Good evening folks and folkettes,

So, it’s that time again! It’s been another busy week, with a gap finally opening up for me to continue working on my top secret project previously mentioned here. This, holiday planning and other serious but boring grown-up things are making time disappear at the moment, and the race is on to get a decent amount of work done before I jet off on my adventures around Scandinavia, to eat my bodyweight romkugler and wienerbrøder!

This particular project, an eight-page comic for print, I’d started work on back in late May to early June time (I think..!). It was actually really useful for me to pause the project so early in it’s development to create ‘quick’ pieces like Rejsen, the Nepal Home piece and the rest, as it gave me the opportunity to really push this story to the best it can be. I’ve always been honest in the fact that The Red Road was created in eight weeks (from conception of the idea to completion), and although I don’t think it suffered particularly I’m enjoying the extra time to really push this story into a complex and more detailed world for viewing. This time I’m also creating the story completely wordless, which feels like a natural yet challenging step for me. With the third year of University on the horizon I’m really glad I have the chance to hone my storytelling skills once more before I start to sculpt the ideas in my noggin for my Final Major Project.

 

Although I don’t normally like to give too much away, I’m concious that recently I’ve been one big human-shaped bag of secrets – and it’s no fun if I can’t share anything! Plus it also makes pretty boring reading for you all, I imagine.. So above are some sketchbook images of my development from my mock-up book (which in itself has sketches of the entire story set out how it will appear). In a rare, proud moment I thrust my sketchy mock-up book in my partner’s face hoping for some instant flattery, but apparently my vision isn’t too clear OR impressive when accompanies with scrawled notes and finger smudges (cuh, right?), so I thought it best to work on it all some more. My deadline for this project is only six weeks away – panic! And two of those weeks I’m on holiday — double panic! But, alas, I’m trundling away and I’m more than confident that I’ll be ready to move onto the final pages by next week. Huzzah! Keep an eye out for more progress on this next week..

 

In other news, as promised I am delighting you all with a grand reveal… A new publication!

SNEAKY BUSINESS is a comic filled zine of my own creation, featuring some specially picked comics and arts friends; Pete Hindle, Samuel C Williams, Peter Norman, Alex Hahn, and of course, yours truly. The above sneeze is brought to you by my comic, with each of us creating a two-page spread aside from Peter, the ex-Baird of Northampton who decided to be special and only create one page. More news on Sneaky Business will be revealed next week, as I’m still waiting on one or two things to fall into place before I announce any more.. But yes! Expect this to be out soooooon…. Ooh errr.

Finally, last week saw my ‘Inside Look’ article published on Broken Frontier! Small Press Inside Look – Rozi Hathaway Discusses Her Work on ‘The Red Road’, ‘HOAX Psychosis Blues’ and More is something I wrote up a week or so prior, especially for Andy Oliver’s Small Pressganged section on Broken Frontier. You can read some insider gossip on my work to date, and probably hear some things I’d never said out loud before. If you’re interested, head on over and have a look! Unless of course, by the time you’ve read this you’re sick of hearing  me waffle on. I don’t blame you, living with my inner monologue is a tiring experience..

So, that’s it for now! The rest of this week will be spent in my cave drawing up from roughs for this eight-page comic, and trying to stay awake on willpower and coffee alone. Have a good week everyone, and as every, see you next week! Over and out.

 

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