WesterNoir Issue 3.

WesterNoir Issue 3 arrived Thursday morning. Once again the guys at UKCOMICS had come up trumps and delievered to a very high standard in a very short time. Stuart Gould, at UKCOMICS, gets comics and more importantly he gets Independent Comics. He knows what we're like. He knows we only manage to pull things together on the 11th hour and he takes this in his stride. I'm always really happy with the results.
So, here we are with Issue 3 in our grubby little hands.
And it's a beauty.
Andy Bloor's cover design layout still makes me smile and the three of the books sat together really do have the feel of a cohesive on going story. Inside the pages are sharp and clean and my worries about the double page spread lining up were needless, once again Andy made sure it all came together nicely.
Gary Crutchely is driving this book for us. He's the one who prompts the get togethers where we lay out the plot, the twists, the ebb and flow, and he's the one who then lays out the plot and thumbnails the pages before we agree the issue and he sets down to work his magic on the finished art.
We took Issue 3 to the Manchester MCM Expo yesterday and it was a real pleasure to see customers of previous issue just walk over to it and pick it up. No need to hit them with any details, they just bought their copy as they would any ongoing series. Yes, we now have an ongoing title on the table, and it feels great.
Gary and I had a busy time (and you can see a fuller report over at accentukcomics) but still managed to take time out to sit and discuss Issue 5 over a coffee. Issue 4 will be a defining issue for the series but Issue 5... well...
Gary and I will be sending out review copies over the coming weeks, so if you're a reviewer for a website or blog then get in touch (the email address can be found on the Accent UK website) and we'll send a copy your way.

So what am I up to at the moment?

Well I've finished my three page contribution to a Scientific graphic novel about what happens when all the oil runs out.

It's in my usual style and is the typical downbeat tale that I throw together when I know that I'll be illustrating it. In fact when I'm illustrating a story on my own the whole thing kind of evolves as it goes along.

It's nice to finish something and I hope they like it.
In other news WesterNoir is moving along at a really good pace, mainly thanks to Gary's passion for the project as he keeps us focussed on it. I'm really enjoying where this is heading and our colaborative get togethers are great fun. Book 3 is at the printers and Gary is 11 pages into Book 4. We've also plotted out most of the second story arc, and it's going to surprise quite a few people I think.
I'm also working on another mini-series with an artist I met in Sweden. I saw Anders Lundell's art and it brought to mind a story I'd been playing with in the background. More fantasy than anything else I've written and something that needed the right artist. Well, I'm fortunate enough to have found him and he's currently working on designs for the first issue. I'll share some of his design work soon, but just as a taster, here's his work on the city which acts as a backdrop to the story.

It's funny putting work like this alongside my own. I'm more a doodler than an artist I think as Ander's has captured the city in a way that I wouldn't be able to acheive in a lifetime of doodling. I'm looking forward to sharing more about this and will do so as it develops.
I'm now going back to focussing my doodling on Strange Times Book 2...

Strange Times Book 2 - Evolution of a cover.

Strange Times was always going to be a trilogy in two parts, and I'd always intended the cover of the second book to reflect that of the first. I wanted it to be similar, but different.
The danger though, as I've experienced a little with my Blessed/Cursed books, Whatever Happened To The World's Fastest Man ? and Missing - Have You Seen The Invisible Man ?, is that this can confuse people. I've had customers at the table in conventions say that they'd read The Invisible Man when I knew that they couldn't have. When I then show them Fastest Man and point out that it's different they have all then bought the new book.
So.
Strange Times Book 2.
How to make it similar, but different.
How about use a different character in a different car. How about it being a car that flies (which does appear in the book). Hmmmm ... still looks too similar...
OK, how about setting it at night.

OK, that seems to work. I had to lose the animal this time as it's night but I quite liked it.
Time to send it off to Andy Bloor to work his magic.
Andy had problems with the moon. I hadn't thought about the placement of the book title.
That's why I'm not a designer.

