TAKING THE POP OUT OF POP CULTURE
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INSIGHT EDITIONS CONTEST
09/29/11 (London) Joel Meadows
Insight Editions Contest
WHAT: Cowboys & Aliens: The Illustrated Screenplay
HOW: Email
Thanks to the generous people at Insight Editions, TRIPWIRE is giving away a copy of the book Cowboys & Aliens: The Illustrated Screenplay, signed by no less than its director Jon Favreau.
LIVE NOW. READ IT. DOWNLOAD IT. SAVE IT.
The whole TRIPWIRE 0.02 July issue.
Many Megs of FREE MAGAZINE!
CLICK HERE
MOVIE REVIEW: X-MEN FIRST CLASS
05/29/11 (London) Joel Meadows
X-Men: First Class
DIRECTOR: Matthew Vaughn
CAST: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, January Jones
STUDIO: Twentieth Century Fox / Marvel Studios
Fast forward to 2011 and the man who nearly helmed The Last Stand, Matthew Vaughn, gives us X-Men: First Class.
COMIC REVIEW: NONPLAYER #1
05/05/11 (UK) Karl Stock
Nonplayer #1
CREATOR: Nate Simpson
PUBLISHER: Image Comics
A wave of hype has built around Nate Simpson’s creator-owned debut title Nonplayer, fed by reverberating ripples of online word of mouth. Is it deserved? Yes it is, if this first issue is anything to go by. The first reason any reader is going to fall for Nonplayer is the gorgeous artwork, a minutely detailed and hyper-realistic blend of Moebius and Geof Darrow which gives life to Simpson’s ambitious fantasy within a fantasy within a dystopian sci-fi tale.
We’ve Updated the April PDF!
Now 10 Megs lighter!
NEW PDF
Tripwire #55 Now Ready for Pre-Order
After two years away, TRIPWIRE returns to Diamond PREVIEWS. You can pre-order it in the May 2011 PREVIEWS # 272, page 351, item code MAY 111336. With Wizard gone from print there aren’t many comics magazine choices left, but we’re still here!
FILM REVIEW: THOR
04/21/2011 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Thor
Director: Kenneth Branagh;
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston
Studio: Marvel/ Paramount
Bringing Marvel’s God of Thunder to the big screen has taken over two decades but, with the success of Iron Man and Iron Man 2, Branagh’s Thor had a momentum the property never had before. Thor is a character that seemed to be a tough one to translate from the printed page to the cinema, with some of Marvel’s most outlandish ideas and sometimes cringeworthy dialogue. But Kenneth Branagh has managed to distill everything that made Lee and Kirby’s blond exiled Norse God cool and exciting in a two hour movie.
LIVE NOW. READ IT. DOWNLOAD IT. SAVE IT.
The whole TRIPWIRE 0.01 April issue.
44 Megs of FREE MAGAZINE!
CLICK HERE
TRIPWIRE Enters the Digital Age
03/31/11 (PORTLAND) Andy Grossberg
At long last we’ve gotten our heads wrapped around a digital strategy. During WonderCon this weekend we will unveil the first all digital all original issue of TRIPWIRE.
TRIPWIRE 0.01 is packed with all sorts of articles like a feature on Marvel’s upcoming Thor film (as you can see from the cover) as well as a look at legendary Golden Age artist LB Cole and an examination of Britain’s own 2000AD. We also have interviews with BOOM!’s Marketing Director Chip Mosher and nerd rock band Kirby Krackle, and take a look at Source Code as well. And of course there are some original strips in the back and a re-run of BOOM’s excellent Hellraiser prelude. I’m sure I forgot something but you won’t when you get the chance to read it!
This weekend look for the link back here. You won’t want to miss it!
COMIC REVIEW: Hellraiser #1
03/24/11 (PORTLAND) Andy Grossberg
Hellraiser #1
WRITERS: Clive Barker with Christopher Monfette
ARTIST: Leonardo Manco
COVERS: Tim Bradstreet (A) and Nick Percival (B)
PUBLISHER: BOOM! Studios
BOOM! Studios released Hellraiser #1 this week with much acclaim and fanfare. Not the least of which is because they released a free 8-page prelude to the comic as well that anyone can download. Click through to this article to read it online yourself.
