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The Official Bryan Talbot fanpage / Heart of Empire homepage
 

Fanmail received for Heart of Empire

 

This page shows just some of the fanmail received by Bryan for Heart of Empire:


James,

Please forward a message of congratulations and thank you to Mr. Talbot on the release of Heart of Empire #1!

It did not disappoint at all, and certainly shocked and surprised! Wonderful, wonderful, WONDERFUL stuff! And this is only the first issue! And I hope the both of you continue the superlative work!

Jose de Leon


Hi James,

First off, let me congratulate you on a superb website. It's a real joy to see something put together with such enthusiasm for the subject matter. Well done. Bryan's lucky to have such a dedicated and talented fan.

About HEART OF EMPIRE...I have to confess I've been out of the loop for sometime, having tired of the same-old same-old that comics had sunk into. They simply didn't fire my imagination the way they used. Oh, I keep up with a favourite character or two, but that's about it. So it was with total suprise I saw issue 1 of HEART OF EMPIRE on the shelf at my local shop.

Strange as it seems, my heart literally skipped a beat. I'd heard rumours of course, but dismissed them as nothing more than the wishful thinking of those yearning for the days when comics had a little more substance. To think that they were true! To paraphrase some of my American friends - good gracious this kicks bottom! The crisp lines of Bryan's art and the vivid colours of Angus McKie are a powerful combination. Bryan's superb script shows once again, that he's just too talented to live. Bravo, sir! Well played indeed!

Somehow, somewhere, someone has deemed it necessary for a revival in the art of the comic book. With new titles like Alan Moore's THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAODRINARY GENTLEMEN, Warren Ellis's THE AUTHORITY and PLANETARY, and now Bryan's HEART OF EMPIRE, it looks like that revival is here. all the best,

Chris Halliday


Hi Bryan,

It seems like a long time since One Bad Rat and I've been looking forward to Heart Of Empire since I was fortunate enough to see your pencilled and partly-inked pages a year or more ago. I've been a fan of yours since I picked up that issue of Near Myths (#5?) on impulse from a local newsagent and was blown away by the incredible attention to detail of your Luther Arkwright strip inside; even if I didn't have any idea what was going on. In those heady days when Heavy Metal was reprinting the very best of the European Bande Dessine, Arkwright combined the best of British adventure strips with a European sensibility, it was well suited for the times.

You may remember I was fortunate enough to actually publish a piece your work, the excellent "Cold Snap" (written by Alan Moore) in the Ethiopian Charity publication Food For Thought. I picked up your work on the Tekno books without really paying much attention to it, I must admit.

One Bad Rat by comparison demonstrated a huge evolution in your style - both art and storytelling much simpler stylistically (superficially at least), emphasising your highly-developed sense of design and fully exploiting the opportunity for use of colour. The clarity of your layout and linework was impressive, and the innovative use of varying thicknesses of outlines to indicate depth was brilliantly implemented. The subject matter was sensitively handled and the Beatrix Potter-style pages in the concluding episode were delightful. Suffice to say, I thought Bad Rat was a masterpiece.

I've since seen lots of preview art for the new series in assorted fanzines recently, and it looks likely to be your best work to date. It looks to be more detailed than the Bad Rat work, without sacrificing the clarity of the overall design, and I can't wait to see how it looks with Angus McKie's superb colours. I'm also looking forward to see how you're presenting the Arkwright concept to a new generation of readers.

It's been an agonising wait, but I think it's been the right tactic to delay publication until the whole series is ready.

Wishing you the very best of luck in these difficult times for the industry.

Gary Spencer Millidge.

The whole of Heart of Empire - together with all pencilled and inked pages, 60,000 words of annotations by Bryan and the whole of the Adventures of Luther Arkwright is available on a CD-Rom for only 18 US dollars.

 

 

 
   
The design and content of this page and this entire website is copyright 1999, 2006 by James Robertson: all images are copyright 1999, 2006 by Bryan Talbot