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Saturday Runaround – Wossy's Bags Of Fun

Published Sat, 10 Apr 2010 08:10:17 -0500

ColleenWatch: You know that fuss a few weeks ago over Colleen Doran being mistakenly advertised as doing a piece of Girls Comics #2 – when she hadn't heard of the comic in question? It was a simple mistake, the solicitations mixing up Colleen Coover for Colleen Doran.

Well, now it seems that actually a pinup by Colleen Doran will appear in the comic after all. She was approached for issue 4 and it was then bumped up to issue 2. Those those original solicitations were right after all – retroactively.

WossyWatch: Jonathan Ross has a long talk with The Guardian about Turf and stuff. Here are a few fun extracts.

"My love affair with comics," he says cheerfully, "is more important to me than my love of films, or my work in TV, or just about anything outside my family. You're hardwired for it, if you fall in love with comics when you're 11. And I think if there's one good thing I can maybe achieve with – with 'my celebrity'," he smiles half-ironically, "it's to try to broaden the horizons and widen the readership of this particular entertainment which I adore and which is somewhat belittled and denigrated and ignored. I just want to see comics getting a fair critical chance."

Ross had been adamant beforehand that he was going to talk only about comics, and nothing else. Definitely not the BBC, or Sachsgate, or his salary. But self-censorship doesn't seem to come naturally, and by the afternoon he's telling anecdotes about accidentally waking his wife up in bed in LA by masturbating next to her. She woke up with a start, screaming "Earthquake!" – one of her great fears, unfortunately – presenting Ross with the tricky choice of letting her believe a quake had just struck, or admitting it was only him wanking. (He opted for the latter.)

The pair declined an offer from Marvel, the Disney-owned comic conglomerate, to publish Turf, choosing to work instead with Image, the only major independent comic publisher. "Marvel would have doubled the first print run," Edwards says, "but with them it's all commercially driven, whereas the guys at Image are just so into it." He looks astonished when I mention Ross's reputation for greed. "Oh God, no," he laughs, pointing out that Ross hasn't taken his share of the money from Turf, and is actually subsidising Edwards so he can afford to turn down other work. When I ask about Turf's target audience, they both look surprised. "I think we're probably writing for ourselves, aren't we?" Ross says. "I don't sit down and think, right, who's going to like this? I just try to write a good story."

All comics, Ross says, have a subtext. The classic subtext, and the psychological genesis of all superhero characters, he goes on, is "usually about not fitting in and all that. But what Turf is about – in my head, anyway – is connection. It's about a life not being worth living unless you have people around you and connect. It's about not following your basest instincts, not following urges or ambition. It's about saying family's important, other people are important. One of the characters, Susie, is initially an ambitious young journalist who wants to make a name for herself. And then she comes to realise all of her ambitions mean nothing, because actually, you know, deep down all the things we achieve or acquire via work are ultimately unimportant."

BagWatch: The upcoming Losers bag design for Forbidden Planet.

ZudaWatch: Aaron Alexovich, whose comic work can be found in the Minx titles – Kimmie66 and Confessions of a Blabbermouth and in Vertigo's Fables, currently has a comic on Zuda called Eldritch.

Alexovich, who also contributed designs for Invader Zim and Avatar: The Last Airbender is partnering with artist Drew Rausch, an artist who has worked for Boom Studios, APE Entertainment, and Slave Labor.

Their comic, which is currently in second place, details the origins of a bubbling infection that's about to overtake the California coastline.

It's a little bit Sam Kiethy isn't it? In a good way.

ProjectWatch: One Wondercon video interview with both Chandra Free (The God Machine) and Patrick McEvoy (Starkweather: Immortal) of Archaia Studio Press, let us know that they have a secret project they're working together on, and hope to have it pitched by San Diego this summer.

GalleryWatch: The fourth annual cartoon show at the Chris Beetles Gallery in London is running until 1st May. It features the caricature work of David Levine who died at the end of last year, with forty pieces on display.

DailyShowWatch: I've been writing for the Daily Show blog Indecision Forever on the UK General Election. Here are the first three pieces, more to come next week. Thought I should mention it. Anyway, they probably need the hits.

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