Friday, October 31, 2008
Happy Halloween 2008
A mini mixtape to get you in the festive mood. Artwork by Dave Hitchcock.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
A message from our sponsor... sort of...
As regular readers may already be aware, Asylum Books and Games is a shop in Aberdeen run by the infamous Tequila Mike; a thoroughly lovely chap who, at every major UK comic convention, furnishes us with all the latest in awful zombie comics as well as keeping us up to date with the likes of Elephantmen and The Goon. We're shockingly bad at picking up monthlies so Mike's efforts, and those of his dedicated staff, are greatly appreciated.
I'm sorry to say that we only had quite a brief drink and a chat with Mike and his orderlies (or are they inmates?) on the Saturday night at Birmingham. My liver, however, thanks me for the fact.
You can find Asylum Books and Games at
29 Adelphi
Aberdeen
Scotland
AB11 5BL
Telephone: 01224 574637 Fax: 01224574637
E-Mail: info@asylum-booksandgames.com
Or visit the website at www.asylum-booksandgames.com
Look out for in store signings and appearances and hopefully Leah and myself will get back up there in the new year.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Accent UK signing in Borders, Liverpool
Just like the poster says, the Accent UK guys will be in store at the Liverpool branch of Borders on Saturday the 25th of October talking about self publishing, signing and selling books.
Leah and I will also be there helping out and scrawling our signatures on things, so please do come down and say hello.
What better Halloween present could there be than a signed copy of Zombies?
You can find full contact details and directions to the shop on the Borders website.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Blog Buddies 2
After two consecutive weekends of out of town comic related events and considerable liver damage, I thought it was about time I paid tribute to some more of our talented peers, all of whom just happen to be people we've bumped into recently.
Adam Cadwell is one of those enviably talented chaps who manages to find time to put out an (almost) twice weekly webcomic whilst running a sucessful commercial art company called DRAW in Manchester. On top of that his art is fantastic and his story telling subtle and witty. Makes you sick doesn't it?
We were lucky enough to come back from BICS with a copy of The Everyday Collection One which collects the first 50 Everyday strips into one volume. You can get your copy now for just £5 (+ P&P) at www.adamcadwell.com and we heartily recommend that you do so.
Adam Cadwell is one of those enviably talented chaps who manages to find time to put out an (almost) twice weekly webcomic whilst running a sucessful commercial art company called DRAW in Manchester. On top of that his art is fantastic and his story telling subtle and witty. Makes you sick doesn't it?
We were lucky enough to come back from BICS with a copy of The Everyday Collection One which collects the first 50 Everyday strips into one volume. You can get your copy now for just £5 (+ P&P) at www.adamcadwell.com and we heartily recommend that you do so.Keep up to date with what's happening in Mr. Cadwell's busy life over at http://cadwell.livejournal.com
Adam and other members of the Manchester Comix Collective were plying their wares at last weekend's con but, sadly, one of their number who wasn't able to stick around for unwisely heavy drinking afterwards was Mr. Chris Doherty whose work you might well recognise from the Accent UK anthologies.
Chris's site http://bittersweetfatkid.info is home to his ongoing GN project Video Nasties and more recently has become home to The House of the Holy Flesh Eaters.
In Mr. Doherty's own words -
A zombie nunsploitation epic from 1976. Let this loose synopsis whet your appetite:
Chris's site http://bittersweetfatkid.info is home to his ongoing GN project Video Nasties and more recently has become home to The House of the Holy Flesh Eaters.
In Mr. Doherty's own words -
A zombie nunsploitation epic from 1976. Let this loose synopsis whet your appetite:
When the purehearted sister Elizabeth Collingwood transferred to Bathgate Convent, there was nothing in Heaven that could have prepared her for what she would discover..
Will she have the strength to make it through her first night? Can she leave the sinister village of Bathgate with the same innocence and purity with which she entered?
Keep an eye on http://bingogasstation.livejournal.com to see what Chris is up to.
-----
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Andy Bloor was another chap whose visit to BICS was all too brief. Andy is a professional graphic designer and valued member of the Accent UK team responsible not only for logos, design and layout but also for the beautiful yet horrific artwork on The Wolfmen and The Wolfmen II - Fall of The Wolfmen (coming from AUK in 2009).
We were lucky enough to work with Andy on a story for the 2008 AUK anthology Robots called The Cabinet of Doctor Diablo. If you don't already own a copy of Robots you can order one online now for £8.50 from http://www.accentukcomics.com.
