Wolfmen

I always find myself giving posters like this a second look.

But it's not The Wolfmen.

Phew.

It would be great to have that comic trilogy finished.

Glasgow Comic Con... a great weekend.

Last weekend saw Accent UK making their way to Glasgow for our very first attendance at the Glasgow Comic Convention, organised by local independent comic publisher Black Hearted Press.
We've been to an MCM event in Glasgow and had a great time at that, selling what was then a record number of comic books, and as the numbers at the Glasgow Comic Con couldn't hope to match those of an MCM event, we set our expectations lower.

Set in one of the buildings that make up the Centre For Contemporary Arts we found ourselves in a great position at the bottom of the stairs that people had to take if they were going to see more of the event, which was split over a number of levels and buildings.

We set up about an hour before doors opened and were expecting the typical slow start but found ourselves selling to people almost from the time that outset.

Of course there were plenty of quiet times, and the show had a number of talks and events scattered throughout the day, but on the whole it did feel as busy as the MCM events, I think due to the fact that at this event everybody walking around was looking to buy comics and talk to comic creators.
It was great to catch up with John Reppion and Leah Moore, who we haven't had time to talk to for a very long time. We even chatted over a beer which was nice.
We also spent some time chatting to Hannah Berry, it was nice to be at a smaller convention and actually be able to find people quite easily without having to fight your way through a sea of Cosplayers. Cosplayers were present of course, just in smaller numbers. There was a great Captain Black, showing my age again...
I was surprised to see that Accent UK were attending a Portfolio Review session in the afternoon and I found myself sat at a table talking to people about their artwork. And pretty impressive it was too, with a whole range of styles and subject matter. What did strike me in general though was that a lot of the artists were keen to demonstrate their versatility, at the expense (in my opinion) of developing their own distinctive style.

At the end of the day we found to our surprise that we'd done very well and that the show was already a success from our perspective.
That night, after having tea with the families, Colin and I attending a Convention Event, beers and burgers but had the posher title of 'Cocktail & Burger', but we settled for just the beer as we'd already filled up on pizza. We spent and enjoyable evening meeting new creators and catching up with Owen Johnson, who appears to be pretty busy these days with two new books out.

The Sunday was pretty similar to the Saturday really in that we were pretty busy. We sold a good number of books, people came back to pick up more books having read and enjoyed what they'd bought the day before and we spent the day talking comics and enjoying ourselves.

As the event closed we found that we had sold out of some of the titles we'd taken, sold a good number of our new WesterNoir ongoing series and also a good number of our Wolfmen books.
We will certainly be going back next year.

Wolfmen Review.

There's a great review of Wolfmen and The Fall Of The Wolfmen over at www.brokenfrontier.com. It's great that new readers are discovering these books and enjoying them.

Wolfmen 2 ... a la Lego

This Lego figurine exists in the same time frame as the first one and isn't just the first one being tweeked a bit for this photo ...

... if you look closely you can see he's wearing a different shirt :o)

Next up ... PREDATORS over on the Accent UK blog.

The Wolfmen ... in Lego

I've been playing with these little Lego figures ... over on the Accent UK blog I put up the image of the first one ZOMBIES, and here's the first of the Wolfmen books in Lego ...

.. next up.. ROBOTS over on Accent UK blog.

Wolfmen Reviews.

Starburst Magazine (at the moment on the web) have reviewed the two Wolfmen books. You can read it over at http://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/comic-reviewscomics-a-graphic-novels/1586-comic-review-the-wolfmen-a-fall-of-the-wolfmen.

Wolfmen Reviews.

Great reviews of the Wolfmen comics that I co-created with Andy Bloor have been posted up on http://comicsanonymous.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/the-wolfmen-fall-of-the-wolfmen/ following the Thought Bubble event.

Where did all the birds go?

Something has been bothering me ever since starting my day job in Manchester. Something had changed over the years, between the time when I used to travel to Manchester once a month to hit the comic stores (about 15 years ago) and today.
Something was missing.
And then it hit me as I looked up at the buildings. The netting to keep the birds away from store windows and ledges, where they used to amass in their hundreds, was gone.

The birds themselves, were gone.
And then I started to take more interest in their numbers in the garden and their numbers, and variation has really changed. All the Sparrows have disappeared, and the Starlings and other birds were present in much smaller numbers. Is this another effect of Global Warming somewhere along the line hitting them, or their food source ? Will they ever return to their previous numbers ?

I hope so, it certainly feels a lonelier planet without their noisy activity in the skies above us.

I've had a busy month or so compiling, lettering (some contributions) and editing the ZOMBIES 2 anthology, which is coming along very nicely. The deadline for contributions has passed, so get in touch if you're near completion and we'll see what we can arrange.

I've also been busy writing the final installment of The Wolfmen, which will be titled 'The Last Of The Wolfmen', and Andy has approved the script, and suggested a few minor additions.

This has meant that I've not not had much time for Strange Times, which hasn't seen an update on the Accent UK website for a few weeks now, but intend to get back into that now. My intention is to have Book 2 completed for printing next year, early next year, so wish me luck :o)

Oh, nearly forgot, I've been interviewed in the latest Multiverse Comics Newspaper,
so pick up a copy and amongst the pages you'll find out a little more about what I'm up to.

They know me so well...

This week was the week of my 'Leaving Do'. Tuesday night I was picked after getting back from work and taken to a local pub where a lot of the friends I'd made over the last 24 years where waiting to see me off.