TRIPWIRE has reviewed the comic and we find it worthy of the Hellraiser canon, possibly revitalizing it altogether. While not quite a reboot, it ignores the later films taking place sometime after the events of Hellbound: Hellraiser II.
Read on for our full review…
STARZ SETS NEW TORCHWOOD BROADCAST DATE
3-23-11 (PORTLAND) Andy Grossberg
Torchwood: Miracle Day has a broadcast date and a nice new poster (click on it to enlarge).
The new show will premiere this summer on STARZ in the US. Other countries will follow.
TRIPWIRE GOES DIGITAL
3-22-11 (PORTLAND) Andy Grossberg
April 2011 will see the launch of Tripwire 0.01 the digital version of TRIPWIRE MAGAZINE. Each 40-page bi-monthly issue will contain all the same high quality news, reviews, interviews, features and strip content that the Annual is known for. But here’s the catch: The digital edition of TRIPWIRE will be free for download on our site! It’s like getting a version of our Annual every eight weeks although with 1/3 the calories of the regular mag! We might even come out monthly! Imagine!
Along with this exciting development come back soon and watch as we fumble through a site redesign and try to update regularly with weekly reviews. Yes, we lead busy professional lives elsewhere but this site will become more of a blog than the placeholder that it’s been for so long. Not only will the site serve to host our digital versions but we’re also going to begin posting best-of’s from the near twenty years the magazine has seen print off and on. There are sure to be many surprises ahead as they occur to us.
Stay tuned!
PS: And of course we’ll still put out another edition of the TRIPWIRE ANNUAL in time for the San Diego Comic Con!
BOOK REVIEW: Icons: Jim Lee
01/15/11 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Icons: The DC Comics and Wildstorm Art of Jim Lee
Authors: Bill Baker, Jim Lee
Publisher: Titan Books
Love him or loathe him, Jim Lee is a mainstream comic artist who’s made a major impact over the past two decades. First at Marvel with his X-Men work and later at Wildstorm and DC Comics, his importance is impossible to ignore. Icons: The DC Comics and Wildstorm Art of Jim Lee is a 296 page lavish hardcover that tries to present the artist’s work for DC and Wildstorm in some sort of context. Now DC’s Co-Publisher, Lee was already fairly established by the time he first worked for the Warner Bros’ comic company.
FILM REVIEW: Tron: Legacy
12/20/10 (LONDON) Barry Renshaw
Tron: Legacy
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxlietner, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde
Studio: Disney
Tron: Legacy hit cinemas on general release this Friday, and dictionaries across the world should be rewritten. Under the adjective ‘cool’ should now be placed a frame from this movie.
Although a sequel to the 1982 movie Tron, it is not a requirement to have seen the original. It must work completely on its own and away from any nostalgic memories of lightcycles and memory discs. Joseph Kosinski, a television commercial and feature film director behind such outstanding ads as Gears of War and Halo, is the perfect choice to update the Grid for the 21st century. In what could have been a cold and heartless display of spectacular special effects is a very strong emotional core: essentially, the impact an absent father has on two worlds.
BOOK REVIEW: Sci-Fi Art Now
12/16/10 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Sci-Fi Art Now
AUTHOR: John Freeman
PUBLISHER: Ilex Press
Sci-Fi Art Now is a hardcover book that’s intended to reflect the range of artists in the market currently working as science fiction illustrators. It showcases works from established names as well as newer talents. Its author Freeman has been working in magazines and books for years: he was the editor of Doctor Who Magazine in the early Nineties, he oversaw a number of comic projects at Marvel UK including Death’s Head and he has also worked for Titan. So he certainly knows his subject.
