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Cap #12 Preview, Galactica, and Sci-Fi London
I had a lovely time in Dublin, but for the last week (and this one), I'm up to my neck in work. Last night I popped out to the Fifteen Minute Club (my local talent show) and read Mary Robinette Kowal's 'Evil Robot Monkey' to the audience, and in the next blog, I'll be promoting another effort to publicise this year's Hugo Awards. But meantime, just a few links to share with you. Here's a preview of the first seven pages of issue twelve of Captain Britain and MI-13, coming this Wednesday/Thursday to your local comic shop, and for which, as always, this blog will serve as letters page:
I'm honoured to be on a panel at the Sci-Fi London Film Festival, on 2nd May at 2.30pm:
Talking about comics, with China Mieville and Bryan Talbot. And I'm sure I'll be doing the Festival quiz again. Indeed, my agent has already nabbed me for his team. (Sorry, Third Row Fandom.)
And I was pleased to be part of SF Signal's Mind Meld about the end of Battlestar Galactica. I don't know if it's because I'm a TV writer, but I found the way the question was phrased kind of annoying. I wonder if so many novelists would be eager to join in with a column entitled 'How I Would Have Ended George R.R. Martin's Latest Novel'? Just because we wander into your living rooms, instead of sitting passively on your coffee tables, we're everyone's punchbag:
And I'm very passionate, as you can see, about my love for that finale (as are quite a few people who've been in touch) so 'everyone hated it' irks me too. Still, kind of them to ask me to take part. I'm on a couple of panels at Eastercon in Bradford this weekend, one about the vastness of comic book universes, at 9pm on the Friday, and one about quality comics of yesteryear (with Dave Lloyd, David Bishop and D'Israeli) at 12.30pm on the Saturday. I joined up very late, so I asked to be on the substitute list for any SF panels that come up. It's good to see comics panels of such a high quality. Anyhow, if you see me there, do say hello, and until next time, Cheerio.
Labels:
Battlestar Galactica,
Captain Britain,
Eastercon,
Sci-Fi London
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I'd already seen the preview and if that's the first 7 pages then the rest should be amazing! That Larder scene was horrifying. Poor old Jac!
Spotted the nice cover for the annual too. Plenty to look forward to then.
Thanks, hope you like the rest of it.
Hi Paul,
I read all the issues of Captain Britain last night. I'd read the first few and finally got the chance to catch up with the rest. I'd just like to say how good I think it is. I don't read a lot of superhero titles but if they were all as good as yours I'd never sleep. As a writer myself (albeit from a different medium) I'm amazed at how well you deal with a sizeable group of characters and how you manage to make it all move along at such a terrific pace, without it ever feeling like characters aren't getting their due page time.
You deserve all the praise your getting for this at the the moment. Looking forward to the next one.
Just finished reading issue #12 and all I can say is the chess game has begun. I await Wisdom's counter.
Thanks Paul.
One question - last issue ended with Spitfire being ordered to forget her past life by Dracula (who, as has been pointed out both last issue and this, has Dominion over her).
So why does she remember anything THIS issue? :)
Hi Paul. Just had some random musings today about the Young Avengers. It seems to me with recent political events the guys are poised to be a really Zeitgeistey(that may not be a word) take on the idea of a teen superhero book. Maybe all that time we YA fans spent in the wilderness while it was away was worth it because now is the teems time to shine and take their proper place in the Marvel U.
Hmm... a brake to build anticipation and a thunderous return. Why does that idea sound so familiar?
I really appreciate the effort you put into explaining just how complex and ingenious Dracula is without coming off as absurd. Hopefully this arc lasts for a while; it'd be a shame if this excellent slow build (which isn't always a no-no for readers as some would claim) didn't result in at least two whole issues of action.
I'm starting to convert two friends with casual interests in comics. Both know the Cap and love what they've read of the series. One even likes the last issue and said "What?! Oh man, I LOVE Captain Britain. I just wish he was in the actual book..." (It's cool, it's cool! You're saving up his dynamic fights to make the payoffs sweeter)
Quick question:
This dangling thread isn't your job to take care of, but will you be using The Baroness from Ben Raab's Union Jack mini? She's an (apparently) immortal vampire who drank from the Holy Grail. The Baroness brought Kenneth Crichton into the fold and made him the new Baron Blood. Last time we saw her, she was pregnant and Union Jack vowed to kill her. Will she be part of the invasion?
@Tromeritus: Baroness Blood was indeed shown as being expecting at the end of the Raab/Cassaday series. But that story was later explored in the Allan Jacobsen and C.P. Smith New Invaders series.
I have been reading that Union Jack run, due to picking up the tpb for cheap in Forbidden Planet (I was missing an issue from the first time around). It reminded me that Spitfire, of course, is not Joe Chapman's only tie to MI13. There was a time when he was romantically involved with Romany, Pete Wisdom's sister.
