Thought Bubble Festival

A New Chapter: Part 1

| rozihath

Good afternoon fellow humans!

It has been a while, no? Last time I posted I was gleefully looking forward to some quiet time post-festival season, though life always finds a way of throwing more challenges at you when you think it’s finally time to relax.

Drawing and creating comics has always been such an organic process, it’s easy to forget that the person behind the drawing has the usual nonsense to deal with; on hold to the electric company, navigating food shopping into a busy week, and the such. And, In mid-September, this was the case more than ever! Things came tumbling down around us in the form of an eviction notice; no no, I hadn’t been drawing too loudly, just a landlord who – fairly enough – wanted his property back.

Apparently such is the life of a private tenant, but short of living in fear month-to-month, nothing can prepare you for having to move on someone else’s terms. So, since my last update, I’ve spent two months with my ever-patient and wonderful partner Sam packing up all of our belongings and moving and unpacking. Again. But, finally, things are settling into place and I’m getting back into some sort of routine. Plus, our new home is so cosy and peaceful.

Still, it’s not all about moving home. Here is some news for you all:

-KLAXON- Cosmos & Other Stories is nearly sold out for the second time!

That’s right. I am now out of stock of the second print run of Cosmos & Other Stories. First published back in March 2017, the second print run was released in January 2018 and Good Comics hold the remaining few copies on their online store. As it won’t be reprinted you have to be quick if you’re still after a copy – otherwise, you can read a digital copy by subscribing to my Patreon for $5 a month. It’s really sad to see Cosmos go, but who knows, maybe some of the stories will find their way into something else in the future. Farewell Cosmos -sniff-

Cosmos & Other Stories
Cosmos Preview

In more recent comics news, Moon is now up on my website! You can see loads of snapshots of the process of making Moon, complete with details of how to buy it. It feels like forever ago that I made Moon, but it’s only been a couple of months. Check out the designated page on my website here, and get your copy on my Etsy store.

BBE Barriers Anthology

Another piece of good news: the short comic I made for BBE’s Barriers back in May is now available to buy from their online store! It came out in time for Thought Bubble, and I excitedly picked up my contributor copy. It was a really fun comic to make, and the anthology is full of great work.

And that just about wraps it up for now! Rest assured I have been managing to stay creatively active during this move. I have made a Halloween costume for two children and a bearded dragon, I made a treasure map and co-build a bespoke storage drawer-unit for our collective art supplies (I even hand-sawed some front panels, much to the discomfort of my puny upper arm muscles).

Exciting, right? I’ll be back next time with more but until then…

 

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Moon

Moon preview
| rozihath

Moon – Newspaper comic – 24 pages

Based on a conversation with a four-year-old, Moon is an original comics story with plenty of imagination, a look at familial relationships, and a nod the Chinese legend of Chang-e and the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Moon was successfully funded via Kickstarter, printed by The Newspaper Club and released on 22nd-23rd September 2018 at Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds, UK.

Available to buy here

…Our first port of call was to catch up with some familiar faces, and we started off with Good Comics’ Sam Williams, Rozi Hathaway and Josh Hicks who were all bunched in on a row together. Rozi was showcasing her new book Moon and this was our first chance to see it in print and the newsprint finish really made the most of Rozi’s beautiful artwork.

Alex Thomas, Pipedream Comics – Show Report: Bristol Comics & Zine Fair 2018

Moon preview

 

Moon Landing

| rozihath

Good afternoon, folks!

So, the last few weeks have been slightly overwhelming. Back in July, shortly after SLCZF, I decided I could TOTALLY put a comic out by Thought Bubble Festival (22nd-23rd September). I had an idea and got to work on it, and somehow just about managed it. And, as of Sunday evening just gone, Moon was finished up, edited and sent off to print as the Kickstarter campaign ended at 135% funded. WE DID IT!

Now, I’m not going to pretend that this kind of concept is a good idea – it was a pretty stupid idea because it meant I had to juggle an already busy existence with a very short deadline. I took days off from work here and there and spent my evenings at the desk too, but it was so, so worth it.

Moon preview

The campaign for Moon went really well; it was 50% funded after two days, and then had a steady increase of 1-2 pledges per day to reach the original target of £800, then onward and up to a total of £1082. The campaign itself was really short so that I could get the comic printed and out in time for Thought Bubble Festival. But, regardless of the rush, it all worked as planned! The only real comparison that I have with Kickstarter is Njálla; but that feels like an exception to the rule, as that was fully funded on the first day (and something I never expected to happen again)!

