Author Archives: alexfitch

About alexfitch

Co-presenter / producer of "Panel Borders", Thursdays 5pm Resonance 104.4 FM. Film reviewer for www.electricsheepmagazine.com Podcaster for www.sci-fi-london.com

Panel Borders: Star Wars and Autobiography

Panel Borders: Star Wars and Autobiography

In a seasonal edition of Panel Borders, guest presenter (and cartoonist) Marc Ellerby talks to American graphic novelist Jeffrey Brown whose work varies from self-deprecating autobiographical titles such as Cats are Weird and A Matter of Life, to a variety of Star Wars illustrated books for kids including Jedi Academy and Vader’s Little Princess, in a Q and A recorded at Gosh! Comics, London. (Originally broadcast as the first half of a Clear Spot on Resonance 104.4 FM, 8th December 2015)

Covers and interior art from various books by Jeffrey Brown including Jedi Academy

Covers and interior art from various books by Jeffrey Brown including Jedi Academy

For more info and a variety of formats to stream or download this podcast, please visit archive.org

Links: Jeffrey Brown’s blog
Info about Brown at starwars.com
Marc Ellerby’s website
Listen to Alex’s 2009 interview with Marc Ellerby

Panel Borders: Star Wars and Autobiography [ 37:46 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Reality Check: The Ersatz Doctors part 1

Reality Check: The Ersatz Doctors part 1

Alex Fitch looks at the actors who have been hired to play incarnations of Doctor Who after the original actors have passed on or retired. While the programme has a built in fiction for the constant recasting of the lead role, fans have had a desire to still see and hear new adventures for the 1960s and 70s versions of Doctor Who, and these have begun to be made and licenced by the BBC for broadcast on digital radio, television and download.
Alex talks to impressionist Jon Culshaw about playing Tom Baker – otherwise known as the Fourth Doctor – in Dead Ringers, and audiobooks such as The Ark in Space; to actor David Troughton about channeling his father Patrick as an ersatz Second Doctor on BBC Radio 4extra
(Originally broadcast 21st December 2015 as part of a Clear Spot on Resonance FM, with thanks to BBC Audio)

David Troughton / Jon Culshaw / Covers of The Hexford Invasion and the Ark in Space

David Troughton / Jon Culshaw / Covers of The Hexford Invasion and the Ark in Space

For more info about this podcast and a variety of other episodes you can download, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.org

Links: Article about the recording of The Ark in Space at ladbrokeradio.com
Review of Doctor Who: Serpent Crest at cultbox.com
Listen to Alex’s interviews with Doctor Who actors Sylvester McCoy, Michael Jayston and Sophie Aldred
Order Death to the Daleks, The Ark in Space, The Hexford Invasion and The Curse of Peladon on CD from bbcshop.com

Reality Check: The Ersatz Doctors part 1 [ 37:45 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Panel Borders: Canadian Comics

Panel Borders: Canadian Comics

In a pair of interviews recorded at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in Kendal, Alex Fitch talks to a trio of Canadian comic book creators about their work. Husband and wife team Stuart and Kathryn Immonen discuss working together and apart on such Marvel comic books as NextWave, Heralds, HellCat and Fear Itself, and on their more personal projects including the webcomic Moving Pictures and their latest graphic novel Russian Olive To Red King.

Plus, in a live Q and A recorded in front of a select audience, Alex also talks to Quebec based cartoonist Estelle Bachelard, who draws under the pen-name Bach, about her first graphic novel from Soaring Penguin press – It’s Hard to be a Girl – which collects her humorous autobiographical facebook strips, taped in Brew Brothers Tea Shop, Kendal. (Originally broadcast as part of the ‘Clear Spot’, 9th November 2015 on Resonance 104.4 FM)

Cover of Fear Itself by Stuart Immonen, interior art from HellCat by Immonen and Immonen, cover and interior art from Russian Olive by Immomen and Immonen, cover and interior art from Its hard to be a girl by Bach

Cover of Fear Itself by Stuart Immonen, interior art from HellCat by Immonen and Immonen, cover and interior art from Russian Olive by Immomen and Immonen, cover and interior art from Its hard to be a girl by Bach

For more info and a variety of formats to stream or download this podcast, please visit archive.org

Links: Preview of It’s hard to be a girl on the Forbidden Planet International blog and order form on Soaring Penguin website
Info about Russian Olive To Red King on AdHouse Books website
Stuart and Kathryn Immonen’s blog
More info about the Lakes International Comic Art Festival

Panel Borders: Canadian Comics [ 49:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: Sound and Vision

