Impromptu Signing/Fundraiser Goes Well

Click on the screen shot (above) to visit the Phoenix Comix site.

We arrived in Northampton for a quick visit on Friday afternoon only to discover that Alan was scheduled to do a signing for the Northampton Defend Council Housing campaign at his local comic shop that very evening. As it turned out, even Leah and I got asked to sign a few things (including a copy of Wild Girl #1) and the whole thing went really well.

For those of you that don't know; Alan has designed a poster which has also been made into t-shirts (pictured below) to be sold to raise funds for the campaign (contact David Horne or Phoenix Comix for info about buying either).


Of course, if we paid a little more attention to Rich's Lying In The Gutters, we'd have know about the event weeks in advance. Never mind though, we had a grand old time anyway and, who knows, we might be back to sign there again.

Visit http://www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk/dch/ for more info on the Defend Council Housing Campaign.

J.

Revenant Magazine Online Now!

Click on the screen shot (above) to visit the Revenant site.

evenant is a free online magazine site featuring news, reviews, artcles and interviews all about zombies and zombie related stuff.

It's been in the pipeline for a while but the site has just gone live and it looks great.

If you go over to the "About" page there you'll see that I'm contributing the site too; how could I refuse?

Keep checking the site for all the latest zombie news and maybe I'll see you in the forum. ;-)

www.revenantmagazine.com

J.

M&R Interview On Forbidden Planet Blog

Click on the screen shot (above) to visit the FP Blog.

Accent UK's "Zombies" Coming In '07

Yes, next year's Accent UK anthology is going to be all about the shambling, rotting, flesh hungry undead. Lovely!

Leah and I have already signed up to do another story with Eagle award winning artist Dave Hitchcock after the success of our last collaboration.

Other confirmed contributors for the book include:

Colin Matheson
Dave West
Indio (Zarjaz)
Andrew Cheverton & Tim Keable (West)
Ben Dickson (Falling Sky)

Plus there's the very real possibility of a Steve Bissette cover. Nice!

The book should be out in time for 2007's New York Comic Con so eveything's got to be fit to print by this coming January.

If you're interested in contributiing to the book why not visit the Accent UK website and drop the guys an email? The worst they can say is "no thanks", right?

Otherwise, just rub your grubby hands in anticipation at the forthcoming re-animated corpse fest that will be Accent UK's "Zombies".

J.

Dark Horse Book Of Monsters Release Date

The Dark Horse Book of Monsters (hard cover)

Publication Date: Nov 22, 2006
Price: $15.95 (on tfap.com)
Age range: 16+
ISBN: 1-59307-656-8

Writers: Mike Mignola, Kurt Busiek, Evan Dorkin, Sarah Dyer, Leah Moore, John Reppion, Scott Allie, William Hope Hodgson, Arvid Nelson

Artists: Mike Mignola, Keith Giffen, Timothy Green II, Jill Thompson, Paul Lee, Gary Gianni, Juan Ferreyra, Brian Horton

Genre: Horror

Mike Mignola takes Hellboy on a monster-crunching mission and Gary Gianni provides illustrations for a classic tale of South Seas horror by William Hope Hodgson in this fourth addition to Dark Horse's Eisner-nominated books of Hauntings, Witchcraft, and The Dead.

Along with Mignola and Gianni, Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson--who won Eisners in both 2004 and 2005 for their stories in Hauntings and Witchcraft--return to unveil a new painted story starring everyone's favorite evil-fighting strays. Also included is an homage to the great creature comics of Jack Kirby, by Kurt Busiek and Keith Giffen, and many more terrifying yarns by some of the most talented folks in comics!

From http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=12-465

J.

July Is British Comics Month For Forbidden Planet

Click on the screen shot (above) to visit the FP blog.

From http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/?p=1058

Dear readers, did you know that the fine summer month of July (we can tell it is summer in Scotland – the rain is warmer) is officially British Comics Month? No, you hadn’t heard? Ah well, that may be because we just decided it the other day! Wouldn’t it be good to celebrate British comics? And use it a springboard to try and represent more on our webstore and blog, especially the Indy titles?

[...]

We’re also making an effort to talk to independent British comics creators to see if we can work with them, list their titles on our webstore, help them promote their work. If you went into many comics stores - including Forbidden Planet International you could be forgiven for thinking the British comics scene is a pretty narrow affair. There is a world we hope to open up to you consisting of small marts and conventions, people making and swapping comics, those producing webcomics - some searching for stardom some just scratching an itch. For many of these creators money isn’t the main reason for their work and so they often fall below the commercial radar of books and comics sellers. We hope to develop strong ties with this world and give you an insight into some unique comics visions - and you might just spot a new star in the making. As we start to add more titles to the site of course we’ll tell you about it right here on the blog it will be as much an adventure for us as yourselves.