Wonderful issue again, my only compalint is I still don't connect with Leonard's Vlad. A little more Colan model sheet would be great.
oooh on that note is there any sort of suggested reading when it comes to Dracula's inner circle and the supporting characters. Im pretty upto date on much of the main cast and Marvel UK in general but i do think i would get more out of some of this story if i knew more about a few of the characters.
Speaking of London events, will you be doing any in June? Husband & I will be popping in to visit friends we made at Gallifrey and we don't have a clue if anything geeky-fun will be going on in London that month (or anywhere nearby) like, say, another Who-con!
Saturday's Doctor Who was indeed amazing. I'm still looking forward to you're '50 things Russell has done for Doctor Who' post - are you waiting until the regeneration for it? I think the bloke has done an amazing job and I'm interested to see how you reflect on it as an insider. (and I'm also hoping for a Paul Cornell shaped announcement for series 5 or 6 in due time - though I know you can't comment!!!)
Lovely stuff. As always, fantastic characterization and ensemble, but it's also impressive how freshly imagined the rest of the story is. Since Dracula started off as a general and has had centuries since then to get better at it, you'd think it was logical that he might be good at something besides lurking, but has anyone brought this up before? In this case, as in the series as a whole, it's good to see a series that presents strong, credible threats that really test its characters as people.
And it's impressive to see Blade being made into an actual human being, and a surprisingly likable one at that, particularly when he's relating to Jac.
Speaking of Jac, nice to see her back in street clothes for a while. It's always seemed out of character for her to wear that Spitfire costume, though probably there's some sort of reasoning behind it. The comic is so very good at this kind of thing in general that it's always seemed an odd sort of detail.
For me, the Battlestar Galactica ending is one of those cases where you disagree with someone, but you'd fight to the death for their right to speak. The ending struck me as contrived and badly thought out. Yet I value Ronald Moore's willingness to take chances and to do things his audience might hate; it's really what's made BSG work. People adult enough to appreciate the distinction between self and other do want to be surprised, and don't treat writers, boringly, as extensions of themselves. It's a consumerist point of view, and antithetical to art. So yeah, while I didn't like the ending, good for Moore. He wrote what made sense to him.
Thanks, all. Very kind of you, Iain. Anon: he meant 'forget' as in give it up. She wouldn't be much use to him if she actually forgot. (And I assume he's in control of what his words do, or he'd be forever saying 'no, that was a figure of speech!') Ben: I'd love that to be the case. Trom: we're not going there, just because there's so much to do already. Tal: sorry, nothing planned for me in London in June, but look at the Events section of the Doctor Who Forum. Brian: wise words, I think. Cheers.
sooo....here I am again.... I finally had the chance to read both issue #11 and #12 (I really can't wait for a whole year to read them in Italian - and it took an year to read them in Italian, I can assure... issue One was out last week!)... I still think that i have to thank my comic store for this, but, well, sorry, tendency to divagation here, so...
well, I wanted just to say that for the first time I was able to read a book which follows more than one "story-line" at the same time, switching between them, without getting confused or having to come back to see what happened pages before... and I so like the characterization, and I'm coming to love Faiza more and more every time I read something about her!
the other night, I was reading the first two story arcs issues (insomnia...) and, suddenly, I remembered an ooooold issue of Avengers, I think, in which Iron Man told someone that, although he had and hard time dealing with Thor’s deity, he believed in magic, because, in his eyes, magic was a form of science. I think that Marvel forgot this aspect, playing with magic every time they had a problem; magic has become, for Marvel, during the last years, the perfect guilty for whatever they couldn’t or didn’t want to explain or didn’t know how to explain; suddenly, I felt like magic loose her true meaning, shifting from “something scientific” to “something unbelievable”, becoming, in mere words, what’s magic is in our “plain” reality.
But , well, I finally feel like they are giving it her “real” role again, and it’s strange, I mean, normally, who could read a comic book with demons and faeries in, thinking that it looks real? And wonna talk about the “space vampires”? mention them to a normal person, and the least you could expect from them is laughing – the thought made laugh even me, I have to admit; but then, try to read the story… I shivered, and I don’t shiver so easily, believe me….
Well, in two words… Good Work!
Ps: the other day I saw Morgana’s data on the dark reign files, and I’m wondering if we’ll ever see her again, since she has a huge connection with the British Magic world, and has met Brian several times in the past – and has tried to kill him even more…
Thanks very much, glad you're enjoying it so much.
Rich: Captain Fate appears in the Man Thing series by Gerber and Claremont, available in Essential Man Thing #1 and #2. Lilith has a long and varied history in comparison, and a trip to Wikipedia will be helpful.