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Thursday, June 25 2009

Eastern Promise

Friends,
A short notice from me this time I'm afraid, as I'm being bounced like a pinball between various priorities : (
This weekend I'm privileged to be a guest of the Baltic Comic Festival on the 27th and the 28th of June, in Gdansk, Poland. I'll be giving my regular talk at some point during the proceedings, and signing books as usual. Details are available at http : //www.bfk.hanami.pl/index_eng.php. If you're in the neighbourhood make sure you come along!
More from me shortly...

Posted by David Lloyd at 11:02 AM | Permalink

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Tuesday, May 26 2009

Ending In Madeira

Friends,
I'll be at a Book Fair in Madeira this last weekend of May, at the kind invitation of Roberto Macedo Alves, who owns the only comic book store on the island - Seventh Dimension. If you're a resident of that beautiful place, or happen to be vacationing there , please come and say hi. Details of the event should be obtainable from Roberto via his blog - http://roberto.setimadimensao.com/.
I'll be giving the How I Got Into This Crazy Business and Ended Up Bringing V For Vendetta To The World talk at some point in the proceedings. And this same explanation of my notoriety will be delivered in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, next week. Details of that can be found at www.2dfestival.com, which will also be attended by my good friend, Bryan Talbot, who, by the way, has a trailer on YouTube of his new book, Grandville, which is terrific. See it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqMuf2ejpok&feature=channel_page.
See you somewhere soon : ) And more from me later...

Posted by David Lloyd at 12:49 PM | Permalink

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Tuesday, May 05 2009

Imminent Appearances and Horrifying Inaccuracies

Friends,
Lots here today.
News of signings, and generally being around and about at the Comic Expo next weekend in Bristol - for details go to http://www.fantasyevents.org/index2. Then a final preview - at least, from me - of the newly coloured Absolute V bridging pages, which I hope you'll enjoy seeing.
And, finally, some words from the renowned editor of Warrior, Dez Skinn - the comissioner of V in it's original incarnation - who's giving us the story on how the seminal British horror magazine he edited in the 70s, House of Hammer, found itself with an annoying change of title just as it was getting into its stride. Some people, including myself, were under the illusion that this occurred because of issues over title copyright, so I invited Dez to straighten the record through a contribution to this News Plus posting. His story paints a picture that is very interesting and revealing of the publishing world at the time.
But, firstly, as usual, I'll be at the only regular English comics convention in Bristol from 9th-10th May. On Sat signing next to the hotel bar - yes, it's true, but I swear I had nothing to do with it - from 11am-1pm, then at Draw The World Together from 2-3, then at the American Dream table from 4.30-6.00pm. On Sunday I'll be at the American Dream table from 11-12am, and then from 2-4pm. If you make it, please come and say hi.

And now, from Dez, how Hammer became a Horror :
I'd left IPC in high dudgeon after 5 years, when my attempts to edit a weekly kids' horror comic, Chiller, was revised as Buster Book of Spooky Stories (an annual), so when I had the brief at Williams/ Top Sellers/GBD to create new titles it didn't take long to drag out my old Chiller notes. Hammer House was only three doors away from our offices, so I revised the Chiller dummy as House of Hammer and booked an appointment with their head of productions, Michael Carreras.
While others had tried (and failed) to license the title, I was amazed to find Michael's right hand man, script editor Christopher Wicking, knew my passion and dedication to comics and such through buying my fanzine Fantasy Advertiser. Chris told Michael he felt they'd be in safe hands with me, so they left me to get on with it. None of the contemporary licensing approvals were ever sought, in fact the first Hammer would see of our efforts would be a bunch of printed complimentary copies, except for our drinks evenings when I'd often take along new artwork I was particularly pleased with.
Michael, who admitted our covers were often better than their original film posters, even borrowed our first Father Shandor pencil art to take to New York to visually pitch as a new film.
The most frustrating time was when we launched the US edition. American distributor Curtis had expressed an interest, but thought the title was more like a DIY magazine (doh!) so, with a 250,000 US print run hanging in the balance, I changed the title! A first "best of" issue was put together but I foolishly waved the news to a fanzine, Comic Media News, which had interviewed Famous Monsters publisher Jim Warren a month before, so he was on their mailing list. I'd met Warren over dinner at Browns Hotel with Peter Cushing, and we got on. But maybe it was because I was to be editing UK editions of his Creepy and Eerie magazines, and the Hammer Films tie-in Vampirella (a film then in development). Warren said he felt I'd make a fine UK editor for his line, but didn't want me to talk about House of Hammer ("Number 27" he called it, meaning it was the 27th attempt to "rip off" Famous Monsters ).
When he read about us hitting the US with HoH, retitled House of Horror with "Hammer's" as a small corner prefix, he quickly put together an ashcan of old FM material under the House of Horror name, got 500 copies into shops to legally register it, and sent us a cease and desist letter, claiming it infringed on his "well established" title of the same name.
With 250,000 almost at New York docks and another issue's 250,000 leaving our Finnish printers, I couldn't just dump them. I checked out US printers and discovered I could overprint the words "House of " with something else... Halls of, Hutch of, Hayrack of... Brazenly I told Warren we'd be putting them out anyway, but under a different name by paying a printer $500 to overprint, unless he wanted to grant us a 2-issue license and get the $500 himself! Knowing he couldn't stop us, he took the money and I changed the title again with its third US (20th UK?) issue to Hammer's Halls of Horror. But it will always be House of Hammer to those of us who care.