Interesting...

J.

Th3rd World Site Now Online!

Click on the screen shot (above) to visit the Th3rd World site.

Yes, the Th3rd World website is now fully operational over at www.Th3rdWorld.com.


In case you didn't already know (or maybe you've just forgotten or something) Leah and I have penned an 11 page story for the company's flagship series "Space Doubles" which has been expertly drawn by Jeremy Dale. The series doesn't have a definate release date yet but we know you're going to keep an eye on the site and find out for yourself as soon as we hit you with the creative credits thus far:

(writers)
Mike Baron
Leah Moore & John Reppion
Mike Raicht
Andrew Dabb
Mark Andrew Smith Ben Raab & Deric Hughes
Jason Hall
Dwight MacPherson
Scott Closter
Justin Robinson

(artists)
Ron Chan & Rich Ellis
Jeremy Dale
Alecia Rodriguez
Aneurin Wright
Pat Quinn Philip Schaufelberger
Evan Gauntt & Jesse Hansen
K.W. Mellon & Eduardo Herrera
Lee O'Conner
Matthew Huynh

Thomas Mauer (Letters)
Justin Robinson (Editor)

Cover Credits:
Khary Randolph (Escape Pod)
Andie Tong (Liberty Movement)
Doug Klauba (Saucer Full of Secrets)
Tom Carney (A.K.A)
Philip Schaufelberger (Everywhere I Look...Bugs!)
Alecia Rodriguez (Red Rain)

Keep watching the skies...

J.

If A Job's Worth Doing...

Phew! This last month has been totally mental; we've been doing our annual (non writing) summer job whilst attending what seemed like an inordinate amount of weddings and assorted other occasions in a variety of far flung destinations.
Oh yeah, and we've been writing some comics too...
We turned in our second script for Dynamite Entertainment yesterday, only one week late (which isn't bad taking into account the aforementioned high octane busyness). Details of our first Dynamite series should be available very soon but, for now, our lips are sealed.

Albion #6 is due out in a little over three weeks time and from what we've seen of the artwork it should be an absolute corker! Thanks to everyone who's stuck with the series, we know that it's kind of a Marmite type situation but, to be honest, we always knew it would be. There's even talk of a trade...

J.

Lew Stringer's Brickman Is Back!

http://brickmancomics.tripod.com/

That's right, Brickman is back with a brand new, full colour strip in Richard Starkings' Elephantmen from Image Comics.


Issue one of Elephantmen looks fantastic and will arrive in stores in July, Lew's Brickman strip will debut in #2 which will be available in August priced $2.99.

A brand new comic starting next month and it's got Lew Stringer in it: maybe this is our chance to actually follow a book properly instead of just grabbing an issue here and there like we usually do. After all, who doesn't love Brickman?

J.

No, it's nothing like Myspace...honest

Yes, we've been sucked in to the latest fad that is The Comics Review Creator Community. Luckily though, the site actually looks like it might be cool place to meet other creators from around the world, exchange ideas and maybe even find work. Surley too good to be true? Why not check it out and find out for yourelf?

Click on the screenshot (above) to visit The Comics Review Creator Community.

J.

Comics Up North

(click on the flyer to veiw full size)

The site is only just online but keep checking www.lancastercomics.co.uk for breaking news.

J.

Bristol Comics Expo 2006

We had a very good time at Bristol this year, so much so that the con just seemed to fly by (not that it usually drags or anything).

This was the first year that we've ever had our own table in the main hall and it showed us a totally different side to the festival; one which involved sitting down (which always helps with the hangover).

The Expo was the fourth con we've done in so many months so it was also kind of the "last gig" on our little tour (which took us to Manchester, Dublin and Copenhagen previously).





We were stationed next to the Control Arms table and did our best to try to get people to take part in the Million Faces Petition. You should even be able to see our contributions (and all of those made over the weekend) in their fully searchable Gallery very soon.

We were flogging Albions #1 to #5 plus signature cards (signed by us and Dave Gibbons) for £2.50 a pop and managed to raise a grand total of £130 for Oxfam (which will also go towards the Control Arms Campaign).

Our good friends from Accent UK were there (Dave West and Leon Hewitt pictured) flogging there wares.
Their Monsters Anthology (in which Leah and I achieved our dream of working with Dave Hitchcock for the first time) seemed to be selling very well on Saturday but, I supect, that their sales might have been even better on Sunday after Dave won a well deserved Eagle Award for his fantastic series Springheeled Jack.

