You can find more on this at our publishing site www.blackhousecomics.com but our owner Baden Kirgan appeared as a judge on Channel 7's Beauty & The Geek last week.

ProPrint covered it well here - and you can see him embarrassing himself below:

The fine people at ProPrint have done an article on our ads. Cheers to Nolan and Steve for their support!

The comic publishing arm of Sydney-based Jeffries Printing has teamed up with insurance firm Youi for a series of humorous TV commercials.

Blackhouse Comics, which is one of Australia's largest independent comic book publishers, was approached by the insurer to use its products in two separate ads, which carry the message that Youi is a "good listener".

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A poignant comic book scene of a young soldier throwing himself on a live grenade to save his mates has provided inspiration for the new Youi Insurance “Comic Shop Guy” series of commercials going to air in Australia in October 2011. 

Indeed, Youi was so impressed with the Australian comic book series, The Soldier Legacy, created by Brisbane writer /artist Paul Mason, that the commercial centred around the enthusiastic and dramatic reenactment of the critical scene, which helped serve the advertising message.

The Soldier Legacy tells the story of a World World II digger who sees action in the dense and dangerous jungles of New Guinea during the 1940s and becomes a changed man when he witnesses an act of supreme courage and ultimate sacrifice. In the first issue “Lest I Forget” the Soldier chides a young private for reading comic books instead of cleaning his gun. The recruit explains that his favourite comic book hero “…doesn’t have powers like other comic heroes… he’s just a bloke like you and me, who just felt he needed to act…” Later on when the troop comes under heavy attack by the enemy, this recruit becomes the most unlikeliest of heroes when he chooses “to act” like his fiction hero and throws himself on a live grenade to save his fellow soldiers. To honour his fallen companion’s legacy, the nameless lead character dons a mask and takes on the superhero persona of “The Soldier” who over the course of the war with his fierce fighting spirit saves countless of soldiers from annihilation on the battlefront.

Many years later, The Soldier’s grandson is also inspired to take up the superhero mantle, albeit in a modern suburban landscape where crime is widespread and injustice is rife.

The Youi commercial was filmed in Kings Comics in Sydney, which was outfitted with other Black House comic book and graphic novel titles, posters, paraphernalia and props. A maquette (action figure) of The Solider, specially created for the commercial, was later presented as a gift to Paul Mason.

Says Black House Comics publisher Baden Kirgan: “The best thing about The Soldier Legacy is the way it blends the superhero genre with the true Australian hero, the Anzac, and Youi has done a great job of honouring both with this ad.”

Comic book readers can find The Soldier Legacy at their local comics store, or by going online at Black Boox: http://blackboox.net/

Our publishing arm, Black House Comics has been distributing its books solely in print since  its inception in 2008. Recently we signed an agreement with Australian company Spectrum Publishing to publish all of our titles on their Cloud 9 Comix  app for the iPad and iPhone.

Development has been progressing well and the app will be launched shortly. It's an exciting new step for us and from the video below you can see why.

This versatility and ease of use of the iPad is going to have a huge impact on printed comics and magazines in the not too distant future and this partnership with Spectrum will allow us to be a part of the future of publishing.

This is a preview of the semi-sequel to Lost, only available on the box set. It shows what went on after Jack put Hurley in charge of the island and features a very cool use of a Heidelberg platen to print the labels on the Dharma boxes. Very printer geeky, very geeky geeky and very cool.



As you can see we are rapidly turning the site around and should have a lot of very cool content up shortly - keep checking in for progress!

In the meantime, check out this very cool video from Repeat Press in Somerville MA - this is the way printing used to be.

Letterpress Coasters from Quarter Productions on Vimeo.