I echo that last sentence. More soon, folks. Well, as soon as I can...

Posted by David Lloyd at 09:45 AM | Permalink

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Friday, April 17 2009

Very Interesting

Friends,
Here's another preview of the newly-colored Absolute V For Vendetta bridging pages from the beautiful package coming your way in August.
And while I'm here and showing you this material, I want to clear up a misconception that many of you may be suffering from over how V came to be published in colour after it's long run in Warrior in b/w - in a form that many admirers of the graphic novel still have a great fondness for. This didn't happen because DC Comics insisted on it as part of the deal of reprinting and continuing the serial, as many may imagine. DC's Executive Editor at the time, Dick Giordano, asked me if I wanted it to be reprinted in b/w and kept in b/w for future issues. I said I didn't, because I knew that the widest readership could only be accessed through publishing it in full colour. This was not a decision I made because of a blinkered interest in the greater financial rewards of gaining the widest readership - it was because I wanted the work and its message to spread as far as it could possibly go.
In my view, what had prompted Dick to offer me that choice between colour and b/w from the high position he occupied in a company which was built on colour comics, was the remarkable success of some of the b/w indie books of the time, such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which sold massively despite being in monotone. I thought then that this development in comic-reader habits was a detour, not a new highway, and I was convinced that Vendetta could be coloured appropriately and effectively in its new incarnation. Printing didn't always do it's best in representing the skill that Steve Whitaker and Siobhan Dodds - V's major colourists - applied to the work, but that's another long story. For those interested, I can tell you that the definitive colour balances in V were applied to the hardback version of the collection in 2006 and are now also seen in the latest softcovers. And, of course, they will appear in the Absolute edition.
Another of the new pages next posting...

Posted by David Lloyd at 01:54 PM | Permalink

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Tuesday, April 07 2009

Next At LX

Friends,
Closer to home for my next signing trip - and the last for a while.
This weekend I'll be at Eastercon - the 60th British Science Fiction Convention at the Cedar Court Hotel, Bradford, Yorks, between 10th and the 14th. I'll also be giving a couple of talks there. Details at www.lx2009.com.
The last time I attended a convention that wasn't entirely concerned with the medium I work in was in LA in '06, when the SF con in Anaheim was part of a tour of cons I hastily arranged in an effort to tell as many people as I possibly could about the unheralded release of my crime thriller Kickback in the US. Had a nice time there after initial disorientation and I look forward to having a similarly enjoyable time at Eastercon.
Longer posting, plus more new colour art from the upcoming Absolute V For Vendetta, next week...

Posted by David Lloyd at 10:39 AM | Permalink

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Wednesday, March 25 2009

Spain Again

Friends,
Late news of a couple of signings and talks I'll be doing in Spain :
First, tomorrow, 26th March, in Murcia at the Regional Library as part of their Comic Corner conference. I'll be giving the How I Got Into This Crazy Business And Ended Up Bringing V For Vendetta Into The World talk at 8pm.
And later I'll be doing the same thing at the Castellon Comic Festival - Comics09 - at the Art School, on April 2nd at 6pm. Times of signings unset as yet.
If you're in the neighbourhood around any of those events please come along. And my apologies for the lateness of notification. As you may know from any previous experience you've had with this site, things don't always appear on it with the regularity you deserve...
But I'll be back soon.

Posted by David Lloyd at 01:50 PM | Permalink

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Tuesday, March 10 2009

Absolutely!

