It's time for another look at 2000AD news around the web...

Garth Ennis gets interviewed.

Read the full Matthew Badham interview with Paul Gravett - taken from this month's Megazine.

Edginton and D'Israeli's work is heavily annotated.

No Heroics on ITV2 features comic covers that look familiar.

Forbidden Planet are hosting signings for Kev Walker, Dave Gibbons, Alan Marting and Rufus Dayglo.

Now available at Amazon: Ace Trucking Co Vol 1 , Judge Dredd Case Files Vol 11 , Strontium Dog - The Kreeler Conspiracy , ABC Warirors - The Third Element.

Also look out for Silverfin - the Young Bond comic adaptation by Charlie Higson and Kev Walker.

Kevin Levell redraws an episode of Judge Dredd.

Futurequake is back (more on this soon). 

Simon Spurrier talks up his work on the Punisher.

Pirchfest is alive and well at the Birmingham Comic Con.

And finally, 2000AD proves that all scientists are mad.

After the Internet furore over Holden and Ewing's banned Murderdrome app, the duo are back with another, considerably violence-free, app for the iPhone - Masked Marshal - the first comic using the new Eye Candy platform. 

The comic is certainly worth a download for 2000AD readers, despite clearly aiming at a much younger market.  Holden's art is as good as ever and Ewing's sense of humour still works even when the body count is cut back.  It's maybe a teeny bit too short, but you still get the opportunity to colour in, watch how the comic is built up from pencils and a whole lot more. Hopefully we'll soon see something more 2000AD-like from them soon, but this will certainly do in the meantime.

And all this gives us the chance to finally put up our much delayed Q&A with Holden...

First of all - what made you decided to try out a comic on the iphone?  Did you try out the Clickwheel app before embarking on your own venture - and if so what are your thoughts of that?

PJ Holden: From the first moment I saw an iPod touch/iPhone I thought - that's it! Apple just have NO idea of the potential they're sitting on. This was before the app store, before the sdk (software developer kit) and when the entire thing was just out.

As soon as the SDK was available I downloaded it to play with - to write my own app, but time was my enemy, so, in stead, I posted my plans online (www.xcake.org) and left it there as a project I'd do on my own time.

Shortly after that, I met Phil Orr (the programmer) while at Matt Johnston's wedding (our mutal friend and the third chap involved in infurious comics, the company formed around the comic app)

How does the process of writing and drawing for the iphone differ from any other medium?  What specific considerations of the format did you have to work around?

I've been drawing it in a simple US Size, four panels per page. It's only when you put the art on the iPod that you really notice things that would be fine on a normal page are a little odd on screen. Notably, the reading experience (in the comics we've done so far) has been reading left to right, so, for example, where you have a panel with sound that comes from the previous panel - normally in comics, you could have that sound coming from any direction, on the iPhone comic it's better if it's coming from the direction of the previous panel. (It's bloody hard to explain this stuff, you really need to see it!)

What extra pizazz can you add to the comic by having it on the iphone

•   International Support (we can supply layers in multiple language - so you can instantly have a French edition, Japanese or German)
•   Commentary - audio tracks built in, listen along to the creator
•   Multiple layers (as you've seen in the demo) these could include alternative artwork, photo reference (if it was used), a script layer,  a youtube video showing the panel being drawn, links to a wikipedia about the comic, etc.
•   and, what we've got built into our new comic 'Eye Candy'

I could sit for half an hour and come up with a dozen extra features - really, the limitation here is your imagination.

As reported, Apple have some issues with the Murderdrome comic.  Before we go into that, and assuming the issues can be resolved, what can you tell what we can expect from the comic itself?

I think it's very, very funny. And every panel makes me laugh.

What was the response from Apple - and is there a possibility of "appeal"?

Essentially, Apple rejected it based on the content not meeting their 'community standards' - which is fair enough, I think they're wrong in not having the same flexibility in books as they have in games - where you can rate a game as, for example, 17+. We've appealed as best we can, and we're now waiting to hear something. Anything.

Given Apple's concerns, what's the next stage in getting the app live?  It's been suggested that you promote the app as a delivery method - and sell the comics separately - is that a possibility?

It's a possibility, but the beauty of the system that we'd planned on using is that the costs of production are very low - seperating the comic from the reader means introducing a massive website with micropayments, brilliant reliability, massive bandwidth and unlimited storage. Everything we were getting from Apple by combining the app with content.

We could also tack a game onto the end of it and throw it into the games section with a 17+ rating.

Is the eventual plan to make the app available to other writers and artists for their own creations?  What kind of response have you had from the community so far?

