Coming in 2019 - Stephenson's Robot - issue 5.

I've been busy with other projects this year and got too distracted on them to actually do what I needed to do to get Issue 5 to the printer.
This is my top priority now and I'm getting there with colouring.

And the back up story in this issue is the Blind Priest from David Hitchcock.
Nice.

Stephenson's Robot Issue 2 is nearly ready to print.

The great news is that we've nearly pulled together issue 2 of Stephenson's Robot.
Once again Andy Bloor has pulled the design together follow on from the look he crafted for us with issue 1.
Gary Crutchley has illustrated the Backstory this time around, a tale about the Carnival Master written by one of the co-creator of the series Jon Ayre.
Indio! once again illustrates the main story, written by myself, which carries on exactly where issue 1 left off.

...and for those of you interested in collecting the limited edition Tarot cards that accompany each issue, this time around it's The Emperor.

..all is good.

January activity.

WesterNoir #5 is very nearly completed, and we're looking to launch it at the DemonCon event in Maidstone on the 15th February.

This is the issue that really turns things around I think, and leads deeper into the bigger story that is taking place around Josiah. You can see a page or two over on Gary's blog.
INDIO! has been busy as well, and has now completed all artwork on the main story pages of Issue 4 of Stephenson's Robot, I just need to colour them now. Fabulous as always. I'll need to give issue 1 a bit more of time to sell at Cons this year before printing Issue 2, but am looking to print it over the summer at latest, ready in plenty of time for the year's autumn and winter conventions.

A page from Issue 2 sees Stephenson and Brunel hard at work.

Apart from these, Mal Earl is sending some great pages to me on our collaboration for issue 2 of Tales Of WesterNoir and I'm busy greyscaling pages of From SuperZeroes To SuperHeroes.
So, a pretty busy start to the year.

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.

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.

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.

Stephenson's Robot is at the printers.

Oh yes.
Issue 1 of Stephenson's Robot, co-created with Indio! and Jon Ayre, with art from Indio! and Marleen Lowe has finally gone to the printers.
You can see from the cover above that Andy Bloor has exceeded anything he's ever done before on the design of this book. It looks gorgeous.
This full colour comic will be launched at Thought Bubble, if not at the London MCM, and will blow people's minds.

The Last Stephenson's Robot coloured page before a break for XMas...

I'm going to have a short break from colouring Stephenson's Robot, going to be too busy eating chocolates and drinking mulled wine.. well... maybe the chocolate.. and probably some beer... regardless it'll not be the best frame of mind for approaching a page of artwork.
Here's the last page before the XMas break... I'll see if I can resist doing any more until after the 16th January 2013.

Artwork from Issue 3 by INDIO!.

More Stephenson's Robot...

Still busy in my spare moments colouring pages of Stephenson's Robot.

I'm really enjoying studying INDIO!s panels in detail, there's some crazy, scarily good stuff in there.
I had a meeting with Andy Bloor last week and discussed the design aspects of the book, as a high level. Andy has already worked his magic on the cover design and as always it's very impressive. This is gonna be a very solid book I think.
Talking of great books, I've also been updating the Accent UK website with details of WesterNoir Issue 2 and today hope to have added it to the BUY page. It's a challenge for me as I'm no expert and the new(er) look website is more complicated to maintain than the old one, but looks so much better it's worth the effort.