INFINITY #2 | Digital Graphic Novels and Digital Comics by Russell Willis | INFINITY

Please Note This PDF version of INFINITY does not include the full functionality available in the iPad app. The following functionality is not included:

Panel Mode Super-fast smooth page swiping Audio commentaries Integrated links, videos and detailed images Graphical contents Graphical bookmarks Social media integration Update notifications Free subscription with auto-download

We recommend the free iPad version of INFINITY for the best user experience, but if that is not an option for you, we hope you will enjoy this PDF version.

ON AND ON AND ON RUSSELL WILLIS • EDITOR

PHEW! … It’s been a busy old time since last issue (which was prepared under the watchful eye of a bust of Margaret Thatcher at Somerville College... Ask me if you see me). I had a great time spreading the word about digital graphic novels both in the UK and in the US – there’s a lot going on and it’s clearer than ever that digital is the future of graphic novels and comics. And as you’ll see from our news section, Panel Nine, the publisher of INFINITY, has been up to some exciting things with The Phoenix and Terry Wiley – with even *more* exciting stuff to announce next issue. All this excitement has meant that there’s been liBle =me for INFINITY, and that doesn’t look like it’s going to change. So let me take the opportunity to beg for contribu=ons in the form of ar=cles, reviews, strips, illustra=ons, whatever you can do. We’re looking for regular people, and we pay. So if you’re interested, please drop me a line. Despite the rush I think we’ve s=ll got a great issue – how could we not have with the amazing talents of Alan Moore, Hunt Emerson and Terry Wiley on display? One thing that is missing though, is our leBers pages. Are leBers pages dead? I hope not. There’s nothing more dispiri=ng than having to read through the comments on an ar=cle on the Internet, hoping to pick out nuggets of interest in a swamp of idiocy and vitriol. Let’s bring back the art of leBer-‐wri=ng, and here’s an incen=ve: every leBer published gets a free Panel Nine app (worth $9.99!). Come on now, don’t let me down… SPECIAL FEATURES Remember that blue text in the app signiﬁes a link (except for that one!), and tapping takes you to extra content, such as a web page. Images with yellow borders (like the one top right) can be seen full-‐ screen if you tap on them. Double-‐tap comics to enter ‘Panel Mode’ and read panel-‐by-‐panel. If the ‘Play Audio’ buBon is lit up then you can listen along… This issue there’s audio for Hunt Emerson’s ‘Freak Brothers’ and ‘Den=st’ pages. Enjoy! ENDS ∞

Cover Hunt Emerson Editor Russell Willis contact@ienglish.com Contributors Hunt Emerson Terry Wiley PJ Holden Alan Moore Mar=n Hand Chloë Mar=n PM Buchan Hayden Hughes John GraBan Nick Dawkins Publisher Panel Nine

∞

Published bi-‐monthly. Contents © the respec=ve copyright holders. This app © iEnglish.com Ltd. Contents © individual copyright holders. Volume 2 • Issue #2 • November 2012. This is issue #2 of the new INFINITY, a magazine about digital comics and more. Please email inquiries about contributions to the address above.

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 1 of 59

RADAR A ROUNDUP OF THE DIGITAL COMICS NEWS THE PHOENIX COMIC TO ADD IPAD EDITION STARTING JANUARY! Britain’s The Phoenix comic is to add an iPad Newsstand version starting in January 2013. The acclaimed children’s comic is teaming up with digital comics developer and publisher Panel Nine to make The Phoenix available to kids worldwide via iTunes. Panel Nine president Russell Willis commented, ‘The Phoenix is publishing the cream of British comics talent and we’re delighted to be able to help make it available to a larger audience. Kids love the iPad and they love The Phoenix when they get hold of it, so we think this is a very powerful combination.’ Panel Nine, the publisher of INFINITY, is regarded as the gold standard for digital comics apps and has created a new, even richer, platform for the digital version of The Phoenix. Phoenix secret operative Ben Sharpe noted the reaction to the prototype of the software: ‘Blown-off socks are still being retrieved from the rafters of Phoenix HQ.’ Events to publicize the launch of the Newsstand iPad app have been planned and consumer-focused announcements will be made shortly. DC SEES 200% INCREASE IN DIGITAL SALES; NIXES EXCLUSIVE WITH COMIXOLOGY Talking to VentureBeat, DC (publisher of Superman and Batman) announced that its digital comics sales had tripled year-on-year and it has decided to drop its periodical comics exclusive with Comixology and sell through a variety of ‘platform storefronts’ including Apple’s iBookstore, Barnes & Nobles’s Nook Store and Amazon’s Kindle Store, despite complaints that these platforms are not suitable for reading comics. DC’s actions CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 2 of 59

NEWS ROUNDUP take place as the digital comics industry is experiencing a huge sales growth, with Comixology alone predicting top line sales of $70 million in 2012 compared to $19 million in 2011. GRAPHICLY HAS ‘MOVED ON’ FROM COMICS Micah Baldwin, the CEO of Graphicly, a company that once aspired to compete with Comixology and iVerse in the digital comics wars, has told Tech Crunch that the company has ‘moved on’ from comics. Graphicly, which raised over $5 million from venture capitalists, now has 15 people in a ‘virtual office’ setup and facilitates the formatting of visual stories for sale through Kindle, iBooks and Nook. In INFINITY’s interview with PJ Holden in July, Russell Willis noted that Graphicly had poor comics-reading software and had lost any hope of competing with Comixology. Its move to being a formatting factory for visual publications was seen as a last-ditch measure to stay relevant – and stay in business. DARK HORSE RELEASES ANDROID APP Dark Horse, America’s 5th-ranked mainstream comics publisher in terms of sales (Star Wars, Hellboy, The Goon) has announced the release of its comics app for Android. The company said in a press release, ‘Dark Horse Comics continues to pave the way as the premier publisher

of video-gaming-related titles and the leader in independent digital comics. The free Dark Horse Digital comics app is now available worldwide through all modern web browsers and features cloud storage in both the Android and iOS apps.’ Visit Dark Horse’s digital site for more information. GOOGLE CELEBRATES WINSOR McCAY WITH INTERACTIVE GOOGLE DOODLE Winsor McCay, who was featured in INFINITY last issue, was recently celebrated by Google with one of its most elaborate doodles ever.