Mr. Bloor also collaborated with Kieron Gillen on a tale entitled Robot for the aforementioned anthology and will be contributing to the forthcoming Phonogram 2.
We were lucky enough to work with Andy on a story for the 2008 AUK anthology Robots called The Cabinet of Doctor Diablo. If you don't already own a copy of Robots you can order one online now for £8.50 from http://www.accentukcomics.com.
Mr. Bloor also collaborated with Kieron Gillen on a tale entitled Robot for the aforementioned anthology and will be contributing to the forthcoming Phonogram 2.
Don't forget to keep checking http://andrewbloor.blogspot.com for regular updates.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Win signed copies of David Hitchcock's GOTHIC
One of the highlights of the Birmingham International Comics Show this weekend just gone was getting our hands on copies of David Hitchcock's magnificent new newspaper format anthology Gothic.
We've got three copies of Gothic to give away, all of which have been signed by Mr. Hitchcock, Leah and myself. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning them is to answer the following question:
To date we have collaborated with Dave on three stories for Accent UK's yearly anthologies. Two of the stories are contained in Gothic and one is set to be published in 2009. What are the FULL titles of those three stories?
Email your answers to moore_reppion@btinternet.com and the lucky winners will be announced on our message board on Halloween.
Good luck! ;D
We've got three copies of Gothic to give away, all of which have been signed by Mr. Hitchcock, Leah and myself. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning them is to answer the following question:
To date we have collaborated with Dave on three stories for Accent UK's yearly anthologies. Two of the stories are contained in Gothic and one is set to be published in 2009. What are the FULL titles of those three stories?
Email your answers to moore_reppion@btinternet.com and the lucky winners will be announced on our message board on Halloween.
Good luck! ;D
Birmingham International Comics Show 2008
We have woken up rather late in a post convention fug of confusion and laundry. I have managed, however, to upload some of our pics of the weekend, and will endeavour to report on all the thrills and spills, bargains grabbed, pints drunk and gossip. Okay, not the gossip, I'd get in trouble.
Friday we got a coach down to Birmingham, which was fairly quick, very cheap and meant I could stare out of the window at things instead of swearing at the traffic on the M6.
We went to Wagamama for dinner which has become a minor obsession of ours when we go to cons, mainly because they serve Asahi Dark beer, which is very more-ish.
Our hotel was always going to be a source of fear and pain, because we have an unerring knack of booking the worst flea-pit noisy unhygenic dives wherever we go. Last year we stayed at the Britannia, which had terrible street noise (including bagpipes at 8am) and a door on our corridor which had a mouldy roast dinner on a tray behind it, and nothing else.
This year we thought we'd try again and booked the MacDonald Burlington down the street. We were trepidatious that it would be another hotel where the website makes it look like a palace and then its the Bates Motel, but I am happy to report it actually was a palace. Friendly staff,breakfast of kings which never ended, walk in wardrobe, huge huge bath and the most comfortable bed in the whole world. See what i mean?
So, after we recovered from the shock of our good fortune, we headed over to Bennet's bar for the launch party. Hunt Emerson's band was already playing up a storm by the time we got there, so saying hi to people we knew became a lip reading contest.
Several people nearly lost their voices before the con even got going, just from shouting to each other. The music (including the comic creator super group "Giant-Sized Band-Thing") was great, and all it goes to show, is that we are just reclusive wusses not used to the noise of being out of doors. It was pretty relentless though.
We had a lovely gab with Paul Cornell and Caroline, the indie manga girls, newlyweds Emma Vieceli and her lovely husband Pud, Lew stringer, Vicky and Richmond from Hi Ex, Barry Renshaw, Declan Shalvey, Adam Cadwell, Nick Setchfield, PJ Holden, Al Ewing, Ian Sharman, Jamie Mckelvie, Si Spurrier, Tony Lee and many more, guzzling beer all the while. I was so plastered i congratulated Sean Phillips on Charlie Adlards drumming...and I have to say we walked back to the Burlington in a zig zaggy way, and John even had an escapade trying to find chips. All that, and we'd only been there a few hours!
Saturday started with amazing breakfast and view of the shopping folk below. Only a short walk and we were at the Millenium point. It always feels kind of isolated stuck outside the main shopping streets, but thats all to the good, as there are loads of signs pointing there from all over the city, which there isn't when a con is in a hotel or whatever.
