Comments on Strange Times Book 2.

I just received these words from Michael Lindal Andersen, who asked where book 2 of Strange Times was every time we visited the Copenhagen Comics event... This year his 6 year wait was over...

I just finished Strange Times a few days ago. Only took about six years. Anyhoo. I really like the kind of science fiction that it represents. The more cerebral kind, where science doesn’t equal magic. I think you pulled it all together quite nicely at the end – avoiding the big action-y showdown, where everybody fights and stuff explodes. Even though one of the characters tries to form a superhero team. That made me smile. It means you are better than Mark Millar, who ends all his stories (clever, not so clever and most often rather stupid stories) with everyone fighting… again. So there is that. Not sure what an action scene drawn by Dave West would look like, truth be told. Your style in art seems to pull the story in the right direction. So yes. I really enjoyed it. It doesn’t look or feel like any other comic, I have ever read, while at the same time it feels like all the (good) science fiction, I have ever read. Yey.

Strange Times Book 2.

Well it's finally happened.
I've finished Book 2 of Strange Times.
Andy Bloor helped make give it the same feel as Book 1 and I'm really happy with how it came out.

I'll just have to see if anyone remembers it now :o)
Oh, and as is traditional, here's the adapted Lego figure to accompany the book.

Not as scary as the last one... I think.

Strange Times Book 2 is ready for the printers.

Well, after a lot longer than I'd hoped, due mostly to me getting carried away with having too many projects on the go at the same time, Strange Times Book 2 is finished.
Andy Bloor has once again worked his design magic and also done a lot of tidying, despite me best efforts I always seem to leave dots here and there or pages with different sizes ... sigh.
I'm not sure when it'll actually see print, I'll need to get the necessary cash together, but it will be sometime in 2016.
It'll be great to have another of my little books on the Con table.

The Last Sketch Of The Year.

Dan, who owns and manages my local comic shop, Millennium Comics in Northwich, gave me his convention sketchbook a few months ago and asked me to contribute an image, of my choosing, to the great collection he already has in there.
For me this year has been quite momentous from a comics perspective, well for a number of perspectives I guess, and whilst Stephenson's Robot is now in print, for me my greatest effort has been on getting Strange Times 2 completed.
So, it didn't take me long to decide on doing Samuel Close in his Time, but sadly not Spatial, Travel device.

The beauty of doing these sketches in your home, rather than being scrunched up behind a busy convention table, is that you can draw as you normally would, with no fear of getting nudged from the person on the table crammed in behind you, or of trying to balance everything on your knee.

It also means that you can take more time over the drawing, and take on compositions that would not be possible at a Convention as it would mean that you would have to spend too long with your head down concentrating and less time talking to prospective customers and selling comics.

For me, it also means that I can have a go at colouring, getting out a brush and water colour paints at a convention is not something that I have ever considered trying.

 So, all in all for someone like me, who is not that comfortable drawing at Conventions, this really lets me have a go at producing something that I'm pleased with, although that said I have been happy with some of my convention efforts.

  I only hope that Dan likes it and wasn't hoping for a Batman sketch...

The last page of Strange Times 2.

Well it had to happen eventually.
I'm just finishing the last page of Strange Times Book 2.
People have been very patient and very gracious, coming up to me at Conventions and asking if Book 2 was available to buy yet, only to be told, once again, that it was nearly finished.
Well, not for much longer.
I'm very happy with how it all resolved itself, and it may seem a strange thing to say (as I'm writing it) but that's actually how it feels. These strange little characters have kind of told their own tale as the book has gone along. I started each page knowing where I thought it would go and quite often found it taking a slightly different path.
Challenging me to hold the story together.
I've really enjoyed travelling it with them.
But, it had to end and end it has.
So, when will it be ready ?
Well, a very good friend has offered to proof read it for me (Thank You Claire), even after having read Book 1 :o).
Once that's done it'll be over to Andy Bloor to work his usual magic for me and pull it all together, injecting some nice design elements, as he as with the cover.
...and then it's off to the printers.
I'm considering having it available for Thought Bubble, but I've another book being launched at Thought Bubble already, of which I shall tell more soon... should I launch two books at the same Con ?
Oh, why not :o)

Strange Times Book 2... the end is in sight.

I'm focussing my efforts on finishing Strange Times over the coming weeks. Book 2 sees everything resolved, although there's always going to be a temptation to come back to the characters at some future point.

Here's a recently finished page, without the words (mainly because I haven't written them yet).

Whilst not drawing the Leyton Angel I've been trying to remember how to update the Accent UK website, and believe I've now added WesterNoir Book 3, so you can see a few sample pages and also buy a copy if tempted. If you find any errors, and I'm sure you will, then please let me know and I'll try to fix them. It's a complicated website (for me anyway) and infrequent updates mean that I almost have to learn how to update it every time I try to do so. Ah well, good job I've not got a job in IT... wait a minute... damn.