The doodle (which is best viewed on a PC or Mac) was released on October 15th and features the adventures of the main character (a little boy) from the comics artist’s ‘Little Nemo in Slumberland’ strips which began in 1905. Google said they wanted ‘to approach this doodle as McCay might have. What if McCay composed a Nemo comic for the Internet? We may never know how far he would have pushed the resources and technology available today, but his work will continue to inspire generations of dreamers.’ CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 3 of 59

NEWS ROUNDUP MONKEYBRAIN PLEDGE ALL NOVEMBER PROFITS TO THE HERO INITIATIVE The co-founder of Monkeybrain Comics, Chris Roberson, has announced that the digital-only publisher will be donating all November profits to Hero Initiative, a charity set up to support comics industry professionals – often well-known veterans of the industry – who have fallen on hard times. Roberson notes, ‘There are far too many stories of well-respected, talented writers and artists who created successful and beloved comics in previous decades, and who now are living in reduced means – unable to afford healthcare, unable to find paying work, some even homeless. At the same time, characters created and co-created by many of these same creators have gone on to appear in major motion pictures, on television, and in toy aisles.’ Monkeybrain comics, featuring work by Kurt Busiek, Steve Lieber, Jennifer Meyer and others, are available from Comixology and direct donations to the Hero Initiative organization can be made at the organization’s website.

DISNEY GOING DIGITAL FIRST WITH COMICS Proving that Disney’s digital adaptation of Pixar’s Brave as an interactive comic – released before any print version – wasn’t a oneoff, the company has now released a Wreck-It Ralph digital comic which acts as a prequel to the Disney movie. Lyle Underkoffler, a VP at Disney Publishing Worldwide, told Publishers Weekly, ‘As we debut more comic stories, we’re learning that they resonate with a non-traditional audience. We hope to expand our repertoire of digital-firsts across platforms and Disney franchises to respond to the growing demand.’ Both the Brave digital comic and Wreck-It Ralph used the digital comics engine created by Tall Chair, the makers of Operation Ajax, that includes animation and audio (see review in our Preview issue). ART OF PHO MOTION COMIC WINS TOP EUROPEAN AWARD The Prix Europa, a Cannes for broadcasters in Europe, has announced that The Art of Pho has won the award for Best Online Project of the Year 2012. The motion comic is based on the graphic novel by award-winning British artist Julian Hanshaw. The original graphic novel can be found here. CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 4 of 59

NEWS ROUNDUP THRILLBENT ADDS PAX ARENA TO LINEUP Mark Waid’s Thrillbent site has bounced back from being hacked (which caused it to be offline for weeks) and has added science fiction strip ‘Pax Arena’ by Mast, Balak and Geoffo to complement Mark Waid and Peter Krause’s ‘Insufferable’ superhero strip. Balak is the artist behind a superb one-off strip written by Waid that demonstrates a number of storytelling devices being pioneered in digital comics. Take a look at ‘Cthulhu Calls’ and then browse the process material, including Waid’s scripts.

Cthulhu gets quite upset when his calls aren’t returned

IVERSE DECELERATES ACCELERATOR Last issue we reported on ComicsPlus owner iVerse’s efforts to set up a Kickstarter clone aimed at comics called ComicsAccelerator. Many critics were worried that the platform would not be

able to reach critical mass and attract either backers or creators. Despite this the initiative attracted a lot of positive press coverage, but looking at the digital ghost town that is the ComicsAccelerator site today it seems that the doubters were right. Now comes word from iVerse that they are effectively abandoning the project just two months after the launch and repositioning themselves as Kickstarter consultants: ‘We will soon be transitioning away from the site as it currently exists into a more streamlined, user-friendly experience. Secondly, and most importantly, we’ll now be available as “campaign advisors” to any creator looking to launch a project on established crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo. If you’re curious, a great example of such a service is Springboard, run by the game designer/distributor Game Salute. What they’re doing for games is what we’ll be doing with comics: partnering with the best projects and applying our expertise to ensure success at every step of the way.’ MARVEL AND IVERSE TIE UP OVERSEAS In better news for iVerse, the company has announced an exclusive deal to work with Marvel to distribute foreignlanguage digital comics and graphic novels. Rob Salkowitz has the full story on his excellent website. CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 5 of 59

NEWS ROUNDUP SONY’S PSP DIGITAL COMICS STORE CLOSES It’s probably a sign of Sony’s general woes that in the middle of a boom in digital comics it has closed down its PSP comics portal. October 30th was the last day that users could purchase new comics content. Users can re-download previously purchased content up until mid-January, after which Sony is recommending that users back up their comics on Media Go. Sony had been selling Marvel comics since 2009. BRITISH SMALL PRESS MARKETPLACE, COMICSY, LAUNCHED Comicsy is a new website launched in October with the aim of helping UK small press creators sell their wares. Tim West, the man behind the site, told Down the Tubes that Comicsy is suitable for those looking to get their goods online, in an easy to manage web store, and for people who have already set up their own sales site but want the benefits of being part of a small press shopping network. ‘Think of it as a permanently open, online comic expo,’ he says. ‘The small press industry here in the UK produces some amazing work.’

TERRY WILEY’S VERITYFAIR TO GET PANEL NINE DIGITAL TREATMENT Terry Wiley, the British comics artist whose work has been described by Richard Bruton of Forbidden Planet as ‘magnificent’, ‘brilliant’, and ‘perfect’, is working with Panel Nine (publisher of INFINITY) to collect his Verityfair series into a deluxe digital graphic novel, on the same platform as the apps produced with Eddie Campbell, David Lloyd and Hunt Emerson. Panel Nine president Russell Willis commented, ‘I’m delighted to be working with Terry to package the Verityfair series in our deluxe digital format. He is one of Britain’s best comics creators, with a unique and authentic approach, and comics readers deserve to have his work available worldwide.’ ∞

Verity Bourneville, the star of Verityfair

∞ INFINITY NEWS DESK ∞

Have you got news for us? If so, please send a press release to contact@ienglish.com.

