autobiographical zine

One Month Countdown

| rozihath

Good afternoon all,

Comic creators, this is your four-and-a-half week warning for Thought Bubble, I repeat, this is your four-and-a-half week warning:

Official Thought Bubble Festival banner, with artwork by Jen Bartel.

That’s right; one of, if not THE biggest UK independent comic festivals is just around the corner, as the words “It’s nearly Thought Bubble” strike fear into anyone who’s working on a project to release at Leeds’ epic weekend comics celebration. As I mentioned last time, I’ve been getting back to the grind to complete my new zine – the plus-side of not using any paint this time around (yes, yes it’s been a painful but important thing to temporarily let go of gouache and my brushes) is that the final artwork is a lot quicker to create. So, with a few finishing touches it should be going off to print before the week is out!

Here’s some previews..

Zine Promo Previews
Zine Promo Previews

Next week pre-orders for the zine will open and the full announcement will be made, so keep your peepers peeled!

In other news, the latest Pipedream Comics Pull List went up this month, titled Discover Small Press – including an interview from yours truly! Here’s what they said about it on the site:

We were inspired to celebrate Small Press after a visit to the East London Comic Arts Festival in June and so we’ve picked five of our favourite creators and talked to them about their inspirations and the stories behind their books. These include Jonathan Cape award-winner Matthew Dooley, Avery Hill’s new superstar Ellice Weaver, Human Garbage creator Josh Hicks, NPC-Tea’s Sarah Millman and Cosmos’ Rozi Hathaway. All five of these creators encapsulate what is great about the world of small press and we hope that by discovering their work you can embrace the wonders of the community, too. We also have an amazing cover from Sub Diablo creator Darrell Thorpe.

Discover Small Press with the new issue of indie comics fanzine The Pull List – ON SALE NOW!

The Pull List by Pipedream Comics – available now.

Click above to get your digital copy for £0.99!

And finally, as well as working on the zine I’ve also been working on something more illustration-based for a submission.. Well, three things to be precise. Have a peek:

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I’m planning to finish these up this weekend, so all will be revealed soon!

And, that’s about it for now. Have a good bank holiday weekend all – I shall be partying with my paints! Laters.

 

x

Nearing The End

| rozihath

Good afternoon all!

So, we’re nearing the end of summer already. September is technically autumn, which is practically almost winter, which means that rainy Manchester has given me approximately one week of good sunshine weather this season. At least it’s consistent? This also means it’s nearing the end of the time needed to finish my new zine I mentioned in my last update, which will be launched at Thought Bubble Festival in six and a half weeks!

Six weeks..

Six..

Gulp.

Progress has been slow on the zine in the past couple of weeks, as I’ve found working on this project to be a bit up and down – not to mention having an incredibly annoying cough and feeling like garbage for two weeks. Not feeling great made it hard to work on this zine, so instead I opted to spend my time on crafty things I could do in bed, like sewing. Yes, I’m turning into my mother. And yes, if you knew her you’d realise that’s a great thing.

The zine, an autobiographical story, is something totally new for me. A different way of working and a different way of writing, and working on something autobiographical is a lot harder than escaping into the realms of magical foxes and stars in a jar. I dabbled in stories relating to my experiences in Cosmos & Other Stories, but this zine is definitely a new challenge – wholly to the point with no abstraction. Luckily for me, time is running out and I work a lot better under pressure, so it’ll be done before I know it! I hope.

Without trying to sound too much like 1960’s newscaster – keep an eye out for more as this develops.

In some other excellent news, a half-table space opened up at Bristol Comic & Zine Fair on Saturday 7th October, and I was asked if I’d like to exhibit! I will admit, I was kinda upset when I didn’t get into BCZF – but like ELCAF, this event really has an incredible collection of artists so I was more than happy to tag along with the Good Comics gents and take up some space on the communal table. But, luck turned in my favour and I’ll be there. Exciting stuff! Check out the Facebook event page for all the deets.

