Moon Queen creator Chris Reynolds has been in touch to tell us that one of his paintings, of Brownsea Island/Poole Harbour has been chosen to be part of the Stuckists Antidote to the Ghastly Turner Prize at the ViewTwo Gallery, Liverpool from 6 - 29 November 2008, part of the Independent strand of the Liverpool Biennial Festival of Contemporary Visual Art.
The infamous phenomenon that is The Stuckists - an international art movement for contemporary figurative painting with ideas, described as "anti the pretensions of conceptual art or Anti-anti-art" - returns to Liverpool for the first time since their major show at the Walker Art Gallery for the 2004 Biennial, which proved hugely popular and very successful.
The Stuckist art group was founded in 1999 by Charles Thomson and Billy Childish, who has since left, with 13 artists to promote “figurative painting with ideas” and oppose conceptual art. There are now over 160 sister groups in 40 countries. The name comes from an insult by Tracey Emin to Childish that he was “stuck”.
The Stuckists have gained considerable media attention for their demonstrations against the Turner Prize, and also instigated a media scandal about the Tate’s purchase of its own trustees’ work. This led to a Charity Commission ruling that the Tate had been acting illegally for 50 years.
• Brownsea Island, the current location for BBC Autumnwatch with Bill Oddie and Kate Humble. is just one of many paintings by leading British Stuckists that form the exhibition and large (A1) prints of this painting are available in a limited edition of 100 from the Guildhall Gallery, Poole, UK, price £39, Tel: (01202) 673 715.
Comic creator Chris Reynolds, the groundbreaking talent behind the classic Mauretania graphic novel, has just added a new Moon Queen adventure to the comics to mobile service ROK Comics.
Titled Curtain Crawlers, the spooky tale is different to the previous run of Moon Queen stories, which feature Chris' very own take on superheroes and superheroines, for a number of reasons.
"Because of their content, the previous Moon Queen stories all use ROK Comics' 'R' rating," Chris explains. "Curtain Crawlers is the first Moon Queen story I felt could take the 'U' rating without bowdlerising it into nothingness."
The story also markes the first Moon Queen story where Chris has taken 'as read' the previous body of stories as knowledge that, really, is required of the reader - so if you want to catch up with what has gone before your best bet is to subscribe to the WAP subscription service for just £3 for 30 days, and then you can read all the earlier Moon Queen stories on your mobile.
"I wanted a to go back to a story like my prose novels that's a bit more than just one, however interesting, incident from Moon Queen's life," says Chris of the haunting 24-episode tale. "In Curtain Crawlers, I wanted to write more of a novel-length type of thing – to cover that sort of ground - even if the final story isn't actually very long.
My inspiration for this is the amount of content they fit into the 45-minute episodes of post-Eccleston Doctor Who," he reveals. "I sometimes think some of these these zip by too quickly for me to get a proper grip on them, but that's where comics have a unique advantage shared with text novels - that you can take them at your own pace and re-read at will!"
There are more developments in this story, further expanding the Moon Queen mythos. "By now, I wanted to link the stories a bit with the world and the journey of Mauretania Comics," says Chris, "from which so far Moon Queen's been at arm's length. So Garnet Ross from 'Pure Holiday' makes a cameo appearance (at quite an important moment) and the themes and the concerns of the whole story are quite Mauretania-like, connecting with 'Pure Holiday' again in using audio recordings as an element of the plot.
"I've even re-used one of the imaginary locations from 'How To Do Your Own Dentistry' for the place where 'our' Moon Queen is held while the story unfolds."
Chris was one of the first creators to give ROK Comics a try when it comes to bringing comics to mobile and has some useful tips on developing new comics for the young medium.
"I found 'mobile storytelling' simple to get into because I nearly always draw strips using a uniform panel size anyway," he says, "and my scenes are generally quite short, so the translation to 'page-by-page' format is straightforward.
"The most recent thing I've learned, in correspondence with [ROK Comics Managing Editor John Freeman], is that it's best to have very brief episodes starting with a one-panel recap using the final panel of the previous episode."