ENDS ∞

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 6 of 59

Verbatim

THE WORD ON DIGITAL COMICS JOE LIST Cartoonist, Guardian Weekend Magazine • Via Twitter

“Marvel’s new motion comics are gross and unnecessary.” ••• CHARLES SKAGGS Writer, Ben 10: Omniverse, Generator Rex • Via Twitter

“I’m a huge proponent of digital comics but it stuns me to charge $3.99 for one issue when you can buy standard def TV episodes for $1.99.” ••• DAVID GALLAHER Writer, High Moon, Box 13 • Interview with The Beat

“A print comic these days seems to have a very limited shelf life. A digital comic has the potential to continually gain new readers.” ••• NEILL CAMERON Artist, The Phoenix, Mo-Bot High • Via Twitter

“Great work can be utterly defeated by poor user interface / format. If a digital comic has a poor UI – is printed on crappy digital paper, if you will – it can utterly break the reading experience.” ••• STEWART AITKEN Marketing specialist • Via Twitter

“@neillcameron: You’ve read comics in iBooks, then..!” ••• DANIEL CLOWES Creator, Ghost World • Overheard at SPX

“The future of comics is digital, but not for my comics.”

NEIL GAIMAN Writer, Sandman, Coraline • At Vulture

“Perhaps I don’t have the allegiance to paper that I ought to because anybody who invests in The Absolute Sandman, all four volumes, is now carrying 40 pounds of paper and cardboard around with them. And they hurt and they complain, “Oh, I feel guilty.” And I look at it and go, you’re not getting anything that is quantitatively or qualitatively better than the experience you’d be getting on an iPad, where you can enlarge the pages, you can move it around, it’s following the eye, and you can flip the pages.” ••• RON PERAZZA Founder, Comic Book Think Tank • Via his blog

“I hate fake, digital ‘pages’. I really do. I’m actually kind of insulted by them. It’s not because they usually look shitty – although anyone that Photoshops in a page curl really ought to pause and think about why they make such poor life choices.”

GOT A QUOTE? Have you come across an interesting quote about digital comics? Then help us out and get in touch: contact@ienglish.com – and please include a source!

ENDS ∞

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 7 of 59

Creating Digitally

TOOLS OF THE TRADE Last time, I introduced you to a couple of essential apps for the funnybook-drawing, iPad-toting comics artist, and this time I’ll offer up a few more. Camera+ is a camera app available both for the iPad and iPhone. Where it scores points above and beyond the standard iOS camera utilities is as a reference camera – Camera+’s timer mechanism allows you to set up and pose for your own reference shots. If you’re lucky enough to have an iPad and an iPhone you can even have the iPhone take the shot and have it automagically send the photo via the cloud to Camera+ on the iPad – allowing you to take advantage of the iPad’s larger screen. Camera + on the iPad. A variety of silly poses, some only possible thanks to the =mer

Finngr/FinngrPro is a super limited drawing app that really only allows drawing – no undo, no erase and, in fact, no editing of any kind. Its pen and brush tools simulate a blotchy, inaccurate pen and inky, overloaded brush and the underlying drawing surface is a coffee stained, grimy texture. Where it scores points is the CONTINUES ➤

PJ HOLDEN PJ’s ﬁrst published work was with Fantagraphics in 1997 (Holy Cross #3) with Malachy Coney, and he provided art for a story with Mike Carey from Caliber in 1997. He started working for 2000 AD in 2001 (Judge Dredd ‘Sino-‐Cit’) and has been working professionally since. His subsequent work has included further s=nts drawing Judge Dredd and The 86ers. He has also drawn Rogue Trooper, Johnny Woo, and Tharg’s Future Shocks. Holden broke into the American comic book market with the Image Comics mini-‐ series Fearless. Prior to his comics career he spent 20 years in the IT industry. PJ is on TwiBer and has a blog.

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 8 of 59

TOOLS OF THE TRADE • PJ HOLDEN Drawing with Finngr Pro on the iPad

Camera+ Great for reference shots • $0.99

immediacy and fun of getting your fingers digitally dirty. Every drawing has just got bags of warmth and charm. Actions for iPad is a brand new app. Actions allows you to, in effect, build a custom keyboard for the iPad. Big and bold, the chunky icons can be programmed to simulate various combinations of keypresses tied to individual apps. I’ve found it especially useful if you have a Cintiq and are using apps like Photoshop and Manga Studio a great deal. AcBons for iPad. Here I’ve set up a bunch of commonly used tools for Manga Studio

Finngr Pro Warmth and charm… • $0.99

“One of the nice things about iPad apps is that they’re oFen created by small companies who are constantly adding funcIonality.”

One of the nice things about iPad apps is that they’re often created by small companies who are constantly CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 9 of 59

TOOLS OF THE TRADE • PJ HOLDEN adding functionality – even now, Actions is pretty damn useful, but they’re promising to build more and more in to the app. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops. And finally, one of THE most essential iPad apps/ website utilities that really will become your best friend…

Ac=ons for iPad Create a custom keyboard • $2.99

Dropbox is a cloud-based storage facility (with apps for pretty much all portable devices) that’s free to join and will – almost certainly, at some point – save your working career. It’s dead simple. Install the software on your Dropbox for iPad (the ﬁles on the drop box list are all available on my desktop, laptop and iPhone, as well as on any web browser via Dropbox.com)

desktop/laptop device, and store files in the assigned directory – as you’d do normally. And, invisibly, silently, and – most importantly – reliably, those files will be uploaded and stored on a cloud-based store. You can also set up shared Dropbox directories, or access your own dropbox files from either a browser or an app. It’s the comic creators’ secret weapon.

Dropbox Cloud-‐based storage… • FREE

“[Dropbox is] one of THE most essenIal iPad apps/ website uIliIes that really will become your best friend.”

Next issue, PJ will go back to one of the ﬁrst apps he suggested you take a look at, Procreate, and go a liNle more in-‐depth with a tutorial.

ENDS ∞

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 10 of 59

“A brilliant crime-noir graphic novel.”