It was a really enjoyable, if a little sad, evening chatting about the past and the future, and having the odd beer.

I noticed one the guys, Mark, enter the pub quite early on with a huge wrapped picture frame under his arm. And I started to worry. Was my leaving present to be a huge aireal photograph of the building I spent most of the last 24 years working in ? Would I have to bring it out and hang it up whenever anybody called around ? How good would I be at looking pleased by the gift when presented with it ? I'm not a great actor.

Imagine then my delight when I unwrapped this...

They know me so well.

People get to know a lot about you when you've worked with them for such a long time, as the references in this picture show, and whilst it was Mark Dodgson who had had the initial idea and sorted most of it out, I can see that a lot of people contributed to the content of the image. It'll be hard for you to spot some of them on this very small version but there are plenty in there, and I keep finding myself studying it. It's fabulous.

The artist is known as Hammo, I've added a link to his blog on the right, and he can certainly draw a great robot ... and 'Yes' .. that's a young Dave West reading a copy of Strange Times and 'Yes' that's Bobby Doyle on the rooftop.

The other great thing to happen this week is that The Fall Of The Wolfmen has been nominated for an EAGLE award. As with previous years the first round of voting is merely to get the list down to a shortlist of 5 entries in each category, and the final date for this is the 7 March. then from the 17th March the voting starts again where one of the final 5 will be the winner. It's a little bad timing for us as the comic has only been seen in the UK so far, apart from review copies sent out, but hopefully the comic will hit stores across the globe before that date, we'll check our Diamond shipping details.

Also, it's great to see the Tales From The Parent's Basement podcast listed, it's a great comics podcast run by guys how just love the media, and happen to be really nice blokes.

The Man Of Glass wasn't on the list for Best UK Colour Comic, but I cheekily added it. If you don't see it by the time you go in and cast your votes then feel free to add it as well, but only if you really think it was better than the others on the list.

And here's my request ... please don't vote for our books out of friendship, please only vote for those books you really think were the best. That's where this system is flawed, but it's all we've got so let's respect its limitations and not take advantage of them. Thanks.

Oh, the link to cast your votes is www.eagleawards.co.uk.

Happy New Year...

Not wanting to start the New Year on a down note, but when will I get rid of this damned Flu Virus ? Not only is it messing up my Bank Holiday enjoyment but has also chewed its way through three days of holiday that I took between XMas and New Year ... due to this I've done little more than sit in front of 9 hours of The Lord Of The Rings with my daughter (and her comment at the end of it all ? ' I prefer Harry Potter...').

We did manage to get a few games in there and as is traditional I managed to own the Bank at the end of our Monolopy session, I won't talk about the other games, being beaten at Scrabble by a 12 year old is something that I need to deal with in my own time ....

A friend at work showed me a book that I found really amusing. It's called Movie Charts, by Paul Copperwaite, and using pie charts (etc) to reflect certain elements, and messages, of films we all know and love. I've not copied any here, but have made one up concerning the movie 300 that should show you the type of thing it contains. Not to evertone's taste I know but it appealed to me.

I've made a few New Year's resolutions, in the hope that one makes out beyond January, but am not brave enough to share them with the wider world, as they'd then be played back to me on a weekly basis.

On the comic front, The Fall Of The Wolfmen, written by myself and illustrated by Mr Bloor has been reviewed over on http://www.hypergeek.ca/2010/12/comic-review-fall-of-the-wolfmen.html. Good timing as the comic itself is listed in Jan's PREVIEWS. if you'd like a copy then now id hte time to pop in to your local comic shop and get them to order one for you.

In other news, Steve Holder has a blog up and running over at http://holdersteve.blogspot.com/. Steve and I are collaborating on a couple of projects at the moment. Robot Shorts, a collection of tales about ... Robots .. that are .. well ... short. The stories that is, not the robots themselves. Steve is also illustrating a future Blessed/Cursed comic, but I'll keep that under wraps a bit at the moment.

Here's an image of Steve's that I've greyscaled, but sadly we've decided it best not to include it. To find out more then pop over to Steve blog, there's a link on the left :o)

Fall Of The Wolfmen...

Yep ... Wolfmen 2 - Fall Of The Wolfmen is back from the printers ... I'm a very happy man as it looks really solid. Andy Bloor's artwork and design skills just get better with each book he's involved with, as you can see from the image above ... I've even copied his photograph as it's better than one that I'd take :o)

We'll be launching this at Whatever Comics in Canterbury on the 2nd October, so if you'r local, in the neighbourhood or just fancy a day out then do come to the store and say hello ... you can then get your hands on a Collector's Edition cover version that'll only be available at Cons and Store signings ... once they've gone they've gone I'm afraid ...

The Captain America blues ....

Been a busy week this week ... catching up with the 300 odd emails at work ... yep ... things just carry on when you're not around.

More interestingly I've now printed off Andy Bloor's Wolfmen 2 pages and they are great. Really impressive work. Our process is that I now sit down and script it more tightly, as Andy has put many of my words into the images. This typically means that I end up writing it from scratch with his visuals as the thread through the story. I'm not sure if other people work this way but I enjoy the opportunity to re-write the script in this way and believe that a better comic is the result.

Well, back to work ... if you can call this work :o) Did I mention that I've now seen all the pages of Andy's fabulous artwork ... and everyone else has to wait another month :o)