Given how little time I gave myself, the creation side of the comic went really well. I did my usual process of thumbnailing out the comic, pencilling it up on big layout sheets, and then inking straight onto artist cartridge paper and painting on the same page. Moon is a total of 24 pages, 17 of which are painted story pages. Check out a little preview here:

Gettin' Painty
Gettin’ Painty

What’s next? Well! First thing this Monday morning the print files were sent to print at the Newspaper Club. Tuesday night the rewards were sent off to print (A5 prints, temporary tattoos and stickers – you guys who pledged are in for a treat!), and now comes the waiting game. Digital review copies are being sent out on Monday 17th September (get in touch here if you’re keen to review Moon), digital comics are being sent to backers by Tuesday 18th, and all of the physical stuff should be arriving by Wednesday 19th. On the morning of Friday 21st September I’m (gently) throwing all of my wares in the boot of Billie the car and driving up to Leeds to launch Moon at Thought Bubble Festival on Saturday 22nd September. Phew!

It’s certainly been an experience, but this comic has been so much fun to work on and I truly wouldn’t have been able to work to this crazy schedule without the faith of every single Kickstarter backer who helped me make Moon into the physical comic I wanted it to be. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to release it any time soon, or even dream of making sweet temporary tattoos of shipping containers.

And that’s about it for now! Remember to keep up with my more regular blogs over at Patreon, and until next time… Peace out!

 

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Moon - Coming Soon!
Moon – Coming Soon!

What’s New?

| rozihath
Good afternoon everyone!
Did you see the news? Did you? No, not the news about a babies with teeth; the news of my newest project going live on Kickstarter this month! I know, I know, I like to give myself an unreasonable amount of work to do in a short amount of time, but I have a new story underway that I can’t wait for you all to see. It’s title: Moon.

 

New comic Moon, coming soon to Kickstarter!
New comic Moon, coming soon to Kickstarter!
After creating a few short stories for anthologies this year that haven’t yet been released, and the second edition of Cosmos & Other Stories, I’ve been really keen to push something out in the second half of this year whilst I’m dipping in and out of on The Biggest One Yet (my next, full-length book due out in 2019/20). I’ve been lucky enough to develop a beautiful story to tell, and I just. couldn’t. wait.

Sketchbookin'
Sketchbookin’
What do you need to know?
  • Moon will be Kickstarted, with the campaign launching soon.
  • This brand-new 24-page story will be printed in mini-newspaper format.
  • Moon will be released in time for Thought Bubble Festival, on 23rd-24th September 2018.
Excited? You should be! Follow my progress on Patreon for as little as $2 p/m to see everything before anyone else.

Until next time!
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One Down, Two to Go

| rozihath

Good afternoon folks!

It’s been a week-and-a-half since Leeds already, huh? Time flies when you’re moving house and have a whopper of a cold. But, lurgy-moaning aside.. Thought Bubble. What a festival! As always it totally lived up to all expectations and I had an absolute blast. I was lucky enough to be tabling next to Sam Williams of Good Comics and his thermos of coffee, so we both ruled the table and a half of comics between us and tried not to spend all our takings on other people’s beautiful printed wares.

Thank you so much to everyone who came by, especially to those who already have some of my comics and came round especially to pick up something new. You guys in particular make my heart melt a little. Check out our Hathaway-Good Comics joined tables below, and a special guest appearance of GC’s Paddy in a frame as he couldn’t be there in person. Yes, I had to explain many times that Paddy is in fact not deceased, and yes, one person was genuinely concerned for his well-being. But it’s fine, we had Good Comics published creators pose with Paddy to make him feel like he was really there!

Good Comics Table @ Thought Bubble 2017 – Including Paddy
Thought Bubble Table 2017
Thought Bubble Table 2017
Table Goons
Elizabeth Querstret with New York Zine… and Paddy

Saturday was the busiest day of the two in the Cookridge Street Marquee; it seemed to be the first marquee of festival that people stumbled into which definitely helped boost sales. The steady flow of visitors seemingly stayed constant all day, and by the evening it felt like a very quick day indeed! Also, the yearly tradition of the mid-con unofficial karaoke party was in full swing this year, though you’ll all still be pleased to know that I still managed to safely hang back and save everyone from my strangled-feline style melodies. Sunday was a quieter but still fairly busy day, with more tired and bleary-eyed creators bumbling around doing their shopping during the quiet spells… -cough- including me -cough-.