So what am I up to at the moment?

Well I've finished my three page contribution to a Scientific graphic novel about what happens when all the oil runs out.

It's in my usual style and is the typical downbeat tale that I throw together when I know that I'll be illustrating it. In fact when I'm illustrating a story on my own the whole thing kind of evolves as it goes along.

It's nice to finish something and I hope they like it.
In other news WesterNoir is moving along at a really good pace, mainly thanks to Gary's passion for the project as he keeps us focussed on it. I'm really enjoying where this is heading and our colaborative get togethers are great fun. Book 3 is at the printers and Gary is 11 pages into Book 4. We've also plotted out most of the second story arc, and it's going to surprise quite a few people I think.
I'm also working on another mini-series with an artist I met in Sweden. I saw Anders Lundell's art and it brought to mind a story I'd been playing with in the background. More fantasy than anything else I've written and something that needed the right artist. Well, I'm fortunate enough to have found him and he's currently working on designs for the first issue. I'll share some of his design work soon, but just as a taster, here's his work on the city which acts as a backdrop to the story.

It's funny putting work like this alongside my own. I'm more a doodler than an artist I think as Ander's has captured the city in a way that I wouldn't be able to acheive in a lifetime of doodling. I'm looking forward to sharing more about this and will do so as it develops.
I'm now going back to focussing my doodling on Strange Times Book 2...

Strange Times Book 2 - Evolution of a cover.

Strange Times was always going to be a trilogy in two parts, and I'd always intended the cover of the second book to reflect that of the first. I wanted it to be similar, but different.
The danger though, as I've experienced a little with my Blessed/Cursed books, Whatever Happened To The World's Fastest Man ? and Missing - Have You Seen The Invisible Man ?, is that this can confuse people. I've had customers at the table in conventions say that they'd read The Invisible Man when I knew that they couldn't have. When I then show them Fastest Man and point out that it's different they have all then bought the new book.
So.
Strange Times Book 2.
How to make it similar, but different.
How about use a different character in a different car. How about it being a car that flies (which does appear in the book). Hmmmm ... still looks too similar...
OK, how about setting it at night.

OK, that seems to work. I had to lose the animal this time as it's night but I quite liked it.
Time to send it off to Andy Bloor to work his magic.
Andy had problems with the moon. I hadn't thought about the placement of the book title.
That's why I'm not a designer.

Yep. I like that. I had thought to make the lettering red, similar to the car but once again Andy had been right to make it blue.
A day or so later however I wondered that maybe the background fields were a little too light and that they lost the impact of the vapour beneath the car.

And there you have it. I'm really happy with the finished look.
Now I just need to sort out a quote for the back cover... oh, and finish the internal pages.
Thanks as always to Andy for his help in making our books so polished, and for being patient with my 'ideas'.

London Super Comic Con and Australian Pink Floyd.

It's been a busy couple of weeks.
We went to our first Comic Convention of the year over the weekend of the 23rd and 24th of Feb. You can read Chris Dingsdale's full report over on www.accentukcomics.blogspot.co.uk, some of which is true. We had a really great weekend, and it was amazing to see so many Comic Book legends working their tables.

I did have a few words with Bill Sienkiewicz, who has always been a favourite artist of mine, got him to sign my Elktra Assassin hard cover, bought his sketchbook and left him a copy of Whatever Happened To The World's Fastest Man ?, not that I expect him to get time to read it but it seemed to be the right thing to do, small thanks for him inspiring me to get involved in comics to start with.

We had a great Con, chatted to a good number of customers, new and old, got lots of words of encouragement on our future books and sold plenty.

This week I went to another concert. This one was The Australian Pink Floyd and they were suprisingly good. I never got to see the real thing, despite the first record I ever bought being Dark Side Of The Moon (which is still one of my favourites), but these guys made it seem less of a failing on my part. They were excellent and the first half of the gig was the entire Dark Side Of The Moon ..

..fabulous.

Now to get back to business ... WesterNoir Issues 3 and 4 and finishing off Strange Times Book 2.

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...

A Strange Times - Book 1 review ....

... from the guys taking shelter in their Parent's Basement over there in the US ... http://talesfromtheparentsbasement.com/reviews/?p=153.

Strange Times Book 2 .... in progress ... honest.

I thought I'd pop an image up to show that I am progressing with Strange Times Book 2, and not sitting here with my feet up watching TV. As you can see from the image, if you're following the web comic, there have been some changes in Barrington Cully's life of late .... is he happy about them ? We'll have to see ....