South London Comic and Zine Fair

Heatwaves & Hand-Printed Zines

| rozihath

Good afternoon all!

Crikey, it’s mid-July already. It’ll be Christmas before we know it. It’s been busy as ever over the past four weeks, with my first ever keynote speech done and dusted, another comics’ fair under my belt and a short zine lovingly crafted, printed, stapled and bound in my own living room. But, I’ve still had time to enjoy the summer months down in Bournemouth with plenty of swimming in the sea and running around on the beach! Here are the highlights:

Since last time:

  • I attended and spoke at the International Graphic Novel and Comics’ Conference
  • My sketchbook for codename: The Biggest One Yet (TBOY) is becoming plumper still
  • I tabled at the South London Comic & Zine Fair with Good Comics
  • Sam and I made a new zine together
  • I was accepted into Bristol Comic & Zine Fair in October – woo!
  • And, I picked up an old car called Billie. Road trips!

First up, the International Graphic Novel & Comics Conference (IGNCC) was a blast. Julia and the other organisers did a wonderful job, and once I’d stopped shaking from my speech, I had a fantastic time listening to other people present their papers and keynote speeches, all on varying subjects within the field of comics. Having studied illustration at university I’m fairly well rehearsed in listening to comics’ being talked about in depth in such a way, but it was still such a powerful, inspiring experience to hear about so many subjects within a few days.

IGNCC programme
Mid-speech at the IGNCC

Sadly I did miss a few things I really wanted to see; Woodrow Phoenix’ exhibition and talk on She Lives would have been spectacular (but the downside of a new car was the pre-booked MOT taking up valuable conference time…). But overall it was an excellent few days! Thank you so much to the whole IGNCC team for hosting such a great event – and right on my doorstep too.

Next up, I spent this last Saturday in the overly muggy climates of Croydon, at the South London Comic & Zine Fair (SLCZF)! Between Paddy, Sam and myself we managed to eat a Caribbean feast whilst selling comics and zines to the throngs of people strolling past our table. Although, the heat did seem to affect my brain so my apologies to anyone who felt like they were talking to a spongy wall – that was just me!

The Hathaway Corner

For SLCZF, Sam and I decided to make a little hand-printed zine together as we haven’t had the chance to make one before. As Sam is a parent, we have split custody and both work full-time jobs, the time we actually have alone together is precious. Before I relocated to the coast and we were long-distance, we had a sketchbook that we posted back and forth to each other with all the things we’d like to do together when we finally lived in the same place, and this new zine felt like an extension of that idea, and finding peace in the time we get which is truly ours.

We hand-picked some G. F Smith paper and printed it all up on my laser printer, then Sam stapled and trimmed each one by hand. You can pick one up from my Etsy store for £2 plus postage! And yes, the cover is one example of me balancing things on Sam’s head whilst he sleeps.

The Things We Do..
The things we do when it’s just me and you.. new zine! £2 + P&P

Finally, my sketchbook is still well underway for my new project under the codename The Biggest One Yet (TBOY). Although with the conference and the zine I’m a little behind, you can still find all my progress over on Patreon. I also have another project coming up which will be really exciting, so sign up now before you miss anything.

And that’s about it for now! Me and Billie the car will be planning our next research adventure… watch this space.

 

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Festivals & Releases

| rozihath

Good afternoon all!

So, it’s almost mid-July. When did that happen?

This past week has seen a surge of releases, first up with the launch of the Broken Frontier Small Press Yearbook 2017 on Saturday 8th July at Gosh! Comics in London. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it down south for the launch (trains just keep getting more expensive, right?), but it seems like Gosh! was totally packed out! You can see photos from the night here.

Small Press Yearbook 2017 – Cover by Ellice Weaver
A panel from my comic, “At the End of the Garden…”

The Yearbook is now on sale at selected comic shops around the UK and also online here for £7.99 plus postage. It features the ‘Six to Watch’ of last year; Rebecca Bagley, Kim Clements, Brigid Deacon, Emily Rose Lambert, Jey Levang and Ellice Weaver, as well as a handful of extra creators with back-up stories, including yours truly. I haven’t had a chance to look through the Yearbook yet, but I just know it’s going to be good.

Next up, Emily Owen’s Kickstarted Brain Shoodles zine is out into the world! Mine arrived yesterday, complete with some prints from my piece I created for one of the reward tiers. Brain Shoodles is a described as a mental health zine, documenting Emily’s struggle with anxiety and depression, and learning sometimes just how to put one foot in front of the other. It’s an accessible, touching read, and if you’d like to get your hands on a copy they are for sale on her online store for £3 plus postage.

