a bit of undigested potato

2015 Reflections

| rozihath

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen!

So, the Christmas cake is dwindling and I’ve eaten my bodyweight in turkey.. It must be that limbo between Christmas and New Year where I’m not quite sure what day it is and what I’m supposed to be doing, with what feels like a brain full of cranberry stuffing. With that in mind, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to reflect on a successful 2015 (as it doesn’t take much brain-power, thankfully)..

The Red Road! My first solo comics project was released on the 15th January 2015!
With three positive reviews, I couldn’t be happier or prouder of my first plunge into self publishing.
The Red Road – on the shelves now!!
The Red Road – on the shelves at Travelling Man Manchester!
The Red Road made it’s way up to Leeds!
And into Birmingham
Down to Your Skivvies zine
.. including a comic!
‘Machines’ university exhibition
‘Mennesker er Underlig’, playing around with zine shapes and forms.
A Bit of Undigested Potato edited by Keara Stewart..
Looking rather windswept in Manchester in front of Travelling Man’s window!
A gift for a new family member
Mancstercon 2015!
Top Secret Project, a 10 page comic reached completion in August, more details announced soon..
Sneaky Business!
Last year’s contributors
Sneaky Business now at Orbital Comics
My ‘Rejsen’ comic is published in Dirty Rotten Comics #5
My ‘Share a Bird’ project landed at Eastfield Academy!
.. for a Purple Journal article/essay Toward Portland
Second Edition of The Red Road released November 2015!
I was asked to be a part of the first Dead.. Singers Society
.. and I created this piece of Muddy Waters
73b never looked so good.
Thought Bubble 2015

Work-wise, it’s been a fantastic year. Of course we can’t have it all, and this year wasn’t without it’s fair share of difficulties, with a small health issue of my own in the first few months of 2015, a friend’s recurring battle with cancer (fingers crossed, all looking good this time!), and the very quick and unexpected loss of my uncle in August. It’s all too easy to have regrets and feel as if being too work-centric has left me with the loss of valuable time before it was too late, but, all I can do it look back on the positives.. I have learnt a lot about the way I work in the past year, and I can only hope that my storytelling and comics work is going from strength to strength with each piece completed. Also, my work on illustrations without narrative has improved tenfold since this time last year, and I have dedication and tough marking at University to thank for that.

In all, there’s a lot of people who have helped and supported my work in 2015, and I couldn’t name them all if I tried – but to everyone who has ever bought a piece of my work, a comic, a postcard or even just had a chat at a convention, thank you. Thanks to Andy Oliver at Broken Frontier for naming me one of his Six UK Small Press Creators to Watch in 2015 and for continually supporting and championing my work, helping me with advice when I’ve asked, reviewing my work, and getting us six seen at CECAF. Thanks to Keara Stewart for asking me to be a part of A Bit of Undigested Potato, my first ever anthology comic, and inspiring me to not only take on my own project Sneaky Business, but also for giving my the confidence to apply for Dirty Rotten Comics. Big thanks to my Sneaky Business folks for happily creating work for free, which now sits on comic shelves around the country! Thank you to all those comic shops, Travelling Man Manchester, OK Comics in Leeds, Orbital Comics in London, Gosh! Comics in London, and Nostalgia and Comics in Birmingham for having my work on your lovely shelves. Thanks all the lovely people I’ve met along the way at conventions and selling events, and a special mention to Van Nim and Richy K Chandler for being so wonderfully entertaining at Thought Bubble and keeping me sane. Thank you to my ever patient partner Chris for bring supportive and understanding, to my flatmate for being the best at bouncing ideas off (and supplying me with Jack Daniels), my family, and the supportive bunch of friends I have near and far, so understand when they don’t hear from me for months on end. And, all you readers! You lovely readers, you.. Putting up with my waffling week after week, and making me feel popular. Here’s to 2016 and all the exciting things to come!

I shall be back next week as usual, probably mid-dissertation, in the run up to painting the Laydeez do Comics window display at Gosh! Comics. Woohoo! There is a LOT of exciting things coming up in January and early-February, and my work will be pretty much non-stop. But it’ll be worth it! I’ll have more information on how the year is shaping up next week, but for now I hope you all had wonderful seasonal festivities, and have a Happy New Year! See you next year..!