BOOK REVIEW: Faeries: The Deluxe Collectors Edition
12/06/10 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Faeries: The Deluxe Collectors Edition
ARTISTS: Brian Froud and Alan Lee
PUBLISHER: Abrams
Twenty-five years after the seminal Faeries book was first published, we have a revised hardback version of it. At £18.99 in the UK, this is also priced at a very reasonable amount considering that it clocks it at 208 pages.
People have always been fascinated by faeries and this partly explains why this book, when it was originally published, connected with such a wide audience. Both Faeries artists are talented illustrators, although Froud’s work is more caricature than Lee. Both have something to offer for fans of this kind of illustration. As a kid in the Eighties, seeing Brian Froud’s work was probably my first exposure to art of this kind. As you get older, you realise that Froud and Lee have followed in the footsteps of artists like Edmund DuLac and Arthur Rackham.
MOVIE PREVIEW: Skyline
11/11/10 (PORTLAND) Andy Grossberg
Skyline
Director: The Strause Brothers
Cast: Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, David Zayas, Donald Faison, Brittany Daniel, Neil Hopkins
Studio: Universal
Skyline opens tomorrow. We were intrigued at Comic Con this summer when they launched tiny people made of bubbles into the sky from a machine they put in front of the Marriott. That was pretty clever, although we enjoyed it more when the bubblemen were sucked into the huge spinning propeller vent a little ways up. Oh, the humanity, little amputated bubble limbs spinning away from bubble bodies… It was Soapageddon! The Soapture! The cleansing of the world! But I digress…
BOOK REVIEW: The Art of Drew Struzan
10/03/10 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
The Art of Drew Struzan
Writers: Drew Struzan & David J. Schow
Publisher: Titan Books
Drew Struzan is one of the last great movie poster artists. In an age where most if not all film promotional material is photographic or computer-generated, he flies the flag for the craft. Struzan’s CV mirrors the history of cinema over the past thirty years: his work has graced posters for some of the most iconic movies ever including The Shawshank Redemption, Back To The Future, Blade Runner, Star Wars and Raiders of The Lost Ark.
FILM REVIEW: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
09/03/10 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
Director: Edgar Wright
Cast: Michael Cera, Ellen Wong, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jason Schwartzman
Studio: Universal
Scott Pilgrim is a film based on the successful Oni Press Original English Language manga series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley. The film is directed by Edgar Wright who had hits with the massively overrated Shaun of The Dead and Hot Fuzz, like Channel 4 comedy programmes with delusions of grandeur. I went to see this film at Empire in Leicester Square, probably the nicest cinema in the country. Universal have thrown a great deal of money at promoting this film in the misguided attempt to make it a huge summer blockbuster, which it is decidedly not.
COMIC REVIEW: SWEETS
08/06/10 (PORTLAND) Andy Grossberg
Artist/Writer: Kody Chamberlain
Publisher: Image Comics
Sweets, a new Image book from writer-artist Kody Chamberlain is a cop drama for people who are sick of cop dramas. While it’s trite to compare it to CSI or NCIS or any of the other dozen cop shows currently on TV it needs to be done for contrast because the main similarity is that there are cops in this comic as well. Sweets feels far more visceral and dark and somehow less like it’s mugging for the camera than the endless string of unrealistic cop-schlock shows that permeate the airwaves (and we all know that Crime Scene Investigators investigate crime scenes, they don’t solve crimes!).
GRAPHIC ALBUM REVIEW: The Titmouse Mook
07/19/10 (PORTLAND) Andy Grossberg
Titmouse is an animation studio maybe best known for the Adult Swim cartoon they produce, Metalocalypse. (You can read about our studio visit here.) But they’ve also done commercials, music videos, title sequences for shows, and much much more. Now they have added a graphic anthology to their resume. Why? Who knows, maybe they couldn’t help themselves. But it is an undeniable fact that this entry into the printed page is as creative as everything else they produce. Titmouse brings you: The Titmouse Mook.
