Sunday 30 November 2014

First Mini Review of Stephenson's Robot and Lego Kingdom.

I took a copy of Stephenson's Robot to my local comic store, Millennium Comics in Northwich, and Dan (the owner) has posted some nice words about the comic on his Millennium Comics Facebook Page ... scroll down to the 27th November... as well as an order for 10 copies. Not sure about the Hellboy crossover though...

And, keeping with tradition, here's Stephenson's Robot, Kingdom himself, in Lego.


...and in case you can't access Dan's Facebook Page, here's what he thought...

    ''I just read 'Stephenson's Robot' #1 from AccentUK, it's the first of seven issues and I can't wait to read more! 😀 Written by Dave West and Jon Ayre the story introduces a colourful cast of characters, including asylum escapee Jimmy the wolf boy, the carnival master Mr Cruikshanks (with psychic powers and a sinister plan), the Jigsaw Girl (a nice spin on Ray Bradburys The Illustrated Man) and Kingdom - the steampunkish robot himself.
    Featuring gorgeous art and colour from Indio! and Marleen Starksfield Lowe.. I'm looking forward to stocking this so I can recommend it to my customers, I know they will enjoy it as much as I did. Bring on the Hellboy crossover!''

Friday 21 November 2014

The last Convention of the year.

You may have got a sense of it from reading Convention reports on this blog, 2014 has been the best year yet for Accent UK.
We've made record sales at Conventions and our on going series WesterNoir has really begun to gather more and more readers with each Con we do, as well as bring existing readers to the table to pick up the latest instalment.
Before WesterNoir however Stephenson's Robot was going to be our first on going series, well a 7 issue mini-series, and it's a very ambitious project for us which meant it has taken longer to get to print. But it did. And Thought Bubble saw it on the Accent UK table in all its splendour.
It's a very different book to WesterNoir and there's always the slight concern that readers of one wouldn't naturally be interested in the other.
So, with two new books and one of them, Tales Of WesterNoir, extending an existing series, we felt well placed to do well at this Convention too.
Driving over and setting up the morning of the first day of the Con is nothing new to us and we made it in plenty of time for 'doors opening'.
We were joined once again by WesterNoir co-creator Gary Crutchley (and you can read his report over on his blog) and Scott (Colin's son), so we had enough cover to allow us all to take time out from behind the table and wander around.
It was great to bump into Bridgeen Gillespie again after so many years and I of course picked up her great little collection of short stories, Flash Fiction.
This year we had Andy Bloor on his own table sat next to us, selling his own self published book Midnight Man. It's a very different book to Wolfmen, being written by Mo Ali and is a frantic fast pace actioner from beginning to end. It looks great with Andy's moody style jumping at you from every panel.
The organisers of Thought Bubble had changed things once again, this time adding a large Marquee to the square sat between the Main Dock hall and the Armouries. And it worked really well. This then was where most of the professional guests were sat and this is where the fan boys queued for signings and sketches. I was one of them for a while and spent a nice half hour chatting with Brian Hurtt as he drew a great sketch in my collected The Sixth Gun. We handed him a copy of the WesterNoirs as a thank you.
A typical slow start soon turned into a busy day, with repeat customers, Facebook friends, new customers and interested folk coming in waves.
WesterNoir being very well established now got the most interest but Stephenson's Robot had more than its fair share of sales as people were drawn to INDIO's wonderfully crazy artwork. It really is a gem of a comic.
So, by the end of the day we realised this was our best Thought Bubble ever, and that we'd already sold more books than we had over both days last year.
A nice evening spent talking comics over a burger and beer, and it was the perfect end to a great day.
Sunday started slower than Saturday. it always does, but unlike previous years, rather than sell half as many books over the day we actually sold nearly as many as we had on Saturday.
This was turning into one of our best ever Cons.
All books sold well but newer books sold better than the others, which is to be expected.
The Tarot Card edition of Stephenson's Robot went down well, as hoped, and we'll certainly continue producing a new card with each issue.
Andy Bloor, next to us, also had a good con with plenty of sales.
So, all in all it was a great two days and certainly just what we needed to keep us energised over XMas to continue working on the next issues of WesterNoir, Tales Of WesterNoir and Stephenson's Robot, as well as a number of other projects.

Friday 14 November 2014

The First Magnificent Seven.

The first Magnificent Seven customers the buy our new Tales of WesterNoir comic will receive a free print of Josiah in action ...
and it'll be signed by Gary and myself.
Also, the first Stephenson's Robot Tarot Card will be available in a limit Tarot Card pack, for the princely sum of £5, which equates to £3 for the comic and £2 for the card... art by INDIO!, colours by Jon Ayre and card design by Andy Bloor.
And... we're in the news ... comic books news that is of course.
Stephenson's Robot gets a mention over at DownTheTubes as does Tales Of WesterNoir at DownTheTubes.
So if you can make it pop over and see these up close ...
You can also see what we're up to over on the Accent UK Comics group on Facebook.

Saturday 8 November 2014

Comic books launched at Thought Bubble next weekend.

I'm creatively involved in two books to be launched at next weekend's Thought Bubble in Leeds.
Stephenson's Robot has been in development for a while now, but it's quite an undertaking and we've taken our time a bit to make sure we're all happy that it's the best it can be. With amazing art from INDIO!, this builds upon the characters introduced very briefly in a tale in the ROBOTS anthology we produced a few years ago.
With a fabulous cover, designed by Andy Bloor, and a back up story illustrated by Marleen Lowe (whose work you'll have seen Whatever Happened To The World's Fastest Man ?) this seven issue mini-series will see events unfold in an alternate reality First World War. Written by myself and Jon Ayre with all character designs by INDIO!. I've been looking forward to seeing this book on our table for a long time now. And it's a full colour comic, I can't wait for next weekend.
The other new release is a companion comic to our WesterNoir mini-series, which will be continued early next year with Issue 1 of the second mini-series. Tales Of WesterNoir then allows us to tell the stories that surround events in WesterNoir, featuring main characters and minor characters alike. The first issue has tales from Gary Crutchley and myself illustrated by Roland Bird and Pedro Lopez respectively.
Again wrapped in a cover designed by Andy Bloor, illustrated by Gary Crutchley and coloured by Matt Soffe.
And if you're a fan of our Wolfmen books then be sure to check our Andy Bloor's self published Midnight Man... he's got the table next to us.