The con was much better laid out than last year, much less overcrowded, and less like a nerd-sweat soup than normal. We had a slice of the Accent Uk table (huge thanks to Dave and Colin again for that, and to Gemma for opening the cash box for us!) and we got our books set up and then went off to see what panels were on.
We went to see Paul Cornell, Mark Buckingham, Doug Braithwaite and Dave Gibbons doing the obligatory "breaking into America" panel, but in the form of a podcast with the guys from Geeksyndicate. It was nice to see a panel in a room designed for it for once, and it all got a bit Kilroy there, with the guys running about with mikes.
We did our signing with Staz Johnson, Mark Chiarello and Shane Oakley, and had a couple of people come to get things signed, me and shane made the most of our good looks...
then we headed back to the Accent Uk table to give the chaps a break while we tried to flog our books, saw Cliodnha Lyons although i failed to buy her excellent charity book "Sorry I can't take your call right now, I'm off saving the world" , and also the excellent Dinkybox table, where i got an amazing brush pen if you want nice markers or cute toys...go to their site now! Also grabbed some nice things from The Beepbeep car company. The afternoon flew by pretty fast, and we arranged to have dinner with a gang of mates.
The dinner thing is almost as scary a point as the hotel thing, because when you run about all day doing con stuff, the only thing in the world you want is a heap of nice food and a sit down with a beer.
Often con organisers will put on a main "Guests Dinner" which you may or may not be invited to depending on how far up your name is on the con playbill, but everyone else divides off into little subgroups and run in different directions for different meals. It can be hard to grab the right number of people and all head somewhere everyone will like, and everyone can afford. In the past we have been to lots of cons in different cities and countries, and dinner is sometimes odd, expensive, inedible or just very far away.
This time it was a bracing rainy walk through dusky brum to a glittery curry house and a very very nice meal indeed. We then popped in to the "Diamond Party" in Malmaison, which people thought was a party paid for by diamond, but was actually a normal pay bar, and comics people in some rooms. Nice enough, but it was miles from our hotel and the drinks cost an arm and a leg. We returned to Bennets, like it was the scene of a crime, and resumed where we had left off the previous night, albeit in a hungover slow motion way.
The main buzz at the table, and the con in general was the Eyecandy iphone application created by PJ Holden and written by Al Ewing which is so innovative, and cool and fun to use, it made everyone at the con immediately start thinking of things to do for them. Download the first issue for 99c (0r 50p) here, and watch them like a hawk in case you miss a second of their meteoric rise to fame and stardom!
Sunday, more huge breakfast, then packing checking out and getting to the con. Huge heap of luggage under the table at the Accent Uk stand (sorry chaps) and then off to see what panels there were.
Gegged in to watch Dave Gibbons' "Watching the Watchmen" talk which was awesome. I am fairly familair with Watchmen *ahem* but it made me nerd out to see all the early concept art, and dads typed synopsis up there on the big screen. Dave is certainly the most entertaining man to see do a panel in all of comics (anyone better? no? thought not) so it would have been ace to just sit and hear the anecdotes, but seeing the pages of his book (designed by none other than Chip Kidd) made me want to rush out and buy one right then. Dave says you can get it in the shops later this month, and I would recommend you do so immediately.
Stayed in our seats to see Rufus Dayglo do a one man show on 20 years of Tank girl, which he hadn't expected to be only him. Tank Girl's creator Alan Martin had a family emergency so couldn't come, but Mr Dayglo made it look like he'd been planning it this way all along. Interesting and entertaining tales of the Deadline starlet's trajectory over the last 20 years, and then passed his portfolios round so we could all get an ogle of his artwork. Lovely stuff sir.
Had a stint behind the table for long anough to see Tim Pilcher, Ian Edgington and Mike Collins, whose marvellous adaptation of A Christmas Carol from Classical Comics was talked about all over the con, and much admired, but which I also failed to buy (sorry Mike!), we also bothered Barry Renshaw, Adam Cadwell and Emma Vieceli for sketches...because they rock!
After that it was the usual Sunday slide into oblivion, with everyone nervously checking to see if there's likely to be a last minute surge in wealthy comic fans at 4pm, or whether they should cut their losses and make a run for it, we managed to get an amazing shot of Ian Edgington's daughter constance showing her approval of Raise The Dead and then we ran off, lugging all our unsold books...i mean 'residual stock' all the way down the road to the coach station.
