The Start Of A New Chapter.

It's been a very busy month.
I've started my new role at Lloyds, sorted out a new car, worked out how to get to Wythenshawe, kept in touch with a good friend from the Co-op and met up with some old ones from Barclays.
In the background I've also managed to do some more grey-scaling on the From Super Zeroes To Super Heroes book, sort out the printing of Issue 4 of WesterNoir and go to our first Comic Con of the year.
So, starting off with my new role, I'm happy to say it's a pretty good fit for who I am, what I know and how I operate. I'm part of a great team of people and really like where the company is going. I've been out and about already with trips to London and Halifax (thanks mainly to Tom Tom).
As I promised myself at the back end of last year, this time I'm not going to allow all of the friends I've made at the Co-op just fade away.
I spent a very enjoyable evening catching up with Claire, I can't believe that so much has happened in just a month. Claire's daughter Olivia, amused by my attempt at a beard, has supplied me with another, updated, portrait with some great use of colour. Thanks Olivia.

A bearded Dave West by Olivia Smith.

I've also met up with three co-founding members of my old Barclay's Sci-Fi group, The Undiscovered Country Club. I'd not seen Sandy, Roger or Rod for about 3 years but it was as if we'd spoken only last week (well, OK, we had on Facebook but you know what I mean). We shared a geeky chat over food and beer, reminiscing over old times and bringing each other up to date with things. We've all been pretty busy.

A grey-scaled sample of Seba's artwork on the
Polara story in From Super Zeroes to Super Heroes.

From a comic book perspective, I've been too tired to do too much creative work on Strange Times Book 2, as I've had plenty of reading to do for my new role, but have managed to fit in some grey-scaling on From Super Zeroes To Super Heroes. Artist Seba Velez's artwork gets better with each story and whilst it is a time consuming process I'm really happy with how the finished story pages are looking.

WesterNoir Book 4 has been printed, and looks fabulous. A great cliff-hanging end to the first mini-series this book was launched at our first Con of the year, DemonCon7 in Maidstone. Pop over to www.accentukcomics.blogspot for a report on the Con day and also pop over to curiosityofasocialmisfit.blogspot.co.uk for Pat Challis's very early review of the comic itself.

So, all in all a pretty busy and productive month. Next month will see us at the Birmingham MCM event on the 22nd and 23rd. Should be fun.