This has been a really tough year for me and the West family.
In late November we lost my younger sister, Jacqui, to cancer.
Something like that overshadows everything and also makes you sit and take a hard look at your life and the decisions you are making.
When the person is younger than yourself it also causes you to consider your own mortality.
I'll just leave the year with this photo taken of the two of us many years ago.
The plot is quite a challenging one, where effectively actors appear to be sent to worlds to recreate historical and fictional dramas as a means to give the populace something else to think about rather than how bad their lives were. This predates streaming services and I doubt it would be written in today's world. Back in the 1970s though there were only a few channels and programmes ended at midnight and started again around 8am, so I guess with that context this plot makes some kind of sense.
I didn't really connect with the lead character, Spingarn, which resulted in my not really connecting with the book.
Not sure what else Brian N Ball has written but I think there's where he failed here.
This has got to be one of the strangest Science Fiction books that I've ever read.
The Earth is being invaded by giant beings from a distant planet. During hostilities one of these giants is brought down and killed. Kept in a very large refrigerator the alien is then converted into a vehicle for a couple of very clever and gifted scientists to take the fight back to the alien home world.
Yep. the scientists sit in the creature's head and drive its body, operate its speech and effectively try to come across as one of them.
Oh, they have to learn the language too.
I've read a fair number of books in my time and thought, 'Yes, I could have come up with something a bit like that, just not as well written.' This is not one of those books. I wouldn't have come up with this in a million years.
I'll look out for any other books by Joseph Green in the DAW back catalogue. I'm not sure how he could follow this one tough.
Well, I'm looking after my mother last the moment as she traverses a course of chemo therapy.
I've been subjected to all of those soaps, you know the ones, EastEnders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale Farm... errr.. sorry Emmerdale, that I grew up with, and left behind as quickly as I could
My Mum also loves her musicals and growing up I got to enjoy all and any film with Howard Keel and Mario Lanza in them.
So, imagine my joy at seeing The Rocky Horror Picture Show come up on the TV listings 😏
Centred on twins, warrior brother and witch sister the story ambles along nicely but the problem I found is that since reading books like this I've read books by the likes of Steven Erikson and Joe Abercombie and I'm afraid this felt very light weight in comparison. The central characters were never as fleshed out or engaging as books written today, I guess there was more novelty in fantasy stories and the book gathered fans based on the story and concepts rather then the writing style or characterisation.
All in all, it was readable and moved along nicely. It didn't however make me want to track down the other six and immerse myself in more of Andre Norton's stories.
When I was growing up I started my reading of fantasy with R E Howard's Conan books and science fiction books by A E Van Vogt and Isaac Asimov.
I still remember picking up my first R E Howard Conan book, the Sphere edition of Conan, when I was 10 years old at a charity event run for the local children's hospital (which was to take out my appendix a few years later)
Every now and then over the coming years I would pick up a book by the DAW publisher.
It allowed me to sample the works of new writers and I loved the yellow spine which made them all look so neat on my shelf.
A few years ago I started coming across DAW books in Charity shops and decided to pick them up with a view to re-reading, or reading them for the first time.
A year or so later it became more about the collecting than the reading but I am working my way, slowly, through them.
Spotted Quantum 10 in my local W H Smiths today.
I always find myself giving posters like this a second look.
Phew.
It would be great to have that comic trilogy finished.
Jemma and I took a trip into London today, with everything going on in my family I hadn't managed to get her any Xmas present(s).
We did our usual Waterstones, GOSH Comics, Foyles (where we also had lunch) and then Forbidden Planet.
Staying at my Mum and Dad's house for the past month has meant I've not had much chance to get out and about. My daughter has been down for the last week or so and we decided to take a day trip to one of our favourite second hand bookstores, in Rochester.
On the train we passed through Whitstable and Jemma reminded my that one of my friends had recently moved there.
Due to family issues I've had to step away from Quantum 11 a bit.
There will be no Peter Thomson episode as I hadn't completed the grey-scaling before I needed to go and help my mother get through her chemo treatment.
Good news however is that WesterNoir is a special crossover with John Higgin's RazorJack and there's a new story from Katie Cunningham called Space Banshee.
We've also decided to have a fresh new cover design but still keep the essence of the great logo from David Morris.
It's been a few weeks since the last Convention of the year and I've been busy with family things and not found time to write up a few words on how it was for me and Time Bomb Comics.
