, due in June. In so doing, Séra and his collaborators are blowing the dust off a subculture that has endured decades of neglect.

Above, a french edition of one of Séra’s graphic novels.

The nominees for the 2008 Joe Shuster Awards have just been announced.

Nominees were selected by a two round voting process. Now that the list of nominees has been finalized, the nominated creators will have their work reviewed by a jury, who will ultimately decide which of the nominated creators will receive a Joe Shuster Award. In previous years winners were selected by a public vote.

Between now and the end of May, fans can vote for the following categories online at www.joeshusterawards.com:
- FAVOURITE CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR – ENGLISH LANGUAGE
- FAVOURITE CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR - FRENCH LANGUAGE
- FAVOURITE INTERNATIONAL (NON-CANADIAN) COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Winners will be announced at a public ceremony on June 14th in Toronto. The awards will be the final event at the Sequential Art Symposium to be held in the auditorium of the Toronto Public Library’s Lillian Smith branch on College Street on Saturday, June 14. The Symposium will feature talks related to comics and the 70th anniversary of the Superman character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, as well as a Superman-themed art exhibit entitled “Visions of an Icon” featuring work by Canadian comic book artists. Guests for the symposium include Darwyn Cooke, Tom Grummett, J. Torres, Ty Templeton and more creators to be announced. All nominees are invited to attend and participate.

And the honorees are:
OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK WRITER
- Ian Boothby for Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #13, Futurama #29, 31-33, Simpsons Comics #126, 128, 130, 134, 136 (Bongo)
- Cecil Castellucci for The P.L.A.I.N. Janes (DC/Minx)
- Maryse Dubuc for Les Nombrils 2: Sale Temps pour les Moches (Editions Dupuis)
- Jim Munroe for Therefore Repent (No Media Kings) Comics Festival! 2007 (Legion of Evil Press)
- phlppgrrd aka Philippe Girard for Danger public (La pastèque)
- Ty Templeton for Howard the Duck #1-3, Marvel Adventures The Avengers #17-19, She-Hulk #20-21 (Marvel Comics)
- J. Torres for The Black Canary Wedding Planner #1, Blue Beetle #15, Wonder Girl #1-4, Wonder Woman #11-13 (DC Comics), Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century #1,2,5,6, Teen Titans GO! #39-50, The Batman Strikes #29, 34 (DC/Johnny DC), Ninja Scroll 5-7, 10, 12 (DC/Wildstorm), Degrassi TNG: Extra Credit Vols. 3-4 (H.P, Fenn Publishing Co.)
- Howard Wong for After the Cape #1-3, After the Cape II #1-2 (Image Comics)

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK ARTIST
- Dale Eaglesham for Justice Society of America #2-4, 6-7, 9-11 (DC Comics)
- David Finch for Moon Knight #7-8, Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America #4: Spider-Man, Legion of Monsters: Morbius #1 (Marvel Comics)
- Tom Grummett for Exiles #100, Thunderbolts Presents Zemo: Born Better #1-4, Mystic Arcana: Black Knight #1 (Marvel Comics)
- Pia Guerra for Y the Last Man #55-59 (DC/Vertigo), Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #13 (Bongo)
- Stuart Immonen for Ultimate Spider-Man #111-117, Marvel Comics Presents #1-4, Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. #12 (Marvel Comics)
- Karl Kerschl for All-Flash #1, 52 #47 (DC Comics)
- Thierry Labrosse for Moréa 5: La Brûlure des Ténèbres (Soleil Production)
- Jacques Lamontagne for Les Druides 3: La Lance de Lug, Les Contes de l’Ankou 3: Au Royaume des Morts (Soleil Production)

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The year of the scholarly look continues in Edinburgh as the National Library of Scotland presents a two month exhibitions of comics and a series of events featuring Alan Davis, Vince Deighan (Frank Quitely to you and me), Metaphrog and many others. You can see the entire list of events here but here’s the basics:

Local Heroes: The Art of the Graphic Novel

The evolution of the graphic novel as a ‘serious artform’, from its humble beginnings in newspaper cartoon strips and superhero comics, has been rapid and revolutionary. Its influence in cinema, popular culture and literature is beyond doubt, while the subject matter of illustrated works grows increasingly diverse. This exhibition draws on material from the Library’s vast collections to tell the story of how comics have ‘grown up’ over the past 40 years, and the influential role Scots artists and writers have played. The Broons, the superheroes and villains of Marvel comics and international work such as Tintin and Japanese Manga all feature, alongside the seminal work of Alan Moore, Art Speigelman and Frank Miller. Scottish artists featured include Grant Morrison, Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy, whose original artwork from the graphic novel adaptation of Kidnapped will also be on show. Put your creativity to the test with a host of interactive exercises.

Opening Hours: 10am to 8pm Monday to Friday, 10am to 5pm Saturday and 2pm to 5pm Sundays

Belgian comics publisher Raymond LeBlanc (above left, with Hergé) died on March 21 at age 92. Best known as the publisher who gave Tintin a home after World War II, he was also a real life hero, if such a phrase can have any meaning. A member of the Resistance during the war, he later persuaded the demoralized Hergé to begin publishing Tintin in the new Tintin Magazine. The move changed the history of comics. In later years, LeBlanc developed Lombard into a publishing powerhouse, and at 2003’s Angouleme won the first ever Honorary Alph Art award for an editor.

Tom has more, but
Forbidden Planet’s translation of an interview with LeBlanc as good a place as any to learn about this seminal figure in world comics history.

Sixty years ago Raymond Leblanc founded the Magazine Tintin, he produced six Belgian animated features and, when the final history of the Belgian comic is ever written, he will have one of the leading parts. In his glory days Leblanc seemed to lead nine different lives at once. We present you an exclusive and especially frank interview with a living legend of 92 years.

The man sitting in front of me folds his hands and holds them under his chin, the elbows full of self-confidence on his desk. “Tell me”, he says, “How may I be of service?” We are sitting in a cosy, warm and luxurious office on the eighth floor of the Lombard Publishers building near the Gare du Midi in Brussels. The man in front of me is 92 years old, but shows no signs of getting old. “You will have to speak up, though. I have a little problem hearing”. Other than that, Raymond Leblanc is as lucid as the next guy. He remembers things that happened sixty years ago as if they were yesterday. He answers to the point and without hesitation. Even at 92, Leblanc will not be silenced in what he says will be his last interview.

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This post by Molly Flatt in the Guardian has been linked to by several bloggers, starting with Tom. Flatt is definitely of the “Think! Feel! Comics are a great medium!” school, but the comments get a bit lively, although some of the Newsarama-esque ones were removed before we could cut’n'paste. (Damn you, polite literate newspapers!)
A poster named ‘Anytimefrances’ takes point on the rebuttal:

my mottoe is now - people who read comic books also puff the ‘magic’ dragon and listen to bands for hours on end. nothing personal M, you know, but that was the way I found it, and it’s a fool’s paradise. going back, always going back, to childishness, grieving over the lost innocence, recovery, salvage, the joys, the absence of responsibility, always gulping at the jug of delight, free, delighting the senses.

was it St Paul who said, now that I am and adult, i have given up childish things.

Harumph. Must comments are more supportive, such as ‘Alarming’ of Manchester :

If you take a comic strip like Zippy the Pinhead - the writing is very literate and takes in philosophy, social comment, high and low art references, toe curling puns and makes unexpected connections whilst the drawing is very beautiful. The fact that he can carry on producing high quality work in a daily comic strip which doesn’t dumb things down but which is also not too intellectually remote is something to be admired.

Hint: The comment thread is definitely much more fun if you imagine it being read like those letters of complaint on Monty Python.

On the fifth anniversary of the start of America’s dumbest war ever, Public Enemy #1 Osama bin Laden reportedly dissed the Mohammed cartoons in one of those messages he periodically releases.

In the message, addressed to the ‘intelligent ones’ in the European Union, bin Laden said that publishing the ‘insulting drawings’ was a greater crime than Western forces targeting Muslim villages and killing women and children.

