G Johnstone is one of my most loyal readers. We’re pleased to note he has a new website where he’s developing a new full-length work called Curse of the Yellow Book. We first saw Johnstone’s work in 1982, when his two-page Camus experiment was first published in the Scots zine Aka (I think issue #7; covers can be seen here. The editor Bob Napier also published a text analysis of the strip, which as it turned out was a bit of a mickey-take, but the target of the satire was pretentious critics, rather than Johnstone’s work. Johnstone went on to edit his own compendium of comic art, called Dead Trees.

Chris Reynolds goes digital…computer lettering, digital colours and airbrush effects in his new comic book Planet 4. Described as “meditative science fiction”, the story features Monitor revisiting an old planetary haunt and experiencing many bittersweet and conflicting emotions. As ever, Reynolds imagines and visualises some astonishing tangible details, poised between the banal and the beautiful, and renders them in bold outlines with superb, restrained colours. More than ever with the work of this genius, each panel is a painting.

Planet 4 is published on Smashwords.

Found some more A4-sized zines to scan into the galleries. This upload includes the remaining issues of ZUM!, the UK small press review zine of the 1990s; plus most of my collection of Savage Pencil comix. Links below.

• SPG5
• SPG6
• SPG7
• Article Zines
• Foreign small press

Here we have sketches for the front and back of an unpublished book. It was supposed to contain all the Illegal Batman and Ramollo stories. The book was to be titled RRRR or RRRRRRRRR depending on whether you read the cover or the spine.

The contents, in order, would have been ‘Ramollo’s Talents’, ‘The Gardener in the Moon’, ‘Ice Baby’, ‘Easter Song’, and ‘Illegal Batman’. All of these stories are now available on this website in one shape or form, with the exception of a two-pager called “The Uninvited Batman”, which was drawn by Darryl Cunningham.

When I was putting this book dummy together, the final story ‘Ramollo-Speak’ hadn’t been drawn, but if the book project ever sees the light of day then it ought to be included too.

Some more comic cover scans added to the following galleries today:

• SPG3
• SPG4
• Article Zines
• Foreign Small Press

Starts today. Ramollo-Speak, a 15-page comic from 2003, and the last installment in the Ramollo cycle of stories. Once again Illegal Batman looms large in the picture. 15th August update: story now fully online, plus explanatory notes.

Batman copyright and trademarks are owned by Warner Brothers and DC Comics. Ramollo-Speak was written and drawn by Ed Pinsent in 2000-2003 and is a work of fan art offered free of charge to my readers. Please direct any questions to the artist.

MagoMago Society

Published today on Scribd.

“MAGOMAGO SOCIETY is about people in transit. It deals with the conflicts and contrasts that constitute life in itself. Here, the African in man pulls at the drawbridge of common desires, of food, shelter, love, peace and harmony only to be met with pain, frustrations, rebuttals, danger and death. The society is only saved by that spirit that is intrinsically human. The phantom of hope and survival.”

Eze Chimalio is A Nigerian artist, filmmaker and avant-garde jazz trumpet player.

Russell Willis flips through the pages of his collection of Fast Fiction zines, with added commentary.