Sunday ended with a nice pint and the traditional Five Guys burger meal, followed by the slow train home through every village of the Pennines back to Manchester. Thankfully there was penty of reading material – check out this sweet haul:

Clockwise from LHS: Alex Automatic by Fraser Campbell, Cindy and Biscuit by Dan White, The Wolf and The Fox by Joe Latham, Haven’t I Read This Somewhere Before? free comic hand-out, Murder Mystery by Emma Reynolds, The Legend Of La Mariposa bundle by James Lawrence, and Habitat by Big Brown Eyes Collective.

The Wolf and The Fox by Joe Latham especially turned me into a melt-in-the-middle dollop behind my table on Sunday afternoon, and La Mariposa by James Lawrence has some amazing facial expressions and a great back story – speaking of which, you can find the full web-comic for free over here, starting right from the beginning. Also, Habitat by Big Brown Eyes Collective, as you can see is now out in the world and ready to be seen! I’ve had my contributor copy handed to me by the sisters of BBE, and you can get yours here on their Etsy store. See a snippet of my illustration for the anthology below!

And that wraps up the TBubz coverage! Huge thanks as always to the Thought Bubble organisers and red-shirt wearing volunteers for making the event such a pleasure to sell at. It really does make all the difference.

Before Thought Bubble kicked off, I went on over to 42nd Street in Manchester, the charity that I’m supporting through sales of my ‘These Mountains Aren’t Yours to Climb Alone’ print currently on sale on my Etsy store. I went along to say hi to the staff and pick up some leaflets to display alongside my Thought Bubble table display, and to use going forward when I’m tabling at events to help sell the prints. Don’t forget, the prints are still available online here, with 50% of the sale going to 42nd Street Manchester, a charity that supports young people aged 11-25 with their emotional well-being and mental health. The work they do is incredibly important, and you can help by getting your hands on some artwork at the same time!

42nd Street Manchester with some tired looking person standing in front of it
These Mountains Aren’t Yours to Climb Alone Print for 42nd Street Manchester

In other news, this weekend is the annual Bristol Comic & Zine Fair (BCZF) at The Station in Bristol. Originally I didn’t quite get in, but thankfully the Bristolian Comics Gods shined down on me as I managed to nab a reserve spot and this Cinderella will now definitely be going to the ball. Cosmos & Other Stories is now down to only a handful of copies, so if you’re in the area act quick and come pick one up from me, or get your copy online in the Good Comics shop. Plus, I’ll be there with the usual suspects of Njálla, Ø, Self-Care & Vegetables and also some copies of the newest Broken Frontier Small Press Yearbook featuring my short comic that came out earlier this year (see below).

A panel from my comic, “At the End of the Garden…”
Bristol Comic & Zine Fair 2017

And that just about wraps it up for now! Next week I’ll be back with some nice new things I’ve started drawing for Inktober, but if you want to keep up with them in the meantime you can follow my inklings over on Twitter. I will hopefully see some of you at Bristol on Saturday, and if not.. until next time!

 

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Tabling Time – Thought Bubble 2017

| rozihath

Good afternoon all,

So, it’s finally that time! The biggest independent comic festival of the year is upon us, and much sooner than usual thanks to it’s new slot in the end of September, rather than it’s prior early-November date.

Thought Bubble Festival is a fantastic event. Unlike the more famous comic-cons such as MCM, Thought Bubble is purely about comics. No movies, no gaming, just graphic narrative in all it’s forms; whether that’s established creators, university collectives, or first timers. I attended Thought Bubble in 2015 and 2016, and the atmosphere is absolutely electric; when you get all kinds of comic creators from around the country at the same time, we all relish in the fact that we all are skint, have a boring day job and somehow still put ourselves through writing, creating and using our pennies to print things, hoping people will buy them. Every community has it’s cliques, but for the most part Thought Bubble is a huge celebration of us all managing to somehow drag ourselves to the same place at the same time and sell some comics.

I’ll be in Cookridge Street Marquee on table 37b, tabling next to Good Comics on table 36. Come and say hi!

Other people to check out include the Big Brown Eyes Collective, also in Cookridge Street Marquee on table 82a with their brand new anthology Habitat, featuring an illustration from moi.

Also in Cookridge Marquee will be Sneaky Business contributor Alex Hahn with Dom McKenzie on table 38. In Leeds Town Hall Marquee will be fellow Six to Watch 2016 creator Emma Raby on table 61b, and in the huuuuge comiXology Marquee will be fellow HOAX‘er Hannah Berry (table 48), everyone’s favourite Richy K. Chandler (207b), everyone’s other favourite Mike Medaglia (47), and Craft Taproom’s Tom Ward and Chris Welsh (197). Finally, in Victoria Hall will be Avery Hill Publishing (47-48), Douglas Noble and CECAF‘s Sean Azzopardi (40), another 2016 Six to Watch’er Jess Milton (53a), John Cei Douglas, hopefully with his dog (25). And, a whole load of more awesome people – there are too many to list and I’ve gone a bit blind from going through it all. Forgive me.

