Panel Borders: There’s no time like the present

Panel Borders:

There’s no time like the present

Originally broadcast 02/07/09 as an episode of Strip! on Resonance 104.4 FM

Excerpt from TNTLTP by Paul Rainey

Starting Sci-Fi comics month on the show, Alex Fitch talks to small press creator Paul Rainey about his serialised graphic novel There’s no time like the present which he has been self publishing as
individual comic books over the past five years. TNTLTP tells the story of a group of friends from Milton Keynes who suffer from the usual concerns of our generation – niche interests, unfulfilling jobs, difficulties with dating etc. – but in a world where time travel exists and the UK in the present day is a holiday vacation for patronising visitors from the future. Alex and Paul talk about the latter’s influences from Alan Bleasdale to Doctor Who, Kurt Vonnegut to Coronation Street, how the opening of a new memorial in Milton Keynes is best attended by a Dalek and the process of telling a long form narrative with an unusual structure.
For more info about this podcast and a variety of formats you can stream or download, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.org

Links: Paul’s website – www.pbrainey.com
There’s no time like the present website – www.tntltp.com – where you can read issue one online
Paul’s 2000AD prog slog blog!
TNTLTP review at the Forbidden Planet International blog
Join our facebook group

Related news:

The London Japanese Art Festival
is on the weekend of the 11th / 12th of July at Richmond Adult Community College and includes:
Manga and Anime Art Exhibition, craft and sales tables from Manga shops, toys and dolls and all sorts of Japanese art and culture related goods.
Talks by Helen McCarthy and Paul Gravett
Martial Arts
Kimono dressing (kitsuke) and kimono fashion show
Cosplay Masquerade and presentations
Manga drawing workshops
J-Pop Party
Set photo shoots and roving photographers
Origami and other paper art
Calligraphy
Koto music
Japanese Dancing
Taiko Drumming
Japanese food and drink, including Pocky, obento and sake, as well as the open cafe area
Three Yatai – Takoyaki, Okonomi-yaki, Yakisoba, Donbri

UK PREMIERE : OCEAN WAVES

The Japanese Art Festival is proud to announce that the event will be hosting the premiere of the Studio Ghibli anime Ocean Waves. Studio Ghibli is better known as the Oscar-winning animation studio who brought us Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle.

Never before released in the UK, Ocean Waves centres around the life of Taku, an average high school student. But soon his quiet life will be turned upside down with the arrival of Rikako: a beautiful exchange student from Tokyo. By the end of term Taku will have learnt a valuable lesson in love and friendship.

The Ocean Waves screening is courtesy of Optimum Releasing.

also:

Kevin O’Neill at the Illustration Cupboard

14 July – 08 August 2009

The first British exhibition of his original artwork from.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Marshall Law
Nemesis the Warlock
Judge Dredd

The Illustration Cupboardis pleased to present the first British exhibition of the world-famous graphic-novel artist Kevin O’Neill.

As one of the most respected and highly regarded names in this field Kevin O’Neill’s illustrative work has led him to rub shoulders with distinguished writers, directors and film stars. Most widely known for his collaborations with writer Pat Mills on Marshal Law (see over) and Nemesis the Warlock in 2000AD Kevin has also worked with Alan Moore on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which was recently turned into a blockbuster Hollywood film starring Sean Connery.

An exciting and sometimes controversial artist this unique event offers fans and collectors an opportunity to view thirty pieces of Kevin’s original drawings and paintings never seen before, and provides visitors to London during the summer season a chance to visit a truly special event.

All artwork is available for purchase, and signed books will also be for sale.
The exhibition will continue on our first floor gallery throughout the remainder of August.
Artwork can be viewed and purchased off our website from 8th July.
Prices range from £500 – £7500

Monday – Friday 10am to 6pm
Saturday 12pm – 5pm

More info at www.illustrationcupboard.com

Reality Check: For all mankind – Sir Patrick Moore and Dr. Kevin Fong

Reality Check:

For all mankind

Sir Patrick Moore and Apollo 11, photo by Paul Grover / Dr. Kevin Fong and Colonial Viper from Battlestar Galactica, photo by Graeme Robertson

To coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, we’re looking at space exploration in fact and fiction. Alex Fitch talks to Sir Patrick Moore about the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969, which saw man first take a small step onto another world, and about entering his sixth decade as presenter of The Sky at Night. Also, Chris Patmore talks to NASA advisor Dr. Kevin Fong about current research into keeping men and women alive on future space missions and how this is reflected in the depiction of such science in Battlestar Galactica.

For more info, please visit the home of this podcast at Sci-Fi London

Links: Sir Patrick’s website
Info about Dr. Fong at www.britishscienceassociation.org
Buy the final season of Battlestar Galactica / The Sky at Night: Apollo 11 at play.com
Article about lunar conservation at boingboing.net
Articles on The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation Satellite at www.spaceflightnow.com
The Sky at Night page at www.bbc.co.uk
Battlestar Galactica page at www.skyone.co.uk
Wikipedia pages on Sir Patrick Moore and Dr. Kevin Fong

Photo attributes:
Sir Patrick, interviewed by The Telegraph about The Sky at night’s 650th edition
Dr. Fong, interviewed by The Guardian about his hopes to be an astronaut

Comics / Sci-Fi news:

Ichi screening at Sci-Fi London

Info about the 18th June Sci-Fi London Ichi screening

A special screening of the female reimagining of ‘Zatoichi – the blind swordsman’ as part of Sci-Fi London
18th June, 8.15 pm Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, 19 Regent Street, London, SW1Y 4LR

also:

LUC @ 176

London Underground Comics’ latest event takes place at the 176 Project Space in Chalk Farm, London and features over 40 of the UK and beyond’s finest small press creators selling their wares in one of north London’s most beautiful gallery spaces.
Free tea and coffee, live DJs, animation projected on the 40 foot wall of the gallery and much more.