Bumped into Adam Cadwell again just as we were about to keel over under the weight of our luggage, and then jumped on a crowded coach of doom back to Liverpool. Couldn't read by the futuristic roof lights, so shut our eyes and listened to everyone's phones going off and then their conversations for the rest of the journey.
Got home at half nine last night and watched the first episode of the new season of Heroes on BBC 1, which was as big a disappointment as you can get. Who wrote it? I have no idea but someone stop them before they do it again!
today, slept in, dressing gown day, unpack, and blog. We bottled 20 litres of Home-brewed stout though...ready for John's brithday later in the month.
whew. That's it folks!
Friday we got a coach down to Birmingham, which was fairly quick, very cheap and meant I could stare out of the window at things instead of swearing at the traffic on the M6.
We went to Wagamama for dinner which has become a minor obsession of ours when we go to cons, mainly because they serve Asahi Dark beer, which is very more-ish.
Our hotel was always going to be a source of fear and pain, because we have an unerring knack of booking the worst flea-pit noisy unhygenic dives wherever we go. Last year we stayed at the Britannia, which had terrible street noise (including bagpipes at 8am) and a door on our corridor which had a mouldy roast dinner on a tray behind it, and nothing else.
This year we thought we'd try again and booked the MacDonald Burlington down the street. We were trepidatious that it would be another hotel where the website makes it look like a palace and then its the Bates Motel, but I am happy to report it actually was a palace. Friendly staff,breakfast of kings which never ended, walk in wardrobe, huge huge bath and the most comfortable bed in the whole world. See what i mean?
So, after we recovered from the shock of our good fortune, we headed over to Bennet's bar for the launch party. Hunt Emerson's band was already playing up a storm by the time we got there, so saying hi to people we knew became a lip reading contest.
Several people nearly lost their voices before the con even got going, just from shouting to each other. The music (including the comic creator super group "Giant-Sized Band-Thing") was great, and all it goes to show, is that we are just reclusive wusses not used to the noise of being out of doors. It was pretty relentless though.
We had a lovely gab with Paul Cornell and Caroline, the indie manga girls, newlyweds Emma Vieceli and her lovely husband Pud, Lew stringer, Vicky and Richmond from Hi Ex, Barry Renshaw, Declan Shalvey, Adam Cadwell, Nick Setchfield, PJ Holden, Al Ewing, Ian Sharman, Jamie Mckelvie, Si Spurrier, Tony Lee and many more, guzzling beer all the while. I was so plastered i congratulated Sean Phillips on Charlie Adlards drumming...and I have to say we walked back to the Burlington in a zig zaggy way, and John even had an escapade trying to find chips. All that, and we'd only been there a few hours!
Saturday started with amazing breakfast and view of the shopping folk below. Only a short walk and we were at the Millenium point. It always feels kind of isolated stuck outside the main shopping streets, but thats all to the good, as there are loads of signs pointing there from all over the city, which there isn't when a con is in a hotel or whatever.
The con was much better laid out than last year, much less overcrowded, and less like a nerd-sweat soup than normal. We had a slice of the Accent Uk table (huge thanks to Dave and Colin again for that, and to Gemma for opening the cash box for us!) and we got our books set up and then went off to see what panels were on.
We went to see Paul Cornell, Mark Buckingham, Doug Braithwaite and Dave Gibbons doing the obligatory "breaking into America" panel, but in the form of a podcast with the guys from Geeksyndicate. It was nice to see a panel in a room designed for it for once, and it all got a bit Kilroy there, with the guys running about with mikes.
We did our signing with Staz Johnson, Mark Chiarello and Shane Oakley, and had a couple of people come to get things signed, me and shane made the most of our good looks...
then we headed back to the Accent Uk table to give the chaps a break while we tried to flog our books, saw Cliodnha Lyons although i failed to buy her excellent charity book "Sorry I can't take your call right now, I'm off saving the world" , and also the excellent Dinkybox table, where i got an amazing brush pen if you want nice markers or cute toys...go to their site now! Also grabbed some nice things from The Beepbeep car company. The afternoon flew by pretty fast, and we arranged to have dinner with a gang of mates.
The dinner thing is almost as scary a point as the hotel thing, because when you run about all day doing con stuff, the only thing in the world you want is a heap of nice food and a sit down with a beer.