And the ‘reckoning for it will be more severe,’ he said, according to a transcript of the message provided by the Virginia-based IntelCenter.

Referring to a series of cartoons published in Danish newspapers, the Al-Qaeda leader also warned: ‘if there is no check on the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions.’

We’ve got to hand it to the big cheese of Al Qaeda, he’s on the right track here. Publishing cartoons IS a far worse crime than killing women and children. You can kill a man (or woman or child) but you can’t kill an idea.

Let freedom ring.

Many many things which we had stored up or emailed to us which we have been meaning to tell you about.

§ Douglas Wolk has a new link blog. We’re already stealing from it.

§ We were talking about con fatigue the other day and unbeknownst to us, Shaenon K. Garrity had already covered it

One big change, of course, was that I moved to the other side of the booth. Conventions aren’t quite the same when you’re selling. Some cartoonists—horrible, horrible cartoonists who should die in fires—thrive on convention sales, love interacting with their fans and recruiting new readers. I’m not one of them. When someone walks up and asks me why they should read my comic, I consider the question seriously, and usually I can’t come up with an answer that doesn’t involve a lot of stammering qualifiers. Also, working a booth, unless you’re one of those hateful popular cartoonists, usually includes long stretches of boredom, just standing at attention and staring into space. I’ve invented many games to pass the time. One is to scan the crowd for people who look like characters in my comics, in case I need to cast a movie on the fly. Another is to burst into silent tears.

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• The English language version of the PERSEPOLIS animated film will be released on April 11.

This version features the voices of Chiara Mastroianni as Marjane; Sean Penn as Marjane’s father, Ebi; Catherine Deneuve as Marjane’s mother, Tadji; Gena Rowlands as Marjane’s grandmother; Iggy Pop as Uncle Anouche; and Amethyste Frezignac as young Marjane. It was recorded under the direction of Satrapi and Paronnaud as the French-language version of the film was being completed.

• Another story in The Hollywood Reporter mentions a pact between French production, distribution and international sales company MK2 and publisher Emmanuel Proust. This is of some interest to us because Proust specializes in graphic novels.

MK2 is hoping the collaboration will allow the producer to bring more books to the big screen and vice versa. MK2 is currently in production on Pascal Herold and Jerome Deschamps’ animated tale “The True Story of Puss ‘n Boots,” which Proust will adapt into a comic book. MK2 hopes to draw from Proust’s more than 120 titles and 30-40 future projects to be released per year by the publisher.

Maybe it’s just the movie trade papers picking up more on foreign film deals, but it seems like there’s been a teeny tiny move towards Euro-comics getting the kind of attention from movie studios that American comics have been receiving. First there was David Fincher being attached to Matz THE KILLER, then yesterday’s bit about James Mangold taking on CYCLOPES. Not to mention ancillary news like the TINTIN movies and Marvel’s publishing deal with Soleil. Not a landslide of activity, but it’s worth noting.

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Don MacPherson talks about DC’s decision to print only one price on its comics for the US and Canada. The move has made Canadian retailers unhappy.

So DC’s announcement, though incredibly late, is welcome news for retailers and customers, yes? Well, not really. The manager at my local comic shop, for example, is annoyed at the development; his preference would be that U.S. publishers leave the Canadian price off their comics and graphic novels altogether, allowing for easier adaptation to fluctuations in currency values. That’s what Dark Horse does and many others as well. Anecdotally, what I’ve been hearing is that many Canadian comics retailers have been disregarding the Canadian price for some time, even more the dollar achieved parity with the U.S. buck.

…and…Noah Berlatsky wonders why comics never got with the program:

It got me thinking a little bit about how comics have done, and continue to do, so poorly in this regard. Why wasn’t there ever a blaxploitation equivalent in comics during the seventies — a series of titles starring and aimed at black people? Why are there still so few black comics professionals, and so little black representation in the industry in general? I know it’s not because black people don’t like comics — every time I go into my local bookstore, I see black folks sitting in the comics section, reading away. So what’s the deal?