 

x

The Lurgy Arrives

| rozihath

Good afternoon ghosts and ghouls,

So, I’m blessing you with my presence today whilst battling a fearsome autumnal cold. I’ve been awaiting this beast that’s been going round for a while, and I’ve been managing to happily avoid it until now. Marvellous. Don’t colds just have a way of appearing at the most awkward time? It’s not like I have presentations to give, with the need to think about complex educational things, right? Instead, the inside of my brain is made of marshmallows and I look like Beetlejuice. But hey, I’ve been eating vegetables galore so hopefully I will battle this demon lurgy in time for the weekend!

This past week I’ve started making some headway on ideas for a new project, the Folio Society and House of Illustration Book Illustration Competition. The Book Illustration Competition is a yearly jobby that’s been going on since 2011, though this year is the first time I’ll be entering. This year’s book is War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, and I shall be creating three inner illustrations and the book cover design for this, for completion is early January. So it’s quite a big task, but an exciting one nevertheless. Last week I made some collagraph printing plates ready to do some illustration backgrounds to draw back into; unfortunately I’ve felt too awful to stand in the print room at University and get inky, but fingers crossed my human-self returns soon and I can get my print on. Below are my printing plates, textures and all, ready to go! Aren’t they lovely.

Also, in my eternal search for new and interesting textures that I can add into my work, I had a go at some DIY nail varnish marbling! Because I’m too frugal to buy marbling inks, and I have a sizeable collection of nail varnish already, I decided to give this method a go after finding it on Pintrest. Now, I didn’t use anywhere near as much colour as in the tutorial (see previous point about frugality) to do mine, but they turned out pretty interesting all the same. These experiments are all going towards the preparations for The Next Big Thing..

Who says illustration just needs to be drawing, huh? All of these types of things I like to scan in and add as a layer behind an image to give it a bit more of a textured and interesting look sometimes. Plus it’s kind of fun to try these things, apart from the inevitability of being gassed in my living room by nail varnish. It’s all part of the fun!

In other news, I popped into Travelling Man in Manchester on Sunday to drop off some copies of Sneaky Business! They now sit alongside a remaining copy of The Red Road (first edition), and right underneath Keara Stewart‘s nightmare anthology I created a comic for, A Bit of Undigested Potato. How EXCITING! Don’t forget, you can pick up the last remaining copies of The Red Road from Gosh London, Travelling Man Manchester, OK Comics in Leeds! Sneaky Business is still available to buy from my rather shiny Etsy store, as well as in Gosh, Orbital Comics and now Travelling Man.

Sneaky Business hits more shelves next to The Red Road..
.. hand in hand!

And with The Red Road re-release getting ever closer, I’m slowly getting prepared for the two-day comic bonanza that will be Thought Bubble Festival! For those of you travelling to Leeds for the occasion, the comics festival at the weekend is looking absolutely spectacular. I’ll be in New Dock Hall on table 73b, with lots of lovely and talented people around as shown on the map! I have some exciting things up my sleeve for the event, so be sure to pop by and say hello if you’re in the area.

Finally, following the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer being released last week, (and subsequently having to sit through it multiple times) I decided my better half’s excitable squealing was too entertaining to pass up on as inspiration, so I put pen to paper and made him this. Pretty spot on, if you ask me! Anywho, that’s it for now. I need to feed myself something magical to run this cold out of town. Until next time, happy Halloween and stay spooky! x

I Amster-back.

| rozihath

Good morning Friday fans!

So, although a little later than normal, I am dutifully back with this week’s update on what’s been going on at the HQ. After returning from a short break to Amsterdam yesterday, I barely feel like I’ve been away for one day, let alone three. As my company for the trip were not particularly interested in the art side of things and the weather was a good eclectic mix of tourrential downpours and drizzle, we ended up just having a good ol’ wander around the city and stopping to eat as much incredible food as possible. Not bad, right? Oh, and the pancakes.. Be still, my beating heart.

Down to business, as some of you may or may not have seen, I gave my website a bit of a refresh last weekend. It was rather over-due, and if you waltz on over to my homepage you’ll see it looks a bit more snazzy and full of comic goodness. I changed some of the links and information too, so the Contributions page is a little more streamlined, with more information linked elsewhere. Phew! It was in desperate need of bringing up to date, and yet another thing crossed of my pre-University list.