This year I decided to not bother with Premier Inn but got us rooms in a local hotel. I've been annoyed at how much prices for Premier Inn have risen over the last few years. it was a great decision, not only was the hotel well positioned, clean and well staffed, it was where a lot of the comic book professionals were staying. This meant a few pints after the Con with a lot of people we'd got to know over the years and also the opportunity to make some new acquaintances.
This year the Con had an additional hall. Whilst this is great news for anybody going to buy comics it is always going to have an impact on people at the Con trying to make things work financially. With a couple of new books on sale and the WesterNoir figures being launched we did pretty well but not as well as we'd have liked. Also, I spent a bit more myself than I normally do due to the wealth of great looking books available.
Always great to catch up with fellow creatives and feed off of the energy and enthusiasm for the medium. Also great to catch up with regular customers who have kindly supported our efforts over the years.
I've just added our initial convention schedule for 2025 (on the right).
Hope to see some of you at some of them.
Having published Quantum for about 2 years I have found that I really understand cashflow for the first time and how important it is for people to pay bills promptly.
I've always done this as a matter of course with my bills but for the first time, as someone waiting for bills to be paid, I've now got first hand experience of the chain reaction when this doesn't happen.
Sometimes this is due to invoices not being received (ending up in JUNK folders etc), sometimes it's the turnaround at the receiver's end (why does it take weeks to do a funds transfer?) and sometimes it's just people taking their own sweet time to get around to doing so.
Regardless, this means that we can't pay people that we owe, be that printer or creators, when we'd like to. When it comes to the printer it means a delay and when it comes to creators it means that they get a little annoyed and we feel bad.
Yes, we should build these factors into our processes but that's difficult when the comic we produce has a 2 monthly publication schedule.
One of the first events I went to was Caption, way back.
It's where I got to meet other creators who were also just starting off making their own comics.
Attended also by some professionals it was a great source of information and encouragement.
I had a great catch up with Colin over the Thought Bubble weekend and
It's great that the number of WesterNoir titles and extras are growing, but it does mean a lot of stuff to sort out for Conventions.
Everything WesterNoir is ready for Thought Bubble now...
I must say it is my favourite event.
It's all about comics.
Yes, it's getting bigger and bigger, which results in each creator getting less sales, as there is so much quality competition, but who cares. It's great.
I spent this weekend getting stock together.
I'm taking all the WesterNoir books and some of the new figures, in their boxes.
I've been writing a book for about 20 years.
It started when my daughter was about 5, I thought it would be good fund to read her something I'd written amongst all those greats by Roald Dahl and the like. It's a Science Fiction tale, of course.
I wanted to see if she noticed 😀
Every year since then I've picked it up once or twice. Re-read, improved what I had and added another chapter.
I realised, and accepted, recently that at this rate I'm never going to compete it. And then I got chatting to a writer at the LFCC event earlier this year.
She suggested that I needed to get away from the house and leave everything behind except what I needed for the book.
What a great idea.
I did exactly that and booked an AirBnB in Deal, Kent. I chose that as it meant I could also visit my parents whilst I was down there as they would be only 30 minutes away.
MCM events have become more and more expensive over the last year or so.
We've found ourselves nudged out of what was Comics Village, and is now Artists Alley, as we are seen as Publishers.
This has meant we are being asked to pay about twice as much for a Booth as we used to be asked for a couple of tables.
Added to this everything has gone up in price and it's just not cost effective.
So, no Time Bomb table or Booth, but I thought I'd go as a punter and experience the event from the other side of the table.
I got a normal entry ticket for Sunday, the quieter day, and queued with those looking to get into the event at 12.01. I arrived at about 11.30am and was in by about 12.05pm, so not too bad really.
I found Artists Alley easy enough, event though they'd moved it the North Hall.
Wandering the aisles I didn't find a lot of comics on sale, each aisle seemed to have at most 3 tables with them, surrounded by artists selling, mostly manga, art.
Chatting to my fellow comic creators the feeling was, yes, the event felt busy enough but people weren't interested in comics with few stopping at their stalls even.
I bought a few comics, chatted for a will with Titan's Conan comic writer Jim Zubb, and got him to do me a Conan sketch, and then went for some food.
Whilst sat at a table thinking about whether or not to just go home after eating my lunch, I'd been there for a couple of hours by then, I was approached by one of the Con helpers asking if I'd be willing to do a survey, give my feedback on the event and how to improve it.
"Sure." I said.
