The 42nd Post.

Not sure what to say this year really. 

It's been tough one.

After losing my younger sister at the end of 2024, I helped my Mum through her chemo treatment for Breast Cancer this year but after getting through that (and it was really tough) my Dad died. We were with him in the hospital when he passed, which was very difficult but important as I believe he knew we were with him at the end.

Everything else kind of falls into insignificance.

The comics that have been a mainstay in my life, and helped get me through a number of things in the past, have helped again.

Having something creative to focus on has been really important.

The day job is all well and good, keeping me to a regular schedule of waking, working and sleeping but it's not where my passion lies. Writing comics, seeing the magic artists create from my words, chatting with other creators and readers... it all helps more than a lot of people will probably believe. 

I'm focussing more on WesterNoir at the moment and have even written issue 1, plus a few bits from the WesterNoir Tales, as a novella. My daughter Jemma, co-creator of Cassidy McRae, is currently editing it. It has been a much more difficult experience than writing comic scripts but I quite enjoyed the challenge. I'm not sure I'm ready for the feedback though, but I'll take it positively. Jemma has edited a lot of my work now and it's always the better for it.

I'm also working on something new with Joseph Parangue, the artist on the first Cassidy McRae story plus a few other things here and there (SCAR and a WesterNoir Tale being things that you will have seen). I'm keeping it a little quiet at the moment but I'm sure I'll let it slip out over a pint or two at the end of a convention day.

Kia Wordsmith is picking up again after Ian Ashcroft's absence, due to his amazing work with Pat Mills on Hellbreaker - Fire in the Blood. It's been a while since I've focussed on Kia so this week (before heading back to the day job) I'm going to endeavour to flesh out most of the script, at a high level at least. Kia is central to all of my stories  set in the 'Westiverse' (as we call it) and links Stephenson's Robot to WesterNoir, so I want to do her justice.

Well, all the best to everyone in 2026. 

There's a lot going on on the world stage that we have no control over, all we can do is be respectful of others that we meet in our day to day life and hope that the powers that be don't make a mess of doing the same.

D&D with the gang

Last weekend I was battling.. well.. all manner of creatures and bad wizards for our biannual D&D get together.

Yes, we still play Second Edition.

Yes, we still do some crazy things at times.

But, we sometimes do some very inspired clever little things and manage to come through in the end. And sometimes with the same number of party members 😊

Great weekend guys. 

Hey, we even managed to complete the campaign this time, it's only taken us about 5 years 😂

Can't wait for the next one.

Postage to the USA - EVRi suck.

I was surprised a couple of weeks ago to find 5 of my Kickstarter packages, intended for the USA, sitting outside my door.

All of these had been taken to the Post Office, along with a lot of other smaller parcels, and I paid everything I was asked to pay, the process taking even longer than it used to.

When it got to the larger packages, of which 5 went to the USA, I was told that the Royal Mail no longer offered this service themselves but subcontracted (effectively) to EVRi. It had become too troublesome in recent times it appeared.

OK, fair enough.

These took even longer to process and again I paid everything I was asked to pay, and it wasn't cheap I can tell you.

So, why were they returned?

I noticed that they had stickers on them saying that 'Customers hadn't been paid.'

But how can this be, I paid everything I was asked to pay at the Post Office.

I went to my Post Office to find out.

It turns out EVRi may charge additional fees and that I would have received an email to that effect. Asking me for the extra cash.

Blimey.

More fees.

But I had received no emails. Not even in my Junk folder was there anything telling me this.

The Post Office manager suggested I contact EVRi to find out what had happened.

There is no way to speak to a human at EVRi and the CharBot is shite. After an hour or so trying different prompts for the ChatBot I gave up with that approach.

I went back to the Office to ask for help.

They emailed EVRi on my behalf and I was told that I would receive an email in a few days.

A week later, having received no email I went back to the Post Office.

This time I was asked to email the Post Office myself with the complaint.

I did this a week ago and am still waiting.

I've informed my backers and told them I'll reimburse them if I've got no further by the 7th Jan. Not something I want to do but I can't afford the double postage costs and the chance that the parcels will be returned to me again.

Lesson learned for me.

I will never again use EVRi for posting anything to anyone.

They suck and I'm amazed that they are still in business.

I will pass this on to everyone I know.

If you plan to use EVRi to post something somewhere you might as well walk to you back door and throw the parcel into the back garden and save yourself some money.

WesterNoir Tales Kickstarter packs how now been sent out.

It's very time consuming, and annoying for others in the queue at the local Post Office, posting out the Kickstarter packages.

Despite this it is very rewarding to know that so many people are interested in seeing what our books are like, or picking up the latest issue.

So I'm not going to grumble.

Character sketches from Gareth Sleightholme.

Thought Bubble 2025

Wow.

Thought Bubble 2025 was a fabulous way to end 2025's convention circuit.

It's a long way to Harrogate, and I pick up Gary Crutchley on the way, which adds an extra hour(ish). He's good company in the car though and we talk about WesterNoir most of the way before moving on to setting the world to rights.

Our location in the 2000AD Hall was always a worry.

We were at the far end on the rows of tables, on the corner effectively, and I worried that most people wouldn't even see us.

This turned out to be a valid concern but we did manage to interest most of those who did come past our table, and gained quite a few new readers of our books, as well as meet a number of our existing readers again.

This year we had two new comics

1. WesterNoir Tales and 
2. WesterNoir - Dead End.

Both were very well received.

We also had a new WesterNoir mini poster, coloured by Matt Soffe, and a load of new figures (gator men). 

It was a busy table that's for sure.

I gave out a few Contributor copies of WesterNoir Tales and also got to give one to John Reppion and thank him for his Introduction in the book. It's something I'm almost reluctant to ask people for as it puts them in a spot really. As a friend it'll be difficult for them to say 'No', without feeling that they are letting us down. We really do appreciate it and I wanted to make sure John knew that.

Gustaffo Vargas was pleased to receive his copy. It features his first ever professional (in so far as we paid him for his work) gig in the UK. He was ok with my colouring attempt as well, or was too polite to say otherwise 😀.

Ian Ashcroft also attended the Con, talking to 77 Publishers about his new book with Pat Mills (you can check it Hellbreaker which is still active over on Kickstarter). Ian also picked up his copy of WesterNoir Tales and we had a good chat about Kia Wordsmith over a coffee. All very positive and I'll be working on the script over Xmas, Ian has already has10 pages of script to complete so that should work nicely.

Jemma and I talked to the very talented Norm Konyu about illustrating a 10, or so, Cassidy McRae story for WesterNoir Tales 2, and he was more than happy to get involved, which is fabulous.

We are extremely fortunate to be able to have so many talented people involved in our works.

Added to this we now have WesterNoir books on sales in Harrogate's very own Destination Venus comic shop.

A great weekend.

I just need to recover now 😆 

Thought Bubble next weekend.

Well, it's that time of the year again when many comic creators and readers head up North to Harrogate for the annual Thought Bubble.

If you love comics and haven't been then you really are missing out.

It's the UK's version of San Diego, back when it was all about comic books.

We're in the 2000AD hall this year, only on the single table (we felt greedy getting two the last couple of years and so decided to downsize) so it'll be a very tight squeeze. Find us at B28.

Please do pop by and see us if you're at the event.

It's a great end to the year. 

Dead End has arrived...

 ..in plenty of time for Thought Bubble.

It's a great little book. 

Self contained story. 

An extra 10 pages.

Same cover price (because I forgot to ask Andy Bloor (who did his usual wonderful job pulling it all together) to update it) 😆