Often con organisers will put on a main "Guests Dinner" which you may or may not be invited to depending on how far up your name is on the con playbill, but everyone else divides off into little subgroups and run in different directions for different meals. It can be hard to grab the right number of people and all head somewhere everyone will like, and everyone can afford. In the past we have been to lots of cons in different cities and countries, and dinner is sometimes odd, expensive, inedible or just very far away.
This time it was a bracing rainy walk through dusky brum to a glittery curry house and a very very nice meal indeed. We then popped in to the "Diamond Party" in Malmaison, which people thought was a party paid for by diamond, but was actually a normal pay bar, and comics people in some rooms. Nice enough, but it was miles from our hotel and the drinks cost an arm and a leg. We returned to Bennets, like it was the scene of a crime, and resumed where we had left off the previous night, albeit in a hungover slow motion way.
The main buzz at the table, and the con in general was the Eyecandy iphone application created by PJ Holden and written by Al Ewing which is so innovative, and cool and fun to use, it made everyone at the con immediately start thinking of things to do for them. Download the first issue for 99c (0r 50p) here, and watch them like a hawk in case you miss a second of their meteoric rise to fame and stardom!
Sunday, more huge breakfast, then packing checking out and getting to the con. Huge heap of luggage under the table at the Accent Uk stand (sorry chaps) and then off to see what panels there were.
Gegged in to watch Dave Gibbons' "Watching the Watchmen" talk which was awesome. I am fairly familair with Watchmen *ahem* but it made me nerd out to see all the early concept art, and dads typed synopsis up there on the big screen. Dave is certainly the most entertaining man to see do a panel in all of comics (anyone better? no? thought not) so it would have been ace to just sit and hear the anecdotes, but seeing the pages of his book (designed by none other than Chip Kidd) made me want to rush out and buy one right then. Dave says you can get it in the shops later this month, and I would recommend you do so immediately.
" talk which was awesome. I am fairly familair with Watchmen *ahem* but it made me nerd out to see all the early concept art, and dads typed synopsis up there on the big screen. Dave is certainly the most entertaining man to see do a panel in all of comics (anyone better? no? thought not) so it would have been ace to just sit and hear the anecdotes, but seeing the pages of his book (designed by none other than Chip Kidd) made me want to rush out and buy one right then. Dave says you can get it in the shops later this month, and 
Stayed in our seats to see Rufus Dayglo do a one man show on 20 years of Tank girl, which he hadn't expected to be only him. Tank Girl's creator Alan Martin had a family emergency so couldn't come, but Mr Dayglo made it look like he'd been planning it this way all along. Interesting and entertaining tales of the Deadline starlet's trajectory over the last 20 years, and then passed his portfolios round so we could all get an ogle of his artwork. Lovely stuff sir.
Had a stint behind the table for long anough to see Tim Pilcher, Ian Edgington and Mike Collins, whose marvellous adaptation of A Christmas Carol from Classical Comics was talked about all over the con, and much admired, but which I also failed to buy (sorry Mike!), we also bothered Barry Renshaw, Adam Cadwell and Emma Vieceli for sketches...because they rock!
After that it was the usual Sunday slide into oblivion, with everyone nervously checking to see if there's likely to be a last minute surge in wealthy comic fans at 4pm, or whether they should cut their losses and make a run for it, we managed to get an amazing shot of Ian Edgington's daughter constance showing her approval of Raise The Dead and then we ran off, lugging all our unsold books...i mean 'residual stock' all the way down the road to the coach station.
Bumped into Adam Cadwell again just as we were about to keel over under the weight of our luggage, and then jumped on a crowded coach of doom back to Liverpool. Couldn't read by the futuristic roof lights, so shut our eyes and listened to everyone's phones going off and then their conversations for the rest of the journey.
Got home at half nine last night and watched the first episode of the new season of Heroes on BBC 1, which was as big a disappointment as you can get. Who wrote it? I have no idea but someone stop them before they do it again!
today, slept in, dressing gown day, unpack, and blog. We bottled 20 litres of Home-brewed stout though...ready for John's brithday later in the month.
whew. That's it folks!
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Creature Feature #1 review and creator interviews on Hypergeek
Comics Blogger extraordinaire and all round good egg Ed Kaye has just posted a review of Th3rd World Studios' fantastic new comic Creature Feature #1 over on Hypergeek.
As if that wasn't enough, Ed has also interviewed some of the creators involved with the series (including Leah and myself, C B Cebulski and series figurehead/mastermind Mike Raicht) and included lots of juicy preview art.
So, what are you waiting for? Get over to www.hypergeek.ca!
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