Who's Who in the CBU 2008

Name: Regie Rigby

Regie is a strange, almost ethereal creature. Who can plumb the hidden mysteries of his dark and murky past - a past which contains a terrible secret. A secret that taught him that with great power comes great responsibility, that criminals are a cowardly superstitious lot and just who exactly knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

By day, he assumes the appearance of a mild mannered teacher, bringing the joy of literature and the English Language to classes of enthralled and enthusiastic students. But by night?

By night he goes home and writes lesson plans. Sorry. That's as interesting as he gets. Really.

The rumours about rooftop struggles with underworld uberfiends, the gossip about the hidden cave filled with hi-tec equipment and the suggestion that his car might be fitted with turbo lasers are all nonsense.

When he's not teaching he reads comics. Sometimes he combines the two activities. When he's not doing that he's either playing computer games or asleep.

The Eagles Are Coming!

By Regie Rigby

Well, the year is still young and while the recent temperate weather has made everything here in the UK seem rather spring like, it is still the case that it’s still rather a long time ‘till May and the 2007 Eagle Awards. However, the whole Eagle machine is swinging into action and nominations have opened. Swing over to the website and have your say about who should be in the running for the UK’s most prestigious comics award.

The nomination form is simple to use. You can select from a drop down menu of titles and creators already nominated, or you can input your own choice. Now, obviously, I would never attempt to influence your choices. But there are some interesting names on the lists of those mentioned already, and perhaps some odd absences.

SBC is there of course, available to be nominated in the “Best Comics Related Website” category. Please don’t let the fact that we won it last time make you think that we might somehow have become bored with the “Eagle Award Winner” logo in the corner of the front screen – we haven‘t. In fact, we’ve grown to rather like it, so we still need your vote. That’s enough shameless self promotion though, who else is on the list so far?

Well, the favourite writer, character, artist type categories are chock full of the usual suspects already, and one or two names I wasn’t expecting, but I’m going to stay out of that fray. I suspect you already know who your favourite writers, artists and characters are, and nothing I’m going to say is likely to persuade you, so I won’t waste our time.

Like the Oscars, the BAFTAs, and all the other awards of this nature, it’s the minor categories that are where all the really interesting things happen. Like “Favourite Publisher”, for instance. I mean, the big names like Marvel, DC, Rebellion and the like are all there. But size isn’t everything in this game and there are some other names that deserve your attention.

The very lovely BOOM! Studios for example. Then there’s D.C. Thompson, home of The Beano and The Dandy. Markosia are there too, and all are deserving of your attention. I’d encourage you to consider the title of the awards too – they want your favourite. I don’t actually read any titles from D.C. Thompson any more, but I still have a very soft spot for them. The represent a lot of happy memories from childhood and since they’re in the kid’s humour business and not generally in Comics Shops, they sometimes get a little overlooked.

This is a shame because they really do do some good work. On the other hand, since they really don’t serve an audience that is likely to know or care about the Eagles, maybe the recognition wouldn’t do them any good. Smaller outfits like BOOM! and Markosia really would benefit from the kudos, and since both are genuinely deserving of your vote, you might want to consider them.

Then there’s the best web comic. This is a tough category – there are literally hundreds of potential winners here, and I have to be honest, the nominations list has been brilliant for finding great free comics I might not otherwise have found. It’ll still be no surprise to regular readers that my nomination in this category is Gun Street Girl by Barb Lien Cooper and Ryan Howe. It is ridiculously good stuff, and all the better for being free. How much more could you possibly want?

Other categories just make me feel like I’ve been paying appropriate attention. My ego likes to think that I keep up with all the best comics on the UK scene, and I like the fact that rather a lot of the titles currently featuring in the favourite colour and black and white comic book categories have featured in this very column – often several times.

In the colour section we have the ever wonderful Thrud the Barbarian, alongside Midnight Kiss (soon to be available as a graphic novel) several Markosia titles (most of them written by Tony Lee, so it could be a good awards night for him – further proving my prophesy that this could well be his year) The Beano, The Dandy and charity anthology Just One Page. I’m not telling you what my nomination was, simply because I really wanted to nominate several books in the category.

I had a similar problem with the Black and White category. After confusion last year about what you do with a comic that is more or less black and white but has some colour pages, Malcolm Magic features in this category (and it’s your last chance to vote for it because the series is now over), alongside other FoolBritannia favourites like Andy Winter’s excellent Hero Killers, AccentUK’s Monsters and Bevis Musson’s Queen of Diamonds.

And it fair warms the cockles of my heart when I think about it. There really is a vast vast amount of really good stuff out there at the moment, and it’s always good when something like the Eagle Awards comes along to remind us of that. I like the fact that I’m finding it difficult to choose what I want to nominate. I like the fact that I can look down long lists of nominees and think that they all deserve to be there. That’s such an encouraging sign about the quality we have available to us at the moment.

From time to time I’ve been known to whinge and moan about the state of comics. Sometimes it’s easy to dwell on the negative. Sometimes it’s even easy to be slightly cynical about awards. But you know what? I’ve had a particularly bad week in my day job life, and thinking about my nominations has been a little ray of sunshine and positivity in an otherwise grim sky and that’s reminded me why I love comics as much as I do.

So, follow the link, make your nominations and join in the positivity-fest! And don’t forget who your favourite Comics-related Website is!

And while we’re on the subject of good things, I should remind you of the FoolBritannia/2000AD photo contest to win one of the fabulous 2000AD t shirts that are currently hiding in a box under my desk here at FoolCentral. Just one thing though – when you e-mail your entries in to me, can I ask you to put “2000AD pics” in the subject header? I think I might accidentally have deleted an entry last week thinking it was Spam because the subject line just said “Hi”. So, if you’ve sent me an entry and not had an acknowledgement of it, please feel free to send it again.

As for the rest of the rules:

To enter you must e-mail a picture of yourself holding something connected to UK comics anthology 2000AD outside your favourite comics store. For the sake of this contest "comics store" will be taken to mean "store where you buy your comics" and need not be a store soley dedicated to the sale of comics.

No purchase necessary. You could be pictured with the actual comic, a related publication, such as a graphic novel, or a poster. They need not be yours, but please get the permission of the person who does own them before entering. A picture of a 2000AD character downloaded from the 'net, or even a hand written sign saying "I love 200AD" would also be acceptable.

All entries must include the entrant’s name and contact address. Addresses will be kept confidential, but I can’t send you a prize without it.

Only one entry per person. If you want the chance to win two shirts, you’re going to have to clone yourself, but if two different people at the same address want to have a go, that’s fine.

Please don’t pretend to be two people at the same address if there’s only one of you. That’s cheating, and I’ll know. And even if I don’t , you’ll feel guilty. If you want a shirt that badly, you can buy one here.

It will be assumed that you are happy for your picture and comments to be published in this column unless you expressly state otherwise. If you state otherwise your privacy will be respected, but we reserve the right to describe what your picture was of. Anything that is published here will be credited appropriately.

It will be assumed that you retain all other copyright on your pictures, and do not give permission for the pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than the FoolBritannia column.

FoolBritannia, SBC and all associates accept no responsibility for persons using pictures published in this column without permission.

Entries should be sent by e-mail to regie@silverbulletcomicbooks.com.

The judges’ decision is final. No correspondence will be entered into. Except, you know, to say hello and stuff.

Please state T Shirt size when entering.

Prize shirt designs will be assigned more or less at random depending on availability of sizes, but if you have a preference please feel free to state it and we’ll see what we can do.