Tag: treasuryofbritishcomics

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‘Battle’ reborn: Rebellion to publish best-selling French graphic novel series

Rebellion Publishing is proud to present the international best-selling French graphic novel series Operation: Overlord for the first time in English – under the banner of Battle, one of the UK’s most cherished comic book properties.

Written by Michaël Le Galli and with fantastic art by Star Wars and Hellblazer artist Davide Fabbri, part one of the series set in World War Two is being published with this month’s Judge Dredd Megazine.

The series is being published under the new ‘Battle presents…’ banner, reviving the name of one of the greatest comic books in UK publishing history.

The acclaimed bandee desinee series tells four extraordinary tales of heroism set during the Normandy landings on D-Day, June 6th 1944, and is being reprinted in a series of reprint editions bagged with the Megazine. Each 48-page issue is a stand-alone story, set in separate locations such as Saint-Mere-Eglise, Merville, and of course Omaha Beach.

Part one comes with Judge Dredd Megazine #404, on sale in newsagents, comic book stores and online on 16th January.

Launched in 1975, Battle Picture Weekly was the groundbreaking war comic from IPC that published series such as Rat Pack, Major Eazy, Johnny Red, El Mestizo, Fighting Mann, and the critically-acclaimed World War One epic Charley’s War. Lauded for its no-nonsense heroes and gritty action, Battle fundamentally altered the comics landscape – readers lapped up its modern sensibilities and no-holds-barred attitude, and it led to the creation of both the ill-fated Action and global industry game-changer 2000 AD.

Rebellion graphic novel editor Oliver Pickles said: “It’s a great feeling to be able to publish Operation: Overlord under the Battle banner, much like the recent Sniper Elite series, and helps bring back the spirit of that classic British war comic title but with a modern sensibility.

“I am really looking forward to bringing Operation: Overlord to an Anglophone audience for the first time. The series has been hugely popular in France, with each book focusing on a different event of the D-Day landings, for instance there is a whole 48 page issue dedicated to the Omaha Beach assault by Easy Company. And the whole series has been drawn by Davide Fabbri, who comic readers will know from his Star Wars comics for Dark Horse, and more recently his Hellblazer run at DC Comics.”

The further volumes of Operation: Overlord will be collected with Judge Dredd Megazine numbers 405 (on sale 20th February), 406 (on sale 20th March) and 407 (on sale 17th April)

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OUT NOW: Wildcat! I think I love you…

EARTH IS DESTROYED! In 2488 Earth history professor, Turbo Jones predicted that the planet would be destroyed in 2500 by a vast meteoroid storm.

Ridiculed by the world’s leaders, Turbo spent the next twelve years constructing a huge spaceship and employing a group of volunteers to help him leave the Earth and find a new home in the stars…

Turbo Jones and his exploration party are soon captured and caught in a conflict between two alien races. His ingenuity saved him from the destruction of the Earth, but can it save him from the invading Arglon’s dinosaur army?

Originally serialised in Wildcat from 22nd October 1988-7th April 1989, Wildcat Holiday Special 1989, Wildcat Winter Special 1989 and Eagle & Wildcat from 8th April 1989-7th October 1989

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The 2000 AD Thrill-Cast: Comics from D-Day to deep space!

>> check out the full list now!

The 2000 AD Thrill-Cast is the award-winning podcast that takes you behind-the-scenes at the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic! As well as interviewing top creators and famous fans, we bring you announcements, competitions, and much more! You can subscribe to the Thrill-Cast on your favourite podcast app, or you can listen now at 2000AD.com/podcast

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OUT NOW: Ken Reid’s Creepy Creations

The collection of Ken Reid’s Creepy Creations is out now!

For the first time ever in a single collection, marvel at The Many-Headed Monster from Monmouth! Tremble at the sight of Terry the Tellible! Recoil in horror from The Fork-Eating Spaghetti Spook! And much more besides!

A testament to Ken Reid’s artistic genius and his hugely creative imagination, these illustrations have been collected and lovingly restored in all their (creepy) glory.