KICKBACK A CRIME-NOIR THRILLER FROM THE CREATOR OF V FOR VENDETTA

DAVID LLOYD CONTENTS

• All 92 pages of the original graphic novel • Audio commentary by David Lloyd • Production sketches • Production notes • Kickback covers collection • An exclusive interview with David Lloyd, discussing the origins of Kickback, the comics industry, V for Vendetta, and much more

PRAISE FOR KICKBACK ON THE IPAD

‘Fantastic! Buy it!’ – David Hine ‘The app works beautifully and looks gorgeous. It would be a crime not to buy it!’ – Comic Heroes Available for iPad, $9.99. Tap this page to view the app in the App Store.

PANEL NINE

The First Time…

GOING DIGITAL SETTLING IN I’ve had a couple of months now to adjust to the concept of reading comics digitally and not lugging Marvel Omnibus editions with me on my commute every day. I still buy a lot of print and get sent a lot of poor-quality PDFs to review, but I’m also starting to like the ease of shopping for HD comics from the comfort of my bedroom. MADEFIRE Brash, kinetic and eclectic, Madefire are putting out vibrant new content by a mix of influential creators and newcomers. They don’t create traditional comics and that’s why I love them, because they’re offering something new that reads intuitively and enhances the reading experience with sound, motion, and impeccable timing. So far all the content on the Madefire app has inexplicably been available to download for free, making it easy to get a feel for what the delivery system can do and how it suits different styles of storytelling. None of the free content has bored me yet and each use of the app is skewed subtly to reflect the different creative teams, but Mono and Treatment both stand out as stories that I’d pay to continue reading.

PM BUCHAN PM Buchan is the lead comic-‐ book columnist for Starburst magazine and considers himself to be a vocal advocate for the Bri=sh comic book industry. When not cul=va=ng his obsession with comics he writes novels about the end of the world, watches horror ﬁlms, and reads books about the Manson family. He now sincerely hopes that all his favourite comic creators will announce their plans to create work with the iPad in mind so that he can ditch his colossal collec=on of gradually-‐ decaying printed material.

Core Madefire founders Ben Wolstenholme and Liam Sharp have created Mono, a transparent retelling of the Incredible Hulk/Jekyll & Hyde tropes, transposed on to the kind of Victorian adventurer that you could see Alan Moore revelling in, set across a series of wars in the twentieth century. It’s frankly brilliant, with a synergy of CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 12 of 59

GOING DIGITAL • PM BUCHAN sound, art, and reveals that adds weight, shock, and awe to the Hulk myth and makes the eponymous hero far more fearsome than conventional comics could have accomplished. Treatment is more of a team effort, created by Dave Gibbons, written by Robbie Morrison and with a rotating team of artists, including a wonderfully kinetic two-parter from Doug Braithwaite. This series very much covers similar ground to 2000 AD, but does so with all of Madefire’s trademark bluster and spectacle, so much so that I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Rebellion were the first publisher to license use of the Madefire technology. PANEL NINE Panel Nine’s The Certified Hunt Emerson collects material from across the career of one of the UK’s most exuberant comic creators, a man that has left a slew of profanities and surrealism across the British publishing landscape since the mid-1970s. Easily comparable to the comics of Robert Crumb or Sergio Aragones, Emerson has been less visible in recent years and Panel Nine’s new collection serves as an excellent primer to his work. With creator commentaries, little-seen strips and a meticulous eye for detail, Panel Nine seem to be carving out a niche not only in publishing comics but in curating them, presenting the strips with beautiful reproduction values and enough context to add another layer of appreciation to the reading experience. The quality of Hunt Emerson’s collected strips is understandably variable, but my biggest qualm is that a lot of the content is far less offensive that you’d expect for a man that has had strips serialised in porn magazines! The particularly lewd strips stand out, in a good way, so although I felt uncomfortable reading about men smashing coconuts with their phalluses while I rode on public transport, I also laughed out loud and couldn’t CONTINUES ➤

TREATMENT MEXICO by Robbie Morrison and Doug Braithwaite et al

THE CERTIFIED HUNT EMERSON Over 200 pages, including an interview, cover gallery and audio commentary

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 13 of 59

GOING DIGITAL • PM BUCHAN stop. More strips like that would have made this essential reading. The final thing I’d like to note is that for any of the modern Fantagraphics crowd unfamiliar with Hunt’s work, his Citymouth strips read a LOT like classic Jim Woodring, which speaks volumes for his originality and talent as an artist. All in all I’m overwhelmingly happy that this collection exists as a primer for new readers worldwide, because to ignore Hunt Emerson when you’re handing out accolades to British comic creators would be nothing less than criminal. COMIXOLOGY In the interests of fairness I also gave Comixology another go. It seems that I’m physically incapable of paying for digital versions of Marvel or DC comics, knowing that every individual chapter takes about two seconds to read and is completely inconsequential out of sequence. What I don’t mind doing is supporting more (comparatively) independent comics, so I bought a complete collection of Aaron Alexovich and Drew Rausch’s Eldritch! Originally created as an entry for DC’s digital comics competition Zuda, this one comes from the Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Lenore schools of inappropriately-gross-andinsightful humour, pitting a science genius against her monster-obsessed artist brother, with hilarious and horrific effect. I reviewed a couple of issues as a PDF viewed on a desktop earlier in the year, and the difference between that and this HD beauty is pretty amazing. I can’t bring myself to use Guided View or take an interest in ANY digital extras, but the reading experience itself was smooth while the art stayed crisp and clear. I don’t want to say that it was better than reading print, but it was definitely as good, and my conscience feels a lot better supporting something new and niche like Eldritch! than it would sinking money into the New 52. CONTINUES ➤

CITYMOUTH from The Cer=ﬁed Hunt Emerson

“The Citymouth strips read a LOT like classic Jim Woodring.”

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 14 of 59

GOING DIGITAL • PM BUCHAN GETTING COMFY All in all I’m starting to love reading comics digitally, which I never expected to happen, though I swear that I never had to battle my three-year-old son for Spider-Man comics in the same way that I do for the iPad! Madefire is something new, something that’s both more and less than conventional comics, Panel Nine are curating comics digitally with a respect that the medium is rarely afforded, and Comixology is pure commerce and pretends to be nothing else. Between them all my needs so far are covered, until somebody tells me otherwise and points out a dazzling digital initiative that I should get behind. ∞

ENDS ∞

Eldritch! by Aaron Alexovich and Drew Rausch. Cover above and sample page to leF

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 15 of 59

Sequential Art

TERRY WILEY • VERITYFAIR

Verityfair Chapter 1 by Terry Wiley. The ﬁrst four chapters have been released as independent comic books and are available from the author. The ﬁrst three chapters comprise Part 1 of Verityfair.