So, we now have sections for the Top Secret Project (to be announced in the coming months… And it’s going to be REALLY good, I promise.), Sneaky Business, Rejsen as a part of Dirty Rotten Comics, and Locomotion as a part of A Bit of Undigested Potato. One of the good teaching points of University was that keeping your website alive and rejuvenated is very important.. If the homepage stays the same, it looks like I do nothing for months on end. And I can promise you, from my premature ageing and stress lines, that is most definitely not the case. Anyway, head on over to the home page for a little explore, and tell me what you think! It’s very comic-centred right now which is great, though I’m definitely looking forward to flexing my illustration muscles soon.

website

Speaking of which, I arrived home from rainy Amsterdam to a wonderful message from Eastfield Academy to say that they’ve received my Bullfinch! For those who are unaware, back in June I signed up for the Access Art Share-a-Bird project; the project was aimed at artists to create a bird in any medium, and donate it to the Access Art charity which would then send the birds out to schools in the UK who signed up for the project. As artists, we also got to write an inspirational message to the younger generation about how important art is, and it’s not all about stuffy old textbooks and things that happened centuries ago. It’s about making cool stuff and enjoying it, and a decent arts education helps. As I’ve said before, art in school pretty much bored me to tears; there was nothing engaging about drawing a still life of an apple as an 11-year-old Game Boy fanatic. Though, I’m lucky really, as those afternoons as a very young person drawing things in the garden with my mum taught me how much I wanted to be better (that same stubborn and competitive child is still inside somewhere). Here’s to hoping that my Bullfinch might inspire some small person, if only for a few hours.

 

My ‘Share a Bird’ project landed at Eastfield Academy!

 

Finally, last week I completed a piece for a friend of mine who is creating his own zine of comics, text and images around the theme of Dead Singers. The zine itself is being released to coincide with Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds, from 14th-15th November which I shall be attending with bells and whistles on. After some careful consideration and pondering, and having lists of names sent to me from my better half, I settled on Muddy Waters. Here’s a sneak preview of my finished stand-alone illustration for the project. Thanks to Sam for letting me be involved!

Anyway, that’s it for now! I have an exciting project coming up to get my teeth stuck into, and the third year of university awaits.. Until next week!

x

The Final Countdown

| rozihath

Goood afternoon ladies and gentlemen!

So, I haven’t gone mad. Well, I may have done, but this specific reasoning for having not gone mad comes from a midday blog effort. “Oooh”, I hear you all say, as you munch your lunchtime sarnie trying to avoid getting crumbs in the keyboard. Which always happens anyway. Yes! I decided a change was in order this week, before I busy my head in more comics for the remainder of the afternoon.

It’s been a busy week, in fact each week has been becoming steadily busier in the run up to my two-week Scandi adventures; so I have three more afternoons of work to get everything done as much as physically possible so that I can enjoy my fortnight in the fjords. As I revealed last week, my new collaborative zine Sneaky Business has been completed! I received the final artwork, finished the covers up and tomorrow I shall be scurrying along to the local printers to throw my USB their way. HOW EXCITING! Now that it’s all beautifully laid out, I can give you a proper introduction…

Sneaky Business - A collaborative comics zine full of sneaky.. well.. business.
Sneaky Business – A collaborative comics zine full of sneaky.. well.. business, really.

Sneaky Business is a comics zine of my creation, featuring two page and one page comics. After producing a one-page comic for Keara Stewart earlier in the year for her comics anthology A Bit of Undigested Potato, I felt deeply inspired to have a go myself! Though, not with quite so many comics as an anthology, as I think my brain would fall out from the stress of doing that amount of organising on top of everything else. Shortly after TAKEOVER back in May, the idea was born and I started contacting friends in the business. Another reason I wanted to do something like this, as I told the other artists involved, is because the majority of my work is quite dark, emotive and serious. How is everybody supposed to know how hilariously funny I am, without me showing them? Thus, Sneaky Business was born.. From the talented hands of (from top-bottom of the image above);

Rozi Hathaway – hello! -waves-
Pete Hindle – http://petehindle.com/
Samuel C Williams – http://cargocollective.com/samuelcwilliams
Alex Hahn – http://www.alexhahnillustrator.com/
and…
Peter James Norman – http://www.aplacetoputthings.co.uk/

Now for more exciting news! Sneaky Business is being launched on Saturday 29th August 2015 at MancsterCon, so if you’re in the area please do come and say hi and pick up your shiny new copy of Sneaky Business. I will be hosting an internet pre-launch on Monday 24th August, so if you’re unable to get to Manchester (cuh, you’ll be missing out) then I shall make sure you get your copy featuring these wonderful sneaky comic artists for the weekend. A big thanks to my creators Sam, Pete, Alex and Peter, and to anyone who has has helped me out; a special mention to Keara for being an inspiration and Ricky Miller from Avery Hill Publishing for giving me his words of wisdom when I was mid-crisis. So, keep your eyes peeled and be sure to order a copy when it’s released! Because it’s awesome.

