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Underground > Comic Books >

Brendan McCarthy website

23:56 / 25.05.04

I think this must be quite new, because I've searched for Brendan resources across the web to no avail before.

But here it is. Very nice too.

00:23 / 26.05.04

This is actually a quite old site that I think went offline for a while, but is now back.

Long live the New McCarthyism!

Haus of Mystery

11:56 / 26.05.04

Him and Shaky Kane are/were leaders of The New Psychadelic Underground (copywrite - me, 5 seconds ago), unsung heroes of the eighties. McCarthy is a god, plain and simple - probably my all time favourite artist.

13:38 / 26.05.04

Everybody's favourite artist.

Love the Doom Patrol character designs. Love the very idea of the Dan Dare tv series.

In fact, fuck Flex Mentallo - if anything on this planet is crying out to be collected together in a single edition, it’s all that fantastic early McCarthy art. Paradax! And Freakwave! And, yes, Sooner Or Later! (and I’d rather like to be able to read Summer Of Love, come to that.) It’s just not right that all this stuff is so obscure, I hope it’s not going to have to wait 60-odd years for a proper reprinting, like Krazy Kat. A big fat collection of McCarthy stuff would sell all around the world. Why isn’t this being done already? Who owns the copyright? grr. I’m going to go round their house and make them do what I say.

14:28 / 26.05.04

The site isn't new, it's gone under different names and designs but it's been up and running for five years. Well, apart from being off-line for a few months recently while I worked on the new design.

Glad everyone likes the site. I suggest you casually stroll by in the next month or so, I’ve been talking to Brendan and he’s promised loads of new artwork for the site

Oh, if anyone has any McCarthy material please send it my way. At the moment I'm after an interview he did for "Fan-fan-zene" in 2002 and I'm also after a "Johnny Rotten" illustration he did for the NME around April 1994.

Send any stuff to: johnk@2000ad.nu

Lovely
JohnK.

15:44 / 26.05.04

want to chime in with a 'my favourite artist too'

Haus of Mystery

16:26 / 26.05.04

Too late - the moment's passed. You'll have to settle for Ron Smith.

18:58 / 26.05.04

Yep. Leaving me Bellardinelli. Fuckit. Hey, MacGuyver, howsabout getting together that Kane & McCarthy exhibition in the kiosk building? They might be flexible and nice enough to exhibit for free. Worth a try, no?

09:02 / 27.05.04

that's a good idea that is. a maxi-size judge planet down on the seafront would be deep cool.

10:10 / 27.05.04

blah blah don't know where this should go, so i'll put it here.

read dredd trade 'wilderlands' last night, the whole mechanismo 3 / tenth planet / mcgruder's resignation saga:

ezquera's art is amazing - nasty kirbyesque photobackgrounds and really really good use of posture, body language and facial expressions. he's much underrated, and totally doesn't do the big black blocks of stuff outlining everyone any more. nice one charlie

10:40 / 27.05.04

What makes that stuff even more amazing is that - iirc - it was his first published attempt at computerised colouring.

And the black block outlines were never a massive feature anyway, being limited to use in extreme close ups and one-panel pages. Plus, I liked 'em. Ezquerra's art is full of meaty goodness - chunky and fleshy.

20:41 / 28.05.04

I was told to keep this quiet but I’ve just been given the go ahead to let out the news….

Bedhead you won’t have to wait 60 year for a McCarthy collection, maybe about 12 months. Got a parcel from L.A. this morning which contained a proof copy of a book called ‘Swimini Purpose’. It’s 200 plus pages long, and basically is a retrospective of Brendan’s work. It covers everything from the superhero comics he drew as a 12 year old up to the present day. It isn’t a reprint as such, but it covers in details and prints parts of Freakwave, Paradax and his other comics plus features a digitally updated complete version of the Mirkin story. Brendan’s currently in the process of finding a publisher so hopefully it won’t take too long before it’s on shelves.

Brendan wants to keep the contents secret as a good portion of the book features previously unseen artwork, so unfortunately I can’t scan any of the contents. But lets just say, if you’re a McCarthy fan you won’t be disappointed. If you want to know more check the site out over the next couple of days where you’ll be able to have a sneak preview of the front and back covers.

Cheers
JohnK

The Strangeness of Brendan McCarthy--------
----- www.2000ad.nu/brendan-mccarthy ------

21:10 / 28.05.04

Woo! Best. News Ever.

Does it have any of Summer Of Love in there? Please tell me there's some Summer Of Love in there.

Wow. 200 pages. This sounds like a dream come true. wow. I'm bowled over.

21:45 / 28.05.04

No Summer of Love I'm afraid, but this is just the 'dummy' copy so the contents will change. The problem is someone nicked all the original Summer of Love artwork, the story was completed but never fully published, so it's all out there somewhere. Perhaps using the power of the internet we can track all the artwork down, so kids check under the stairs etc... there’s a Milligan/McCarthy masterpiece to be found. Have you got any episodes of Summer of Love Bedhead? I’ve only got one and on the hunt for others.

Actually there are more than 200 pages. It’s the same size as a traditional comic trade paperback and as thick as one of those 'Essential' Marvel black-n-white reprint books.

Cheers
JohnK
The Strangeness of Brendan McCarthy

14:50 / 23.04.09

Aww, poor old barbelith these days.

So, I never got my Swimini Purpose, boo. No money that week, and then it was the next week and they were all gone. So, I don't really know if there was any 'Summer Of Love' in there after all, but, if there wasn't, I bought a set on ebay a little while ago. (For less than a fiver! Some fella had chopped them out of the News On Sunday when they were published, and had kept them folded safe in the bottom of a draw somewhere, and then he finally decides to get rid and I'm the only bidder and all he gets for them is a measly couple of quid plus postage.)

Anyway, there's only seven episodes in total, so if anyone hasn't read this and is interested, here they are, ze fabulous milligan and mccarthyyyyy:

sol1

sol3

sol4

sol5

sol6

sol7