Autumn’s Arrived

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen!

So, summer is now a somewhat distant thought and the days are drawing shorter, nights chillier and bed is looking a damn sight cosier. Goodnight! Oh, wait.. Blog.

As I decline into the time of year where all I want to do is sleep, and by realising I already packed all my winter-wear up in boxes for moving I’m desperately hoping that it doesn’t get much colder in the next fortnight, it’s also looming towards the festival season of comics here in the UK. The Lakes International Comic Art Festival pops up in Kendal in the Lake District in mid-October with famous guests galore (I’ll get there one day…) all in the cosy Comics Clock Tower, followed shortly after my the awe-inspiringly massive Thought Bubble Sequential Art Festival over the first weekend of November, in Leeds (which I will be at, huzzah!). First up, however, is the long-awaited Bristol Comic & Zine Fair this Saturday, 1st October.

I have been so redonkulously excited for BCZF since table applications opened up, and even more so excited when they let me have a table to host my goodies on. The weekend kicks off for me on Friday evening as my chariot (ie, a National Express bus) arrives in the centre of Bristol and I go find something to eat before falling into my hotel bed. I’ve never been able to get a hotel for a comics festival before – and honestly that’s a huge part of why I’m so excited – so I’ll be able to wake up fresh-faced ready for selling and chatting with folks.

There are a whole host of lovely guests this year including Sneaky Business featured Elizabeth Querstret, along with other folks you might have heard of such as Avery Hill Publishing, Mike Medaglia, the Sad Ghost ClubRebecca Bagley, my good friends at Good Comics and many, many more. As I’m sure you remember from me referencing it so much recently, Saturday will also see the grand launch of Sneaky Business Vol. 2!

Reviewed on Monday by Andy Oliver at Broken Frontier, he had this to say:

Sneaky Business #2 is indeed an extremely eclectic compilation of comics and, given that slightly patchwork array of styles and genres, it’s inevitable that each individual reader will gravitate more towards some sections than others. But that selfsame disparate line-up is also part of its charm. As is often the way with anthologies there’s only room here to cover a selection of those who contributed to this volume but at an almost giveaway price of £3.00 there’s really no excuse for not picking up a copy of a book that acts as a communal platform for so many distinctively different forms of practice all tied together by that one unifying theme.

– Andy Oliver, Broken Frontier “Sneaky Business Volume 2 – Danny Noble and Wallis Eates Steal the Show in the Second Issue of Rozi Hathaway’s Anthology Offering”

Sneaky Business arrived on my doorstep on Friday with huge thanks to Rich at Comic Printing UK for all his help and quite literally stopping the press when I found some *cough* small errors *cough*, and will be available to buy from Saturday 1st October from yours truly at Bristol, and shortly after will be available to buy from my Etsy store and at small press friendly comic shops around the UK; Limited to a run of 100, get your copy quick! I’ll cover the launch in more detail from next week, but for now trust me when I say SB2 is looking really, really good.

That’s about it for now! If you’re around in Bristol on Saturday please do pop down and say hello, and if not keep an eye out on Twitter and Facebook for news on when Sneaky Business vol. 2 is online on my Etsy store to buy. Until next time, stay sneaky..

x

A Whole New Kind of Busy

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen!

So, please forgive me for the gap in broadcasts last week; I’m more than accustomed to being busy with various projects, but busy with various projects AND flat hunting, job hunting and giving notice on everything at my current home in favour of my new home 120 miles away has been rather… strenuous. I slept for most of this past weekend and now feel vaguely human again. Hooray!

First up, entries for Sneaky Business vol.2 closed in spectacular style last Monday, with a more submissions than I could’ve ever expected! I want to extend my huge thanks to absolutely every single person who submitted to SB2, you’re all amazing and I was truly overwhelmed with the support and interest in my little creation. Aside from things like Down to Your Skivvies and the university degree show catalogue, it’s the first time I’ve really had to sit down and look at the order of things and who to include, and sadly who to not include. Ultimately SB2 has reached a whopping 36 pages with some incredibly entertaining comics from 18 talented creators, listed below!

Please give a warm welcome to the comic artists of Sneaky Business Vol.2!

Alan Henderson, Alex Hahn, Alex Tawns, Danny Noble, David Robertson, Elias Bevan, Elizabeth Querstret, Evan Stamps, Jason Song Quinn, Jessy Oddie, K. LY R, Lorne Colt, Martyn B. Lorbiecki, Phu Vuong, Isa Enriquez, Jamie Me, Rica March, Wallis Eates, and yours truly.

