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!
He ain’t on anybody’s side but his own – Alan Hebden and Carlos Ezquerra’s groundbreaking character El Mestizois 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.
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!
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!
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?
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.
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.
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!
Following the success of last year’s fright-filled outing, the Scream and Misty Special returns this Hallowe’en!
With a creepy cover by Kyle Hotz and webshop exclusive cover by Lenka Šimečková, two of Britain’s best loved comics reunite for an anthology of brand new tales – guaranteed to terrify and entertain you!
With more treats than tricks, this issue features Black Max by Kek-W and Simon Coleby, 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 by Richard McAuliffe and Steve Mannion.
The Scream and Misty Special is coming to a newsagent or comic book shop near you on 31 October – or you can pre-order via 2000 AD‘s webshop now!
He’s the British Army’s number one secret weapon – he is the Steel Commando!
Tomorrow is V-Day – The Vigilant hits shelves in the UK and Ireland, as well as digitally on the 2000 AD webshop and apps!
We’ve been giving readers the chance to discover the first appearances of some of the classic characters revived in this brand new title!
Created by Frank Pepper and Alex Henderson, and debuting in Thunder in 1970, the Steel Commando was a Mark 1 Indestructible Robot developed by British scientists in World War Two. He quickly became became a thorn in the side of the Axis powers but, due to a programming glitch, he would only take orders from Ernie Bates – the laziest soldier in the British Army!
Steel Commando is just one of the classic series being revived and rebooted in The Vigilant, out on 15th August!
When the evil forces of Von Hoffman and Dr Mesmer team up and pluck the immortal Adam Eterno from the winds of time, all of reality is under threat! Only The Vigilant; a mighty team composed of super-beings, warlocks, warriors and monsters stand between us and total chaos!
Join The Leopard from Lime Street, Steel Commando, Dr. Sin, Pete’s Pocket Army, Blake Edmonds, Yao, and Thunderbolt the Avenger on their premiere adventure!
This much-anticipated US-format reboot and reinvention of classic British characters from the 1970s and 1980s features the work of Simon Furman (Transformers), Simon Coleby (Judge Dredd), DaNi (Judge Anderson), Henrik Sahlstrom (Vice Press), Staz Johnson (Catwoman) and many more!
It came whoosing out of the sky like a giant comet – but this other-worldly visitor brought more than fire and fear! Soon, young Pete Parker would find a new gang of friends who may be small in stature but they’re big in friendship!
With just a day to go until The Vigilant hits shelves, we’re giving readers the chance to discover the first appearances of some of the classic characters revived in this brand new title!
First appearing in Buster in 1973 and created by Tom Tully and Francisco Solano Lopez, Pete’s Pocket Army saw six tiny aliens crash land on Earth and then adopt young Pete Parker. These alien castaways – Kon-Dar, Dokk, Moonie, Grunf, Tigg and Zapp – lived in his pockets and spent their time helping Pete get even with school bullies and Pete’s sneaky cousin, Julie.
Pete Parker and his diminutive alien chums are just one of the classic series being revived and rebooted in The Vigilant, out on 15th August!
When the evil forces of Von Hoffman and Dr Mesmer team up and pluck the immortal Adam Eterno from the winds of time, all of reality is under threat! Only The Vigilant; a mighty team composed of super-beings, warlocks, warriors and monsters stand between us and total chaos!
Join The Leopard from Lime Street, Steel Commando, Dr. Sin, Pete’s Pocket Army, Blake Edmonds, Yao, and Thunderbolt the Avenger on their premiere adventure!
This much-anticipated US-format reboot and reinvention of classic British characters from the 1970s and 1980s features the work of Simon Furman (Transformers), Simon Coleby (Judge Dredd), DaNi (Judge Anderson), Henrik Sahlstrom (Vice Press), Staz Johnson (Catwoman) and many more!