FILM REVIEW: Inception
07/15/10 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Leonardo Di Caprio, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe
Studio: Warner Brothers
Inception is a film that’s hard but not impossible to pin down in a review. Christopher Nolan is probably the smartest director currently working in Hollywood, so when The Dark Knight made buckets of money, it gave him carte blanche to do whatever he wanted to do next. He played his cards a little close to his chest and what coverage there had been was deliberately vague and cagey. In these days of everyone knowing every intimate detail of every new TV series and big movie, that was rather refreshing.
TRIPWIRE RETURNS FOR 2010!
07/01/10 (LONDON)
TRIPWIRE is back with another info-packed issue! The Eagle-nominated British-American magazine about comics and genre culture returns this July bringing even more of the quality features you’d expect from our previous issues.
FILM REVIEW: Shrek Forever After
06/12/10 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Director: Mike Mitchell
Voices: Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas
It’s staggering to think that the first Shrek movie was a whole decade ago. It’s been a phenomena that refuses to die. Shrek Forever After is the fourth, and promised to be the last, in the green ogre’s animated franchise. The series has adhered to the law of diminishing returns: the first one was fun, the second film was slightly less fun and the third one was rather dull. So expectations were pretty low when I went to see this at a press screening at the Empire Leicester Square, probably London’s nicest cinema, on a Sunday morning…
FILM REVIEW: Robin Hood
05/14/10 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett
The new Robin Hood film directed by Ridley Scott and reuniting him with his regular collaborator Russell Crowe is a film that’s changed direction several times. Originally it was going to be called Nottingham and have the evil sheriff as its protagonist. But that idea was ditched and so what seemed like a more traditional Robin Hood tale was filmed. At last the results are available for all to see and I was lucky enough to catch a press screening of it at Empire Leicester Square, probably London’s nicest cinema.
Scott has played fast and loose with history here as Richard The Lionheart, played by a chunky Danny Huston, is dispatched quite early on here and it is Prince then King John (Oscar Isaac) who becomes Hood’s adversary. But it doesn’t matter as, like King Arthur, Robin Hood is a legend and a folk tale and criticising it for its lack of historical veracity is like accusing James Bond of inaccurately portraying modern space technology. It just doesn’t matter as what really counts is putting together a compelling and exciting cinematic ride and Scott with the help of Crowe and its supporting cast have certainly done that.
FILM REVIEW: Iron Man 2
05/07/10 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Director: Jon Favreau
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Gywneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke
The first Iron Man was a real joy to see at the cinema, filled with fun and a likable screen presence in Downey Jr. So expectations for this sequel were fairly high. I went to see it at a press screening at Odeon Leicester Square in the evening. I bumped into a few fellow journos there as I often do. Unfortunately my verdict on Iron Man 2 is that it lacks the cohesion and fun that the first one possessed.
MODESTY BLAISE CREATOR PASSES AWAY
05/04/10 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Peter O’Donnell, the creator of Modesty Blaise, has died at the age of 90 at his home in the South of England. Modesty Blaise was one of the most important British newspapers strips and ran in London newspaper Evening Standard from May 1963 until 2001.
SHOW REPORT: STUMPTOWN COMICS FEST
04/26/10 (Portland OR) Andy Grossberg
TRIPWIRE was at both days of Portland’s famous Stumptown Comics Fest possibly the indy comics show of the year. It compares favorably to others such as APE: It brings out some of the bigger guns like Dark Horse and Oni (if for no other reason than that they’re based there) but also dozens of DYI mini comics creators and others were in the room taking part in the photocopier revolution and getting their work seen. There were panels and signings from the likes of Paul Pope and Mike Allred and on Saturday night they gave away the 4th annual Trophy awards.
COP OUT COMES TO THE UK
04/14/10 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Coming Soon to the UK: Kevin Smith’s latest film Cop Out. Check out the red band trailer!
GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEWS
04/14/10 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
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TRIPWIRE gets back into the swing of things with a review roundup of a few graphic novels and trade paperbacks from DC Comics and Vertigo.