Infurious's plans were always about creating new content for the iPhone (personally, I detest the zoom/pinch method of reading comics on the iPhone and we're far more interested in new content than delivering something else that's been chopped up for the iPhone). The important thing about the potential for the iPhone is how it can really introduce something far more equitable to comic creators than the current publishing/distribution systems can. An iPhone comic selling 3000 units is substantially more profitable than the equivalent selling print comic simply because the distribution / publishing costs are zero.

And that's it - so go and download Masked Marshal now !  If you don't have an iPhone, then you won't have long to wait to see Holden's artwork in 2000AD again, as he's working on a new series of The 86ers, now written by Arthur Wyatt (based on an idea from Gordon Rennie) due to see print in March 2009.  More on that soon.

Having sucessfully launched the Clickwheel comic reader, both online and on the iphone, Rebellion and Clickwheel are launching a new initiative - Comicbrush.

Little is known about the site yet, but their press announcement tells us:

"A companion site to Clickwheel, Comicbrush is aimed at consumers that want a simple way to create, publish and share a comic.

Rather than drawing a comic from scratch, Comicbrush lets you mix stock artwork from our fun collection of comic backgrounds, characters and props with photos of your friends, neighborhood or college.You can add speech balloons, text, your own artwork and more, before publishing your comic to the Web, social networking sites like Flickr, Facebook and MySpace, or a friend's iPhone/Touch.

And there's more. Comicbrush is not just for comic fans. If you're a comic creator, Comicbrush lets you create an interactive version of your comic… all you do is supply the characters and/or artwork for others to create their own version of your comic."

The promise of creating your own 2000AD cartoons is intriguing, even if the only assets we'll have are from the recent Rogue Trooper game, as suggested by the website.  Certainly worth keeping an eye on, in any case.

The press launch is next Wednesday, with special guest star Carlos Ezquerra attending.  We weren't invited (sob!) but expect to see details of the launch on the web (almost certainly on the following Monday's Lying in the Gutters), and we'll gather up any press links here too.

Find out more at www.comicbrush.com.

In the first of a semi-regular feature, we've been searching the web for the latest 2000AD sightings - something of a bite-size news piece, if you will. Here's what we've discovered recently.

David Bishop confirms that the paperback release of Thrill Power Overload is coming next year. 

Den of Geek reviews Judge Anderson Shamballa.

Learn how Judge Dredd is linked to Philip K Dick.

Discover that Ian Rankin was a fan of 2000AD.

Whitechapel proves that there are an awful lot of people who are willing to talk about 2000AD , but very few people who still buy the weekly...

And finally, view a moment in history at Rich Johnston's Comic Timing event at Harrods with, among many choice pieces of artwork, the very first page of Judge Dredd artwork from 2000AD no 2.  Note to Rich - you should ask Harrods to put something about this event on their own website! 

It's been up for quite some time, and the results on our last poll are as follows:

Sinister Dexter - should the gunsharks be permanently retired?

Yes - to the electric chair with them! : 53.1%     

No - they've many more stories to tell! : 46.9%

That's a win for those readers who are fed up of the punning gunsharks - but not by a huge margin.  If anything, the results prove what many of us believed - that Sinister Dexter really is a love it or hate it series with almost as many readers happy to see them in the weekly as those who wish they would just stay dead. 

The duo don't look like they're going anywhere, so hopefully Abnett will gradually be able to convince more readers that they're due a reprieve.

In the meantime - it's time for another poll. Given the recent Megazine relaunch - we'd like to know if you're more likely to buy the revamped version.  The new poll is in its usual place, over there on the left.

Here's a quick round-up of what's been happening in Tharg's domain recently.

Dredd Pants 

As any of you visiting the official site will be aware, Asda have just started selling Judge Dredd boxer shorts.  Featuring Dredd pointing his weapon, and the source of way too many double-entendres to go into here, they sell for only £3 or you can get 3 pairs for £7.  Alternatively, head over to the forum for a view of more pairs of Dredd pants than you could ever want to see...

2000AD at the BFI

As reported earlier, the BFI recently chaired a 2000AD talk in conjunction with its comic book movies season. Alas, we weren't there, so couldn't bring ou a full transcript or audio, but we'll do our best next time.

In the meantime, check out a quick update on the talk over at Fire and Forget.

Upcoming Signings

Forbidden Planet has a few 2000AD related signings coming soon with Alan Grant, Simon Bisley, Glenn Fabry, Ian Edginton, D'israeli, Dan Abnett and others all in attendance in coming weeks.  Check out the Forbidden Planet site for more.

Edginton and D'israeli will also be making an appearance at Gosh Comics.

That's it for the moment.  Don't forget to let us know if we've missed anything...