Terry Wiley started drawing comics when he was five and became an avid fan of Leo Baxendale before graduating to the Mighty World of Marvel in his early teens. Tragically he was put off comics altogether by that comic’s haphazard diet of reprints. He was reintroduced to comics and their potential via Love & Rockets and Cerebus in the late 80s and started working on Sleaze Castle (with Dave McKinnon) almost immediately. Sleaze Castle lasted until 2001, upon which Wiley took a break from comics. He returned to the drawing board in 2008 with the acclaimed Verityfair which he describes as ‘a slightly twisted soap opera with the merest dash of X-‐Files!’

Verityfair Following are the first seven pages (of over 80) of Part 1 of Verityfair. All three chapters plus supplementary material will be collected into a deluxe digital graphic novel by Panel Nine for release in January 2013. CONTINUES ➤

PANEL MODE ENABLED. Double-‐tap a panel on the comics pages that follow to view the strip panel-‐by-‐panel.

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 16 of 59

Who is Verity Bourneville? She’s a mess, a loudmouth, waver of hands, a pain in the neck, a cack-‐handed, bath-‐ singing, confabula=ng pest; she makes up words and forgets to tell anyone what they mean. Why doesn’t she fix those ears? She could stand to lose a few pounds too! Is that her real hair? Is that even her real name? That’s not how you spell ‘Bournville’! How old is she really? “Look at those sharp knees, I definitely wouldn’t hit it.” She’s a freeloading scrounger, a terrible role-‐model, part of the problem, a ringing indictment of our broken society, a blight on Britain! She’s a trooper, a diamond, a flinger of fists in defence of the right of every red-‐blooded Englishwoman to stay in bed un=l 3pm and stare at the sky blowing bubbles and prac=sing her lines. She likes MARMITE! So what if she only comes up to so high, if her upper arms flap a liBle in the wind, if she remembers ‘Pogle’s Wood’, if she can’t see past the end of her arms without her glasses? She takes a bow as she throws her homework on to the fire, she is criminally vulgar, she is famous, she is funny, she doesn’t even exist! Don’t hold that against her!

Want more Verity? Verityfair is available in printed form from Comicsy and will be released in a deluxe digital edi=on for the iPad in January 2013 by Panel Nine. Subscribe to INFINITY for the latest news or follow Panel Nine on Twitter. Currently available are: Verityfair #1 Verityfair #2 Verityfair #3 Verityfair #4 And you may also enjoy other work by Terry Wiley including Sleaze Castle and Petra Etcetera.

WEB COMICS

THE BEST ONLINE COMICS NEILL CAMERON Strip Brieﬂy

WAIT, WHO? This is just a hilariously funny exposé of a rather large plot hole in Doctor Who… In the ﬁrst episode of the current season, ‘The Asylum of the Daleks’, it is revealed that the Doctor has somehow managed to erase the memory of himself from =me… The pitch-‐perfect dialogue between the Daleks is laugh-‐ out-‐loud funny every =me, the drawing is great, and the leBering is spot on.

EHUD LAVSKI Strip Brieﬂy

RANDALL MUNROE

THE INVADER

Strip

Around the age of ten my two main ac=vi=es were reading comics and playing Space Invaders. I became extremely adept, and my parents would give me 20p and leave me in the hall outside the pub for hours, happily playing a table-‐top version of the Namco game… I never knew what I was doing. The terrible innocence and savagery of youth. This comic puts it all into perspec=ve.

CONTINUES ➤

Brieﬂy

CLICK AND DRAG This became an Internet phenomenon because of its use of interac=vity and the way in which the strip could be explored for hours. Randall Munroe is living proof that you can be a successful cartoonist with ideas and almost no drawing ability whatsoever. This strip is an unusual departure for him and must have taken a signiﬁcant amount of planning to get it right.

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 26 of 59

WEB COMICS

THE BEST ONLINE COMICS GAVIN AUNG THAN Strip Brieﬂy

STEPHEN FRY: SELF-PITY The Bri=sh comedian, actor and wit Stephen Fry was delighted to see a fragment of one of his speeches adapted by Gavin Aung Than of Zen Pencils. The site is devoted to the illustra=on of speeches, and despite the cheesy ending this one is neatly done, with great illustra=ve skills. For me, Gavin needs to work on his pacing and storytelling skills as these can some=mes seem rigid.

BOULET Strip Brieﬂy

DANIEL HERRMANN

MOTIVATION

Strip

Interes=ngly, I had just ﬁnished a marathon clean-‐up of my bedroom that had been overdue for months when I read this. Books were si{ed, categorized and placed in the correct piles or shelves, drawers were emp=ed, desks were cleaned… and all because I had a pressing deadline. The power of procras=na=on. I wonder how this lovely trait evolved… Boulet’s work is superb.

ENDS ∞

Brieﬂy

IN OUR GARDEN The first dog we had that I was old enough to remember was called Scruffy. He was a stray that my dad found. We thought he was a black Cairn Terrier, but a{er washing he turned out to be a brilliant white. Unlike the dog in this touching story, Scruffy died when I was too young, my parents thought, to be told. For too many years I imagined him chasing cats on a farm... ‘Which farm, Mum?’

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 27 of 59

Archive

ALAN MOORE ON ARCADE

Robert Crumb

Alan Moore is the renowned British writer behind A Small Killing (with Oscar Zarate), Lost Girls (with Melinda Gebbie), and From Hell (with Eddie Campbell). In the 80s, whilst writing Swamp Thing for DC and a host of other professional comics, Moore was also a proliﬁc contributor to small press magazines and fanzines. In 1984 he submitted this piece to the ﬁrst incarnaBon of INFINITY. Here is the second part of his in-‐depth look at Arcade – ‘an almost perfect culminaBon of the whole idea of Underground Comix’.