The 10th March 1973 saw the first issue of Shiver and Shake released on the newsstands in Great Britain. Like its stablemate Whizzer and Chips, it was two comics in one, with Shiver mainly consisting of horror-themed comedy strips. On the back page of the comic, readers were treated to ‘A crazy “Monster Piece” for you to cut out and collect!’, and thus the Creepy Creations were born! Readers were invited to send in their sketches for further instalments. Winners would receive a pound note for their work and see their creation brought to full-colour life by various Shiver and Shake artists (mainly by Reid). 

The Creepy Creations were a grand triumph. Seventy-nine appeared in total, with further entries appearing in annuals and specials. The success of this feature led to both the Wanted posters and WorldWide Weirdies being created for Whoopee!

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OUT NOW: El Mestizo!

He ain’t on anybody’s side but his own – Alan Hebden and Carlos Ezquerra’s groundbreaking character El Mestizo is out now!

Bursting out of the pages of legendary Battle Picture Weekly and perfect for fans of Moebius’s Blueberryand the motion picture Django Unchained, El Mestizo was once a slave who managed to escape to Mexico. Now he’s come back over the border – a mercenary for hire!

It is 1862 – a time of great turmoil as the American Civil War tears a nation in two, where dangerous men prosper through bloodshed. But does El Mestizo really work for either side, or is he playing them both?

Despite running for only for 16 weeks after its debut in 4th June 1977, El Mestizo was one of Carlos Ezquerra’s favourite characters – written specially for him by Alan Hebden at Battle editor Dave Hunt’s request Ahead of its time, this unusual Western showed a different view of the American Civil War with an anti-hero who was one of the first lead characters of colour in British comics. A groundbreaking piece of work and a true tribute to Ezquerra’s comic book vision!

This gorgeous hardcover collection includes the complete story, plus a new introduction by Alan Hebden.

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Get retro comic book T-shirts from The Treasury of British Comics

From terrifying tower-blocks to the mightiest super-team in history, these classic comics are the greatest in the world – and now we’ve got the T-shirts to prove it!

Grab the new T-shirts available from The Treasury of British Comics webshop featuring logos from some of the best comic books of the 1980s – Scream!, Misty, The Thirteenth Floor and El Mestizo – alongside Rebellion’s 2018 revival of some of the greatest characters in the known universe, The Vigilant!

Available in men’s and women’s sizes, these quality T-shirts feature logos and artwork from Rebellion’s vast archive of classic British comics and are a must for any discerning comic book fan!

The Thirteenth Floor

El Mestizo
Scream! logo

Misty logo, available in black and blue

The Vigilant logo

The Vigilant cover, art by Simon Coleby

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INTERVIEW: Scream! & Misty Special Lizzie Boyle and Yishan Li

It’s the most spooktacular time of the year and that means it’s time for the SCREAM! & MISTY SPECIAL 2018!

Featuring a petrifyingly perfect cover by Kyle Hotz and a 2000 AD webshop exclusive creeptacular cover by Lenka Šimecková, the comic is released in the UK and digitally in time for Halloween!

Inside you’ll find tales to terrify and stories to scare you stiff, including the return of undead WWI pilot ‘Black Max’ by Kek-W and Simon Coleby, more computerised chaos on the ’13th Floor’ by Guy Adams, John Stokes and Frazer Irving, ‘Black Beth’ by Alec Worley and DaNi, ‘Best Friends Forever’ by Lizzie Boyle and Yishan Li, and ‘Decomposition Jones’, a brand-new zombie/vampire mash-up by Richard McAuliffe and Steve Mannion.

Richard Bruton talked to Boyle and Li about their stand-alone strip for this new special…

Your strip in the 2018 Scream! & Misty Special is entitled ‘Best Friends Forever’, can you tell us what it’s all about?

LIZZIE BOYLE: Best Friends Forever is the story of a girl growing up in the Louisiana Bayou whose best friend is a giant albino alligator… It’s a new strip, a one-off short story about the unbreakable bonds of friendship. It also features a giant alligator so, you know, what’s not to like!

YISHAN LI: And it’s super fun to draw the alligator eating people!

