The Ephemerist

As of yesterday, UK cartoonist Garen Ewing has started serializing his comic The Rainbow Orchid on LiveJournal. This is a good thing for LifeJournal and other RSS junkies, because they can jump aboard the Rainbow Orchid express from the start from the comfort of their aggregator. The rest of us will have to wait another nine months or so, before this version will have caught up with the original one.

And what is The Rainbow Orchid? Why not let Garen explain himself :

“It is an adventure story set in the 1920s, inspired by the likes of H. Rider Haggard, Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle, with an artistic influence coloured by European Bande Dessinée - Hergé, Edgar P. Jacobs, Yves Chaland and Floc’h etc.

Publishers have described it as “like Tintin, but more cerebral” and “a proper story with ad eep plot” (read some more comments here). It has been read and admired by the likes of Bryan Talbot, Philip Pullman, Patrick A. Dumas, Richard Starkings and about 6000 readers a week from all over the world visiting the website (it reached a million hits in March). It has even been translated into French.

Although it is being published on the web, it is not primarily a webcomic. The question most often asked is ‘when can I buy the book?’ - and that is the aim. The Rainbow Orchid has a literary and media agent and has already been approached by several major book publishers - it just needs to be completed!

But the main thing is to tell a good story.”

As a Belgian, and therefore assuming that I have anything to say in things ligne claire (which I don’t), I think this is one of the best comics to step in Tintin’s footsteps, along with Dirk Stallaert’s Nino and Peter Van Dongen’s Rampokan…

Will Eisner and Jack Kirby (and Mrs. Kirby) at the 1982 San Diego Comic Con. A priceless photo from a Alan Light’s Flickr photoset on Flickr (photo by Alan Light).

(via Drawn! The Illustration Blog)

By chance, I came across this cover art for Nick Lowe’s new album, At My Age. I saw Lowe a few years ago performing solo (with the fabulous Geraint Watkins as support) and this image totally captures the man. He is that thin and he is that cool and his hair is that white.

I haven’t heard the music yet, but if it’s on a par with the cover, it can’t be bad. Now, if only I knew who drew this…

Update - Thanks to Jesus L (see below), I found out that the illustration was done by Phil Hankinson. Judging from his other work on his agent’s website, here’s another name to keep on the lookout for.