Thought Bubble 2025

Wow.

Thought Bubble 2025 was a fabulous way to end 2025's convention circuit.

It's a long way to Harrogate, and I pick up Gary Crutchley on the way, which adds an extra hour(ish). He's good company in the car though and we talk about WesterNoir most of the way before moving on to setting the world to rights.

Our location in the 2000AD Hall was always a worry.

We were at the far end on the rows of tables, on the corner effectively, and I worried that most people wouldn't even see us.

This turned out to be a valid concern but we did manage to interest most of those who did come past our table, and gained quite a few new readers of our books, as well as meet a number of our existing readers again.

This year we had two new comics

1. WesterNoir Tales and 
2. WesterNoir - Dead End.

Both were very well received.

We also had a new WesterNoir mini poster, coloured by Matt Soffe, and a load of new figures (gator men). 

It was a busy table that's for sure.

I gave out a few Contributor copies of WesterNoir Tales and also got to give one to John Reppion and thank him for his Introduction in the book. It's something I'm almost reluctant to ask people for as it puts them in a spot really. As a friend it'll be difficult for them to say 'No', without feeling that they are letting us down. We really do appreciate it and I wanted to make sure John knew that.

Gustaffo Vargas was pleased to receive his copy. It features his first ever professional (in so far as we paid him for his work) gig in the UK. He was ok with my colouring attempt as well, or was too polite to say otherwise 😀.

Ian Ashcroft also attended the Con, talking to 77 Publishers about his new book with Pat Mills (you can check it Hellbreaker which is still active over on Kickstarter). Ian also picked up his copy of WesterNoir Tales and we had a good chat about Kia Wordsmith over a coffee. All very positive and I'll be working on the script over Xmas, Ian has already has10 pages of script to complete so that should work nicely.

Jemma and I talked to the very talented Norm Konyu about illustrating a 10, or so, Cassidy McRae story for WesterNoir Tales 2, and he was more than happy to get involved, which is fabulous.

We are extremely fortunate to be able to have so many talented people involved in our works.

Added to this we now have WesterNoir books on sales in Harrogate's very own Destination Venus comic shop.

A great weekend.

I just need to recover now 😆 

A nice review of Kia Wordsmith.

Check out this short review of Kia Wordsmith.

Read Pile

very encouraging. It's great to see that it is being well received.

Ian's art (black and white version of the cover can be seen above) deserves all the praise it gets. Wonderful stuff.

..and just in time for Thought Bubble...

 Kia issue 3 arrived.

All set then.

WesterNoir Volume 2 and Scar are both back from the printers...

 ...and they look great.

really happy with how they turned out

just need to get Kia Wordsmith Issue 3 and we're all set for Thought Bubble launches.

Constructing Comics Podcast

We, Ian and I, were invited back onto the Constructing Comics Podcast. 

Great to catch up with the guys again and nice to talk comics, and very nice of them to time it with the Kia Kickstarter.

You can have a listen over on Constructing Comics Podcast.

Kia Wordsmith Issue 3 and Scar are now on Kickstarter

Well, actually they are half way through the campaign and doing pretty well.

You can check it out over at Kia Kickstarter.

Thanks to everyone who has already backed it.

Scar

I've been working on a Kia Wordsmith companion book,  a Tale of the Arrakans, called Scar.

Once again I've been very fortunate with the artist as Joseph Parangue has illustrated it and I've managed to get into Matt Soffe's busy schedule for colouring.

Andy Bloor has worked his magic on the design, but has given me a choice.

or

I'm torn between the two... 

A day off today...

So, yesterday my daughter was looking to travel down to stay with me over Xmas but we decided it was too risky. She'd have to take a few trains and go through London to reach me. The plan was that I'd then drive her back up North around the 28th. So, we have Covid (with very high cases in London) and then there's a possible lockdown after Christmas (too late Boris) and the weather looks like it's going to take a turn for the worse.

We'll celebrate in February, or whenever things calm down a bit.

So I had booked today as a holiday and have decided to keep the day off and write the script for a comic instead. It's about one of the characters who will appear in Kia Wordsmith Issue 3, well actually it features two of them, and I'm enjoying writing again. I'll need to come up with a title, these usually occur to me halfway through writing but I've had nothing pop into my mind as yet.