At present, Moon Queen stories can only be found on mobile and on Chris' official web site MetroPoppyfield. While there are no plans for a print edition just yet, Marc Baines at Kingly Books, who, among other titles, also pulished The Dial by Chris and Voice of the Wilberforce by Ed Pinsent, is planning a new edition of the Penguin Mauretania.
• You can view all the comics on ROK Comics on your mobile by subscribing to the WAP service for a small monthly fee - $4 in the US, £3 in the UK, other countries also served. Simply visit this page on the ROK Comics site and choose the subscribe option. When you receive a WAP push message to your mobile, connect to the site using that link using your browser, bookmark it -- and you'll be subscribed to ROK Comics Mobile for the next month.
Everyone loves our superhero the Moon Queen - but she's blissfully unaware of it! Her best friend is the Bee - the only one who doesn't seem to want something from her. MQ's real name is Agnes Bale, she can fly and has super powers but she is far from invulnerable.
In Jelston's Lesson, the latest Moon Queen adventure to appear on ROK Comics, jealous Blink Bonny makes her life a misery!
Creator Chris Reynolds, who has been publishing Moon Queen on ROK Comics for a while now, created the classic graphic novel Mauretania first published by Penguin Books. His most famous character is Monitor, the strange, helmeted, spaceman aged between about eight and thirty, who had many strange and nostalgic adventures. Now Chris' latest character is the Moon Queen. She's sensitive like Monitor, but her adventures take place in a more colourful, sunny, upland world!
• You can view them all the Moon Queen strips on your mobile by subscribing to our WAP service.
Simply choose a strip you like on the main ROK Comics site, then follow the download to mobile links and choose the subscribe option (or just subscribe right out the door). When you receive a WAP push message to your phone, connect to the site using that link using your mobile, bookmark it, and you'll be subscribed to ROK Comics Mobile for the next month.
This link is exclusive to your phone, so don't lose it!
Legendary singer Pauline Murray of Pentration will read a chapter from Humfrey Jordan's 'Mauretania: Landfalls and Departures of Twenty-Five Years' to open the RMS Mauretania Maiden Voyage Centenary Exhibition in Newcastle.
The exhibit features paintings and comic art by Stuckist Painters and Mauretania Comics artists Paul Harvey and ROK Comics' Chris Reynolds, plus paintings by guest Stuckist Mike Tilley. It will also feature photographs and relics of the ship.
The Opening will be at Newcastle Arts Centre, 67 Westgate Road, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 1SG on Tuesday 18 September 2007 between 6.30-8.00pm. The Exhibition will continue until 29 September 2007..
Pauline Murray was lead singer in the 1977 punk band Penetration. They were signed to Virgin Records, released two highly acclaimed albums, many singles and toured extensively throughout Britain, Europe and the USA. After the band split in 1979 Pauline began a successful solo career and recorded the ground breaking Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls album with legendary Factory producer Martin Hannett. In 1984 she set up her own record label, Polestar, and released singles and an album as 'Pauline Murray and the Storm'. In 1990 she opened Polestar Studios, a rehearsal and recording facility in Newcastle. She is still writing, recording and performing with the reformed Penetration.
ROK Comics creator Chris Reynolds is one of several artists involved in events marking the centenary of the maiden voyage of the RMS Mauretania.
Chris has published several strips under his Mauretania Comics imprint.
An exhibition featuring comics and paintings by Newcastle Stuckist Painters and Mauretania Comics artists Paul Harvey and Chris Reynolds plus guest Stuckist Mike Tilley will run at the Newcastle Arts Centre between 18-29 September 2007. The Centenary Exhibtion Opening Night event takes place on Tuesday 18 September, between 6.30 - 8.00 pm.
On 16 November, there will be events in both Newcastle and New York to mark the centenary of the sailing, at the bar of Newcastle Arts Centre and at a venue in New York, with a centenary phone call between the venues. Paul Harvey and Chris Reynolds will be in Newcastle, while representatives of US Stuckist groups, joined by New York Stuckist Terry Marks and Connecticut Stuckist Tony (Baloney) Juliano will be in marking the event in the US.
The Mauretania was the longest-ever holder of the famous transatlantic speed record, the Blue Riband. Built in Newcastle, she sailed the line between Britain and the New World completely successfully for 25 years.