FILM REVIEW: Avatar
01/10/10 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Writer/Director: James Cameron
Cast: Sam Worthington, Stephen Lang, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver
Avatar is a film that’s been about a dozen years in the making. James Cameron hasn’t made a movie since the monster hit Titanic back in 1997 and so there has been so much expectation for this picture that if it wasn’t the greatest film ever made, then people would be whingeing constantly.
SET VISIT: Positively Criminal with DEAD CERT
11/16/09 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Last Monday, TRIPWIRE was lucky enough to be invited on set for new British vampire gangster film, Dead Cert. Shooting took place at a warehouse in Dagenham in Essex (the Eastern border of London for our non-English visitors.) While it is a film with a small budget (less than a million pounds), from what we saw it should look and feel like they spent a lot more on it.
FILM REVIEW: Surrogates
11/13/09 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Director: Jonathan Mostow
Writers: Michael Ferris, John Brancato
Starring: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Ving Rhames
Surrogates is based on a Top Shelf science fiction graphic novel by Robert Venditti and Brett Wiedele. Directed by Jonathan Mostow (U-571, Terminator 3) and starring Bruce Willis, Surrogates posits a world where everybody has an artificial avatar or surrogate made of metal and plastic and most of society live their lives through these surrogates. Willis plays a policeman who has to investigate murders of these surrogates but these killings injure or kill the hosts too so he is dragged into a world of intrigue and deceit. Not everybody is in favour of the surrogates and the leader of the rebel movement is self-styled “The Prophet” (played by Ving Rhames).
TRIPWIRE Gets Moor out of John Landis
09/01/09 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
One of the reasons why it’s great to be located in London is that there is always something going on in terms of film and culture. At the end of August for the past decade, FrightFest has been a festival celebrating the new and the classic in horror. In 2009, they showed An American Werewolf in London, presented by its director John Landis, to celebrate its imminent release on Blu-ray.
BOOK REVIEW: Thicker Than Water
8/30/09 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
WRITER: Mike Carey
PUBLISHER: Orbit Books
Mike Carey has made a name for himself as an established comic writer on titles like Lucifer, Hellblazer, Crossing Midnight, X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four but he has also displayed a deft hand for prose. Thicker Than Water is the fourth book featuring his Felix Castor character, an exorcist in a slightly alternate London who uses a tin whistle to banish ghosts to the netherworld.
FILM REVIEW: The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus
8/22/09 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Director: Terry Gilliam
Cast: Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole, Tom Waits, Heath Ledger, Jude Law, Colin Farrell and Johnny Depp
A new Gilliam film is always an event. Sadly, The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus was overshadowed by the premature demise of Heath Ledger. Luckily, Gilliam, as one of the most enterprising and imaginative directors still making moving images, managed to finish the film with the absence of one of its major players.
Nearly all of his films has serious flaws: with the exception in my opinion of Brazil, they are filled with visual flourishes and impressive setpieces but never quite manage to gel as a cohesive whole. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) was slated when it was released because the director went significantly over budget, his first attempt to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote at the beginning of the Noughties was doomed to fail (although it did make a scintillating documentary, Lost in La Mancha, that came out in 2002) and Gilliam is having another go at putting that on the screen for 2011.
Two for Tuesday
8/18/09
TRIPWIRE reviews two graphic novels that discerning readers should check out.