My point here isn’t that American comics aren’t racist or segregated; I mean, clearly they are in terms of who you see in their pages, who works on them, and, in general, who reads them. It’s just kind of interesting to try to figure out why comics are so much worse about race than other media (movies, television, music.) It’s also interesting to think about what the consequences have been.

Hm, how does one celebrate St. Paddy’s Day in comics book terms?

UPDATE: From the comments, the comic book versions of Cuchulainn (pronounced, sort of, koo-CULL-in): Illustrator Connor Willumsen:

And…the standard…

Japan — along with Russia the only G8 country not to ban the possession of child pornography, has bowed to international pressure and has taken steps to do just that. According to the Guardian piece just linked, there’s still an exemption: manga and anime. According to the piece, Japan is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of child pornography and the second biggest consumer after the US.

Though they welcomed the new law, child welfare campaigners said they were dismayed that the legislation will almost certainly not apply to the huge market in manga and other forms of animation that sexually exploit children.

“We would like the revised law to cover manga, but it is extremely difficult,” Yuka Saito, of Unicef’s Japan office, told the Guardian.

“We keep encountering arguments about freedom of expression, but if the US and other countries can ban that kind of material, why does Japan continue to tolerate it?”

In America, the Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that banning drawn representations of child sexual abuse was unconsitutional. However the Child Protection Act of 2003 did make possession of such material an offense, a law that has not yet been tested in the Supreme court. Legal opinions differ on whether the law would stand up.

Legal or not, it’s fucking creepy.

We’re a little bit recovered from the week’s dizzying array of New York-cenetered events. Wednesday was Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian at Housing Works, moderated by Matt Madden. You can read Madden’s report here. Also recap by Kiel Phegley. We arrived a little latish (but still well before 7:00) and the place was already PACKED. The woman from Worlds Without Borders said it was the biggest crowd they had had for ANY of their events and a producer from NPR was there talking to people–graphic novels are hot!

We already linked to Isaac Cates excellent write up. It was a charming and discursive evening — the focus was not on craft question but more Dupuy and Berberian’s feelings about their work and their working process. We snapped a few photos but weren’t very close to the action. Above you can see (l-r) Madden, Dupuy and Berberian, with the NPR guy in the foreground. Here’s one more.

The crowd was a who’s who of the comics scene. Nick Bertozzi had brought his class from SVA. We ran into our former intern, Cindy Arias, who is much missed, as the ongoing lack of an events calendar here proves. Baby Aldara Madden was on hand. We also saw David Mazzucchelli whose Asterios Polyp will surely be one of the most talked-about graphic novels of 2008. However, Mazzucchelli will not be the one doing the talking, as its been announced that he will be doing no press for the book. Other luminaries spotted: Bob Sikoryak, a bunch of folks from Act-i-vate and Studio Deep Six, PWCW’s Ada Price, Jessica Abel and lots lots lots more. There were even people we didn’t know, new or returning recruits to the Dupuy/Berberian army, hopefully.

THURSDAY, we were off to the Friar’s Club for a “bookwarming” for Drew Friedman’s More Old Jewish Comedians. . Brian Heater already has a fabulous write-up with great photos from the event.

The Friar’s Club, in case you don’t know, is a private club for comedians and old timey Catskill schtickmeisters. The Friars Club Roasts are show business legends, with everyone from Sammy Davis Jr. to Milton Berle to Roger Grimsby having been the targets over the years. Okay Roger Grimsby was a local New York newscaster not a comedian, but the Friars Club is as old New York as you can get, a monument to the days when business was conducted over a cigar and whiskey and not Facebook and Twitter.

Given our love of timeless comedy and Rat Pack-era glamour, we were thrilled to be invited to this shindig. As is our wont, we arrived a bit late, and festivities were already under way, just in time to hear Mickey Freeman finishing up the joke with the punchline “Just enough to win!” This was followed by the joke with the punchline “Doctor, am I getting stronger?” Freeman also mentioned someone who was “so eager to join the Friar’s Club that he had prostrate surgery.”