In other news, I’ve been clocking up the hours at the ol’ desk producing this Top Secret project that’s due in September, which I mentioned last week. As all you wonderful people asked so nicely, (you didn’t, but I’m guessing you really wanted to..) here are some more snippets of what’s being taking all my time and energy!

Top Secret Project, a 10 page comic reached completion in August, more details announced soon..
Top Secret Project, a 10 page comic reached completion in August, more details announced soon..
Pencil roughs - complete!
Pencil roughs – complete!

I’m really really really really hoping to have all the pages inked by Friday evening, so when I return two-stone heavier from the lands of Danish pastries I can relax and focus on preparing for the colouring aspect, ready for deadline. Yesterday I managed to draw and ink up two in 5 hours, so by that logic I won’t quite get it done.. But I’m going to try my hardest! Page one was a bit of a pain, the rest should be easier. I hope. And pray.

So, yes! Hopefully all this visual stimulation invigorates you all ready for your afternoons, just think of me cramped over my desk drawing pages after pages of comics, and think about how much simpler a desk-job is. I will be back in three weeks time with a full update of my travels, so I hope everybody has a wonderful couple of weeks, and think of me on a boat somewhere between the islands surrounding Oslo.. Or in Stockholm having fika.. Or in Denmark practising my Danish on real, Danish people whilst playing with Lego and eating wienerbrød. Until then – over and out.

x

Sneaky Business

| rozihath

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.

 

x

 

The Road to CECAF

| rozihath

Good evening happy campers.

Well, here are are in a rather blustery June. I don’t know about elsewhere, but I’m looking forward to stepping out the door and not being greeting by a mass of fresh air all up in my face and hair. Although I’m sure the dragged-through-a-hedge look has it’s perks*, I don’t think it suits me.

*Perks include: Avoiding eye-contact with odd looking strangers, avoiding eye-contact with people you used to know, avoiding eye contact with people you do know but would rather not, correcting one’s appearance with a Mariah Carey-esque hair swoosh, potentially good excuse for running late (as even if you walk slowly, you still look like you’ve run a marathon), and it’s probably a fashion statement I’ve missed out on because I’m old and sensible.

Anyway! As we enter June we come upon round 2 of my summer of comics festivals – CECAF! Otherwise known as Crouch End Comic Arts Festival, this Saturday 6th June sees a whole load of comics creators pile into Earl Haig in Crouch End. The comics festival runs alongside the community arts led Crouch End Festival, which has a whole host of events running from this Friday 5th June through to Sunday 14th June. I have been incredibly lucky to be included on the Broken Frontier table, which is championing the work of us troublemakers – the ‘Six UK Small Press Creators to Watch in 2015’ – along with a couple of other talented small-pressers! I jumped at the chance to come along and join in the fun, so you can find me there on Saturday, 11am-5pm with copies of everything! That’s right, everything. I shall be joining Andy Oliver, Patron Saint of UK Small Press and *newly appointed* Editor and Chief in Broken Frontier behind the table, along with Keara Stewart and Emma Raby. You’ll also be able to find fellow Six Small Presser Danny Noble nearby with her recently published book, Was it… Too Much for You?. Keara will be selling her anthology I joined in on, A Bit of Undigested Potato so be sure to pick up a copy of that whilst you’re around. Plus, y’know, the aforementioned ‘everything’.

So, roll up! Come on down! Say hello! Join in the fun! All info below!

CECAF
CECAF
..Part of The Crouch End Festival of events!

I have a special offer on just for this splendid event, too!

The first four people to purchase a copy of The Red Road at CECAF this Saturday, will get a FREE A6 high quality print.

How good is that?! There are a choice of two prints available, and it’s first come first served and adored by me forever for buying my work basis. And I’m pretty sure adoration goes for a high price these days, so enjoy it. I will also be selling my usual gaggle of items, plus free stickers with every purchase. Unless I’m mistakenly piling far too much onto this envisioned table (in which case, this may be edited out in due course), I will also be selling remaining issues of Down to Your Skivvies #1 zine by myself and the Skivvies ladies, so watch out for that too. Yay!