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Starman started life as a spinoff out of one of DC’s sprawling crossovers, Zero Hour, back in 1994. Starman was one of the JSA’s founder members but DC hadn’t had much success trying to resurrect the name over the years: Jim Starlin turned Starman into an alien prince while the ’80s saw a straight superhero title, which ran for about four years before running out of steam. Robinson and Harris’s Starman was a little bit different: Jack Knight was the son of the original hero, Ted Knight, and he is thrust into the role when his brother is murdered. [MORE] |
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Richard Starkings’s comic series Elephantmen has a really big problem. Maybe I’m just biased by the prestige hardcover edition put before me to review, with a good intro and alternate covers included. Maybe I’m just easily influenced by gorgeous art from the likes of Moritat and splendid cover art by greats such as Ladronn. And maybe I simply have a thing for good stories that can stand on their own or be read as an ongoing series with an unobtrusive yet obvious arc linking them all. Maybe that’s it or maybe it’s because the entire package itself is nice enough that it makes me wonder how I’m going to fit Elephantmen into my comic buying budget every month. You see, that’s the problem with this series: it’s good enough that if people only read it and knew about it they’d be buying it in droves. [MORE] |
TRIPWIRE Discovers Rainbow Orchid
8/15/09 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Recently TRIPWIRE attended the Rainbow Orchid launch that took place at the world-famous Foyles Bookshop on Charing Cross Road in London.
Rainbow Orchid, created by Garen Ewing, started life as a small press, self-published comic / graphic novel and now years later, it is published by large mainstream illustrated book publisher Egmont, who also publish Tintin amongst many other titles. So to celebrate The Adventures of Julius Chancer: The Rainbow Orchid Volume 1, Egmont took the Gallery upstairs in Foyles and invited people in the comics and publishing field to commemorate its launch.
FILM REVIEW: Inglourious Basterds
08/13/09 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Director: Quentin Tarantino;
Starring: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth
I went to see this film at a screening room in London’s West End, in Soho to be precise. I am a big fan of war films and I count The Great Escape amongst one of my favourite movies. Quentin Tarantino has been threatening to make Inglourious Basterds for a number of years with the script floating around. So in 2009 we get to see what he has been playing with for the last few years.
The fact is that his last effort, Death Proof, one half of his and Robert Rodriguez’s love letter to grindhouse cinema, was an unmitigated disaster because his ear for dialogue had completely deserted him and its plot descended into amateurish farce about halfway through. So you might think that he has considered the mistakes he made with Death Proof and tried to focus on how a film like Inglourious Basterds could work. If you thought that, then you would be sorely mistaken.
TRIPWIRE Visits Carey and Perkins
08/10/09
Recently TRIPWIRE went to see Mike Carey and Mike Perkins signing at central London comic shop Orbital.
A Couple of Nice Reviews for the 2009 Annual
08/09/09
Over at Make-It-So-Marketing, a popular comics and culture blog on EBay, we just got a nice review of the Annual. He gets it. At 156 pp we’re not your average genre magazine. His wife Tina also reviewed our panel at SDCC which was well-attended.
And then there’s SciFiPulse cross-posting the review that we got at down-the-tubes.
Niche print is alive and kicking. (Even though you’re reading this on the Web of course.)
Thanks Guys!
TRIPWIRE Visits TITMOUSE
08/08/09
First of all, this is just a small part of the coverage we’re going to unspool about these guys in the coming weeks and months. They have just too much cool stuff going on and they have too many cool people working for them. So, completists keep checking back occasionally as we go along because specific show or person details won’t show up until the relevant reviews or interviews are done–and the overall profile might wait until a print issue of the mag hits.
Last week TRIPWIRE visited Titmouse, the animation studio behind everything from one of those “van tributes” and the psychedelic Total commercial to the online GI Joe Resolute cartoons with Hasbro to Cartoon Network’s death metal extravaganza Metalocalypse. But they’re also doing SO much more!
TRIPWIRE Visits Image Creators at Golden Apple
08/07/09
The Tyrese signing at Meltdown got all the press but Tripwire went to Golden Apple for a different Image signing (and not just because there was an Indian restaurant across the street!).
Three talented Image creators pooled their resources to sign books and entertain fans at their table, a post-San Diego glad-hand treat.
Buy TRIPWIRE directly from the source!
You can now buy Tripwire directly from us! Just click on the ORDER link above and you’ll see a page with the paypal app just like the active one below. Order first, order often!