TOO AVANT-GARDE FOR THE MAFIA? CRUMB, GRIFFITH, AND SPIEGELMAN

Crumb’s Arcade work, although it has perhaps been surpassed by some of the material he’s contributed to Weirdo, was his best to date at that point. Apart from surprisingly lyrical covers, he contributed a healthy number of strips to the magazine’s interior, including a two-page dissertation upon buttocks, a selection of unpublished drawings from his sketchbook that proved every bit a meticulous and fascinating as his comic work, and a CONTINUES ➤

Bill Griﬃth

Art Spiegelman INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 28 of 59

ARCHIVE • ALAN MOORE ON ARCADE stunning and bleak look at like in ‘This Here Modern America’ that oozed despair. Indeed, after looking at the best two pieces that Crumb contributed to Arcade one might be forgiven for assuming that the Mid-Seventies were not a particularly happy time for the artist.

Modern America

In Arcade #6, Crumb contributed something that looked very much like the last word in funny animal anthropomorphism at the time, and still does to a certain extent. Entitled ‘Ain’t It Nice’ and starring ‘Those Cute Little Bearzy Wearzies’, the strip portrayed a vision of inner urban life and love every bit as flatly and methodically as something like Last Exit To Brooklyn could CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 29 of 59

achieve in the literary field. It was seven pages long, and each page had a grid containing twenty individual panels. The strip minutely chronicles a day in the life of two working class inner urban bears, Jippo and Boopsy, as they go through their day. Some moments are ugly, some are surprisingly touching, but by the end of the strip you feel a sort of pang of recognition, along with a sensation of having learned something. Crumb has used funny animals in the classic sense: By showing human foibles portrayed by animals an artist can sidestep all the obscuring preconceptions that people have about human behaviour and enable them to look at themselves dispassionately as if they were observing another species. The beauty of Crumb’s concept here is that he has made the human behaviour being portrayed a lot more disturbingly naturalistic and near the knuckle than most of his predecessors. In doing so he also shows us how much of the animal there is in human behaviour by way of the rough physical preliminaries that the two-lovers go through before finally arriving at a sloppy and drunken CONTINUES ➤

Ain’t it Nice

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 30 of 59

ARCHIVE • ALAN MOORE ON ARCADE sexual bout. There’s a sort of inversion of the principals of anthropomorphism there that hasn’t been attempted since Kurtzman/Elder Mickey Rodent strip in MAD.

That’s Life

Crumb’s best piece, however, concerned real people. Appearing in Arcade #3 under the title ‘That’s Life’, it chronicled the brief and unspectacular rise and fall of a black backwoods singer called Tommy Grady who cut one 78rpm record before being shot dead in 1931. The first three pages take us through Tommy Grady’s last year of life. He fights with his wife and hits the road taking only a knapsack and a guitar. Picked up by friends on their way to Memphis to cut a record, he is persuaded to cut a tune CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 31 of 59

ARCHIVE • ALAN MOORE ON ARCADE himself as part of the then-current boom in Ethnic Music. Blowing his first pay-check on drink he picks up a woman and gets shot dead in a senseless argument with her boyfriend. The next two pages carry us through the depression of the thirties, when many of the small record labels went out of business and a large number of records deleted, Tommy Grady’s amongst them. The final page brings us up to the seventies, where an avaricious blues collector looking suspiciously like Crumb himself, buys a solitary surviving copy of Tommy Grady’s only record from an old black woman as part of a job lot. He takes it to his blues aficionado friends in L.A. who give it a public airing over their expensive hi-fi units. The last panel shows a crowd of rich white-American blues scholars smiling blissfully as Tommy Grady’s voice drifts around the elegant apartment: ‘Po-o boy, lo-ong way f’um home… Po-o boy lo-ong way f’um home…’ A lone caption reminds us of the title: ‘…And that’s life!’ Crumb at his manic-depressive zenith. The fact that the two editors of Arcade, Griffith and Spiegelman, contributed so many of the most wilfully experimental pieces (as well as the best in many instances) leads me to suspect that they saw the experimental angle as one of Arcade’s major reasons for existence, and individually they followed their convictions with a vengeance. Griffith contributed a number of truly memorable pieces including a number of half-page ‘Griffith’s Observatory’ strips for the Sideshow feature. The Rousseau piece mentioned earlier figured highly CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 32 of 59

ARCHIVE • ALAN MOORE ON ARCADE

The Toad and the Madman

amongst the rest of his works, as do the Commedia Dell Zippy and the disturbing ‘The Toad & The Madman’ in which Mr Toad and Alfred Jarry discourse upon the unspeakable truth. Also the strictly paced piece of film noir entitled Doll Boy should be given a mention if only for its style and control. Griffith’s best piece, at least in my mind, remains ‘A Fools Paradise Revisited’ in Arcade #3. In this ten page strip, Griffith followed the passage of the ubiquitous Zippy The Pinhead through a lavish and classical Stately home. Each page is divided into four wide horizontal panels, stacked one on top of the other, creating a cinemascope effect (or Zippyscope, as the artist would have it). After a number a splendid sequences made more evocative by the panoramic nature of the visuals, we get a single deviation from this rigid page structure. One strip on the last page is broken into seven smaller panels, showing Zippy The Pinhead’s progress as he drifts out to sea upon a chunk of ice-berg. Zippy’s comment at this juncture, delivered with one word in each panel as the pitiful Pinhead drifts away towards the distant horizon, is revealing: ‘I Hate Everything That’s Modern. Everything. That’s. Modern. I Hate. It…’ It’s not until you’ve read it a few times that CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 33 of 59

ARCHIVE • ALAN MOORE ON ARCADE you realise that the sun is slowly rising in the background as night gives way to daytime, and that the magnificent microcephile has managed to sting one sentence out over some three or four hours. Like Jarry’s Pere Ubu, Zippy perpetrates a sort of comedy of the unconscious,

stumbling through a half-understood landscape shattering time, logic and preconception as he goes. The bits that you laugh at loudest are always the bits that you least understand consciously, and at times the Zippy mystique manifests itself eerily beneath the veneer of slapstick – and nowhere more effectively than here. CONTINUES ➤

