DC’s September reboot might have dominated the week’s comics news, but while the rest of you were all wondering whether Grant Morrison would be writing Watchmen 2: The Curse of Ozymandias’ Gold, I was out exchanging inky handshakes with any number of shifty characters in order to bring you a real scoop!

Here it is, don’t say we’re not good to you!

MARVEL COMICS PROUDLY PRESENTS: ‘THE MAN WHOSE HEAD EXPANDED’, A TWELVE PART XORN MAXI-SERIES BY WATCHMEN AUTEUR AND BEARDED FANCYMAN ALAN MOORE!!!

EVER WONDER WHAT WAS REALLY GOING ON DURING THE XORNETO DEBACLE? YOU MIGHT THINK YOU KNOW THE ANSWER, BUT MUCH FANCIED WORD-BURBLER AND PART TIME SWAMP THING IMPRESSIONIST ALAN MOORE KNOWS OTHERWISE, AND NOW – FINALLY! – HE’S AGREED TO TELL THE REAL STORY IN THE MIGHTY MARVEL MANNER!!!!!

WHAT’S THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE MAN WITH THE STAR FOR A HEAD, EVERYONE’S FAVOURITE LEATHERY NAZI-HUNTER, MARK E SMITH, AND A SINISTER GANG OF SCOTTISH SKINHEADS?!!?!! FIND OUT IN ‘THE MAN WHOSE HEAD EXPANDED’, A FIVE STAR RAVE-UP IN TWELVE SPECTACULAR ISSUES!!!!!!!!


ART BY FRANK QUITELY; COLOURS BY BRENDAN MCCARTHY/STEVE COOK.

STARTS 6th JUNE 2012

What Alan’s done here, and it’s quite clever, but basically he’s taken the idea – what if a man had a star for a head – and he’s sort of pointed out all the ways in which it doesn’t make sense. Because it doesn’t, really, when you think about it. A man with a star for a head. Ridiculous.’ — Stewart Lee, CLiNT Magazine

‘I’m dead me!’ — William Blake, Wizard’s Top Colourist, 2003-2005

‘Don’t worry Grant, I’ll probably only manage two or three issues this year! – Frank “the shank” Quitely, chin expert

Check this out. One of the greatest icons in the Mindless Hall of Fame and Mirrors writing a teeny-Beebies cartoon, with interactive online games and super-psychic timetraveller vampire detectives in a flooded future London.

It’s called Meta4orce, and you can watch the whole lot here (possibly. I gather some geographical limitations may apply to BBC stuff.) The intro graphics and that are nice, but the animation’s kind of flat and cheap, not going much beyond stand-blink-talk. However, the inevitable themes are all present and correct: gorgeous gamine adolescents unsure of their bizarrely sprouting new abilities and the wrenching existential crises wrought thereby. Violent introspection and doomed identities sure to follow, as well as some witty wordplay, a few crushing put-downs, and a lovely, tragic-romantic sensibility.

In case you are truly mindless and that didn’t give it away – it’s written by Peter Motherfuckingilligan.

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