…the first galactic secret-assassin-rockstar I see tonight…
Just over a week ago, I again attended Zagreb’s Comicon – this isn’t a detailed report about that, because a) I already wrote about it at length last year, and b) this year I had some work commitments so I was only able stop by briefly on Saturday and Sunday (same for the simultaneous SF convention).
Mainly, I just wanted to gush in a most geeky way out about a book I picked up, and the fact that I got most of the creative team to sign it for me. The book is called Parlight Starlov. Here’s the cover:
A little background: a few years ago, Goran Parlov was doing the art for a mini-series by Mark Millar called Starlight [sidebar to Greg Burgas – that’s another one by Millar that I like, which completely slipped my mind back when you posted your Millar hit-piece, mainly because at that time the book was still collecting dust on my shelf, and to be honest, I’d pretty much forgetten that Millar was even the writer – I only read it this past week because the Parlight book reminded me that I had it]. So a bunch of his fellow Croatian comics guys started doing a series of spoof strips featuring a character called ‘Parlight Starlov’ (a mash-up, obviously, of Parlov and Starlight), set in the year 2525, about the titular character, who is a famed rock singer, beloved throughout the known galaxy, but also secretly a high-priced assassin. He also bears a suspicious resemblance to Goran Parlov.
All of the separate episodes were scripted by Krešimir Biuk (who, it should be noted, is also an artist and illustrator), but each has a different artist or artists. Initially these really weren’t meant for the broader public, but then they decided to put them together into a book.
It was published last year, but the guys only all got together for a formal presentation at the Zagreb show this year.
Just before that – and this is the best part of the story for me – I got almost the entire creative team (sans the guys who weren’t there) to sign it for me.
That’s Strukan…
…and that’s Svorcina (with Biuk in the background)…
…and that’s Sršen and Svorcina looking on as Talajić does his magic…
…and this is the end result:
It’s a fun little book, otherwise, but you have to understand Croatian to be able to read it…