Given that it’s a new strip, would you say that it’s more in the vein of a classic Scream! scare or more of a mysterious Misty strip?

LB: It’s a Misty story! Misty herself makes an appearance as she occasionally used to do in the older comics. To me, the Misty tone is one where the happy world we see masks some serious nastiness underneath, and where feisty, competent girls go into battle with the unexpected.

YL: I missed the last page when i first read the script, and thought it was a great story already, then I read the last page, and I was like… I totally didn’t expect that.

What do you remember of both Scream! and Misty the first time around and what is it about both comics that fills readers and creators with such nostalgia and a desire to see new strips with a Misty/Scream! vibe?

LB: I was too young the first time round (blushes), but I read the 2017 special and loved it. Once I heard that I would be writing for this year’s special, I read back to try to get under the skin of what is uniquely Misty.

A lot of Misty stories have a nostalgic ’40s/’50s, Enid Blyton feeling – sensible girls in sensible shoes who find themselves in bizarre and dangerous situations (often of their own making). So we’ve got a double espresso of nostalgia now: for the late ’70s original comics and for the older vibe that flavoured them. Also: we all like a good scare. Short, stand-alone scary stories aren’t going out of fashion any time soon.

Is this your first 2000 AD related work? And where else can people find your work?

YL: This is my first 2000 AD work. A lot of my friends are working with 2000 AD now and luckily I am as well. Very happy with that! My style was originally Manga, but over the years it’s become more and more comic, really influenced by many artists. I worked on the Buffy the High School Years graphic novels for Dark Horse, Convergence: Blue Beetle for DC, Sugar for Top Cow, and I’m currently working on another graphic novel for Top Cow, Swing [which] will come out next year published by Top Cow/Image, and I’ll have another new series with Lion Forge.

LB: This is my first official 2000 AD strip, though I’ve featured in Zarjaz; I have a story in the current issue based on the Wagner/Ransom classic Button Man. I’ve had a graphic novel, The Heart Which Makes Us, published by Batten Press. That’s a story about a forensic investigator who gets caught up in a child abduction case. The artwork by Aaron Moran in that book is among the darkest I have ever seen. I’ve also written a choose-your-own-adventure comic, Secret Gardens, in partnership with the Lowther Castle and Gardens Trust in the Lake District, contributed to a lot of anthologies and created four-part animal-based horror-comedy series, Sentient Zombie Space Pigs.

Who would you list amongst your influences?

LB: I love the tautness of John Wagner in thriller mode (hence the Button Man story in Zarjaz); the forensic examination of urban chaos of Will Eisner; the lyrical-yet-twisted worlds of Margaret Atwood and Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba; the historical world-building of Hilary Mantel and Neal Stephenson. And Neil Gaiman, who gets his own category!

The Scream! & Misty Special is out on 17th October – order your copy now!

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PRE-ORDER NOW: the complete El Mestizo

He ain’t on anybody’s side but his own – Alan Hebden and Carlos Ezquerra’s groundbreaking character El Mestizo is now available to pre-order!

Bursting out of the pages of legendary Battle Picture Weekly and perfect for fans of Moebius’s Blueberry and the motion picture Django Unchained, El Mestizo was once a slave who managed to escape to Mexico. Now he’s come back over the border – a mercenary for hire!

It is 1862 – a time of great turmoil as the American Civil War tears a nation in two, where dangerous men prosper through bloodshed. But does El Mestizo really work for either side, or is he playing them both?

Pre-order El Mestizo now >>

Despite running for only for 16 weeks after its debut in 4th June 1977, El Mestizo was one of Carlos Ezquerra’s favourite characters – written specially for him by Alan Hebden at Battle editor Dave Hunt’s request Ahead of its time, this unusual Western showed a different view of the American Civil War with an anti-hero who was one of the first lead characters of colour in British comics. A groundbreaking piece of work and a true tribute to Ezquerra’s comic book vision!

This gorgeous hardcover collection includes the complete story, plus a new introduction by Alan Hebden.

