Finally, my 'magnificent octopus' is in print and for sale. Redlin Print have done a sterling job, and the covers and insides look really striking. It's quite something to be holding 6 months worth of writing and drawing in its finished printed form...all 50 pages of it (inc covers).

It's well worth the time I spent on it, and I'm feeling pretty satisfied with the finished result. And hopefully people will think it's well worth £2.80 (inc p&p)! :)

Available to buy:

HERE.

Very rusty...Much better...

Last of the Chickenheads is currently being printed. I found a really good local company called Redlin Print that have sorted me out a very competitive price on a 50 page black and white A5 comic with colour covers, printed on silk paper. I'm getting two hundred copies printed.

Although the comic was originally in colour the price for a colour run was not practical for such a large number of pages. So I've spent alot of time carefully tweaking the colour layers as greyscales, changing opacities and contrast etc, plus redoing the lettering and sound effects. It's not just a straight greyscale version of the the original source, and actually looks rather classy in a 'retro' kind of a way.

I'll be charging £2.50 for it, and will sell it from this website, as well as trying to sell some through Ace.

Watch this space!

I'm still feeling a bit car-lagged from all the driving atm but will endeavour to write about the Comics Show.

Well, the Think Tank venue was the beez kneez. Very close to the Burlington Hotel (which was very nice indeed) and close to the town centre. My first time in Birmingham was a great experience. Watching the rugby on a 600" screen at a pub in the Mail Box complex at the end of day # 1 was just one of the many highlights. Stewart, my good buddy and long time comics-fan really enjoyed his first convention.

As for the show itself, it was the usual dizzying choice of stalls, and loads of talented types all showing their wares. I did a tour of the publishing house's stalls, showing them LOTCH and JITB. Yet again they were well received, with some very positive comments and extremely constructive criticism. I was heartened to hear from a variety of people that LOTCH showed huge improvement, from its first few pages compared to the much more accomplished latter half of the book, and that this improvement carried through into my latest JITB pages, which alot of people liked. It's gratifying to know that my hard work is paying off, slowly but surely. Even 2000ad, who had rejected my first Dredd submissions because of dodgy anatomy and bad inking praised the inking of JITB in particular, saying that perhaps I should just work on making the page layouts a little more dynamic and then submit 2000ad related samples again...cool :)

I was given a bollocking for not having a stall (with LOTCH already printed and ready for sale) by one of the publishers, and he basically said that with it so obviously ready to go, that I shouldn't be looking for a publisher as much as distribution...which he'd be willing to help with. I began to feel that my walking around with the book trying to get a publisher was perhaps time better spent promoting a finished product. For example, I'd printed out 50 of the postcard illustration seen above, and left 20 of them on the freebies table on day 1 of the show. By the end they were all gone, even though some of the other stuff there hadn't shifted. Now, possible toilet-paper shortage aside, that's actually some of my art out in the wild, with my contact details all over it, and so people who come to my website could potentially go about buying the LOTCH graphic novel online...but (d'oh) I haven't got it printed at this time of writing.

So, I'm going to be printing either an A5 or A4 b&w run of 100-200 copies, probably this week, and will finally be (self) published...which is the route the majority of the exhibitors at the show took on their journey to greatness :)

The second day I left my folder in the car and basically went shopping. I bought Spiderman 3 on Blu-Ray, the Neverwhere graphic novel (Glenn Fabry art...awesome), and The Ice Wanderer...a Manga by Jiro Taniguchi.

I even got to talk to one of my heroes, Hunt Emerson. Thoroughly nice chap, and what a talent. Firkin the Cat rules. :)

Next time (Bristol in May 2008) I plan on having a stall ready, covered in my comics and various promo junk, and hopefully my m8 Martin Buxton the script writer will be there too with all his goodies, helping me to put Essex on the map as a Mecca of comics creation. :)

Birmingham tommorow.

I'm going up with my good friend Stew', the singer in my band and long time comics fan. We're doing the weekend, so we'll be pretty sick of comics by the end of it :)

I've drawn a promotional post card ( see above) featuring some of my creations, old and new, to hand out and leave on tables, just to leave my mark on the show somehow. I'm also showing LOTCH and JITB (you know what I'm talking about by now, right?) and today I finally did a one page 'Jack in the Box' synopsis, for when/ if I get anyone's attention for the idea and I get a bit tongue-tied trying to explain it!

Other than that I'm ready, and have just been sketching alot, seeing as I'm between major projects at the moment. Sketching is good though, and something I need to do more of....it's fun, good practice, and alot of ideas come from that direction too. When I come back from the convention hopefully I can get stuck into something else.

See you next week :)

Just under 7 days 'til the Birmingham International Comics Show...Yay!

A few things have happened on the run-up which have been pretty cool. Firstly I was interviewed by the Essex Chronicle's Darryl Webber, editor of Go! Magazine. He asked me a few questions about my artistic endeavours, especially the LOTCH graphic novel, and general biog' details about my life-long comics obsession, and I gave him a few images which he'll hopefully use in the article. I'll see if they're okay with me posting it here, once it's published.

Also, Platinum Studios, they of the 'Comic Book Challenge', got back to me. They loved 'Chickenheads', loved the story, writing, characters, art...BUT they're into cross pollenisation of medias, so a comic has to make a good movie, or a good book..syndicating of ideas I guess. According to them, my story was (and I already suspected this) very much something that would be suitable for translating into an animated feature...something they didn't really deal with. So they couldn't use it. But they WERE very interested in keeping me on their books as a prospective writer for future projects of their's. Chuffed? You bet I am!

They also advised me to send LOTCH to Image Comics -- asap! Saying they'd lap it up. Obviously there's no guarantees that they will, but it's nice to know that a professional company believes in my work, and isn't averse to making solid reccomendations. So, I've sent it to Image, and await their reply with interest.

Plus, I'm a panel away from completing Jack in the Box's promo package (5 pages of strip plus character designs/ story), in time for Birmingham. I want to court interest not just from publishers, but also writers. David Lloyd got back to me (yes, I cheekily sent it to David Lloyd in story form, to get his opinion) and he confirmed what I already knew...it's a good rich story, but it needs telling from a clearer p.o.v...and I'm admitting defeat on this one. LOTCH was a straight ahead gungho action story. JITB needs far more humanity and depth. Subtlety, I guess. I want to hand it over to someone with a much better grasp of character depth, who'll be able to work around the story rather than be totally lead by it.Finally, check this out. My eldest son spotted one of these crawling along the river bed when we went fishing today. An hour later he hoiked one out. No, not a Lobsterisimus Bumikissimus -- but a Crayfish. Evil looking bugger, isn't he?