The 'Has Kane Mesmer Lost His Magic Touch?' Kickstarter only has a few days to go.

We've hit our target, by £1.
A little worrying as we'll be under if someone drops out, which does happen.
It's been difficult to generate more interest, maybe because it's hard to categorise the comics.
The other comics we've put up there have been Horrible Western, Steampunk or Fantasy.
The Blessed Cursed books however are kind of a superhero story done through the lens of Twilight Zone.
I hope it makes the target as I'd love to see the Kickstarter Special edition printed.
I'll keep my fingers crossed.
And maybe do some last minute advertising on Facebook Groups, which will probably be more effective :o)

Flats played down under Barry Renshaw's great artwork
for the Kickstarter Special.

Has Kane Mesmer Lost His Magic Touch? is on Kickstarter

The first Kickstarter of the year is a comic that I meant to get on their last year but never managed it due to the focus on other books.
I've decided to get it up first though as we have another Blessed / Cursed book nearly complete and I don't want that one hanging around. I'll provide cover details on that one sometime over the next couple of weeks.

If you'd like to check out the Kickstarter, if only to see Andy Bloor's great video then you can find it at:- KickStarter.

Getting AccentUK comics digitally.

We've been available for a while now through the Rusumat application, and this weekend the good people at Rusumat informed me that they've been working hard on their application with a new upgrade and have launched it with Has Kane Mesmer Lost His Magic Touch? up there.
This is the follow up comic from Marleen Lowe and myself.
Set in the same universe as Whatever Happened To the World's Fastest Man? and also Missing : Have You Seen The Invisible Man? (my collaboration with Joe Campbell) this tale once again balance the good with the bad. The good side and bad side that comes with an ability, and in this case also with celebrity.
You can find more details on the app at http://apple.co/2d6tmwH  (http://bit.ly/2d2fJgN ) and subscribe at bit.ly/2hPLkmC .

The 42nd Post.

Well it's been a pretty busy year for me.
I started the year with a new job, leaving a lot of good friends and making a lot of new ones. The two don't balance each other out though and I still miss seeing some people around the office everyday. I did pop back for the XMas do of the last project that I worked on before I left, a project that I was on for around 8 months or so, and it was nice to see everyone again, albeit briefly.
The new job is more me though, so I'm happy I made the move.

Accent UK has done incredibly well this year. We've doubled last year's sales, I think down to the fact that we now have an on going series on the table at Conventions. Added to WesterNoir it's also great to have Stephenson's Robot #1 out, it's been a while in development but it is amazing to see Brad Tuttle (INDIO!)'s art in all its glory. There'll be more coming next year with two issues of WesterNoir, another Tales Of WesterNoir and at least one Stephenson's Robot, as well as Strange Times Book 2, which wraps things up for Samuel Close and the guys.

I've seen plenty of movies this year, Jemma has made sure we got to the cinema more than we have in previous years, and picking my favourite is even harder than usual. I really enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy, I loved the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, I was suitably shocked by Under the Skin and surprised that I actually enjoyed The Amazing Spider-Man 2 but I think my favourite has to be Captain America - The Winter Soldier. It just carried on the whole Marvel Universe so well and moved it to a very interesting place, whilst still being a film the worked as just a sequel to Captain America 1. It had it all and whilst Guardians of the Galaxy was novel and fun, this was just a great film that worked for me on a number of levels.

I'm actually reading less these days, the train journey to work has been replaced by a car journey, where I'm the one driving. I did manage to read the last Skulduggery Pleasant book however and it ended things really well, pulling together all the threads and not ducking out of a few deaths and emotional moments, I'm looking forward to see what Mr. Landy does next. Apart from that I've enjoyed the Long Earth books by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett, an interesting concept, good characters and nicely written.

