House of Doom - Phil Belbin & Ray Heath

 

Before illustrating Kath King of Kismet Cove for Cavalcade, Phil Belbin produced the adventures of Private Detective Flash Cain debuting in April 1949 from scripts by Ray Heath. Flash Cain like other stories featured in K G Murray magazines was repackaged as a comic book.

 

Read Kath KIng of Kismet Cove - Men of the Sickle Moon here.

Read Kath King - Memory for Faces here.

Read Kath King - Diamonds of Death here.

Read Belbin's adaption of RKO Movie Out of the Past here.

Samples of Belbin illustration work and cartoons here.

Read a biography of Belbin by Greg Ray here.

  

Flash Cain adventure strip The House of Doom from March 1951 issue of Cavalcade.

 

 

 

 

English Comics Daily Diversion: Tiny Tots

Mini Paper Trail

Mat Tait adapts Wagner's The Flying Dutchman for the Goethe-Institut New Zealand.

Mat Tait: 
It's presented a number of interesting challenges, the main one being the question of how to turn a stage production with limited settings and relatively static action into an engaging comic. I decided that rather than do a complete transformation of one form into another, I would try to play on the fact that the original material was made for the stage, and create large comics panels which would act as an analogue for stage sets through which the characters could move, interspersed with panels that work in a way more familiar to comics.
 

A light moment of Dredd from Colin Wilson.

Fikaris art on tumblr.

The Dunedin comic collective Dud are opening a comic shop.

 
Renee Liang interviews Chromacon Organiser Allan Xia. Contribute to the Chromacon Pledgeme campaign here.

Sam Orchard is drawing political cartoons for express magazine.
 

echarta interviews Lee Taylor.

Tim Gibson interviewed on The Comixologist.

Dylan Horrocks on Nga Pakiwaituhi: New Zealand Comics and Graphic Novels.

 Tim Bollinger page exhibited at Nga Pakiwaituhi

I believe the secret behind Steve Rogers prolificy creating his auto-bio comics at American Captain stems from a work ethic cultivated whilst growing up during the Great Depression.

Paul Mason on the resurrection of The Human Fly.

 Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.

Heiress To Tangurau Part One

Heiress to Tangurau was a twenty part New Zealand based story serialised weekly in English girls comic Princess. Illustrated by English artist Leslie Otway the first installment appeared in the May 12th 1962 issue. Heiress tells the tale of orphaned Tina Rogers who inherits a sheep farm in New Zealand. The story flirts with stereotypes, Tina presumes her new guardian Te Ariki Maru, a 'Maori witch doctor', will be a grass skirt wearing native but Heiress is actually very accurate in its depictions of New Zealand of the time and featured elements of Maori folklore. The story would indicate the writer was very familiar with New Zealand and possibly an ex-pat. My first guess is it may have been the work of Noel Cook, a direct descendant of Te Rauparaha, who was working on Fleet Street at that time.

Click images below for larger view.

English Comics Daily Diversion: Chick's Own and Bubbles September 22 1951

Paper Trail

I have a dickload of things to do this week so will try posting daily mini Paper Trails to offload my rapidly overflowing link pile.

Excerpt of  HTMLflowers’ comics from  š! #13 ‘Life Is Live’.

Dylan Horrocks talks Australian Comics with Bryan Crump on Radio New Zealand's Nights.

Jason Chatfield recaps and follows up on his horrific taxi experience from 2011.

New Squishfacers.
 

Roger Langridge interviewed on Where Monsters Dwell.

Tane Williams on tumblr.

Simon Hanselmann's Truth Zone is back at Comics Workbook and taking no prisoners. New installments #70, #71, #72, #73.

 
I made a new mini comic (Not for Young Folk). You can buy it from some place at some point.

Karl Wills has teased a Connie Radar short film currently in production. Shot from a script by Wills and Timothy Kidd.

Hey, here's a Connie Radar animation test from a little while back.

 Oh Gosh, it's the Connie Radar Dailies blog from a couple years back.

Have you ever thought about buying a Connie Radar t-shirt?

  

Paper Trail masthead courtesy of Toby Morris.