Friends,
It's a while since my last post...
From the day I got back from the NYCC, I've been in a deadline tunnel. A place where many of us in this biz sadly spend much of our time. It's the kind of tunnel in which all that matters is getting to the end of it, and where paying the slightest attention to the walls around you may lead to the danger of climbing them. Though this particular version of the tube was not so frightful as many can be, and was, in fact, quite pleasant, it needed to be entered with resolve. The mission? Coloring all the ' bridging ' pages from the original ten-issue run of V For Vendetta for the Absolute V For Vendetta edition to be released in August.
For those of you who are only familiar with V in it's collected form as a paperback or hardback, or in the various versions of it which have been published around the world, the bridging pages were full-page illustrations which I created for the original issues in order to link together the separate chapters of the story, and sometimes lead into and out of the issues. For the purpose of printing economics, all of the individual issues had to have a specific page-count, but the interiors of the issues couldn't be completely filled with reprint story material without breaking the chapters up. Blank pages were not an option of course, and we didn't want any advertising filling these blanks and marring the atmosphere of the story - so the concept of using bridging pages arose. My intention with them was never to use them to add meaning that wasn't intended to the end of a chapter if they followed one, or to it's beginning if the pages preceded a chapter. My purpose at all times was for them to complement the action and not distort it. Within those boundaries I had a very enjoyable and creative time, and produced some illustration work I'm proud of.
At the time this work was done, there was no budget available to pay for these illustrations to be fully colored and little time to do it anyway, so they were all simply tinted with an overall tone of any color I considered appropriate for the atmosphere of the chapters they were attached to. But for the Absolute edition, I was offered the opportunity to fully color all these pages, and I gladly took it. Over 50 of these full-page illustrations are now in full color, and have been colored using the same palette that V's colorists - Siobhan Dodds and Steve Whitaker - used in the individual chapters they worked on, to homage their contribution and join theirs in it's tone. Siobhan and Steve used watercolor and colored inks respectively for their work, but I used colored pencils, manipulated in Photoshop, in a repetition of the technique I applied to the color of my graphic novel, Kickback. It worked well in maintaining the look of the original color work of Steve and Siobhan.
This new color is part of a great package in the Absolute Vendetta, which will look very much like a perfect binder of all the original issues of the serial, reprinting for the first time absolutely all of the art they contained, and more of the preparatory art that went into all the issues.
Here's a sneak preview. A couple more - but just a couple more - to come later. Just for you..
Be back quicker next time, folks. And that's a promise.

Posted by David Lloyd at 03:50 PM | Permalink

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Thursday, January 29 2009

New York News

Folks,
Well, here's the full list of where I'll be popping up during the NYCC from Friday 6th February to Sunday 8th February. And if you catch me in the crowd wandering around the show at any other time, don't hesitate to say hi.
For DC Comics booth, I'll be signing from 1-2 on all three days. On Friday from 6-7, I'll be at the Autographing Area, on Level 3,Table 4.
For Dark Horse, I'll be signing from 5-6 on Saturday. I'll also be putting in some time signing for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art from 4-5 on Saturday.
See you there if you can make it!

Posted by David Lloyd at 12:36 PM | Permalink

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Thursday, January 22 2009

The Big Picture

Friends,
The big - 70cm x 50cm - limited edition print I told you about is now available from Bruno Graff at www.brunograff.com. If you happen to be going to Angouleme this year, Bruno will have them on sale there : )
Lastly, in this brief posting : I've yet to fix all signing times for my visit to the NYCC, but I will be at the Autograph Table on Friday, 6th Feb, between 6 and 7pm.
More soon...

Posted by David Lloyd at 11:59 AM | Permalink

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Saturday, January 17 2009

I Am Not A Number, I Am A Free Man

Friends,
Firstly a word about the death of Patrick McGoohan a few days ago. Not only a charismatic and stylish actor, writer, and director, but a true pioneer from a time when British television production was not totally dominated by the dictatorship of ratings-wars, and experimentation was tolerated. Without the inspiration of the amazing and ground-breaking series McGoohan created, The Prisoner, V For Vendetta would not have existed in it’s present form. The Prisoner’s central message of upholding the right of the ‘ individual to be individual ‘ was key to the series which Alan and myself put together. If there are any admirers of V out there who have yet to see The Prisoner, I urge you to alter that situation as soon as possible...

As I promised last posting, I have another jigsaw piece of an illustration commission to show to you and explain. This one is from an anthology series of war memoirs issued by French publisher Soleil. Called Words Of Stars, this volume featured some of the tragic stories of children who were separated from their parents during the Second World War. My story was scripted by Serge Le Tendre and narrated the experience of someone who was rescued from the fate that befell the rest of his family, who were consigned to their deaths in a Nazi concentration camp. It used a combination of past, present and dream to tell the story, which I clarified in the conventional way of using differing colours, strengths of colours, and tints – b/w wash for the dream, sepia for one area of the past, a gritty, dull full-colour for another flashback sequence, and a glossy, brighter full-colour for the Sixties conclusion.
I had only one problem with it, which the computer was invaluable in solving for me. The script had clearly been originally intended as a teleplay or short film, and it used the idea of motion in a way that is difficult to capture convincingly in strip form : e.g. a Wheel Of Fortune is still and unlit ; then lights come on ; then it starts to move ; then it spins faster. A carousel in the story does the same thing. I found a computer application could do this much more dynamically and effectively than any illustration technique I could think of using. It took a bit of experimentation to get exactly the right look I needed from the blur filters in Photoshop, but it worked. Here’s part of the strip below.
Words Of Stars is scheduled to be published in English this year, I believe. Meanwhile, you can find it on sale in France under the title Paroles D'Etoiles. My work is just one of a great collection of writing and art telling some sad, but often uplifting stories of a dark time.
Lastly, for all you folks in New York or coming to New York for the Convention from 6th Feb to 8th, I shall be attending. Flying there with one of Mr Sullenberger's disciples, I hope... Won’t have a table like last time, but I will be signing at various places and times, and will post information here as I have it.
Be seeing you!

Posted by David Lloyd at 05:51 PM | Permalink

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