Brain Shoodles, by Emily B Owen
Brain Shoodles Print

Also, Emily kindly sent me some of the prints (pictured above right) which are now up for sale on my Etsy store!

Given the nature of their creation, I am selling the prints with 50% of profits going to 42nd Street, a young-persons mental health charity here in Manchester. 42nd Street supports young people aged 11-25 years with their emotional well-being and mental health, promoting choice and creativity, championing young person centred approaches. They offer counselling, workshops and events to help engage young people, and have offered continued support in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing in May. They’re an excellent cause, and I hope to make as much for them as I can.

The prints are A4, printed on beautiful heavyweight recycled card stock, and on sale for £10. There’s a limited run, so if you’d like one click here.

I’ve also put my A5 print from Cosmos on my Etsy store! Originally released for free alongside pre-orders of the book, the print is just £4 and features one of the more colourful pages from the final story in the collection, ‘Treehouse‘. Click through the image below to see the whole thing!

My Etsy store has had a nice little revamp, so to celebrate all you nice readers of this blog can get 10% off my store for the next week with the code IREADIT – and with no minimum spend! Par-tay!

In other news, this weekend is the first ever South London Comic & Zine Fair! I will be there in spirit, as Paddy Johnston of Good Comics will be manning the stand with Cosmos & Other Stories, Josh Hicks’ Human Garbage and all the rest of Good Comics’ excellent catalogue of releases. Be sure to pop along and say hi if you’re in the area.

Good Comics at Thought Bubble, November 2016. Photo by Good Comics.

And that wraps it up for now! Keep an eye out next week when I’ll be back with more of what I’ve been getting up to.. Until then – have a good week!

 

x

Continued City-Hopping

| rozihath

Good afternoon, all!

So it’s been another week of early starts and day-trips, with my Saturday kicking off at 5am getting up and ready for the Birmingham Comic Art Festival. This is its first year running the selling event in the much larger Birmingham Comic Festival, which involved a month long series of talks and events. I managed to grab up a whole table and spread out!

Sadly, it was a little quiet and the foot-traffic through the event wasn’t enough to keep the momentum up. But, it was pleasant enough and the people who did swing by were more than happy to have a chat, which made for a pleasant day! I packed up early to spend some time with my parents, before hopping on the Megabus back up north and getting home in time to shove a microwave meal in just before 9pm. Living the high life!

Leading up to this event and with the possibility of more selling/tabling events over the latter part of summer, I scraped together the pennies to get a reprint of Njálla.

Njálla – Round Two

Somehow, in just over a year, Njálla has sold out of its first print run of 250 copies. Absolutely amazing. Thank you to everyone who supported the initial Kickstarter campaign (which feels so long ago now!) and everyone who has purchased a copy since. I now have another bundle of second edition books up for sale. I haven’t added any additional content this time, so you first edition folks aren’t missing out on anything new. Just a fresh run to keep me going. Ahh… New comic smell.

And finally, remember that Mexican themed piece I was working on a few weeks back? After being a little distracted with other things I have finished tweaking and submitted it to Big Brown Eyes Collective for their Habitat anthology! They’re deadline for submissions was back in April, but they very kindly let me have an extension as they’re planning on releasing the book around autumn this year. Here’s a bit more of a preview:

The anthology is being released at this year’s Thought Bubble Festival on 23rd-24th September, and also features the likes of Peony Gent and Anja Uhren. In the meantime, you can keep up with BBE’s feeds with previews and more on Twitter and Instagram, and check out their previous anthologies on their online shop.

And that just about wraps things up for now. It’s a quiet spell for me with festivals as I didn’t manage to get into MCM Manchester at the end of July, but if you’re around London/south of the country you should definitely check out the South London Comic and Zine Fair on Saturday 15th July, which promises to be a grassroots, DIY fun show hosted by one of the formidable forces in comics, Gareth Brookes. I won’t be able to make it, but it looks set to be fantastic. And, Paddy from Good Comics will be there with his array of published books including Cosmos & Other Stories. Also, the weekend before is the launch of the Small Press Yearbook 2017 from Broken Frontier which features a short story from your truly.. So, lots going on!

And on that note, I’ll be back soon! Have a good week all, and until next time.. peace out.

 

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