The Gosh! Authority 26/08/09

It’s a short one this week so you can gulp it down in one and get straight back to poking about on Facebook or whatever it is you do these days. I’ll tell you about this week’s delivery in a mo, but first off - an announcement!

This Autumn several good things will be happening. Being cooler, London will have stopped smelling of wee and down in Lewes they’ll be exploding popes. Here in Gosh! there will be many, many signings. We’ve got signings coming out the wazoo and we expect you to be at all of them. Or some of them. If you like people such as Joe Sacco (Palestine), Bryan Talbot (Alice in Sunderland), Eddie “Pa” Campbell (Alec, From Hell), or Fred Van Lente (Amazing Spider-Man, Action Philosophers) you’ll want to make your way to the nice, cosy Gosh! basement where you last saw Big Hairy Alan Moore eating chocolate Digestives. We’ll do proper blog posts with all the necessary information in the coming weeks plus Facebook events and whatnot so we can electronically prod you with reminders. Watch this space.

The latest Sparrow collection (the 12th if you’re counting) is packed full of the weird and lovely art of Italian cartoonist Sergio Toppi. Having not seen it yet I can’t say which bits have made it in, but Google images will give you some idea of what he’s about. Ashley Wood can’t wait for this one to arrive and says on his blog:

“There are a handful of artists that truly inspire and me make feel like a kid on Christmas morning every time I see their art, Frazetta, Jones, and Sergio Toppi... his supernatural line-work and his masterful compositions never fail to inspire and kick me in the ass and make me try harder.”

Wood’s also put up a few Toppi pages including one of those up there I’ve lazily purloined. I’ll admit it.

There’ll be more weird art in the best-named book on the shelf this week: Songs of the Black Worm Gism, an anthology of fiction and art inspired by HP Lovecraft. It’s a second volume of sorts following on from The Starry Wisdom by editor D.M. Mitchell. There’s stuff by Alan Moore (that cover you see to the side there), Grant Morrison, John Coulthart, David Britton and more. I call it an ‘anthology’ but Mitchell calls it“an illustrated brainstorm of visceral deep-sea dream currents, aberrant trans-species sex visions and frenzied ophidian entropy.” Blimey.

Andrew’s probable pick of the week would be the Ghost Rider: Trials & Tribulations trade-paperback which gives you more Jason Aaron/Tan Eng Huat craziness (but it’s doubtful there’ll be any trans-species sex). There’s a preview here of #33, the first issue in the book (it also collects #34, #35 and Annual #2), plus a review of the same.

Ever read Brandon Graham’s King City? Image are borrowing it off TokyoPop to re-release it in monthly issues – comic-sized, not manga-sized this time round, which Graham considers far preferable. They’ll be reprinting chapters of King City Vol 1 first and then move on to new stuff later on. Graham’s very excited by the idea of paying rent with money he’s made from comics, and who wouldn’t be? Check here for a preview.

Speaking of money from comics, Jonathan Cape and Comica have joined up with The Observer for a graphic short story competition.

If the judges – Joe Sacco (him again), Simone Lia (Fluffy), Rachel Cooke (The Observer), Dan Franklin (Publisher, Jonathan Cape), Paul Gravett (Man at the Crossroads, Comica), and Suzanne Dean (Random House’s Creative Director) – like your stuff, you could win a thousand quid and see your story in The Observer Magazine. Here are all the details you need.

And last of all, we’ve just received a bunch of Moebius books that aren’t usually available in the UK – Inside Moebius Volumes 2, 3, and 4. We’ve only got a couple of each so you’d better get in quick! We don’t know if we’ll be able to get them again.

That’s it for another week. See you Thursday.
-- Hayley