Bad news from the north tonight after the organisers of Hi-Ex, the Inverness-based Highlands Comic Expo announced next year's event has been scrapped.

"It seemed to be a responsibility to actually mess comics up a bit..."

Thank whatever deity you believe in - up to and including Cthulu - that Alan Moore, the angry old man of British comics, is such a naturally talented wit and ranconteur.  Because without him to carry both ends of the interview at the Edinburgh Books Festival, this would have been hard going.

Late slip, but somehow the news that the Doctor Who graphic novel range seems to have been axed passed me by for the last few weeks.

Word snuck out after The Crimson Hand, the final collection covering David Tennant's time in the DWM strip, failed to hit the shelves in the summer, with former Monthly editor John Freeman writing on the Down the Tubes blog that it had been cancelled due to contractual difficulties.

And frustratingly, it seems to have taken the rest of the range with it.  Although the complete run of McGann era stuff is out, and the collected 'imperial era' stories by the likes of Dave Gibbon, John Ridgway and Steve Parkhouse - including the iconic Tides of Time and Voyager - only the earliest days of the Seventh Doctor strip has been released.

It'd be gutting to lose those books, partly for selfish reasons - that was when I came to the comic strip as a reader, and what my fondest memories are of - but also because that run, from 1988 through to 1996, saw the strip striking out in fascinating, challenging directions both creatively and in continuity.

Creepy tales like Fellow Travellers and action-filled romps like Mark of Mandragora, the chilling Good Soldier and the batshit crazy Nemesis of the Daleks, which brought the world this fella...

There were interesting creative decisions, as the strip first coupled itself to the New Adventures continuity then decoupled itself in time to go off in a new direction in time for the TV Movie in 1996, culminating in the genuinely climactic Ground Zero.

As we wrote last year, the graphic novel releases have been very welcome - despite reportedly stiffing John Ridgway on royalties - and brought much to the Doctor Who mythos, not only in resurrecting the great strips of yesteryear but with the additional content they contain - be it cut scenes, early sketches or writer/artist interviews.  As much love has been lavished on making the books as good as they could be as the DVD range has enjoyed.

Here's hoping this ends up only being a temporary pitstop as the range enters its final lap, rather than a permanent retirement.

How typical is this.  No sooner have Craig, Iain and Eddie lamented the lack of a Glasgow comic con in this month's edition of The Thumbcast (still available here) than Mark Bleedin' Millar comes along and does one.

Blimey, how's that for service!

Ok, it's not quite a con.  Mark revealed to his Millarworld followers earlier today that he had been asked by the Glasgow Film Theatre to be a part of a comics event as part of next year's Glasgow Film Festival.

Quoth Marky Mark:

Okay, this is cool.

Had lunch with a woman called Alison Gardner yesterday. She runs the GFT in Glasgow and I've been friends with the place since the Kick-Ass preview at last year's film festival. She told me she wants to do a comic festival WITHIN the february film festival this year and asked me to be the official ambassador. I like the sound of this because it makes me feel like Gregory Peck in The Omen or someone James Bond might have to nick a computer disc from. So naturally I agreed and will be tapping up my UK comic buddies as guests AND...

...OH HELL YES...

...picking the comic-book movies to be shown during the festival. Yes, this is your chance to see something you've either never seen before or, like maybe Superman The Movie or Flash Gordon, have never seen on the big screen surrounded by like-minded enthusiasts. In other words, it shall be awesome and as much as I have my own list of movies I want to see here I thought it might be interesting to see other suggestions too. We're going to be running six in a comic book season (doesn't have to be superhero) so what would you like?

This is going to be damn good and we'll be getting our guests together soon. Very exciting!

Now, the festival often has mini-festivals or strands within its run - earlier this year Frightfest came up for a couple of screenings, for example - but this, if confirmed, is rather fab news.  There's a load of decent comics films that deserve a screening.  But it'd be great to see some of the bog-awful ones up there too... Corman's Fantastic 4, for example, or Elektra.  Our kinda films, basically!

We here at The Thumbcast love the GFT, so we can only hope that the folk up Rose Street pull it off.  And if nothing else it gives us an excuse to relocate along the road from our studio to the GFT Bar for the duration...