Yep. I like that. I had thought to make the lettering red, similar to the car but once again Andy had been right to make it blue.
A day or so later however I wondered that maybe the background fields were a little too light and that they lost the impact of the vapour beneath the car.

And there you have it. I'm really happy with the finished look.
Now I just need to sort out a quote for the back cover... oh, and finish the internal pages.
Thanks as always to Andy for his help in making our books so polished, and for being patient with my 'ideas'.

'A Place To Hang Your Cape' reviews Fastest Man and Invisible Man.

David Molofsky has reviewed both of our Blessed/Cursed books over at A Place To Hang Your Cape, and there's also an Interview up there as well.
This week, and the next, will be spent getting ready for the Copenhagen Con, Gary Crutchley, the driving force behind WesterNoir has produced some special sketches for the show, I wonder if I'll allow people to buy them though... The always busy Gary has posted the title page for Issue 3 up on his blog. In a word... awesome.

Getting ready for the Copenhagen Comics Convention.

It's been a few years, I think maybe 3 but would need to do some digging to be sure, since we attended the last Komiks.DK in Copenhagen and we've really missed both the trip and our friends over there. It'll be great to catch up and talk about what we've all done since.
We're going to be a little more limited in terms of what we can carry over with us this year as it's just me and Colin. Previously our friends Chris and/or Scott have come over with us but sadly this year they're not able to do so. We'll miss them both.
We're both really looking forward to it though, it's always been one of our favourite Cons and hopefully the name change will be just that, a change in its name.
I've been busy this month with the day job and the impact that a such a significant change in the Organistional Design of the company brings, but am still finding the odd moment to be creative.
Gary Crutchley has been great keeping WesterNoir 3 progressing, and has worked wonders with my script to produce a book that sets things up really well for the final book in the story arc, even changing bits of scripting here and there to improve it all. A great collaborative effort. A big thanks to Gary for his efforts, and talent.
As I've not had much time to do my own 'art thing' lately and work on Strange Times 2, I've been playing with collages in my spare moments, cutting and sticking images on a page, I wish I could be more loose and random but I think for me that's not going to happen...

 If nothing else I'll have a little sketchbook full of images to look at should I great a creative block...

WesterNoir 3, cover image is all sorted.

Well, as promised WesterNoir #3 is the Mermaid issue.
Once again Gary Crutchley has worked his magic on the cover (and pulled the script in all sorts of interesting directions), Andy Bloor has continued with his great design and Matt Soffe has worked wonders on the colouring.

How good does that look...
Gary is well into the book now with all the inking done, he's applying the grey tones and lettering. All coming together really well.
And then it'll be onto book 4, last in the mini-series, I'll say nothing more on that... for now.

M.A.D

I took a day off work yesterday and took the family on a trip to Stratford Upon Avon. The town is famous as the birthplace of a long deceased writer called William Shakespeare, but more importantly, to me, it is where the Mechanical Art & Design museum is located.

Now I must admit I was a little surprised by the £6.80 fee for entry, and multiple this by two and add a child and it's a sizeable amount. I've been caught out before by museums that promise much and deliver very little. I wasn't going to be put off though so I entered a rather dark room to a world of mechanical sounds.

I was in fact in tinkerers heaven.
There were two floors littered with all forms of mechanical contraption. Most of them did something at the push of a button or were in some form of perpetual activity as ball bearings raced around tracks of wire.

Now I like to build robots from all sorts of salvaged household appliances, and some odd items bought at car boot sales or antique shops (don't tell them though), but the guys who built these machines (on retrospect the word 'contraption's doesn't seem fair) are on a whole different level.

Some of the pieces where some kind of kintec art,

whilst others had strange little creatures manning (or is that flea-ing) exotic craft on some adventure or other.

We spent a good hour in there marvelling at the creativity and effort involved in producing such elaborate structures.

A great way to spend your time and well worth the price of entry.
I believe that they change their exhibits periodically so I'll be back some day to see what else is going on in studios across the globe.

I don't feel so odd now, having seen that others are also out there tinkering away with salvaged bits and pieces.