Tripwire Magazine, the UK-based pop culture outlet founded by photographer Joel Meadows, is turning 30 this year. To celebrate the occasion, Tripwire is teaming with Heavy Metal Entertainment to release the Tripwire 30th Anniversary book, a 224-page softcover spotlighting the outlet’s work over the past thirty years through a combination of previously-published and brand-new material.
Heavy Metal provides a breakdown of what readers can expect from the book:
The Tripwire 30th anniversary book is graced by a cover by designer Kit Caoagas and includes a foreword by Image Comics’ Dirk Wood, an introduction by Previews editor Marty Grosser, classic interviews with the likes of Alan Moore, Frank Miller and Mike Mignola, feature stories and other reprinted material, a photo gallery, Scott Braden’s Lost Tales comic series, a new Sherlock Holmes and The Empire Builders comic by Meadows and co-creator/artist Andy Bennett, and a new Fred The Clown comic strip by Roger Langridge.
The book will also include pinups and art from the likes of Jock (Batman), Drew Struzan (Indiana Jones), Frank Miller (Sin City, Dark Knight), Walter Simonson (Thor, Ragnarok), Bill Sienkiewicz (Moon Knight, Batman), Laurence Campbell (Hellboy), and many others. Meadows is also contributing new 30th anniversary themed feature stories, including a story about Heavy Metal’s history, an examination of Marvel movies over 30 years, a list of 30 independent creators who have impacted the industry, and much more.
In a statement announcing the collaboration, Meadows and Heavy Metal Executive Editor Joseph Illidge both expressed their enthusiasm for the team-up and for celebrating Tripwire’s pearl anniversary:
“Tripwire hit a real milestone this year and we felt we had to commemorate it with something special. We had been talking with Heavy Metal for the last year or so and it all came together over the past few months. We had been looking at different ways of working with Kris Longo and Joseph Illidge at Heavy Metal and it has been great that this has come to fruition,” said Joel Meadows, Tripwire Editor-in-chief. “The Tripwire 30th Anniversary book is the ultimate celebration of three decades of Tripwire and thirty years of comics and pop culture seen through our unique journalistic prism.”
Added Heavy Metal Executive Editor Joseph Illidge: “Just as the seminal British Invasion of comics changed the medium, industry, and world-at-large forever through the talents of luminaries such as Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, and Alan Moore, it was Tripwire magazine that charted the evolution of artistic and literary perspectives in comics and graphic novels through a unique lens. Through the ups and downs of comics journalism, Tripwire endures, and we are a better community for it.”
Check out a preview of just some of the artwork and comics that will appear in Tripwire 30th Anniversary, including pinups by Jock and Bill Sienkiewicz, a photograph of Alan Moore, and pages from Sherlock Holmes and the Empire Builders and Fred the Clown, below. The softcover edition of the book will be available for $40 in bookstores on Tuesday, October 25th. A limited edition hardcover version of the book is also currently being crowdfunded via Zoop.
