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It occurs that I should post something on here about writing and what I'm up to at the minute - which is actually not all that much, if truth be told. I've managed to get into a position of being ridiculously ahead of myself, so, at the minute, it's all about waiting for things to finally see publication. Maybe I could spice this post up with some lewd stories about being abducted by aliens that look like Oliver Reed or something...
Let's see how we go.
Something Wicked #5
For those of you not in the know, the latest issue of FQ Publications Something Wicked is available to buy now, and it features a piece called Key To The Kingdom, by me and the incredible Caroline Parkinson. Something Wicked #5 brings you 48 pages of tales designed to chill you to the bone, all for the meagre price of £3.50.
Also available to buy is FutureQuake #14, the latest issue of arguably the finest small press anthology around! For a mere £3.50, you can discover one of the many worlds where Man Vs Machine is an everyday reality, see the dawn of time through the eyes of one who was there and witness the ultimate in home shopping!
Please note: Due to the current problems with the main FQP website, they're currently unable to open the shop for you to buy these titles. However, you can now go and order copies directly from the FutureQuake Press Blog!
Remember, you can also find out more information about the issues - and some preview art - at the FutureQuake Press Blog, too.
FutureQuake is totally Zarjaz!
Those daft buggers at FutureQuake have accepted not one but two of my scripts for future publication. No artists are assigned yet, but I'll let you know more when I do.
Staying with those crazy lads at FQP a bit longer, I'm pleased to announce that I'll be in an upcoming issue of Zarjaz, with Brett Buckle. Again, I have no idea when it's due to see print (haven't even seen any art for it yet), but I'll post it when I do.
As ever, you can find out more at the FutureQuake Press Blog and The Quaequam Blog, home to the galaxy's greatest fanzines.
What's with the Accent?
Due out next year from Accent UK will be their latest anthology, Predators. As ever, the quality remains ridiculously high - and would be even higher if they didn't let me in, but, let me in they did. I've teamed up with Bryan Coyle again for a strip called Just Like You, a wee preview of which is right here under these here words:
No word on a price or exact release date for the book yet, but here's the cover so you know what to look for:
Also, I've somehow managed to blag my way into Accent UK's 2011 anthology Victoriana, too. The script's written and in, but no artist is on board yet. For now, though, here's the cover for that, too:
I can haz Insomnia...?
As of writing this here bit of text, I'm waiting to hear about a submission made to Insomnia Publications anthology Layer Zero: Exile. I'm kinda hoping it'll get picked up, because the script is a bit of a departure for me from the stuff I've been doing; rather than a weird SF/horror tale, it's a straight up hard boiled crime thriller. It's something I've been wanting to try for a while, but never really had the chance to, and I think it came out really well.
Oh, and, of course, there's the little matter of the graphic novel that I'm supposed to be writing for Insomnia, too... More details on that later, but for those of you who can't wait, here's another wee sneak preview of some work in progress art from Bryan Coyle...
Well, I think that's pretty much it for the minute. Now, it's back to scripting the book and hoping to God my meagre writing skills can do these characters and this story some justice...
Arguably the greatest fan trailer ever made (and believe me, I will argue it), Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you World's Finest...
The latest issue of FQ Publications Something Wicked is available to buy now!
Featuring a piece called Key To The Kingdom, by me and the incredible Caroline Parkinson, Something Wicked #5 brings you 48 pages of tales designed to assault the senses - all for a mere £3.50! See the outcome of a science experiment years in the making, tremble at the truth behind a beautiful smile and quake upon hearing those three little words...
To whet your appetite for it, here's a wee sneak preview of Key To The Kingdom...
Also available to buy is FutureQuake #14, the latest issue of arguably the finest small press anthology around! For a mere £3.50, you can discover one of the many worlds where Man Vs Machine is an everyday reality, see the dawn of time through the eyes of one who was there and witness the ultimate in home shopping!
Remember, too, that Something Wicked #4 is still available, and features two strips by me: The Kindness of Strangers, with art by Vicky Stonebridge and Arcadia, with art by Paul Williams.
Please note: Due to the current problems with the main FQP website, they're currently unable to open the shop for you to buy these titles. However, you can now go and order copies directly from the FutureQuake Press Blog!
So, Bryan Coyle has started work on the GN that we're doing for Insomnia Publications, Babble, and, over at his blog, he's posted the first panel of the entire story...
Hopefully, we'll have something more substantial to show off on the Babble website soon.
No, I have no idea what's going on with that Marilyn Manson sound-a-like doing the theme. They should've stuck with the Lion version, but hey.
Last week, there was that little thing called The Mercury Music Prize. To everyone's surprise, it was won by Speech Debelle and her album Speech Therapy. The album has barely sold anything (and since winning the prize, it's sold - literally - about 1000 extra copies), and a lot of people are claiming that it didn't deserve to win.
So, I decided to find out what all the fuss was about. I booted Spotify, found the album and gave it a listen.
And duly wished I hadn't.
In fairness, I should point out that I only got through the first 5 tracks. Apparently. I say apparently, because they all just blurred into one large sounding mess of blandness that just wheeled around inoffensively in the background. It's a shockingly dull album to listen to. It is, as John Earls of Planet Sound fame put it "dinner party hip-hop", the kind of album that the upper middle classes would buy to prove that they're cutting edge and 'with it'. Seriously, if this is classed as UK hip-hop, then I think the entire scene should be taken away and put out of its misery. Or Debelle should be taken away somewhere and never allowed to make music again.