The Beat was majorly overcome to be in the same room with Jerry Stiller, Larry Storch and…JOE FRANKLIN. “JF!” as fans of the Uncle Floyd Show will recall. Others in attendance, ubiquitous Bob Sikoryak and wife choreographer Kriota Wilberg, Gilbert Gottfried, Len Cariou (The original Sweeney Todd), Kaz, the Royal Flush magazine crew, and Michael Kupperman. We chided Kupperman on the non-appearance of a new issue of Tales Designed to Thrizzle, but he explained he has been busy finishing up an animation project which we aren’t allowed to talk about but it sounds great. We also heard that the next issue of MAD magazine is going to be an ALL-MONKEY issue, so that will be of some interest to our regular readers.

Our camera was kiboshed for the night by low batteries, but we snapped one or two. We can also add that the pigs in blankets at the Friars Club were, for some reason, the best we ever tasted.

Stiller and Friedman

Charles Brownstein, Brian Heater and Nikki Cook converse beneath the Friar logo. Mark Newgarden in the BG.

Note: Friedman and Larry Gelbart will be appearing at Skylight Books in LA on March 29th.

FRIDAY NIGHT it was pouring rain, but we still managed to make it out to Brooklyn to Rocketship for the Leah Hayes party. We hadn’t been there since the still-ongoing remodeling; although the store is a bit narrower it has been redone in a very pleasing way, and the left over show-store slat walls are mostly gone, too. On hand, the usual gang including Brian Heater, Jah Furry, Dash Shaw, who is newly relocated back in New York and Julia Wertz, Above, Hayes poses in the well-stocked store. Our camera still not working, so no more pictures.

As a reminder, we’re always looking for pictures of comics related events. SEND US YOUR LINKS!

Do you know anything about the history of comics in Germany? Us neither. Some light is shed in this Forbidden Planet International Blog posting about a German exhibit on the history of native comics:

It may be strange that, even though German expatriate Rudolph Dirks played such an important part in the origin and development of comics as a genre, it took more than half a century to really catch on in Germany itself. It was only in 1947 that the first German-produced modern comic was published, a black-and-white booklet called “Bumm macht das Rennen”.

The exhibition follows a chronological paradigm, chronicling the history and development of German comics until today, from American imports and their influence on early German comics until the current, “home grown” varieties of comic books and graphic novels. Newspaper comics, caricatures, parodies and biographical comics are highlighted, as well as current literary trends, such as fantasy, mystery and science fiction.

The exhibit has a website (in German) with more info and downloadable covers, such as the merry prank we’ve reproduced above.

CNN international presents a video report the the holocaust comic book we’ve mentioned here previously. Produced by the Anne Frank Center and drawn by Eric Heuvel in full-on clear line style, the comic is intended to give German schoolchildren a primer in the horrors of the Holocaust. However, according to the video, some experts feel using the comic book medium will trivialize the event. This is an old school argument, and it could be argued that the Tintin-inspired imagery isn’t the gut-punch that some would prefer, the idea that comics are inherently frivolous is one that we suspect will be protested loudly.

We don’t know how many of your have been following the adventures of Ivan Brandon and Kristyn Ferretti. The NYC MECH duo has been traveling around South America for a few months, and having the most incredible adventures you could possibly imagine and blogging about it. New Year’s Eve on a beach with Fireworks! Amazon journeys! Eduardo Risso! Llamas! Lost cities!

We especially liked the part where they discovered a lost tribe, and were offered a local delicacy of slugs on a banana leaf and then uncovered some ancient cave comics that prefigured compressed storytelling.

Okay, we made that last part up, but barely. Meanwhile, Ivan’s also been keeping up with his scripting deadlines at the same time. Truly a Superman.

Danish authorities have arrested three people who were allegedly planning to assassinate one of the Mohammed cartoonists. A 40-year-old Dane of Moroccan origin and two Tunisians were arrested. The Dane ill be charged with a terrorism offense and the Tunisians deported.

The target of the plot, the intelligence service said, was the cartoonist for the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jullands-Posten, which first published the controversial drawings in September 2005. The paper identified the cartoonist as Kurt Westergaard.