The survey consisted of 48 Questions, like 'What would you like to see more of at MCM?' with 5 options ... More Guests, More Artists, More Merchandise, More Games and I forget the last one but what it wasn't was More Comics. In the entire 48 Question Survey Comics were not mentioned once.
I guess things change and the event has evolved into what it is today but it feels a bit of a Con to say it's a ComicCon... ah.. unless the clue is actually in the name.
I can't see Time Bomb every selling at a future MCM, which is a shame as we enjoyed meeting the people walking passed our table/booth and chatting about our comics.
This issues cover is Peter Thomson by Gary Crutchley and coloured by Luca Mattioni.
I came across one of those Facebook advert posts, which are so targeted these days that they are pretty much always of interest.
This one was for a 1 day Comic Convention in Tetbury, with special guest Brian Bolland.
Now, I've seen Brian at a number of Cons over the years but there have always been long queues and with the need to man the Con table I've always missed out.
So here was an opportunity that I couldn't really miss, despite the 1.5 hour drive to get there.
A small Con with no TimeBomb table to worry about.
These are now being printed and I'll hopefully have them in a week or so and be able to start mailing out to the Kickstarter backers.
It'll also mean that we have something new at Thought Bubble, which will be good as last year all we had that was new were the Quantum issues.
Can't wait to get these in my hands.
We've decided not to attend the MCM event this weekend, it's just become too expensive. We struggle to make enough cash to pay for the booth and when you look back at the event and realise you've worked hard for 3 days and walk away with very little it just doesn't seem worth it..
We'll see if we can get into Artist Alley next year but if we can't then it's unlikely that we'll be going back, which his a real shame as we do enjoy the event.
Last weekend we attended the Lakes International Comics Art Festival, attracted to the event particularly by the pre-event day where we could meet foreign publishers, tell them about our books and see if there was any interest / appetite for them to consider any for printing by them in their language.
We did get some interest, and I've sent out pdfs to those who requested them. We'll see if anything happens, either way it was an interesting day and as they say 'Nothing ventured nothing gained.'
The event was held in a marquee, and it was pretty solid and sturdy. No wind or rain entered and whilst not too windy, there was plenty of rain over the weekend.
and we were only. stones throw from Windermere.
The town and venue were perfect, and it must be said that the town really got behind the event.
Both Saturday and Sunday had decent sales, and allowed us to chat to customers and fellow comic creators alike. It was nice to meet Tony who wrote such a great review of Whatever happened To The Fastest Man? and picked up the WesterNoir trades.
I even found time to get some nice sketches, something I've not done for years, remembering how nice it was to chat with other people in the queues (get catching top with Karl from Diamond and 'that guy who collect Shadow sketches / artwork'). I even got time to buy an original page of art, Judges Dredd and Anderson) from John McRae (which is great).
I stayed over on the Sunday as it's a long drive home and the difference to how busy the town felt was noticeable.
I really had a great time and look forward to doing it again next year.
A really well thought out, organised and run event.
We will be attending this event from Friday 27th to Sunday 29th September.
Colin and I attended the first as Accent UK way back in 2018 I think it was.
We are looking to take advantage of the opportunity to show our books to foreign publishers to see if there's any interest in producing foreign language versions.
We've produced a special catalog for the event, designed as always by Andy Bloor.
After a successful, if a little stressful, Kickstarter campaign I can report that the books have now been completed, with all the little extra design-y bits and pieces by Andy Bloor, and will be off the printer this week.
I can't wait to get these books printed and on the table at conventions.
Our 3D printed figures are pretty good. The detail is really sharp and I've been painting one for the table display at Conventions.
Quite pleased with how she's come out.
This month we treated one of our D&D Gang to a day at Lords (and a hotel and curry the night before of course) as part of his 60th Birthday present.
I arrived separately, and as I don't tend to go to sporting events with the gang I was the final surprise.
Chatting to Shaun he admitted that he'd seen me approaching and thought to himself, 'Hey, they bloke looks a lot like Dave West'.
Two WesterNoir titles are currently on Kickstarter.
It's been a long time since I've been back to Macclesfield and so I was quite pleased when Steve suggest we give the MaccPow comic event a go.
I thinks it's been going for 7 years now, but this was to be our first.
So, 5am my alarm work me up, 5.30 I set off for Steve's house in Birmingham and we'd arrived before 9am.
Pretty good going.
The first thing we noticed was that there was good signage.