Actually, you know what? Let's have something from a proper UK hip-hop star, and show Debelle how it's done...
Yes, of course this was all just an excuse to shamelessly post a Dizzee Rascal video. Sue me.
Here's a work in progress from a story called Just Like You, which will be in PREDATORS from Accent UK, due next year. The art is by Bryan Coyle, who continues to amaze and delight whenever he picks up a pen...
OK, time to enter corporate shill mode here...
Insomnia Publications will be at BICS this year, and they'll be launching Burke and Hare (the first of their new Vigil imprint books) by Martin Conaghan and Will Pickering, Buskers (con special edition with a VCD) by Jeymes Samuel, Sean Michael Wilson and Michiru Morikawa (who has a panel and talk at the show) and MILK by Stref (limited ed hardback will be available at the con). You can, of course, see some previews of these books at the Insomnia website.
As usual they'll be doing special offers on the books as follows:
- 3 for £20 on all standard edition books
- Any special ed + one standard ed for £20
and the following special con prices
Standard Editions:
- Burke and Hare (RRP £12.99) Con Price £10
- Cancertown (RRP 14.99) Con Price £10
- Cages (RRP 10.99) Con Price £8
- Layer Zero Choices (RRP £9.99) Con Price £7
Special Editions:
- Buskers (RRP £14.99) Con Price £12
- MILK (RRP £19.99) Con Price £15
People will be able to reserve these to pick up on the day, or order direct from Insomnia by 3rd of October, if they can't make the con
God, I need a shower after that...
God, it feels like I've been sitting on this one for ages, but considering the amount of times it's been popping up on the Internets, I'm thinking it's maybe been the worst kept secret out there... Or it would be if, you know, anyone really cared.
So, yes, it's true: myself and Bryan Coyle have managed to blag a deal with Insomnia Publications to see the publication of an original graphic novel we've been working on called Babble.
It's been a long, hard struggle to get this into the hands of a publisher, there's no denying that; we've had some setbacks, some tears, some laughter and a whole raft of rejections from various publishers on both sides of the Atlantic - some of whom, it has to be said, were insanely helpful and supportive to a couple of chancers like me and Bryan. Needless to say, after all that, my ego's taken such a beating off the back of this, it's had to check itself into a shelter...
Anyway, Babble is a project that I've had kicking around in my life for a long time in various forms, but kept getting abandoned then restarted and rebooted, until I finally found the angle to make this work in the way it deserves. At least, I hope I've found the right angle. We shall see... Or, rather, you will, when it finally hits the shelves. If you decide to read it. Which you might not. That's up to you. I'm not going to beg you to buy the book. At least not yet.
Of course, this isn't the first collaboration that Bryan and I have worked on. We've had strips appear in Accent UK's series of themed anthologies, including ROBOTS (Previews order code: MAR083379), WESTERN (Previews order code: JUN090671) and the upcoming PREDATORS (due for release in 2010):
So, we're kind of confident we can pull this off. However, as I write this post, things are still in the early stages, and there's every chance this might fall apart before we can manage to get the book to the shop shelves. Of course, that's the natural pessimist in me. There's also a very good chance that we could actually pull this off. And, thinking about it, I think that's what's really scaring me about this...
If you want to know more (and God knows why you would), you can go check out the brand spanking new Babble website; initially, it'll probably be more of a production blog than anything else, giving anyone who's got an interest in these things an insight into how we're putting the book together, and then hopefully it'll become the main promotional site. You can find that here: www.babblecomic.com.
And, because we're so on the cutting edge of cool, we've also got a Twitter micro blog set up, which you can follow here: www.twitter.com/Babble_GN. To keep all the retro lovers out there pacified, too, we've added a MySpace page (www.myspace.com/babble_gn) and a ComicSpace page (www.comicspace.com/babble). All of these are linked from the main website.
So... Lots of sleepless nights and endless worry here I come...
Waaay back in 1958, William Higinbotham invented the game Tennis For Two to liven up visitor day at his workplace, Brookhaven National Laboratory, but it remained largely unknown until 1981, when a lawyer trying to break a patent held for the Magnavox Odyssey version of Pong came across writings talking about the game. Blueprints of it were found to predate Magnavox's game and the case was settled out of court, but Tennis For Two went on to find fame as the second ever video game invented, since it was predated by A.S. Douglas' OXO game from 1952.
Well, they made me chuckle...
Not content with having a competition in the upcoming issue of Zarjaz, the lads over at The Quaequam Blog also have a pair of GN's to give away in the next issue of DogBreath too!
Strontium Dog: Traitor To His Kind is the latest collection from those amazing folks over at Rebellion. For your chance to win a copy, simply pick up Dogbreath #21 (out soon) and enter the competition. It couldn't be easier than that, Norm!
Extract is Judge's new film, which is out in the US this week. No news on a UK release, though.
I'll probably get shot for doing this, but here's some teaser images from a couple of strips that I've got in the pipeline.The first is from Key To The Kingdom, which is due to appear in an upcoming issue of Something Wicked. Artwork is by the rather talented Caroline Parkinson, and, as you can see features alcohol abuse......and there may be some infidelity on the cards...Next up is a work in progress pic from Bryan Coyle, who's providing the art for a piece called Just Like You, due to appear in Accent UK's 2010 anthology PREDATORS, which is, er, out next year...