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: Sound and Vision

Electric Sheep Magazine editor in chief Virginie Sélavy and assistant editor Alex Fitch talk to visual artist Graham Humphreys, best known for his posters for The Evil Dead, Dream Demon and Santa Sangre, about his new book, Drawing Blood. Festival director Nag Vladermersky discusses this year’s edition of the London International Animation Festival, which runs at the Barbican from 4 to 10 December. Plus an interview with Peter Strickland, director of Berberian Sound Studio and The Duke of Burgundy, about his new ‘3D sound’ adaptation of Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape for BBC Radio 4. Plus classic tracks by Link Wray, The Cramps, Elroy Dietzel, Hasil Adkins and The Sonics.
Electric Sheep Film Show continues on the 3rd Wednesday of each month at 8pm, repeated the following day at 9am.
Originally broadcast as a ‘Clear Spot’, 18th November 2015 on Resonance 104.4 FM

Details from Berberian Sound Studio, LIAF 2015 and Monster Club (by Graham Humphreys) posters

Details from Berberian Sound Studio, LIAF 2015 and Monster Club (by Graham Humphreys) posters

Visit www.archive.org, for more info and formats you can stream / download.

Links: Electric Sheep Magazine website
Download The Stone Tape from BBC iPlayer (until November 30th 2015)
Graham Humphrey’s website
London International Animation Festival website

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: Sound and Vision [ 1:08:31 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Panel Borders: Kate Beaton – Step Aside, Pops!

Panel Borders: Kate Beaton – Step Aside, Pops!

Alex Fitch talks to New York Times best selling author Kate Beaton about the latest collection of her webcomic Hark! A Vagrant: Step Aside, Pops, plus her children’s book The Princess and the Pony in front of a live audience at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, October 2015. Fitch and Beaton also discuss how the latter started making and disseminating webcomics and the influence of Canadian ‘infomercials’ on her work. (Originally broadcast as part of the ‘Clear Spot’, 9th November 2015 on Resonance 104.4 FM)

Covers of Step Aside, Pops and The Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton, Beaton and Alex Fitch at LICAf, photo by Leonard Sultana (An Englishman in San Diego)

Covers of Step Aside, Pops and The Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton, Beaton and Alex Fitch at LICAF, photo by Leonard Sultana (An Englishman in San Diego)

For more info and a variety of formats to stream or download this podcast, please visit archive.org

Links: Hark! A Vagrant website and Kate Beaton’s tumblr site
Buy The Princess and the Pony from Walker Books
Round up of LICAF 2015, day 2 by Leonard Sultana on his An Englishman in San Diego website
More info about the Lakes International Comic Art Festival

Panel Borders: Kate Beaton - Step Aside, Pops! [ 54:06 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: Satanic Panic, Festival Screenings

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: Satanic Panic, Festival Screenings

Electric Sheep Magazine editor Virginie Sélavy talks to author Kier-La Janisse about her book on the 1980s ‘Satanic Panic’ phenomenon, in which subculture, cult film and teenage rebellions were erroneously classified as having supernatural connections. Virginie also chats to film critic and cartoonist Mark Stafford about films they saw at this year’s London Film Festival, including: High Rise, The Witch, Evolution, Der Nachtmahr, The Invitation, Men and Chicken, The Lobster, Green Room, James White, Desierto and The Forbidden Room. Plus classic tracks by Sparkle Moore with Dan Belloc and his orchestra, and The Sonics. (Edited by Alex Fitch)
Partially broadcast as a ‘Clear Spot’, 22nd October 2015 on Resonance 104.4 FM

Satanic Panic cover / LFF logo / Mark Stafford, photo by Sarah McIntyre

Satanic Panic cover / LFF logo / Mark Stafford, photo by Sarah McIntyre

Visit www.archive.org, for more info and formats you can stream / download.

Links: Electric Sheep Magazine website
Info about “Satanic Panic” by Kier-La Janisse and Paul Corupe
Mark Stafford’s website

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: Satanic Panic, Festival Screenings [ 53:56 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Panel Borders: Big Punch Studios

Panel Borders: Big Punch Studios

Alex Fitch talks to a quartet of young graphic novelists – Nich Angell, Lucy Brown, Jon Lock and Alice White – who publish together under the umbrella of Big Punch Studios discuss Big Punch Magazine, and other titles created together and apart, in a panel discussion from the ‘True Believers’ Comic Festival in Cheltenham. Nich and Jon discuss they beginning of their collaborations via the crossover The Heavenly Cord, which mixes their comics 7String and Afterlife Inc., while Lucy explores her story 99 Swords and Alice talks about her design work on the anthology. (Originally broadcast as part of the ‘Clear Spot’, 12th October 2015 on Resonance 104.4 FM)

