Ahh.. And Relax

Good afternoon folks!

So, it’s with a happy sigh of relief that my comic’s event calendar has closed for the year. It’s been a very busy six weeks; Thought Bubble, moving home, Bristol Comic & Zine Fair, and then Loogabarooga last weekend. It’s always a lot more tiring than you think to sit/stand behind a table all day, and factoring in travelling it can be a very long day indeed. But, I love it, each and every event this year has been fantastic and I’m so grateful to be able to go and show off my comics and talk to nice people all day.

Speaking of nice people, Loogabarooga was something special! Set in Loughborough Town Hall just north of Leicester, it was the first ever Loogabarooga Comics Fair and independent to but on the same week as the Loogabarooga Festival. It was a nice big room, with space in between the tables (don’t ask me how many times I’ve had to crawl under tables or squeeze between tiny gaps to get out), and a friendly atmosphere. Drew who organised the event made it as welcoming as possible, with free entry to the event and talks/workshops for just a couple of quid. I was sat next to my band-name-generator accomplices Good Comics (such gems as Communal Banana© and Off-Brand Laser Tag© are new possible band names) and we opted for the cheese-board lunch again, much like with Leamington Spa Comic Con. It’s important to stay well fed.

It really was a nice, relaxing and fun day and Drew did an excellent job at making sure all his tabling guests were happy and comfortable. For a first-time show it was a delight, if not a little under promoted by the local council – but, give an extra year of preparation and more of an opportunity to push promotion, and I’ll definitely be heading back next year to join in the fun. Thanks to everyone who swung by my table and had a chat, and big thanks to Drew for squeezing me in last-minute and being such an excellent host!

In other news, we are now nearing the end of Inktober! Can you believe it’s almost November? Terrifying. I’ve been slowly collecting up my doodles of the fox and the butterfly, and with only six days left including today I’ve been having to rough pencil out the final drawings to make sure I can complete the narrative in time. Hard work, this daily drawing thing! Here’s a sneak peek of the progress so far (taken a couple of days ago – 23/24/25 are inked and over on the Twitter)…

By the time I’m next updating you all, it’ll be over! So keep your peepers peeled for the final collection and see what it gets turned into next month..

In other news, I’ve also been working away on a new, vaguely secret comic which will see light of day in the new year!  It’s been a bit slower to progress than usual as I’m trying out some different methods of creating part of the story without using panel borders, which makes it a little more complex for me. It’s fun, and exciting, and it gave me the perfect excuse to add another book to my collection of history/artefact/anthropology books –insert heart-eyes emoji here– …check out the progress so far!

It’s a really fun comic to work on so far, but I definitely need to speed up a little in getting it moving towards the inking stage.. So, bear with me, you’ll be seeing lots more of this soon.

And that’s about it for now! As I said above, keep an eye out next week for the whole Inktober collection and more fun and games with comics. Until then, have a great week/weekend everyone! Peace out.

 

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First of the Season

Good afternoon happy campers!

So, it’s almost February! Which means that even though there’s some sort of ominous freezing fog loitering around parts of England at the moment, and many of us get to partake in the good ol’ icy pavement dance in the mornings, the days ARE getting longer and the very beginning signs of comics festivals is on the horizon..

First festival of the year is going to Cheltenham’s True Believers Comic Festival next weekend, on Saturday 4th February! I’ll be there on a table with two of the micro-publishing mega-team Good Comics, Dr Paddy Johnston and Samuel C. Williams. Propped up on caffeine behind table #L4, Good Comics will be selling an array of their recent publications including Robin William Scott’s beautifully engaging autobiographical Every Life I Ever Lived, and the delicate yet entertaining Tales From the Nonniverse #1 by Faye Spencer. Both of these I picked up shortly after Thought Bubble, and both of these you should get your hands on if you can. I’ll also be there with a my usual suspects  Njálla and Ø, and talking to anyone who’ll listen about the work I’ve been doing for the new comic collection Good Comics are releasing in Spring.

If you’re in or around that area of the world you should definitely pop along and say hello! Adult advance tickets are £10, with child tickets being £5, and you can pick these up from the website here. In case you missed it before, you can find 5 questions with Good Comics from the True Believers team on the website here. Good Comics are also releasing the third volume of their anthology zine Dead Singers Society at True Believers (which I have a one-page comic in, as I mentioned last week), and if you can’t get there to check it out the pre-orders are available on their website here.

I’m really exited to be behind a table again, with the last tabling adventures of Thought Bubble in November feeling like a very long time ago. Equally exciting is a small side project in the form of playing around with a risograph printer (thanks to Hato Press for the handy guide!) for the first time next weekend, so I’ve been able to take a break from some serious writing to draw up a short wordless comic to play about with in this totally new (to me, at least) way of printing. But more on that as it happens.. Here’s a peek of the inks I’ve been working on, for said short wordless comic:

In other news, the night before True Believers is my good friend Naomi has her first private view and exhibition at the Stantonbury Gallery in Milton Keynes! I’ll be going along on Friday night for an exclusive view of her incredibly life-like artwork on show. I’m always blown away at the detail she manages to get into her illustration work, and if you’re a fan of beautiful artwork you should get yourself there whilst her exhibition is on.

The exhibition itself will be open from Monday the 30th January till Sunday the 19th February 2017 (Monday-Friday from 10am – 10pm, Saturday-Sunday from 10am – 6pm) and you can find full details of the private launch on Friday 3rd February on the Facebook event page here.

NRJ Art Solo Exhibition at the Stantonbury Gallery

And that’s about it for now! I’m still writing and drawing away for the next of my short stories along with writing for a top secret project that will be revealed in the coming weeks. It’s all go here at HQ, so I’m looking forward to a break next weekend! Until then, think of me banging my head against a desk whilst I try to get these damn stories finished off.. See you next week!

 

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