WesterNoir TPB has a second printing.

 With a new cover...

and it looks great (thanks to Andy Bloor as always for pulling it together and making it look so professional).

For those of you who have been with us from the very beginning, yes, we've just to cover for from the very first black and white issue. I really love this cover and thought it deserved a chance to be seen again, and for a longer time.

To keep costs down we've not printed French Flaps on the Second Printing. This will make the first printings all the more special, and we will continue to have French Flaps on the covers of all first printed TPBs, the next one being the collected WesterNoir Tales, as we're now calling it.

This is also the first book to carry my new imprint West Words, although to be fair most of the words in the book are by Gary Crutchley.. hope he doesn't notice.

The wagons have rolled...

Our WesterNoir Kickstarter is now pretty much complete.

I've mailed out packages to all the Backers who responded to the survey.

Feedback has been great, people loving the book, the extras and for those who backed them, the personalised Wanted Posters.

If you have yet to respond then please do so. It's nice to have a clear campaign as Kickstarter does archive old Projects and it's more hassle when people respond after a year or so, which is a thing.

New, remastered, WesterNoir Volume One soon to launch on Kickstarter.

 

In the next few days we'll be launching our latest Kickstarter campaign.

This time it's the remastered Volume One of WesterNoir.

New story pages, additional stories and all coloured by cover colourist Matt Soffe. 

196 pages of Western Horror action under a great new cover that reflects the cover of the first issue of the mini-series.

If you're interested in reviewing the comic then please leave a comment here or email me at accentuk@btinternet.com.

WesterNoir Review

There's a great review of WesterNoir over at MonkeysFightingRobots.

Remastered WesterNoir on SmackJeeves.

WesterNoir is on a journey.
What started as an idea for a one shot idea quickly moved on to become a greyscale limited series.
In this format it has reached issue 8, with issue 9 in development.
It has seen the first 4 issues collected as a Trade Paperback.
And it has a spin off companion title, Tales Of WesterNoir.
During this time co-creator and artist Gary Crutchley and I have often played with the idea of seeing the book in colour. Wouldn't that be cool.
And then we got to know Matt Soffe and work with him on the covers.
And we just knew that we had to do it.
If we were going to do this then could we use the opportunity to redo a few things that we wanted to improve?
Well, why not?
Produce a remastered coloured version of the trade paperback.
The only reason we could see against doing this is that it might annoy people who have already got the greyscale versions of the comics or trade paperback.
What if we put the thing online then? So they could see it and read it without having to pay for it?
And what if, when we do print it, we give them a discount to offset the fact that they have the greyscale versions?
OK, we thought that could work.
So, you can follow the pages, we release one a week, over on Smackjeeves, we're currently up to page 50. We were going to announce this later but I think in the current climate it might be nice to have something to read.
Hope you enjoy it.

WesterNoir Issue 7.

Has been printed.

This is the issue that explains a lot of what is going on ...
It looks great.

WesterNoir reviews.

Well, the new comics haven't been out that long, one having been at two Cons and the other only one, but we're starting to hear what people think of them.
Patrick over at Curiosity of a Social Misfit has reviews posted of both WesterNoir Issue 5 and Tales of WesterNoir Issue 1. It's great to be able to say that he liked them both, and like myself can't wait to see the next issue.
Both WesterNoir Issue 6 and Tales Of WesterNoir Issue 2 are in production. 'Tales of' has two new artists to the series, Joe Campbell (who illustrated Missing : Have You Seen The Invisible Man) has illustrated a story by Gary...

and Mal Earl (who produces the inspired Bulletproof Nylon) has illustrated a story by myself.

Two very different styles, both featuring Jim Wilson, making for a very interesting read.
Gary is working on the cover for this book and we'll get it in print as soon as we are able to.

WesterNoir has been spotted by Weird West Jonny.

We came across interest in WesterNoir from a posting over on a Facebook Group called Weird West Jonny from the 24th November.

I never knew that groups like this existed but it's great that they do. I'll have to keep an eye on this one for other Weird West titles/books/films and the like,

Tales of WesterNoir.

Gary and I decided that we wanted to tell more tales set in and around the events that take place with WesterNoir, but didn't want to take Gary away from his main focus, busy as he is on issue 5 of Westernoir.
So the idea was born that we'd create a comic to accompany it, but this time we'd both write separate stories and get some of our favourite independent comic artists to illustrate them.
And so Tales of WesterNoir was born, and the first issue is now complete, with Andy Bloor once again bringing his design talent to the book to help it stand out from the crowd.
The book will be launched at Thought Bubble on November, with Issue 5 of WesterNoir launching at the first con of 2015.

Art by Gary Crutchley, colours by Matt Soffe
and design by Andy Bloor ...
I'm lucky to get my name on the cover...

You can see the cover's evolution over on Gary's blog.

WesterNoir update.

I met up with Gary Crutchley last night at a local pub called The Bleeding Wolf (I love that name) and we discussed all things WesterNoir.
We've plotted up to issue 11 (probably) and Gary has done the first draft of the script for Issue 9, which had to be written before Issues 7 and 8 as it is such a significant issue. It's taking some great twists and turns and has us both really excited.
Gary also showed me development on the artwork for Issue 4 and it's awesome. He just continues to astound me with how good his story telling is and how well he captures the essence of what is being portrayed. Yep, I'm loving this on going title. I can't wait to see it all in print, and hear what people think of it.

WesterNoir ... a great start.

A while ago Andy Bloor asked me to write something for him to draw that didn't involve Werewolves in suits, as he wanted a break from The Wolfmen. His idea was maybe to do a kind of Film Noir take on the Old West. A great concept and as with The Wolfmen the idea of blending genres started my mind racing off in all sorts of directions.


Over the following months I produced a script for him that introduces Josiah Black to a world that changes around him, or maybe he changes within it. But I'm getting ahead of myself as that dimension is something that was brought to the story by Gary Crutchley.

Andy, you see, whilst helping shape the story, just couldn't found the time to illustrate it and contacted Gary to see if he could. Gary is two thirds of his way through his own Western, Hard Country, and is a huge fan of the genre and someone who can really capture the mood of both the time in which it's set and the land itself.


The great news is that Gary read the script and jumped into designing the main characters.


We were off and ... riding.


Last Friday night Colin and I met with Gary at The Bleeding Wolf pub, and you can't get much more appropriate than that, to discuss the project and to see Gary's work to date. Andy sadly couldn't make it as he's suffering from a bug, the joy of having kids are pre-school.

Blimey. We were both blown away by the pages Gary talked us through, as well as his ideas about issue 1 and future issues. All great ideas which I have already added to the greater story of Josiah Black.
We are hoping for Issue 1 to be available early next year, with following issues less than a year apart.