More Moon Queen In Development

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.

Sporting Swine joins ROK Comics

The Sporting Swine by Barney Farmer and Lee Healey, which first appeared in top men's magazine Maxim, is the latest professional strip to join the many others on ROK Comics from some of the UK's top comic creators.

The Sporting Swine has appeared in Maxim since around June 2005, initially in the UK only, then various European editions - including the Czech Republic and Bulgaria.

At the moment it appears, sporadically, in the US edition.

Barney and Lee are the team behind the critically acclaimed Drunken Bakers which appears in Viz magazine, which leading comic creator Alan Moore once described as "horrible" but "really funny" and Roberta Smith of the New York Times praised for "the aesthetic compression of Mr Farmer's dialogue and Mr Healey's Iine," which she said "convey an oppressive sense of the
drinker's irresistable drive for oblivion."

"The characters came along January 2003 in an ill-fated strip called ‘Meat, the Wife’ Lee and I pitched at Viz," explains writer Barney Farmer. "It was sort of a dig at that anthropomorphistic comedy which has hung around like a bad smell ever since it was both made popular then mined to completion by Gary Larson in The Far Side.

"By 2003 this concept had reached a point where a tedious stand-up or sit-com character could say 'I saw a dog sharpening some pencils today' or 'What if monkeys opened bank accounts?' and expect, at worst, a reflex snigger.

"Anyhow, this non-Viz strip was about one man’s futile and infuriating attempts to drum human ways into his sow of a wife. The first (and only) strip had him slowly, surely bursting a spleen as she failed to comprehend the telephone. Wouldn’t even pick it up."

Neither did Viz, and the pair only came to mind again early 2005 when Greg Gutfeld, then editor of Maxim, asked us to come up with a more light-hearted strip for the magazine to go alongside their other strip Adventures of a Widower.

"I'm not sure how many we've done so far," says Barney, "But the best is the baseball one."

You can view a free sample of The Sporting Swine on ROK Comics below.

Colbert keeps busy

Just back from the San Diego Comic Convention where he has been busy promoting Crazy Mary, available via ROK Comics, creator Michael Colbert tells me the first print version of the story will be released in the US in November through Digital Webbing Presents.

Around the same time, Dimestore Productions is releasing an anthology of comic stories which includes another of Mike's stories, Krane, and Imperium Comics is looking at another short he wrote (with all the art already done) called Golem for their Trailer Park of Terror title.

Most importantly, says Mike, "I just bought a 12 inch tall radio controlled talking Dalek at comicon and I chase my dog around with it!" It's always good to have a hobby!

Here's a preview of "Crazy Mary" on ROK Comics:

Rok Comics' Managing Editor John Freeman Interviewed

31st July 2007: Comics to mobile project Rok Comics' Managing Editor John Freeman will feature in an upcoming 'Nightgig' podcast, talking about the company's $10,000 Humour Comic competition which runs until end August 2007 -- and the opportunities ROK Comics offers publishers and individual creators alike to create and sell strips for mobile phones.

The Gigcast is an independent popular Podcast for fans of webcomics, by fans of webcomics which this week celebrated its 100th episode.

Publishers already signed aboard ROK Comics include the Britain's Daily Express and Daily Mirror, Egmont, Look and Learn, Markosia and more with "Garfield", "Doonesbury", "Too Much Coffee Man", "Robin Hood" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" already available on site, soon to be followed by the likes of "Andy Capp", "Garth", "Jeff Hawke" and other classic strips.
ROK Comics also features "Half Moon Investigations", a mobile version of a comic strip drawn by British artist John Royle based on the book by Eoin ("Artemis Fowl") Colfer, in association with Puffin Books.

Creators publishing via ROK Comics include the critically acclaimed Chris Reynolds ("Moon Queen"), Michael Colbert and J.K. Woodward ("Crazy Mary"), Toshrio de Smeyter ("Scoff"), Steve Tillotson ("Banal Pig"), Dave Hailwood ("Ups and Downs"), Dave Berner ("Hunted", "Shades"), Josh Alves ("Tastes Like Chicken"), startrek.com's David Reddick, Dave Windett ("Wacky World of Animals") and Vince Aviles ("El Profe").

Creators and publishers can earn a 50 per cent share of revenue earned by ROK Comics on strip sales. The company has relations via its parent, ROK Entertainment, with over 30 telecoms worldwide including operators in China, Pakistan, India, South America and elsewhere.

ROK Comics launched its 'Hot Talent' competition with a grand prize of $10,000 in July. Simply create or upload a humorous comic strip on www.rokcomics.com and be in with the chance to win .

Full details are at www.rokcomics.com/competition.php but here's how you enter:

1) If you haven't already, sign up to ROK Comics at www.rokcomics.com

2) Create a humorous comic following the ROK Comic guidelines using the Creator Tool and categorise it as 'Fun' (The comic must be published in English)

3) Publish your strip as a Freefall or Pro "Fun" strip between now and 1 September 2007

4) That's it! You will have entered the competition and are in with the chance to win $10,000!

Here, Doggy!