Issues 1-3 of Big Punch Magazine / Alice White, Nich Angell, (Jon Lock) and Alex Fitch discuss Big Punch studios at True Believers Comic Festival, Cheltenham

Issues 1-3 of Big Punch Magazine / Alice White, Nich Angell, (Jon Lock) and Alex Fitch discuss Big Punch studios at True Believers Comic Festival, Cheltenham

For more info and a variety of formats to stream or download this podcast, please visit archive.org

Links: Big Punch Studios website and shop
Listen to Alex’s previous interview with Nich Angell about swapping web comics

Panel Borders: Big Punch Studios [ 38:46 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: Cult Screenings, Hardware, Squirm

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: Cult Screenings, Hardware, Squirm

Electric Sheep Magazine assistant editor Alex Fitch talks to directors Jeff Lieberman and Richard Stanley, and composer Simon Boswell about cult cinema screenings.
Fitch and Lieberman discuss the latter’s classic horror films Squirm, Blue Sunshine and Just Before Dawn during the director’s visit to Cine-Excess 2014 at the University of Brighton, and bookending a 25th anniversary screening of Hardware at SCI-FI-LONDON, Stanley and Boswell explore the genesis of their film, the former’s plans to direct an adaptaion of H.P.Lovecraft’s “The Colour out of Space” and the latter’s scores for other genre classics such as Sante Sangre and Shallow Grave. Plus classic tracks by R Dean Taylor, and PiL (with live accompaniment by Simon Boswell).
Partially broadcast as a ‘Clear Spot’, 22nd October 2015 on Resonance 104.4 FM

Still from Hardware / Norwegian video cover for Blue Sunshine / still from Squirm

Still from Hardware / Norwegian video cover for Blue Sunshine / still from Squirm

Visit www.archive.org, for more info and formats you can stream / download.

Links: Electric Sheep Magazine website
Cine-Excess website and tickets for this year’s event
Info about the 25th anniversary screening of Hardware at SCI-FI-LONDON
Listen to Alex’s interview with artist Kevin O’Neill about the strip Shokk which inspired Hardware

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: Cult Screenings, Hardware, Squirm [ 55:55 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Panel Borders: Erica Smith – Girl Frenzy

Panel Borders: Erica Smith – Girl Frenzy

Alex Fitch talks to cartoonist Erica Smith recalls her influential zine Girl Frenzy, made by Brightonians in the 1990s, in an interview recorded at Cartoon County, Hove. Alex and Erica also discuss the anti-UKIP beer mats the artist designed for distribution in the South East before the General Election and her contributions to “Julia Kay’s Portrait Party”.(Originally broadcast as part of the ‘Clear Spot’, 12th October 2015 on Resonance 104.4 FM)

Issues 3 - 5 of Girl Frenzy, Erica Smith holds GF annual (photo by Sarah McIntyre), anti-UKIP beer mats designed by Smith

Issues 3 – 5 of Girl Frenzy, Erica Smith holds GF annual (photo by Sarah McIntyre), anti-UKIP beer mats designed by Smith

For more info and a variety of formats to stream or download this podcast, please visit archive.org

Links: Interview with Erica Smith about portrait art
Article by Smith on her anti-UKIP beer mat design
Article by Charlotte Cooper on her contributions to Girl Frenzy

Panel Borders: Erica Smith – Girl Frenzy [ 47:55 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Panel Borders: Chris Riddell

Panel Borders: Chris Riddell

Alex Fitch talks to Children’s Laureate Chris Riddell about newspaper cartoons, Goth Girl and illustrating Coraline. Chris and Alex also discuss the artist’s different takes on Alienography for political cartoons and children’s books, plus his memories of encountering David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta at a young age. (Originally broadcast as part of the ‘Clear Spot’, 15th September 2015 on Resonance 104.4 FM. Recorded at Graphic Brighton)

Political and non-political Alienography, Antrobus and Coraline by Chris Riddell

Political and non-political Alienography, Antrobus and Coraline by Chris Riddell

For more info and a variety of formats to stream or download this podcast, please visit archive.org

Links: Chris Riddell’s website
Info about Riddell’s illustrated books at bloomsbury.com
Biography at cartoons.ac.uk
More info about Graphic Brighton

Panel Borders: Chris Riddell [ 54:28 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download