Also available to pre-order from:
Amazon UK >>
Midtown Comics (US) >>

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Rebellion acquires world’s largest archive of English-language comic books

Rebellion has assembled the world’s biggest catalogue of English language comic book properties following a major acquisition from TI Media.

The leading contemporary UK comics and graphic novel publisher has secured the complete comics and story paper rights to the archive of TI Media, published when the company was known as IPC. The deal encompasses more than 130 years of comic book publishing, with over 400 separate weekly and monthly titles and thousands of characters.

The archive includes Comic Cuts, the 19th Century title gave the comic book medium its name.

From Billy Bunter to June, from Tiger to Sexton Blake, from Valiant to Look-In, this vast addition to its existing archive establishes Rebellion, which already publishes the legendary British comics 2000 AD and Roy of the Rovers, as the custodian of both the vast majority of British comic book history and a priceless cultural treasure.

The deal includes comic strips such as famed British comics artist Don Lawrence’s groundbreaking ‘The Trigan Empire’, as well as lost work by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, the war comics of Italian comics legend Hugo Pratt and celebrated US comics icon Alex Toth, as well as works by award-winning novelist Michael Moorcock and classic US science fiction author Harry Harrison.

Jason Kingsley CEO of Rebellion says, “Rebellion’s reputation is not just as an innovative and forward thinking comic book publisher, but as the first company to respect and do justice to the extraordinary legacy of multiple generations of artists and writers who developed the comic book medium in this country. It gives me great pleasure to secure the future for this extraordinary archive and I am incredibly excited to able to bring back into print so many lost treasures.”

The archive encompasses virtually the entire comics publishing history of IPC, which – alongside DC Thompson – was one of the behemoths of 20th Century British periodical publishing, having grown out of the Victorian-era Amalgamated Press.

Publishing hundreds of different titles, IPC dominated the newsstands for decades but sold off its juvenile magazines division to tycoon Robert Maxwell in 1987. The new company, Fleetway, was sold to Danish children’s magazine and book publisher Egmont in 1992 but a marked decline in the industry led to virtually all the titles folding, apart from the weekly comic 2000 AD and the monthly Judge Dredd Megazine. These were acquired by Rebellion in the year 2000, which then acquired the rest of the Fleetway archive in 2016, and have now been reunited with the huge number titles IPC Magazines retained in 1987 (with the exception of the 1980s Eagle). 

This new acquisition affirms Rebellion’s place as the guardian of British comics as its Treasury of British Comics line, launched in 2017, begins to preserve and restore these lost treasures. Meanwhile, the company looks to the 21stCentury as it relaunches cultural icon Roy of the Rovers and continues to expand its comic book publishing arm.

About Rebellion:

Rebellion is the leading producer of games, comic books, books, film and TV. Founded in 1992, Rebellion has become one of Europe’s leading independent game developers and publishers, with bestselling franchises such as Sniper Elite 4 and Zombie Army Trilogy, and the Oxford-based company is a major publisher of books and comic books, as well as the custodian of the world’s biggest catalogue of English language comic book properties. Rebellion is also an independent producer of films and TV shows, based on its vast archive of new and classic characters.

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OUT NOW: Von Hoffman’s Invasion!

Two plucky young boys are all that’s stopping a genius Nazi scientist’s plans to use giant creatures to attack Britain’s village fêtes and national monuments in revenge for World War Two!

Tom Tully and Eric Bradbury’s Von Hoffman’s Invasion is possibly one of the weirdest, most madcap series British comics has ever come up with – a kind of 1970s British kaiju in a post-war landscape, mixed with genuine peril and funny capers.

A slice of utterly bonkers classic comics from the heyday of the British weekly paper industry – it has to be read to be believed!

Available in print from: The Treasury of British Comics webshop, book stores, Amazon UK, Amazon US, and comic book stores via Diamond

Available in digital from: The Treasury of British Comics webshop, Amazon Kindle, the 2000 AD apps for iPad, Android and Windows 10 devices

CREATIVE TEAM: Tom Tully (w) Eric Bradbury (a)
PAPERBACK, 130 pages
PRICE: £12.99 (UK)
ISBN: 9781781086261
DIAMOND: JUN181957