A Fools Paradise Revisited

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 34 of 59

ARCHIVE • ALAN MOORE ON ARCADE Griffith’s co-editor, Art Spiegelman, is the last artist under discussion here. Of all the contributors to Arcade, Spiegelman remains the most creatively selfconscious in his use of the medium, and in consequence achieves many of the more penetrating insights. For the most part Spiegelman’s work is as much about the comicstrip medium as whatever story he happens to be telling. While this is true to a lesser extent even of such recent work as Maus, the trend for self-examination was most apparent during Spiegelman’s stint on Arcade. Cracking Jokes

CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 35 of 59

ARCHIVE • ALAN MOORE ON ARCADE In the first issue, Spiegelman contributed a piece entitled ‘Cracking Jokes’ which manages to provide an accurate and scholarly dissertation upon humour while being in itself funny. By taking a simple four frame gag and examining it over and over again from every conceivable standpoint for three pages, Spiegelman actually manages to say something about humour itself at the same time as expanding one’s notions of what the comic medium is capable of.

“Most issues had a text feature wri_en by some contemporary notable and illustrated by one of the Arcade crew.”

Other notable strips include ‘Ace Hole Midget Detective’, in which Spiegelman manages to weave a detective story in together with a few observations on Picasso and the relationship between comics and modern art; and ‘As The Mind Reels’, in which he successfully intercuts between a mundane soap-opera, a pasta advertisement, a bored housewife’s telephone conversation and his own working notes for the strip, creating a sort of collage of everyday life punctuated by televisual inanity, contrasting the real-life of soap operas with the real-life of the everyday world. As the Mind Reels

My favourite Spiegelman piece, however, is a two page exercise included in Arcade #6, entitled ‘The Malpractice Suite’. What Spiegelman has done is to take panels from CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 36 of 59

ARCHIVE • ALAN MOORE ON ARCADE the Rex Morgan newspaper strip by Bradley and Edgington – head and shoulders shots for the most part – and then extend the lines of the image beyond the panel borders to form them into new shapes and contexts. As an example, we see a standard Rex Morgan panel with a woman up close in the foreground, turning away from us in a head and shoulders shot. She is starting to glance towards a man in a raincoat who has just come to the door, his feet invisible below the bottom panel borders, however we see that what Spiegelman has added to the original design has placed it into a disturbingly different and surreal context. The woman whose face we see in the foreground is given a crude and stumpy body beyond the frame borders, the blouse open to reveal naked and sagging breasts. The man in the background, it transpires is not in the background at all. He’s about eight inches high and he’s in the foreground. The bare-breasted woman is holding him up in one hand like a popsicle. The sudden change in he way that reality is perceived is disturbing, and suggests all of the subliminal tensions and currents that exist just beyond the panel borders of everyday life.

CONTINUES ➤

The MalpracBce Suite

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 37 of 59

ARCHIVE • ALAN MOORE ON ARCADE Of course the most bewildering thing is exactly how they managed to fit all of the good material mentioned at wearying length above – as well as all the worthy stuff I didn’t mention – into a mere seven issues, although I for one am glad that they did. To me Arcade was an almost perfect culmination of the whole idea of Underground Comix. Granted, there have been worthy individual efforts by the various Arcade contributors since then, but somehow without the same flair. RAW is a splendid magazine, but it’s intimidating. I can’t bring myself to criticise anything that is that well printed and I find myself approaching RAW in almost the same way as I approach gallery art – coldly and from a polite distance. Crumb’s Weirdo is similarly excellent, but I think that at least in terms of a magazine he needed someone to balance his consuming taste for artistic deviance with slightly less iconoclastic sensibilities. Balance is what Arcade achieved, in a nutshell. It balanced Griffith’s metaphysical slapstick against Spiegelman’s thirst for self-reverential comic material and ground their more explosive experiments with a solid anchor of Robert Crumb’s simple and unadorned storytelling. It pushed the medium in all sorts of new directions, the vast majority of which still remain to be properly explored almost ten years later. Anyone seriously interested in seeing what directions comics might go in the future could do a lot worse than checking out just how far they’ve been in the not too distant past. If the Mafia were really responsible for Arcade’s demise then perhaps Joe Valachi was right to squeal on the bastards after all. ∞ Alan Moore by MarBn Hand, 2012 ENDS ∞

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 38 of 59

Digital Comics Sample

THE CERTIFIED HUNT EMERSON MADCAP MAYHEM FROM THE MIND OF THE MASTER! ‘His mind works on a level untouched by most humans.’ – The Comics Journal Panel Nine proudly presents astounding strips by Hunt Emerson, including his team-up with Alan Moore, a fabulous Freak Brothers episode, the frolics of Firkin the cat and much more. The app collects together over 200 pages of essential Emerson – 27 comic strips supplemented with a host of eccentric extras including madcap illustrations, galleries of cover art and self-portraits, audio commentaries, and a brand new interview with the man himself. Hunt Emerson is one of the godfathers of the underground comix industry, with his 'Firkin the Cat' and ‘Phenomenomix’ strips both running for over 30 years. He has collaborated with Alan Moore and produced graphic novel adaptations of classics such as Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Dante's Inferno. His work has appeared in numerous publications and has been translated into a dozen languages.

THE CERTIFIED HUNT EMERSON Panel Nine • iPad • $9.99 User Comment ‘My favourite digital graphic novel. Love it to bits.’ – Daniel Wilson

PANEL MODE ENABLED.

Here INFINITY presents a page each from three strips from The Certified Hunt Emerson for your delight and edification.

CONTINUES ➤

Double-‐tap a panel on the comics pages that follow to view the strip panel-‐by-‐panel.

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 39 of 59

• Over 200 pages of Hunt Emerson mania! • 27 individual strips including: the full Leviticus 20 with Alan Moore, the complete Freak Brothers strip, Firkin the Cat, Calculus the Cat, Puss Puss and so much more! • Audio commentaries by Hunt • Gallery of illustrations • Gallery of self-portraits • Gallery of covers • Exclusive interview Available for iPad, $9.99. Tap this page to view the app in the App Store.