Use the link below or the handy paypal widget in the sidebar. —–>
TRIPWIRE MAGAZINE PREMIERES THE 2009 ANNUAL AT COMIC-CON
7/13/09
(London)
Tripwire Magazine continues its yearly Comic-Con tradition premiering its third Tripwire Annual at the world’s best-known genre media convention. A stunning Jeff Carlisle full colour original Nick Fury cover sets the tone for the amazing content inside: We have exclusive interviews with Stan Lee, Joe Kubert, Bill Morrison of Bongo Comics, painter Phil Hale, storyboard artist Trevor Goring and many more. There are features on Tintin, the 70th anniversaries of both Marvel Comics and Batman, the 30th anniversary of Alien, Wednesday Comics from DC, Solomon Kane from Dark Horse and a dozen others. Company profiles include Euro-comics publisher Cinebook, art book impresario Flesk Publications and Book Palace. And of course there are over 20 pages of original strips from Roger Langridge, Kev Mullins, Declan Shalvey, Josh Fialkov & Kody Chamberlain and others. In all, it is by far the biggest and best issue Tripwire has published to date.
Inside Comic-Con’s Exhibitor Hall Tripwire is in the Small Press area at table S07. We’ll have the 2009 Annual available at a special show price. Also, we’ll have the 2008 Annual with the Doctor Who cover ready for David Tennant to sign (wherever he’s set up) and copies of the 2009 Superhero Special with its Kick-Ass cover in case you want to scare up a JR, JR sig. Plus of course we’ll have some Stripwire artists on hand: Roman Muradov and Kody Chamberlain will be at the table sketching and signing their work in the mag. There’s even going to be free swag!
Additionally, Tripwire has a panel on Thursday July 23rd at 10:30 am in Room 3. It will feature Editor-in-Chief Joel Meadows, US Editor Andy Grossberg and some special guests including UK columnist Rich Johnston from BleedingCool.com. Panel topics will range from comics industry gossip to features from the magazine including comics, movies, TV, culture and more. There will be pastries for the first lucky dozen attendees.
This may be the last US appearance for Tripwire in 2009! The magazine is not carried by Diamond this time around so retailers are invited to drop by the table and acquire issues for their Colonial stores.
Up to the minute details about guests and swag can be found on our Twitter: http://twitter.com/realtripwire.
THE TRIPWIRE 2009 ANNUAL IS PRINTING!
We’re proud to announce that the 2009 Tripwire Annual is on the presses and printing in time for Comic Con. If you want to check out some sample stories or see the final version of our cover, follow this link.
TRIPWIRE ANNUAL COVER IS IN
We now have our cover! Jeff Carlisle’s art is superb!
We’ll be selling this issue at the Tripwire table in the small press area at Comic Con International 2009. It will also be available in Late July / Early August from Barnes & Noble in the US, Chapters in Canada and Borders UK in the UK (naturally). Maybe you can pester your local comics dealer to get it if you have to. It will eventually be available via the “ORDER” link above too. But then you’ll have to pay for shipping. Cover is $15.95 US.
TRIPWIRE ANNUAL IS COMING ALONG
6/1/09
2009 Tripwire Annual pages for review
This link has moved to its own page here so you can read it.
We’ve made some pages available for preview of the new Annual. This is possibly the best issue we’ve ever done and it’s full of exciting content! Enjoy!
TRIPWIRE NABS GUILLERMO DEL TORO STRAIN PRINT INTERVIEW
(London, 30/05/09)
TRIPWIRE is proud to announce they have added exciting new features to their already jam-packed 2009 Annual. The magazine has landed an exclusive interview with award-winning genre master Guillermo Del Toro discussing his new novel The Strain as well as a few tidbits on Hellboy 3 and upcoming movie projects. Additionally, the magazine has attained an in-depth first look at Moon, the eagerly-awaited low budget British sci-fi movie starring Sam Rockwell and directed by Duncan Jones.
“The addition of these two top notch features compliments what already promises to be the best Annual we’ve released to date,” said Tripwire’s Editor-in-chief Joel Meadows. “We’ve got such a big issue already. With our cover feature looking in-depth at Marvel Comics and its 70th anniversary, or the Alien 30th birthday retrospective later on, the Bongo Comics interview with Bill Morrison who’s always entertaining, or even the Stripwire section with over 20 pages of original comics–it’s just a real pleasure to be publishing this quality material. Adding these two new features strengthens the magazine further.”
