Garen Ewing's Rainbow Orchid

Missed the news released earlier this year that Garen Ewing's magnificent Rainbow Orchid is finally getting the publication it's always deserved. Early days yet, but it's scheduled to be published by Egmont in 3 volumes commencing sometime in 2009.

For those of you not reading it, I'll hand you over to Garen for a description:

If you like your comics full of mystery and adventure and you love the worlds of H. Rider Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Edgar P. Jacobs and Hergé, then you'll want to read The Rainbow Orchid.

Set in the 1920s, it is a tale of the search for a mythical flower last mentioned by the ancient Greek philosopher and botanist, Theophrastus. But why does the orchid also feature on a stone slab that may tell of a forgotten Vedic legend? Who was the mysterious stranger who brought one to a remote village in the Hindu Kush, populated by those who are said to be descended from Alexander the Great? And why does Urkaz Grope want the legendary Trembling Sword of Tybalt Stone at all costs?

The Rainbow Orchid is traditional adventure at its best. Strong and simple storyteling with attractive and cinematic artwork, it enjoys a varied international readership of all ages and both sexes.

I deliberately picked a wordless strip for reproduction, but I've been reading the actual strip for a while and it's well worth spending a few hours over what is surely some of the best "ligne claire" this country's ever produced. Garen's website has a full archive of the strip, but I for one will be waiting impatiently to get my hands on a proper Bande Dessinee style album of Rainbow Orchid in a years time.

In the interim, Garen has a new strip coming out in the DFC soon called Charlie Jefferson and the Tomb of Nazaleod. Again, over to Garen:

Charlie Jefferson is a kid, aged somewhere around 11, 12 or 13 or so, who finds his summer holiday rudely interrupted when he and his not-sister are kidnapped by a gnarly old chap called the Professor who's after a stone pendant Charlie happens to wear round his neck most of the time. Before he knows it, Charlie finds himself hunting for a second and even a third pendant in order to save his family, plunging him into a forgotten era of ancient British history to reveal the long hidden secret of a brotherhood of kings. It's a story that moves quickly through twelve episodes to an exciting climax, with plenty of mystery and clue-solving along the way.