1. Brendan McCarthy emailed me some sample pages from his issue of SOLO (yay!), but I'm not allowed to post them yet (boo!). The short version is - they're chuffing brilliant, and at least one chapter in the book looks like it'll be in a style and a palette we've never seen from him before. Anyway, he's seen the Brit Cit helmet replica licensed by 2000AD from his classic design - his opinion? "why, those pesky Rebellion wabbits..."
2. Andrew Stephenson, of new multi-cultural comics publisher AK Comics, wrote requesting a link to his blog. Fair enough: here ya go. Anything for the guy who may yet prove responsible for busting the cartel that has sewn up distribution to newsagents in the UK for the guts of a century.
3. Top Cow Comics just e-mailed me and asked to be added as a friend on MySpace. Sure - anything for Marc Silvestri, whose work I loved as a wee bairn (though I wouldn't be seen dead buying the "bad girl" crap his company specialise in churning out these days). Loved his KING CONAN, plus his classic run on UNCANNY X-MEN was just about the twilight's last gleaming of Chris Claremont's tenure on that title, as he strip-mined concepts from Alan Moore's CAPTAIN BRITAIN to diminishing effect. But Silvestri's work always made it worth getting. These days, Silvestri has honed his style to just its flashiest components, to a point where he doesn't seem to give a damn about basic anatomy (and drawing feet, especially), whereas once his work had real grit.