ROK Comics creator Chris Reynolds is working on a new Moon Queen strip that will appear on the comics-to-mobile project. Titled "Moon Queen in Las Vegas: The Moon Queen's Greatest Tragedy", we'll let you know when it launches.
Chris is the author of the seminal graphic novel Mauretania first published by Penguin Books, and his Adventures From Mauretania (available from lulu.com) was voted as one of the best comics of 2006 in the Comics Journal.
Chris also tells us that on 16 November he and Paul Harvey are planning an exhibition, "The Newcastle Stuckists Celebrate the Mauretania" as it will be the Centenary of the maiden voyage of the ship the comic was named after.
"We plan to have paintings and comic artwork by me and Paul," says Chris. More details as we get them.
Stuckism is a radical and controversial art group that was co-founded in 1999 by Charles Thomson and Billy Childish (who left in 2001) along with eleven other artists. The name was derived by Thomson from an insult to Childish from his ex-girlfriend, Brit artist Tracey Emin, who had told him that his art was 'Stuck'.
Stuckists are pro-contemporary figurative painting with ideas and anti-conceptual art, mainly because of its lack of concepts. Stuckists have regularly demonstrated dressed as clowns against the Turner Prize. Several Stuckist Manifestos have been issued. One of them Remodernism inaugurates a renewal of spiritual values for art, culture and society to replace the emptiness of current Postmodernism.
The web site www.stuckism.com, started by Ella Guru, has disseminated these ideas, and in five years Stuckism has grown to an international art movement with over 100 groups round the world. These groups are independent and self-directed.
Critically acclaimed comics artist Chris Reynolds has just added "Pure Holiday", a free-to-view taster of his highly regarded work, to ROK Comics. Here's the first of eight episodes...
In addition to this new strip, check out Chris fantastic Pay To View strip, Moon Queen.
Top British comics creator Chris Reynolds has signed aboard the ROK Comics-to-mobile project, launched this month at www.rokcomics.com.
ROK Comics enables creators and publishers to easily create comics for mobile phones which can then be distributed worldwide, delivered as Multi Media Messages. The Digitally Rights Managed delivery system works directly to mobiles and does not require additional software downloads or put any technical requirements on the reader.
Chris Reynolds is the author of the seminal graphic novel "Mauretania" first published by Penguin Books, and his "Adventures From Mauretania" was voted as one of the best comics of 2006 in the Comics Journal.
"I'm always happy to try out new ways of selling comics," says Chris Reynolds, who joins several creators already using the product. "Rok Comics seems an exciting new opportunity and I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes. The interface is easy to use once you get used to it."
"I'm starting with three projects: Some extracts from Mauretania Comics stories in the Sci-Fi section, A couple of episodes from Jenny in Stringtown in the Girl's comics section, and fourteen whole episodes of Adventures of the Moon Queen in the "Adult" Girls' section."
"I've read Chris' work on and off down the years: he was publishing comics just as I began working in the industry," says ROK Comics Managing Editor John Freeman. "His art is brilliant in its apparent simplicity, and I think The Moon Queen is perfect for mobile delivery.
Anyone who was there in the 1980s will remember Chris Reynolds ground-breaking graphic novel Mauretania, so I'm absolutely made up that he's given ROK Comics a try and has begun to upload some test strips.
Adventures From Mauretania was voted one of the Best Comics of 2006 in Comics Journal, with Chris described as the most underrated cartoonist of the last 20 years... "He has produced a rich body of work that continues to engage me even after many repeated readings, said Seth in the Comics Journal.
This is a strip from Chris' "Jenny in Stringtown" stories and I'm hoping there will be more to come.
You'll have topto download this comic to your mobile via the ROK Comics site to read it.
Moon Queen creator Chris Reynolds has been in touch to tell us that one of his paintings, of Brownsea Island/Poole Harbour has been chosen to be part of the Stuckists Antidote to the Ghastly Turner Prize at the ViewTwo Gallery, Liverpool from 6 - 29 November 2008, part of the Independent strand of the Liverpool Biennial Festival of Contemporary Visual Art.
