"Coming Soon..."

Clearing out my old Photobucket account and I came across this:

It was a general fuck about in Photoshop, using some artwork that Bryan Coyle had done for Accent UK's WESTERN anthology (which is still available to buy, by the way, priced £7.99 ($11.99), and available via Previews (order code: JUN090671)). I slapped the text on it, and then Bryan re-coloured it to give it an old-school Western comic feel.

Left 4 Dead 2 Trailer

Man, I need to get my PC upgraded so I can get this...

"Why is there a fat Hitler on my TV?"

So, apparently there was some Nazi on TV last night...

I'll admit right now that I didn't watch all of Nick Griffin on last night's Question Time for various reasons - the main one being that I was too busy watching Curb Your Enthusiasm (ask anyone that knows me, and they'll tell you that Larry David is my comedy god), but also because I could pretty much guess what was going to be said. The BNP have one policy and viewpoint, and all Griffin will ever do is spout endless variations of it.

Let me state here that I actually agree with the BBC letting Griffin appear on Question Time. Why? Well...

• The BBC were abiding by their own rules for the show. Yes, they could've cancelled his appearance, but they stuck by their policy of impartiality when it comes to political parties. And besides, cancelling him would've made him look more like the underdog he wants to be seen as, rather than the idiot he is.

• Freedom of speech. Yes, it's a horrible cliched phrase that's been bandied about all week, but it comes down to this: if we're living in a truly democratic society, then we need to allow people the freedom to express their views, no matter how abhorrent they may be. Freedom of speech is not just allowing people to express views that the majority agree with.

• By allowing Griffin on Question Time, the BBC has done what should've been done a long time ago: they've shined a bright light on the BNP and exposed them for what they actually are: a fucking joke.

For a while now, the BNP has been demonised by the media - and rightly so - but they've only been portrayed as racists that we can all be horrified by and not want to live next to; they're essentially the political version of paedophiles.

Because we've been spoon fed this image of the BNP by the media, the UK seemed to believe that just by being on TV, they're going to infect us all and turn is all into racist fucks like them, whereas anyone with half a brain could see that was never going to be the case. The media - and some politicians and activists - seem to forget that we, as human beings, can think for ourselves and make our own decisions when presented with information.

OK, so a million people voted for the BNP. Out of a population of what? 60+ million? Not all of those million will be hard core BNP supporters. In fact, it's probably a safe bet that most of those votes were simply protest votes at the current state of affairs with politics in the UK.

Griffin's now an MEP off the back of it (although I assume the fact that he's now an immigrant worker is completely lost on him), but what good is that for the party? I mean, really? Is he working to presere his view of Britain over there in Brussels or is he just enjoying the holiday? Come to that, what are the BNP's policies on Europe? Doesn't having MEP's go against what they apparently stand for?

See? The BNP are a fucking joke at best, and allowing Griffin on Question Time simply proved the point. He was sweaty, shifty and didn't look particularly comfortable when confronted with quotes from his past; his arguments were, at best, weak and badly thought through, his views were simplistic and his single party policy seems to revolve around some clearly imagined era of time during World War 2, when the whites of the country banded together, Winston Churchill was some kind of god that we all worshipped and England won the World Cup.

Really, someone in the audience - or even on the panel - should've humiliated him even more by asking him some serious questions, like "What's your party's policy on education? The health service? What will your party do about the rising unemployment? How will the BNP manoeuvre the country out of this recession? Would you be prepared to push ahead with the controversial ID card plan? What plans do you have to stimulate the economy?" Ask him those kind of questions and let's see him squirm even more. Why?

Because the BNP are a fucking joke with no place in the political landscape of the UK.

And fair play to the BBC for showing them to be what they are.

Since I started writing this post, it's emerged that Griffin is now lodging a formal complaint with the BBC over his appearance on Question Time, claiming he faced a lynch mob (yes, I'll let the fact that a massive racist was on about lynch mob's sink in...).

Hands up if you didn't see that coming...

Liam Maher, RIP

Found out from Teletext this morning that Flowered Up's lead singer Liam Maher has passed on. I'll admit that I was never a big fan of Flowered Up; like most I was only ever aware of their mammoth 13 minute single Weekender, but as I've got older, I've come to appreciate the band - and that song - more and more, especially since I've lived that lifestyle myself. Weekender epic in every sense of the word, and we'll probably never see the likes of it in the charts again, so it seems fitting to have it as a wee tribute to Mr Maher...

Part 2...

2 Girls, 2 Cups...

Don't worry, this is TOTALLY safe for work and probably due to be ripped off by an advertising agency some time very soon.

For now, though, here's Lulu & The Lampshades with You're Gonna Miss Me...

Insomnia Goes Portable

I did mean to blog about something else today, and maybe I'll get to it later, but for now, here's some interesting news: Insomnia Publications library of graphic novels are coming to the PSP (PlayStation®Portable) as digital comics!