PANEL NINE

Interview

LIAM SHARP

TREATMENT: MEXICO CITY Madeﬁre • iPad / iPhone • FREE Current ‘mo=on book’ =tles on the Madeﬁre app include Treatment, Mono, Cap Stone and The Engine. All =tles are free. App is op=mized for iOS 5.

BURNING QUESTIONS Based on their custom-‐made MoBon Book tool, Madeﬁre is a new breed of publisher, hoping to break the boundaries of mainstream comics by uBlising sound, moBon, and interacBvity. With the support of well-‐known creators like Dave Gibbons, Brian Bolland, Bill Sienkiewicz, Mike Carey and Doug Braithwaite, the app launched with a bang, creaBng a plagorm for brand new content that could happily co-‐exist alongside tradiBonal comic techniques. PM Buchan talked with Liam Sharp for INFINITY…

CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 48 of 59

INTERVIEW • LIAM SHARP INFINITY What was the driving factor behind the creation of Madefire? LIAM SHARP I had been publishing traditionally (Mam Tor Publishing) at a point when things were getting tough for that marketplace, so I’d started to look at digital possibilities. Ben Wolstenholme, an old friend of mine, had been steeped in storytelling and progressive tech for 14 years as founder and CEO of Moving Brands. We got together over beers and the planets aligned! We were then introduced to our tech lead, Eugene Walden, by our backers – True Ventures (the people behind Wordpress) – and the three of us really started to engage with what could be done on the iPad if you built specifically for that platform. It got very exciting very quickly!

MONO Wri_en by Ben Wolstenholme and drawn by Liam Sharp

INFINITY Looking at the rest of the team, from as early as the computer game Beneath A Steel Sky Dave Gibbons has been involved in new platforms. LIAM SHARP Dave and I have known each other for years, and are both big Apple users. We’d trade notes at conventions about tricks you could use in Photoshop, and talk about possibilities for the medium. You only have to see an iPad to know it’s a nobrainer, but convincing hardcore comic fans that’s the case is another story. INFINITY Is there confusion between Motion Comics and Motion Books?

“[Comics on the iPad are] a no-‐brainer, but convincing hardcore comic fans that’s the case is another story.”

LIAM SHARP In some circles Motion Comics is a term that provokes scorn, but mostly – we think – because it’s a passive watching experience. With Madefire you’re still reading, and interacting with the pages. You, as the reader, dictate CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 49 of 59

INTERVIEW • LIAM SHARP the pace. INFINITY Now that you’ve had a little time to play around with the software, what sort of stories does the Madefire platform seem to particularly lend itself to? LIAM SHARP I think it’s wide open, but the elements of sound and timing lend themselves to horror and comedy in a way that comics always struggled with. You can produce a ‘reveal’ in the Madefire app that wouldn’t be possible with paper. INFINITY Are there similarities between your Mam Tor publishing ethos and Madefire? LIAM SHARP Mam Tor was creator driven, designed to let frustrated artists and writers scratch old itches, and also to showcase new talent. There’s certainly that element in what we’re doing at Madefire – but Madefire goes up to 11! Print publishing as an independent is tricky, and it’s hard to be heard in all the noise of the comic marketplace, let alone compete with the big, established companies. With the advent of the iPad it was clear where the medium would take us, we just had to be visionary, and treat the new platform with respect, not a yearning hankering for the good old days. We embraced change – after all, without change there would never have been comics in the first place… INFINITY What’s the future of Madefire? Other than building a library of content, where do you go from here?

TREATMENT MEXICO by Robbie Morrison and Doug Braithwaite et al

“We are bringing other publishers on to the reader – iconic characters with all-‐new MoIon Book stories…”

LIAM SHARP We aim to continue to grow, to keep our software live and adaptable, led by the needs and requests of the creators. We are bringing other publishers on to the reader – iconic

CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 50 of 59

INTERVIEW • LIAM SHARP characters with all-new Motion Book stories… And we’re still learning the grammar of a new medium. Very exciting days! INFINITY Which creators are working with Madefire? LIAM SHARP We have a Steve Niles and Mark Texeira story just finished, Dan Brereton, Ben Templesmith, James Robinson, Dave Taylor, Neil Googe… add them to Brian Bolland, Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave Gibbons, Chris Weston, Mike Carey, Dougie Braithwaite, Gary Erskine… the contributors are seriously stellar! INFINITY Now that Madefire is moving so quickly, how much opportunity do you have to actively write or illustrate comics? Do you find that you’re having to take a step back?

TREATMENT MEXICO by Robbie Morrison and Doug Braithwaite et al

LIAM SHARP You’re right to pick up on this. I have far less time than I used to have, but I go out of my way to make it. I have so many things I want to try at this extremely exciting time, right at the birth of a new medium, that I’m completely energised creatively. But yes – I’d love a month or two just to create stuff! I think that may be some distance in the future… INFINITY If you could have had this technology to tell one story from your career so far, which one would you most liked to have seen brought to life?

“I have so many things I want to try at this extremely exciIng Ime, right at the birth of a new medium…”

LIAM SHARP Great question. Most probably Man-Thing, because that was the most broadly creative book I ever drew and I think the material would have worked like a dream on the Madefire app. Would have been a lot of fun! ∞

ENDS ∞

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 51 of 59

Art for Art’s Sake

HUNT EMERSON’S ILLUSTRATIONS

Hunt Emerson broke out of the 1970s Birmingham alternative arts scene with a duo of funny felines: sex-mad Firkin for Fiesta and frazzled Calculus Cat for Escape. His penchant for comedy timing and elasticated brushstrokes perfectly suited graphic adaptations such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Casanova’s Last Stand and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A mainstay of Britain’s underground publisher Knockabout, his comics have appeared in numerous comic books and magazines, with his ‘Phenomenomix’ strip appearing regularly in the Fortean Times since 1979, and his two-page adult feature ‘Firkin’ appearing in Fiesta since 1981. Emerson was chosen as one of the 75 European Masters of Cartooning of the 20th Century by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and his latest literary adaptation is Dante’s Inferno. He lives in Birmingham.

CONTINUES ➤

INFINITY #2 • November 2012 • 52 of 59