“Not wanting to take any undue risks [the intelligence service] has decided to intervene at a very early stage in order to interrupt the planning and the actual assassination,” the statement by Jakob Scharf, the agency’s director general, said. “Thus, this morning’s operation must first and foremost be seen as a preventive measure where the aim has been to stop a crime from being committed.”

Westergaard and his wife have been under police protection for three months. In a statement, the 73-year-old Westergaard wrote:

Of course I fear for my life when the police intelligence service say that some people have concrete plans to kill me. But I have turned fear into anger and resentment.

While this is surely a “what a horrible world,” story, at least a potentially even more horrible story has been averted. For now.

Luigi Siviero of the Italian Fumetti di Carta blog writes to inform us an interesting piece of news:

Matteo Casali and Giuseppe Camuncoli are going to publish a short coloured comic with Corto Maltese in the italian magazine Specchio +, a monthly supplement to the newspaper La Stampa. The comic is a prequel of Quattro sassi nel fuoco (Four Stones in the Fire), the seventh chapter of The Skorpions of the Desert, published in Italy last year by Lizard.

The main character is Hugo Pratt creation Cush, who appeared in earlier Corto stories but apparently Corto himself will appear in a flashback.

While following Pratt in anything is a big challenge, Casali and Camuncoli are very talented fellows in their own right, so we’re excited to see them working on something like this.

You can read the original post in Italian here.

Casali and Camuncoli also recently finished a book called La neve se ne frega, an adaptation of a novel by well-known Italian rocker Luciano Ligabue. Cammo’s cover, colored by Gabriele Dell’Otto after Klimt is below.

You can read a bio of the duo (in Italian) here.

BONUS: whatever happened to those long-ago announced English editions of Corto Maltese to be published by Heavy Metal? Every once in a while we call up Howard Jurofsky at Heavy Metal and ask, but apparently it is still caught up in a rights issue.

Boo.

The Beat was linked on Morfablog which looks very much to us like its written in Welsh.

Spanish indie cartooner Pepo (El Vecino)is a regular Beat tipster, and also one of Spain’s indispensable bloggers with his Con C de Arte blog. He dropped us a note to alert us to a couple of odd European uses of Frank Miller iconography. One is a Sin City-esque ad for a Spanish TV show called CUENTA ATRÁS (”Countdown”).

The other is a bit more bizarre. Alleanza Nazionale, an Italian extreme right-wing (some say neo-fascist) party, is using a 300 drawing for a poster.

Oh Frank Miller, what have you wrought?

Words Without Borders bills itself as “The Online Magazine for INternational LIterature” and naturally, the latest issue turns to international comics.

Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian, fresh from their Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, revisit Get a Life while Dupuy goes for a solo run. North Korean Cho Pyong Kwon sketches an allegorical battle tale and translator Heinz Insu Fenkl parses the message. Mazen Kerbaj devours comics and dodges bombs as a child while Pah&eacute shuttles between sleepy Gabon and cosmopolitan Paris. South Americans hit the North American road as Alberto Fuguet & Gonzalo Martinez tear through the American Southwest and Liniers hops through Atlantic Canada. Magdy El Shafee’s software designer turns to criminal code in Cairo; artist and writer Carmen Boullosa frames the Taller de la Gráfica Popular’s political message; and interviewer Nicole Rudick and Gipi compare life and art.

It’s quite a rich tapestry, although some of the comics presented (all translated) are bigger on emotion than craft. The highlight is The Duck by Dupuy, (above) another preview of his upcoming D&Q book. Highly recommended. For the weird factor there is Kwon’s North Korean propaganda comic starring very hard working bees (below) Good times.

Finally there’s an interview with Gipi (War Story, Garage Band)

NR: The story is meant to be universal, set in no specific time or place?

GIPI: The time is now. The place is everywhere. This was my plan. But I discovered that readers often need to place a story somewhere other than their own country and to shift the time to the past. I imagine this is a normal reaction. No one wants to imagine his home bombed out.

