It's my great pleasure to announce that 27 years from his first appearance in a UK fanzine, a brand new series of FULL COLOUR Brickman strips began in a top new American comic in the Summer of 2006.

BRICKMAN RETURNS is a one page back up strip which started from issue 2 of ELEPHANTMEN, the new title being packaged by Comicraft and published by Image Comics.

The main strips in ELEPHANTMEN expand the universe previously seen in Active Images' HIP FLASK comics by Richard Starkings and Ladronn. The new Elephantmen strips feature various guest artists. BRICKMAN is a seperate entity from that universe and I handle the whole strip, from script, art, lettering and colour.

Entitled BRICKMAN RETURNS the short self-contained humour strips will initially expand on the early years of Brickman's crime-fighting career for the benefit of the majority of readers who will be unfamilar with this particular Batman spoof. This will be Brickman's largest readership to date, so it's important to start anew.

However, the strips will not be mere re-treads but instead delve into unknown aspects of Brickman's world. The first strip revealed for the first time the identity of the person who threw the brick that lamped Loose Brayne on the nut way back in 1979, while the second strip explained who built the Brick-Cave.

Following strips reintroduced the supporting cast of sidekick Tina Trowel, Commissioner Moron, and the rogue's gallery of The Poker, Ostrich, etc. The possibility of setting stories after the events of the BRICKMAN BEGINS! graphic pocket-novel are also being considered, but at present it's a case of one step at a time.

Brickman first appeared in 1979 in my comics fanzine AFTER IMAGE, and then moved on to various other fanzines and mini-comics throughout the 1980's. In 1986 Harrier Comics published a BRICKMAN one-shot, and the character vanished from the scene for ten years before returning in the YAMPY TALES small press comics in 1996. In 2005 the character resurfaced again in a 152 page collection, BRICKMAN BEGINS, published by Active Images (see details on other pages of this site). Although Brickman has been around irregularly for 27 years his return in ELEPHANTMEN is Brickman's first appearance in a full colour comic.

ELEPHANTMEN is written and edited by Richard Starkings, who a couple of decades ago was my editor at Marvel UK when I was producing Combat Colin for THE TRANSFORMERS fortnightly. Since moving to Los Angeles Starkings has trailblazed computer comic book fonts with his Comicraft business and published several impressive graphic novels under the Active Images imprint.

- Lew Stringer,2006

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