Dinosaur lives! Or he should do...

In a parallel universe, some very interesting strips appeared in the DFC that never made it into our timeline. Even now, they’re out there. They exist. Within a year, they could be graphic novels on the bookshelves in our reality. There’s no reason why other universes should have all the fun.

So, publishers: buck your ideas up! Didn’t you see the success Borders has been having with their new graphic novel section? Pull your collective fingers out and start releasing some great original story-driven graphic novels here in the UK. No, I don’t mean dreamy melancholic reminiscences about growing up in ‘80s Britain, or worthy would-be award-winning stuff about being a child under the Khmer Rouge. Just some pulse-pounding, imagination-thrilling stories that will – good heavens – actually sell.

Here are a few I’d snap up in an instant:

Zhanna: Adventures in Time and Alternative Realities
Garen Ewing posted about this on the Super Comics Adventure Squad blog. He said that was just a working title, but you know what? I like it. Zhanna didn’t make it into the DFC because the time travel theme clashed with John Blake. (Hmm. So I guess it’s just as well we didn’t tell them about Gus…)

Dinosaur and WolfBy the absurdly talented, charismatic and inventive Iain McCaig, who was born the same day as me but probably not in Slough. The characters are a pigeon and a dachshund who think they’re epic heroes. At least, the pigeon does; the poor old dog just gets dragged along. It’s funny, wondrous, exuberant storytelling at its very best. You can find out more about this and some of Iain’s other projects in his gorgeous art book Shadowline.

Kingdom of Feathers
This strikes me as a kind of modern Trigan Empire or Atlantis Chronicles. The premise is absolutely brilliant and is the sort of thing that would have had me enthralled at any age from 8 onwards (right up to the present day). I’m not going to spill the beans here as I don’t know how the writer intended to unfold the story – or indeed who the writer is. But here are some pencil pages by Russ Nicholson.