All of the books will be released as monthly digital chapters from the Digital Comics Store on the PlayStation®Network, starting this December when the service launches, and, yes, Babble will be there, too, when it's complete.

The PSP digital comics store has the support of Marvel and IDW, so it's all looking good so far.

You can find out more about all of this over at The Red Eye, Insomnia's official blog.

The Graphic Novel...

People keep asking me about the graphic novel, and since I'm getting a little tired of wheeling out the "300 pages..." gag when someone asks me what it's about, I thought I'd just write this post and then direct people to it. Whether anyone will actually read this is another matter entirely, of course, but if I want to be a writer, I have to have a healthy line in self delusion.

The Basics...

The GN is called Babble. It's an original, creator owned book, scripted by me with art by Bryan Coyle, due to be published by Insomnia Publications, an independent publisher based in Edinburgh.

Bryan and I struggled for a quite a while to find a publisher on both sides of the Atlantic, but being unknowns with no proven track record other than a handful of short stories in anthologies, we weren't initially successful, until Insomnia took pity on us.

(I've had several questions about what went into the submission package, too, and I'll no doubt post something on the Babble blog with all the gory details when I get the chance, but it's fair to say we tried to cover everything with the submission.)

So, as it stands now, Bryan is working on the first chapter of the book, and I'm hammering away at the second. In fact, here's a couple of work in progress pics from Bryan just to prove that we're actually doing it:

And, hey, just because I can, here's some script pages...

See? We're working on it!

So, What's It About?

Well, one thing both Bryan and I agree on is that at this stage, we need to keep an air of mystery around the book, and we've managed to do it successfully so far (although it's probably more to do with a complete lack of interest in it). Even though we've got a blog set up for it (www.babblecomic.com), we're trying to keep that purely for production at the minute until we're further along with the book. Hopefully, we'll start putting out bits of promo art and some "behind the scenes" stuff up there when we're ready.

For now, though, there's not much to report on. The basic outline of the story - or the only one I'm prepared to share at this point - goes something like this:

Carrie Hartnoll is a girl lost in a life going nowhere fast, but a chance meeting with an old flame sets her on a path that will change the world as we know it forever…

Yeah, it's not much to go on, but what do you want?

So, You're Happy About This, Then?

When I've told people about the deal, face to face, the one one thing that I kept hearing was: "You don't seem too pleased about it."

The honest truth is that I am. I'm over the fucking moon with this. When we got the offer, I was grinning like the fucking Cheshire Cat for a good few hours afterwards - I thought my jaw was actually going to crack because of it. We've poured a lot of hard work and time into getting it this far, and, personally, I could not be happier.

I'm pleased Bryan's on board, too, because, after seeing some completed pages (yes, we have some!), I now couldn't imagine anyone else doing this. Bryan brings a much needed edge of realism to the story that fits with the more down-to-earth script I'm trying to write.

So, yes, I am fucking ecstatic. Everything is slotting neatly into place and I think - I hope - we're going to produce something good.

The problem is that we signed the deal a good couple of months before we actually "officially" announced it; we used that gap to give us some breathing space to finish our other commitments. I managed to get the decks cleared completely so I could have a clear run at the script for Babble, but then the panic set in...

See, for me, Babble is something of a departure from what I've written before. Not only is it a long form narrative, but it's me trying to write something with realistic, three dimensional characters rather than falling back on the stock character tropes that most comics use. On top of that, there's a lot of research to do, to try and help give it that more realistic edge (research into what, I can't tell you or it'll give the game away), and, again, that's something that I've never done before on this scale.

So, yes, when I talked to people about this, I came across as less than excited about the deal simply because I was stressed and panicking as I realised what I was going to have to do and the scale of it all. Now, though, I've got more of a handle on things, and I'm not as stressed or panicked as I was. In fact, I'm becoming more and more focused on this, and I'm pretty damn sure that I'm going to finish it to a decent standard. Whether anyone will agree with that statement when they read the finished book, though, is another matter.

So, there you have it. That's about all I can tell you about the book so far.

Now be off with you!

LEGO headphones

Let's be honest: they're not made of LEGO. They're made of pure awesome.

ABC Warriors Get Animated!

Apparently, it's not a very well known fact that I was the guy behind Spread The Word!, the ABC Warriors fansite. No idea why it would be, to be honest, but hey. Anyway, my knowledge and love of the ABCs is pretty much established fact.

So, I was VERY excited to see this on Down The Tubes...

2000AD ABC Warriors from Firestep Films on Vimeo.

You can find the full story behind this over at Down The Tubes, but, personally, I can't fucking wait to see more...

TempleAPA #5 out now!

The latest issue of Temple APA is available to download now - and features a huge section on Insomnia Publications. And yes, Babble gets a brief mention...

You can download Temple APA #5 from the Temple APA Ning group.