Comix Influx treads the line between Wiki and scanslation without being either. Basically, it’s a cooperative website that offers English translations of foreign comics — but the translations are presented as plain text so it doesn’t have the pirate overtones of scanslations. Or as the FAQ puts it:

Comix Influx is a website dedicated to the collaborative translation of foreign-language comics. At some point, almost all inquisitive English-speaking comics readers will hear about the amazing comics coming out of Europe. Many will try buying a few, only to find that the medium of comics is genuinely a combination of pictured and words. And then some of those will then try to work through those comics, painstakingly slogging through them with a dictionary.

That effort is to be commended, but is spread among a relatively small (and easily discouraged, if I’m anything to go by) band, and tends not to contribute to the community as a whole.

The aim of this site is to harness all that disparate effort, so that it can benefit other interested readers. At Comix Influx you can find translations of great comics, help add to or imrpove the translations that are there or start a new translation of a comic that deserves a wider readeship.

Completed translations include Nègres Jaunes by Yvan Alagbé , La Meilleure du Monde by Pauline Martin, the comics parts of Unpopular Culture by Bart Beaty and Mutterkuchen by Anke Feuchtenberger. Many others are under way.

Jamie (Gorillaz) Hewlett’s strip Get The Freebles which ran in The Face, has been turned into a British TV show called PHOO ACTION. It stars Carl Weathers, Jaime Winstone and Eddie Shin.

Creative Director Jamie Hewlett says: “I think it’s the most weird and radical thing that the BBC have taken on since the Young Ones first aired in the early Eighties.

“The script, the cast, the crew, the costumes and the look are all fantastic and the BBC have let the programme stay true to the original idea in every way.

As you can see from the illos, it has stayed true to the Hewlett look. View the trailer at the MySpace page.

There were a couple of local comics show this weekend. Joe Gordon at the Forbidden Planet blog went to Hi-Ex, which was seemingly held in Narnia during the White Queen’s reign…no no, it was actually held in Inverness, Scotland, where every photo comes out like a postcard! For real, the pictures at this blog make this locale look like a magical winter wonderland. And of course since it was in Scotland, everyone ate haggis and tossed cabers and said “Och, Laddie!” while taking about the Loch Ness monster all the time, right? Here’s John Higgins in between mouthfuls of haggis and black pudding.

Meanwhile Grendel33, aka “Ty” went to the 2nd Annual Toronto ComicCon and gives a very thorough report. Here’s Francis Manapul and Agnes Grabowska. How does Francis Manapul always get his hair to do that manga thing? He’s good!

Variety reports that Asterix at the Olympic Games has opened on a record 1,078 screens in France and grossed $4.1 million, which is a lot for France. The film is the third in a live action Asterix series based on the classic comics by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, and its $115 million budget makes it France’s most costly movie ever. It even stars Alain Delon and Gérard Depardieu, although note that’s Clovis Cornillac as Asterix, besides Depardieu’s Obelix.

Like many American comic book movies, the film has opened with an epic promotional blitz, Time reports.

On Wednesday, nearly 50 years on from the comic’s debut, the third live action adaptation of his adventures was released, in an extravagant promotional blaze that would have even made Hollywood sit up and pay attention. The movie, Asterix at the Olympic Games, comes just six months before the Beijing Games, which the marketing campaign gleefully exploits.

And as with most comics book movies, critics loathed it. It “bathes in a tepid marmalade … prepare to be disappointed,” Le Parisien declared.

“The vacuity of this enormous cooking pot ends up making you nauseous,” Le Monde wrote.

If you can stare at your computer for 77 minutes you can watch The Mindscape of Alan Moore on AlterTube.

Even more excitingly, if you are in London you can see Alan Moore AND Melinda Gebbie at Gosh! this Saturday, 2/2:

Gosh! The London Comic Shop is proud to announce a signing by celebrated creators Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie to mark the long-awaited UK release of Lost Girls. The signing will take place in-store at Gosh! Comics, 39 Great Russell Street in Central London (opposite the British Museum) on the 2nd February 2008, from 2:00 to 5:00 in pm. Moore and Gebbie will be signing copies of the three-volume hardcover slipcase edition of the book, which will be available to purchase at the price of £49.95*

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