Sneaky previews of Sneaky Business. Doesn’t it look beautiful? *wipes tear*

Sneaky Business vol.2 is officially launching at Bristol Comic & Zine Fair on Saturday 1st October, with pre-orders going on my Etsy site a few days before and being posted out on Monday 3rd October. This 36-page bundle of joy can be all yours soon, and it is going to be great. Trust me..

In other news, my entry to kuš! is finished and emailed off to await judgement! I’ve really enjoyed this one, although a shorter comic it was still a lot of work at 16 pages total length. From their website, which coincidentally has a week extension on the deadline if anyone’s interested in getting something in before next Monday, I should find out along with everyone else if I’m successful by mid October. You know the drill: fingers and toes crossed, people! Here are a couple of final previews to leave you excited before the comic sees the light of day later in the year:

In some final but equally if-not-more important news, I have an auction live on eBay at the moment raising much needed funds for the local homeless charity, the Northampton Hope Centre. I have a total of seven hand numbered and signed prints available for bidding, with prices starting at just £5.00 for a high quality giclée print sized at 35cm x 26cm. The prints are from two different ink and watercolour illustrations I made when I first moved to Northampton, of two abandoned buildings which have since been renovated; the Henry Harday shoe factory building and the old Neon Signs buildings, both in close proximity to the Hope Centre and town centre. The auctions end on Friday 23rd September at 5pm BST, so please help in supporting the Hope Centre through illustration! 75% of proceeds go towards the charity, and you can see all the prints available to bid for here.

Here in Northampton the weather has been pretty warm, but the nights are getting longer and the chill is starting to set in. I’m lucky enough to have my health and a home to sleep in every night, but others are not so fortunate. Starting bids at £5 isn’t much, so get your hands on a nice print and feel darn good about it at the same time.

And I think that about wraps it up for now! I shall be back next week with a bundle of copies of Sneaky Business to tempt you all with, and the run up to Bristol Comic & Zine Fair in full swing. Until then, have a great week everyone.

x

September, Sunsets and Sneaky Business

Good afternoon delightful readers!

So, it’s apparently September and I’m suddenly aware that I have no idea where the days are going. That’s normal, right? Part of my days are spent at the temp-job doing my best phone voice, part of them are spent on my cycle route commute trying not to think about how much my thighs burn whilst avoiding slugs, and the rest is split between speaking to letting agents, looking for work up North, and finishing up comic work.

Yes, I’m a bit wired at the moment.

In some particularly exciting and non-slug related news, my entry to kuš! comics is complete! Well, it’s completed in the fully-painted-and-scanned sense, I still have some final edits to work on before getting that packaged up and sent off to those lovely Latvians with a hope and a prayer that they’ll let me grace the pages of #27. Normally I do like to hide behind that cloak of secrecy, but I’m feeling generous so here’s some non-edited scanned panels for your perusal..

Oooooo – are you all excited yet? I’ll be finishing off my final edits this weekend ready to submit on Monday, leaving me free to finish up working on that little comics-zine/anthology you all may have heard of… Sneaky Business.

With 5 days remaining to submit entries to Sneaky Business Vol. 2, there’s still time to get something in! I’ve had some great work so far – and it just keeps coming! Please keep sending your 1-2 page sneaky comics in. Some of you may be aware that 2015’s vol. 1 edition of Sneaky Business was only 8 pages long, so this time it’s really exciting to have an open page count. This means that I’ll be editing Sneaky Business to pack in as much exciting and interesting content as possible, so the page count will only be known just before I go to print.

I have some more sneaky previews for you all after last week’s snippet from Danny Noble, so check it out..

How exciting! Isn’t this exciting? I have a few confirmed collaborators so far, including (from top-bottom) Alan Henderson of Penned Guins fame, Alex Hahn who is now in both issues of Sneaky Business and Avery Hill published creator Elizabeth Querstret. I’d just like to reiterate from my verbal wanderings on Twitter that if you have submitted and haven’t heard from me yet – do not fear! I will be getting in touch with each and every person to kindly send me their work, so expect to hear from me post-deadline of Monday 12th September. You’re all awesome!

Anyway, that’s about it for now as I *ahem* go and finish up my own Sneaky Business comic entry.. Don’t forget – five days to go! Until next week..

x