My favourite comic book of the year has to be Mind Mgmt by Matt Kindt. I only picked up the first two collected editions at Thought Bubble in November, as Mr Kindt was there to sign and sketch them, I'd heard that they were good, and Sumyra of Lucky Target Comics had recommended it to me. Wow, what a great story, crying out to be made into a TV series. I'd read Revolver by Matt, which I enjoyed, but I'm loving this series. Apart from that I've been following Lazarus and C.O.W.L, but interesting comics, and my only Marvel book has been Elektra, which I picked up for the artwork but am enjoying the tale being told.

I looked back at last year's 'To Do' list when I sat down to write this...

1. I will finish Strange Times Book 2 next year.
2. I will try to finish that book I've been playing with for quite a few years now.
3. I hope to publish Has Kane Mesmer Lost His Magic Touch ?with Marleen Lowe's art.
4. I will publish at least one WesterNoir book, and current plans have it at three new books.
5. I hope to publish From Super-Zeroes to Super-Heroes with art from myself and Seba Velez, and
6. I'm really hoping that we get a few issues of Stephenson's Robot in print.

And as I expected it's a patchy result. I have finished Strange Times Book 2, just need to get the cash together to get it printed.  WesterNoir, thanks mainly to the driving force that is Gary Crutchley, is going from strength to strength, and Stephenson's Robot book 1 is in print. Kane Mesmer has stalled a little as I've been so wrapped up in the other books, as has From Super-Zeroes To Super-Heroes but I'll sort that next year. As to that book I've been playing around with ? Well, I'm still playing around with it...

So, this year's list then...

1. Published Strange Times Book 2
2. Publish Kane Mesmer, more Westernoir and Stephenson's Robot comics
3. Publish From Super-Zeroes To Super-Heroes
4. Work with Andy Bloor on Wolfmen 3, he has told me that he wants to make this his next book, and
5. Try to finish that book I've been playing with for quite a few years now...

All the best for 2015 to all you comic book creators out there, professional or amateur ....

Has Kane Mesmer Lost His Magic Touch ?

Marleen Lowe has completed artwork on the internal pages of Has Kane Mesmer Lost His Magic Touch ? and it's fabulous.

This is the third in our Blessed/Cursed range and will be available next year. It'll have the same look to it as Whatever Happened To The World's Fastest Man? and Missing: Have You Seen The Invisible Man?

All Quiet On The Western Front ?

I've been pretty quiet on the blog for the last few weeks. But rather than that mean that I'm not very busy it's actually the opposite. I've a number of projects in various stages of development at the moment and it's hard at times picking which one to focus on. A nice place to be.
In order of publish date I guess, I'm finishing off the final touches of Missing - Have You Seen The Invisible Man ? with art from Joe Campbell. Just playing around with the back cover, assisted as always by Andy Bloor, and then it's pretty much off to the printers.

Sample of a page from Joe Campbell

I'm also starting to pull together the script for Issue 3 of Josiah Black (WesterNoir), following a gerat couple of development meetings with Gary Crutchley, meanwhile Gary is busy completing art on Issue 2.

Gary Crutchley unlettered page

 And then there's Has Kane Mesmer Lost His Magic Touch ? illustrated by Marleen Lowe. Our follow up to Whatever Happened To The World's Fastest Man ? but obviously not featuring Bobby Doyle himself.


Marleen's artwork shows Kane Mesmer taking some down time.

A new project From SuperZero to SuperHero, is now also underway. Sebastian Velez is providing art on this one. It's my first all out Superhero book, and of course it's my take on things so you know what to expect. Seba draws a great superhero.

Seba's design for 256 (pronounced Two Fifty Six)

I've also been pretty busy at work (the day job), and even had time for a Community Day, where we are let loose on the community to do some good... or try to anyway. This year we moved weeds from a pond to a lake in a park in Bolton. A good fun, if tyring, day. Alan Rigg was the team photographer (and you can follow his blog on the right), and so I had him take a couple of extra photos for me.

Photo by Alan Rigg

I'm not sure what it is about me and rust...

Photo by Alan Rigg

maybe it's that there's something slightly 'old-robot' about it all.
No wonder I'm finding it difficult to get back into Strange Times Book 2...