Take care over the Festive Break everyone.

Ian Ashcroft's Patreon

Just to let you all know that Ian Ashcroft, artist on Kia Wordsmith, has a Patreon where he will put up pencils for issue 3 of Kia before it sees print.

As well as the basic level there are some very attractive higher levels where you can get original art. 

Go and check it out over at Ian.Ashcroft.Art

I'm in.

Kia Wordsmith - completing the Kickstarter postings.

I've now got all the sketched and signed sketchbooks and the A4 commissions from Ian for the Kia Wordsmith - The Inbetween Kickstarter and have been position them out. 

As expected they are wonderful.

An A4 commission example.

Ian is now working on Issue 3, which I can't wait to see as it steps things up into another gear.

If you've yet to complete your Kickstarter Reward Survey then please do so. Thanks.

Kia Wordsmith - Review

 There's a nice little review of Kia Wordsmith - The Inbetween over at hcomicsworld.blogspot.

Kia Wordsmith - The Inbetween

 The latest issue of Kia Wordsmith shows what happened between Issues 1 and 2.

It involves the Nexus, or Inbetween, and is a realm that defies the laws of other realms. 

Time.

Space.

They are in flux.

But her little companion knows his way around the place so she should be ok.

Shouldn't she?

This issue was fully funded on Kickstarter, actually our best project to date.

Once I've fulfilled all of the orders we'll pop it up on the www.accentukcomics.com webshop.

Ian Ashcroft and I were on ICE CAST yesterday promoting Kia Wordsmith - the Inbetween.

 Had a really interesting chat with Shane and Andy, you can find it here if you've nothing to do for an hour :o)

ICE COMICON

Two days in, doubled what the target was and been tagged as a 'Project We Love' in Kickstarter, not a bad start at all.

Well, two days in and we've got more than twice our target and exceeded 100 Backers for our Kia Wordsmith - The Inbetween. 

Both are great and we couldn't be more pleased.

Until we were tagged as a"Project We Love' but the Kickstarter crew.

Now we really couldn't be more pleased :o)

Kia Wordsmith - The Inbetween hits Kickstarter on the 1st April.

 Yes, I know it's April Fool's Day, but we are launching our latest Kia Wordsmith comic on the 1st of April. 

This is the issue that shows us where Kia goes when she follows the creature into... well... The Inbetween.

For those who read a number of AccentUK titles you may start to notice a few things.

It's all coming together.

Again the fabulous art is provided by Ian Ashcroft.

and he just keeps getting better and better.

Kia issue 2 - Kickstarter rewards are now being shipped.

I've spent a few hours in my local Post Office over the last few weekends and have managed to send out most of the packages. 

If you backed one of Ian Ashcroft's wonderful sketches then I received these last week nd have started sending them out too.

It'll be a shame once it's done.

The good news is that Ian is already working on the next two Kai books.

Yep, two.

One is of course Issue 3 and the other a little special mini comic.

Kia Wordsmith Issue 2 Kickstarter a great success.

Our latest Kickstarter exceeded our wildest dreams.
I was secretly hoping for 200 backers and we ended up with 289.
It's a difficult time for everyone and although the print pdf is with our printer it might take a little while to get them in the posts.
We're all missing the Comic Conventions, hopefully these will help fill the gap a little.

Here's one of the special print cards we're rewarding our Backers with, there are 4 in all. This one is of a character who will appear in issue 3.
Hope everyone is keeping taking care and keeping safe.

Last week was a very busy week.

...and it ended with a chat with the guys over on the ConstructingComicPodcast.
Ian Ashcroft and I chatted about Kia Wordsmith (of course) and also other projects.
We both really enjoyed meeting up with Matt and Noah and talking comics, give it a listen when you have 40 minutes or so spare.

Kia Wordsmith Issue 2 Review

We've had a pretty good Kia Wordsmith Issue 2 review over on ComicsAnonymous.

Kickstarter Target Hit!

Great news!

We've hit our Kickstarter Target in less than 2 days. We managed to get more than 80 backers and one of Ian's great pages of original art has also sold. If you've not had a look yet please do pop over to

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1693466793/kia-wordsmith-issue-2?ref=user_menu

Limited number of Reward Tiers with an original sketch by Ian Ashcroft are still available.