Saturday should be a fantastic day, at least, it will be once I’ve navigated the bus system of London to try and find out how to get to Crouch End. And also once I manage to fall on a bus to get home again after a few drinks, but I’ll worry about that nearer the time! If you happen to be in London this weekend and fancy an eye-popping day of awesome comics creators selling their wares, come along. You’ll love it.

In other news, the past week has been another rather busy one, but I still have my big secret hat on for now whilst I figure out and finalise several ongoing plans. I did however gain some inspiration from my new early-morning routine, as re-created in this quick cartoon below. I have decided, in my infinite wisdom, that 4:30am is a tiring time to get up in the morning. However, at least it’s now light around then. And, also I’m greeted by the Great British dawn chorus, from the local Northamptonshire birds. It’s better than radio, I tell you.

Thanks to Toto. No Copyright Violations here!
Thanks to Toto for getting this song in my head, yet again.

Anyway, that’s it from me tonight! I expect to see you ALL on Saturday at CECAF, so have a good week until then. Peace out!

x

A Bit of Undigested Potato

| rozihath

 

A Bit of Undigested Potato edited by Keara Stewart..
“Locomotion”

A Bit of Undigested Potato

A bad dreams and nightmare anthology, edited by Keara Stewart

Contributions by Alex Potts, Abraham Mann, Andy Poyiadgi, Annabel Dover, Cathy Lomax, Corinna Spencer, Danny Noble, David Robertson, EdieOP, Ella Dawson, Elizabeth Querstret, Francesca Cassavetti, Gareth Brookes, John Riordan, Justyna Burzynska, Karen Rubins, Karrie Fransman, Keara Stewart, Kelly Froh, Kim Clements, Martin Eden, Mary Blomley, Matilda Tristram, Mike Medaglia, Nick Soucek, Paul Shinn, Pete Hindle, Rachael Ball, Richy K. Chandler, Robert Wells, Rozi Hathaway, Ruth Collingwood, Sally-Anne Hickman, Sean Azzopardi, Steven J Harris, Tim Bird, Tom Ryling, Una, Viviane Schwarz and Wallis Eates.

Cover by Gareth Brookes.

On sale now from Keara’s webstore, priced £5.00. Also reviewed by Andy Oliver on Broken Frontier.

“Noble is, of course, one of my ‘Six UK Small Press Creators to Watch in 2015’, as is Rozi Hathaway who, once again, lives up to that designation with a desperately touching, panel-bursting short.”
-Andy Oliver, Broken Frontier

Second Year Round-Up

| rozihath

Good evening happy campers!

So, after my first week of semi-freedom I’m feeling somewhat rested and ready for the next row of challenges. It’s looking to be a pretty busy summer, so I’m enjoying some breathing space whilst I can. Saying that, I’m really excited to get started. As mentioned last week, I shall cover some of the projects from the last 6 months which I haven’t previously covered. Here we go..

First up is four pieces from a brief that was focused on the Anomalous Psychological Processes department at University. Although contact was limited with the department aside from an initial tour, I created these as a reflection of the studies they research. The first image of a hand holding a brain is a general reflection, secondly the female face is a representation of the Ganzfeld experiment. Thirdly is the telephone telepathy experiments and finally the fourth image is of twin synchronicity.

As with most University assignments, I don’t really know where I stand (useful, right?) but I’m hoping the overseer of the grades is kind to me! Also, I spent some time before last week recreating an editorial illustration brief I’d previously completed back in October/November time. Editorial briefs (one-off illustrations for magazines, newspapers, that kinda thing) are not something I’m overly good at currently. My brain seems to always work in narrative and give names and faces to the characters, with life stories and emotions. But, y’know.. Editorial will pay the bills when the time comes, so re-working this project was important to me.

First attempt – The Wisdom of Crowds
Final, re-worked piece.

My feedback for the original piece was that the crowd was too defined, not dense enough and not really reflective of the tone of the article (which is just one seriously in-depth analysis of the smaller people standing up to the bigger people). So, I think I’ve corrected all that! I’ve slowly been collecting free magazines to look at the way other people (who actually make money from drawing) do their editorial pieces, so my self-set homework for this summer is to work on improving my skills.