Exhibitors include: .
Oli Smith, Oliver Lambden, Sean Azzopardi, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, Melody Lee, David Baillie, Douglas Noble, Marc Ellerby, Jamie McKelvie, Kieron Gillen, Jake Harold, Dan Lester, Francesca Cassavetti, Sally-Anne Hickman, Richy K Chandler, Josceline Fenton, Phil Spence, Paul Rainey, Howard Hardiman and many more…

27th June, 176 Prince of Wales Road, London, NW5 3PT
More info: londonundergroundcomics.com / www.projectspace176.com

and:

An exhibition of Shaun (The Arrival) Tan’s prints, and 4 original pastels, is on at
The Illustration Cupboard at 22 Bury Street, SW1Y 6AL until 22nd June
More info at www.illustrationcupboard.com

plus:

Orbital Manga is hosting a rare and exclusive signing with Manga Artist BENJAMIN (writer and artist for the stunning manga book “Orange” by Tokyopop)

Benjamin is a phenomenal mainland China artist, whose stunning digital art adorns in his Art Book Xiao Pan’s, “FLASH”. His artistic style really catches the eye, and every panel in “Orange” is painted, brush style in colour with great detail.

He’ll be demonstrating his remarkable technique and signing copies of his books including the limited edition landscape-format hardback of “Orange”, his latest lavish art book “Flash”, Chinese Youth, Remember, One Day (in French) and Images and Prints on the day of the signing.

Friday 26th June 5pm – 7pm

Orbital Manga
4c Orion House
Upper St Martins Lane
London WC2H 9NY

and:

LA NOUVELLE BANDE DESSINÉE: ÉMILE BRAVO and EMMANUEL GUIBERT

A new movement, La Nouvelle Bande Dessinée, has swept through French comics – the equivalent of La Nouvelle Vague in cinema – expanding their styles and subjects exponentially. Now two of its most dynamic members, both winners of Angoulême Essentials Awards, have their acclaimed graphic novels in English.

Émile Bravo draws My Mommy about a young son’s yearning for his vanished mother and brings historical relevance and pathos to Belgian classic Spirou.

Biographer Emmanuel Guibert chronicles one American G.I.‘s experiences in Alan’s War. In The Photographer he collaborates with photographer Didier Lefèvre to record his mission in Afghanistan with Doctors without Borders.

In conversation with Comica Festival director Paul Gravett. Followed by book signings.

Where: Nash Room, ICA, The Mall, London
When: Saturday, June 20, 2009 – 6.30pm to 8pm
More info at www.comicafestival.com

Wheel Me Out magazine Summer 2009

Issue 4 of Wheel Me Out magazine

The latest issue of the online magazine ‘Wheel Me Out’ is now available to download and includes transcripts of Alex Fitch’s interview with Park Chan-Wook about his film “I’m a cyborg but it’s okay”…

Compared with other people I am relatively ignorant of pop culture. I tend to listen to classical music mainly and also read classical books. I don’t really watch recent films, mostly old ones. I’ve never played a computer game!

However, I am very interested in new technology so I’m trying to employ it in my films and am very positive about using computer graphics. In I’m a Cyborg… it’s quite visible that I relied on CGI, compared with my previous films where the CGI is invisible.

Sarah Lightman’s interview with David Lloyd about his artistic practice and influences on his work from the start of his career in advertising to his most recent graphic novel, “Kickback” …

It’s tougher to enter this business now than it was for me. There’s much more competition. Despite the fact that comic books aren’t selling as they used to, there’s no apparent reduction in the number of people who want to work in the field. I think this is because sequential art is something that people fall in love with and want passionately to work at.

Ananda Pellerin’s interview with Cosey Fanni Tutti, a founding member of the art / music collective Throbbing Gristle…

My dad was a Fire Chief but he also did electronics. He used to build wirelesses and TVs and things. I look back now and see exactly why I am the way I am. I was listening to all this weird noise as he was tuning things in, circuit boards going off. He bought me a tape recorder when I was ten and said “you don’t need a record player, you can take this and do things instead.”

…and much more, including competitions to win mugs, CDs and posters…

Available now at www.wheelmeout.com / info about the previous issue

Also, at Sci-Fi London, there’s a partial transcript of Alex’s interview with Antony Johnston looking at writing the Dead Space comic book and in game dialogue…

With something like “Dead Space”, there are so many different media to take into account and the storyline, the master, overall storyline is so large, complex and there’s so much of it. With the comic, we knew we wanted to do a prequel and we knew roughly at that point how the game was going to pan out, so it was a question of “How are we going to establish the back story?”. We have to establish the tone the game is going to take, but we can’t give away clues that would help people to sort of cheat or beat the game. We can’t give away too many secrets that will spoil the game for people.

Read online now at www.sci-fi-london.com/news / listen to the full version of Alex’s interview with Antony as a podcast…