Basically, there are a lot of incredible people tabling – so come along, take your time and enjoy.

This past week I’ve managed to finish up making thirty hand-cut lino prints to go with Self-Care & Vegetables, my new comic/zine debuting at Thought Bubble. I’ve also been to pick up SC&V from the printers, so it’s all ready to go!

You still have until midnight tomorrow (Thursday) to pre-order SC&V, with all pre-orders receiving one of the lino prints for free.

Pre-order from my Etsy store here!

Some pre-orders have been sent off today, with the remaining being shipped by Friday 22nd. Any orders placed after Thursday night will and be sent out the following week! I’ll also have any leftover prints and new stock from Thought Bubble going up on my Etsy store in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for that (including these badges – oooo!)

And that’s where I leave you! I have a few things to catch up on and finish up before the week it out, and then some recovery time – so I will be back soon with the Thought Bubble Festival low-down from behind table 37b. If you’re in or around Leeds this weekend do come along and say hi, it’s going to be a great weekend. Until next time!

 

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The Merry Multitask

| rozihath

Good afternoon all!

So, another week gone and another step closer to the release of Self-Care & Vegetables, Thought Bubble Festival, Bristol Comic & Zine Fair and Loogabarooga. Like buses, all the conventions tend to come at once, and September/October is a perfect example of the fortnightly comic hokey-cokey. This is as well as moving house (again) and working on a couple of different side projects.

Err… no. I’ve never been one for the quiet life.

First things first, Self-Care & Vegetables has had it’s first review! Huge thanks to the ever-supportive Andy Oliver at Broken Frontier who has said some very kind things about SC&V, which went up this week. Here’s a snippet:

There’s a zine-like feel to Self-Care & Vegetables, not just from the way that the book is packaged but also in its presentational style. It sits somewhere between graphic narrative and pure sequential art with that lesser reliance on panel-to-panel narrative giving it an appropriately more personal, stream-of-consciousness feel to its pages. This also affords Hathaway an opportunity to stretch her storytelling skills, bending conventions of the form to her will thematically – check out the powerful use of lettering in some of the sample pages in this review – and making extensive use of visual metaphor.

Andy Oliver, Broken Frontier – Self-Care and Vegetables – Rozi Hathaway’s Comics Journal of Recovery

Pipedream Comics have also previewed Self-Care & Vegetables on their Preview: Thought Bubble 2017 – Small Press books launching at this year’s event article, with some really nice comments:

Rozi Hathaway will have something a bit different on her table this year, with an incredibly personal and intimate story about break ups and the physical and mental toll they can take. Self Care and Vegetables will have a limited print run of 100 copies and cost just £3, so if you’re a fan of Rozi’s work it’s going to be a real rarity. But if you love raw and sensitive auto-biographical comics, told in an intelligent and through-provoking way then be sure to pick up a copy.

Pipedream Comics – Small Press books launching at this year’s event

I’ve also been squirreling away making some nice additions to my array of tabling goods with stickers, more badges and some new prints. The prints include a special limited edition lino print I’ve been making this week to go out with all pre-orders of Self-Care & Vegetables!

Linocut image for the Self-Care & Vegetables print
Lino print for Self-Care & Vegetables

Self-Care & Vegetables is due to be picked up from the printers later this week and all the pre-orders will ship out on Friday 22nd September with a FREE lino print! If you’re keen to get your hands on a print, the remaining will be on sale at Thought Bubble and the remaining festivals of the year, but pre-order now to get your complimentary one and avoid disappointment. Thank you so much to everyone who has pre-ordered so far! You can get your copy here.

I’ve also been making up a new Njálla lino print too, with only eight available, printed with water-based black and metallic green printing ink on flax seed paper. Again, these will be on sale first at Thought Bubble! You can find me in the Cookridge Street Marquee on table 37b next to Good Comics. Be sure to come and say hello!

And that just about wraps it up for now. I have a week and a half to go to finish preparing for Thought Bubble and complete a couple of potential projects.. and pack up my life. So, I shall attempt to be back next week with a pre-TB update! Until next time…

 

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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:

IMG_1833
IMG_1834
IMG_1835

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.

 

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