Apart from that, most of the other work for this year at University has already been covered! Mennesker er Underlig, the folding self-reflective zine as covered here, Down to Your Skivvies zine which is on sale via Etsy, the Machines exhibition as covered here and of course, the biggun’ of The Red Road. Although I had to re-do some work and projects before assessment I feel pretty positive about my final work for the year. Well, I’ll see how positive I still feel when I get my grades back..! I think I have around a month until the grades are in, so I shall live in my blissful happy bubble for a while yet.

Speaking of The Red Road, I took a wander through Manchester’s Northern Quarter on Saturday with my better half, and we went past Travelling Man so I could spy on how many copies of The Red Road are left in stock.. And low and behold, I’m in the window! Ta-da!

Anywho, I think that’s enough for now. In the next week or so things will be taking shape for my summer of secret plans, so I may be able to reveal the odd one or two next week! Oh! And before I forget, as mentioned last week Keara Stewart’s zine anthology A Bit of Undigested Potato is out now, and it’s for sale online! To get your hands on a copy, click through here. Over and out!

x

Tales From the First Publication Corner

| rozihath

Good evening dutiful followers,

Well, what a celebratory day it is! Second Year of University is OFFICIALLY OVER, woo! No more redoing work from months ago and tweaking something because it’s out of alignment by 2mm, I can finally breathe and start to clear my head ready for a summer of busy drawing fun. After a hectic 7 months I can now find time to do the fun things in life, like make up new comic ideas and draw whatever I feel like. And it feels gooooooood. But, I have plenty of interesting news to keep you all occupied, don’t you worry! First up..

Alternative Press and The London Radical Bookfair hosted TAKEOVER 2015 this past weekend, on Saturday 9th May at a nice little warehouse on 47-49 Tanner Street just a hop, skip and a jump from London Bridge. What a day! Although there were some early complications – definitely of no fault of the organisers, mind you! – the day was busy and Tanner Street became full of people interested in all the comic, zine and book business of the day! As I mentioned previously, I was accepted to TAKEOVER on the First Publications Corner, a special spot for highlighting the work of first-time self publishers of zines and comics as a way to keep us all together (and out of trouble, I suspect!). I met some fantastically interesting people on Saturday, and walked around feeling like a deer in headlights for most of it, but as my first event I’m sure I’ll feel like a regular by the end of the year! Special thanks to those who made me feel at home in a whirlwind experience; Andy Oliver of Broken Frontier, Keara Stewart, Ricky Miller of Avery Hill Publishing, Alex Hahn, Alexandra Cook and Wallis Eates. You’re all lovely!

I only managed to sell a couple of bits, but lots of lovely people and seeing Danny Noble‘s under-table acrobatics definitely made for a good day. Another awesome part of the day was the creation of a Zine in a Day made by Co-Op Footprinters, who brought their risograph printer down from Leeds just for the event. And I thought dragging a suitcase of comics around London was difficult! The idea was absolutely lovely, and I dutifully took along a prepared image to submit to the zine. Have a look below!

TAKEOVER 15 Zine in a Day!
Better than any fridge magnet souvineer..
My submission!
My original for submission

The day was made even better with the release of Keara Stweart‘s zine anthology, A Bit of Undigested Potato! Featuring the work of 58 artists (including yours truly..) the anthology looks at bad dreams and nightmares from the perspective of the artist (featured at Broken Frontier here). My comic Locomotion is situated in there, but I’m afraid you’ll have to purcahse your own copy to see it all! I read the whole anthology as soon as it was places in my hands, and from the sad, to the scary and the funny, this book really is something special. I’ll definitely cherish it, and thanks again to the lovely Keara for asking me to join in the fun! What an honour, and a privilege to be included amongst such awesome people.

A Bit of Undigested Potato – zine anthology

So, after the excitement of Saturday and the final push at University I’m feeling rather tired, but from meeting all the wonderful aforementioned people at TAKEOVER my brain is now overflowing with ideas of things to come! Now, secrets are way more fun in this line of work, so I won’t divulge too much, but I will say that you can expect to see issue #2 of Down to Your Skivvies coming out soon.. And maybe a few more things popping up on my Etsy shop! For now, I shall retire for the night ready for the busy few days ahead, but I shall be back next week with some coverage of a few exciting University projects that haven’t been covered in all the madness. And then, let the ideas and exciting things commence! Peace out! x