On the topic of making a better magazine, Tripwire has performed a little reorganizing at the printer as well. Originally the magazine’s 2009 publishing schedule included an Adventure Special for June, a Horror Special for Halloween and a Science Fiction Special for December. Instead the editors have taken some of the more timely content from the Adventure and Science Fiction Specials and folded it into the 2009 Tripwire Annual, making it bigger and better than they’d announced at solicitation. “We’re committed to releasing the best magazine we can,” offered Meadows, “and sometimes this means making adjustments on the fly.” Features now included in the 2009 Annual are an exclusive Joe Kubert interview, a profile on publishers Flesk Publications with sidebars about artists Gary Gianni and Mark Schultz, a feature on 80 years of Tintin and a look at Dark Horse’s Solomon Kane and other Robert E. Howard properties.
“Our first focus is on the Annual, and making it as exceptional as its two predecessors. When we saw several articles from the June Adventure Special and the 2009 Annual beginning to converge, we knew we had to sacrifice the one to make the other even better,” Meadows revealed. While the Annual has gotten larger than promised with the addition of the extra content, Tripwire still plans to do an Adventure Special later this year. “We’re looking at releasing an improved line up for the Special around Christmas with a big Conan cover and features inside that cover everything from Howard’s characters to a resurgence in the popularity of the pulps and many of the upcoming adventure movies and television shows for the next year or two.” And the Science Fiction Special? “First Quarter of 2010, maybe,” said Meadows with a laugh. “We’re still planning Fantasy and Crime Specials for 2010 and now the schedule is tightened. There’s so much we want to print, sometimes we have to make some painful choices.”
TRIPWIRE publisher and Editor-in-Chief Joel Meadows can be reached for comment at: joelmeadows@btinternet.com or 01144 208 959 4192
TRIPWIRE Annual 2009 is still available for preorder from Diamond Comic Distributors, 164 pages full colour, $15.95 US, item code MAY091149
An Enterprising Effort
Star Trek Review by Joel Meadows.
Star Trek Nemesis, released in 2002, was the last big-screen outing for the characters from the Federation Universe and it wasn’t exactly an unmitigated success whilst on TV, the series Enterprise sputtered to a halt in 2005. So it looked like the Trek franchise wasn’t just dead but buried complete with a wake and there was a realisation that perhaps there was no room for Star Trek in a world that had Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica in it.
Fast forward to 2009, Battlestar Galactica has come to a close and we are greeted with a new Star Trek film. The new feature is directed by J. J. Abrams, whose deft hand for genre steered handheld monster movie Cloverfield, and on TV has been responsible for guiding Alias, Lost, and the current genre hit Fringe. So when it was announced that Abrams would be at the helm, with his writing partners Orci and Kurtzman, Paramount must have wept with joy.
Tripwire Superhero Special in Stores Now!
4/2/09
The Tripwire Superhero Special is finally in stores in the US! If you don’t have a copy, go pick one up because it’s going to be months before we get our kindle version ready! And by then you’ll be faced with our upcoming Adventure Special and the 2009 Annual! Times a-wastin’ for you to read what influential people in the genre industry already have! What do they know about upcoming movies, comics and TV that you don’t? Find out!
Order here if you can’t find it elsewhere!
3/20/09
The Tripwire Superhero Special should be hitting US stores next week if it hasn’t already. It seems there was a little snafu with our UK shipping from the printer but everything should be right as rain now!
Meanwhile, explore our issues through the links up top! Enjoy!
PS: You will note that some links aren’t active as we build this site. Yes, we know it’s so very 90’s but we’re UNDER CONSTRUCTION! It takes a lot to manage a site AND publish a mag at the same time and we’re devoting all our time to the Adventure Special coming in June!