Bristol Comic & Zine Fair 2017
Event photos by Eileen Long – http://www.eileenlong.co.uk

Bristol Comic & Zine Fair is two weeks after Thought Bubble Festival (23rd-24th September), with Loogabarooga (21st October) two weeks after Bristol – so it’s going to be a busy month-or-so with lots more travelling. It’s a good thing I’m well rehearsed in napping on trains and coaches! Zooming down the M6 catching flies is my best look..

And that’s it for now! I have my work cut out preparing this zine in the next few weeks, but I’ll keep you all updated with what’s going on. Until next time, have a good week/weekend all.

 

x

Takeover and Other Business!

| rozihath

Good evening happy campers!

So, after a brief pause of a week off to catch up on Uni work, I still feel somewhat drowning with a week until final assessment. But I got stuff done! Stuff done is good! Plus, following last weeks news of my interview with Broken Frontier, I bring more good news from the comics universe which I’ll cover later.

Alt. Press TAKEOVER 2015! This Saturday, roll up, roll up.
Alt. Press TAKEOVER 2015! This Saturday, roll up, roll up.

First up, this weekend sees something special, with Alternative Press and The London Radical Bookfair’s  TAKEOVER 2015! With an impressive line-up of attendees and an awesome looking programme of events, it’s definitely going to be something special! As mentioned before, I’ll be on the aptly named First Publications Corner with some very talented folks such as Tiny Noggin, Alexandra Cook and Fang Jui Chang. This is my first of four comics events for this summer, and my first event of this kind of my drawing career so far. I’m really excited to see what the day will bring, and as I’ll only be behind the table on a rota’d basis which will give me plenty of opportunity to wander around and have a look at all the other wonderful creator goods! I need to keep an iron clamp on my purse, mind you..

You can read more about TAKEOVER 2015 in Broken Frontier’s coverage article here

Next up: more zine business! As part of a last project at university before Easter we were asked in a relatively short space of time to create a number of drawings of our thoughts, feelings and observations in every day life. At the time I had a few too many things going on and since this point I’ve been re-working the project to make it shiner and better than before! I present to you.. Mennesker er Underlig:

 

‘Mennesker er Underlig’, playing around with zine shapes and forms.

Mennesker er Underlig is a self exploratory zine that looks at things from my perspective of the world, from making breakfast to walking back and forth. It was pretty fun to make in the end, and after lots of re-drawing from different comics I think it’s come together pretty nicely! Let’s hope University agree. The zine itself is a shallow folded box, inside are 15 pages of my inner monologue… Which is more exciting than it sounds. Or is it? Anywho, as it’s something that I won’t be formally introducing to the world for sale, below is a little gallery of the processes that went into making this, and some of the pages too! As always, please let me know if any of you have any thoughts or feelings about it. Oh! And before I forget, mennesker er underlig is Danish for ‘humans are strange’. Why Danish, I hear you ask? WELL! For the past 134 days or there-abouts I’ve been learning Danish ready for an exciting Scandinavian adventure later in the year. Plus, learning a language as my brain starts to deteriorate seems like a good idea, as well as being something completely separate from drawing that I can do to clear my mind. I recommend everyone should learn new languages, it’s a hoot! Plus hopefully I can make friends with some Danish illustrators and spend lots of time there eating rugbrød and rødgrød med fløde. Fremragende!

Finally, today the interwebs told me that Keara Stewart‘s zine anthology about nightmares has arrived into her hands today, for official release this Saturday at TAKEOVER! A Bit of Undigested Potato has been previewed here at Broken Frontier today, with a lovely interview with Keara herself. Personally, I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy and see what everyone else has made for it, as I definitely enjoying doing my page for it. I recommend you all pick one up! Here’s a reminder of a sneaky-preview I gave you all a few weeks back of my submission..

Anywho, that’s it for now! I started my new part time job last week, and tomorrow is the day of the week that I crawl out of bed at 4:25am, so I’d best go and eat cherry pie in the bath before I attempt to get lulled to sleep by the sounds of screaming children playing outside. Until next week.. Over and out! x