All in all it was pretty much the best Bristol con we've ever been to.
We had a brilliant time and got to hang about with tonnes and tonnes of cool folks like Paul Cornell, Matt Timson, Dave Gibbons, Paul Scott, Oliver Redding and Mary, Al Davison, Al Nolan and Ian Whelan, Andrew Sumner, Boo and Gemma Cook (in a kind of constantly running past each other and saluting way), Al Ewing, the mighty Lew Stringer, etc, etc, etc

Thanks to everyone who made this year so special (an apologies to the many whose names I've missed out).
Shall we say, same time again in 2007?

A few random images from the con.

Colin Mathieson, Leah and the award winning Mr. Hitch (congratulations Dave).

Barry Renshaw of Engine Comics and Voodoo Macbeth creator Norris Burroughs.

Lorenzo of Studio Blink Twice hard at work.

Mike Molcher of The End Is Nigh and one of his boyz in full effect...or something.

The Future Quake / Death Camp Jones crew. Would you buy a comic from these people?

Everyone always says what a nice bloke Gary Millidge is but Chris Staros knows the truth and now so do you.

The collage that the ridiculously talented Borin Van Loon did for us.
What the hell do you mean you dont know who he is? Get over to his site now!

I'll follow this post up with one about all the cool comics and mags we managed to grab at a later date as it's taken me all bloody day to do this one.

For more Bristol 2006 reports check out:
http://lewcomix.tripod.com/id7.html
http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=litg

J.

Updated look for the Blog

Inspired by MacPherson, Barkman and Mauer's shiny new Schlauchthaus Blog I have re-jigged our Blog once again.

Hopefully, it should look and work better and be more easily understood than my first, rather ham fisted, modification.

We're off to the Bristol Comics Expo as of noon tomorrow. Hope to see you there.

Cheers

J.

Bristol Con Charity Events

Only 6 days to go...

Click on the screeshot (above) to visit the Comic Expo's charity page. 

J.

Copenhagen International Comics Festival 2006

We had a fantastic time in Copenhagen last weekend rubbing shoulders with the likes of Gilbert Shelton, José Villarubia, Peter Snejbjerg, Jason, Andrew Wildman, Simone Lia and Hugleikur Dagsson (to name but a few).

The convention was easily the best we've ever been to and other event organisers should get in touch with Kim Jensen, Jan Robert Andersen and company to learn a few things about con running.

Thanks to everyone who we met, hung out with and got far too drunk with.

If you'll have us back we'll be there!

(click on the images below to enlarge them)


Jan delivering his speech at the reception on friday.


Colin, Leah and Chris behind the Accent UK table.


Leah and me ready to sell, sell, sell!!!


Steve Bissette being interviewed.


Marv Wolfman getting a grilling.


Teddy Kristiansen and Warren Ellis answering a few questions.


Hugleikur Dagsson signing copies of the sick filth he peddles as entertainment.


José Villarubia signing and sketching.


the con in full swing.

J.

The End Is Nigh #3 Coming Soon!

The latest issue of tEiN will be launched at the Bristol Comics Expo one week from tomorrow. #3 looks set to be the best issue yet, dealing with asteroids, alien invasions, unexplained falls of deadly foreign objects and much, more!

One thing's for sure: Armageddon it! *groan*

Visit www.endisnigh.co.uk for more info.

J.

New look MooreReppion.com

Yes, we finally got our new look website online yesterday evening and we've been online tinkering with it ever since (is that really the time?).

Who knew that Firefox was so much better than Internet Explorer? Well, we suspected it but we had no idea that what looks great in FF would look so poo in IE.

We're working on it.
Constructive criticisms are welcome.

We do have a Shop now though. :)


Click on the screen shot to visit the new site.

J.

Monsters Anthology Launch

Accent UK's "Monsters" anthology goes on sale from the 28th of April.
Check out their new website at www.accentukcomics.com for more info.

J.

Dont Forget: Million Faces Petition @ Bristol

Next month at the Bristol Comics Expo, we'll be stationed in the main hall next to the Control Arms table offering our support to The Million Faces Petition.

About The Campaign
Lack of controls on the arms trade is fuelling conflict, poverty and human rights abuses worldwide. Every government is responsible. The Control Arms campaign is asking governments to toughen up controls on the arms trade.



Our Million Faces petition is collecting photos and self portraits from around the world to reach our goal of one million faces by June 2006. We will use these faces to send a powerful, global message of support to the world's governments for an International Arms Trade Treaty.

Basically, there are two ways you can get involved in The Million Faces Campaign:

1. If you're going to be attending the Bristol Comics Expo then all you need to do is drop by our table or the Control Arms table and pick up a special Expo Action Card. Sketch yourself a quick self portrait (or take a little time and create a masterpiece) and hand the card in to the Control Arms people.
2. If you're not going to be at Bristol in May then visit www.controlarms.org and upload your own self portrait to add your face to the petition.

All portraits will be uploaded and displayed on the Control Arms website in a fully searchable gallery. Who knows, you're picture might end up next to some of comics biggest names.

J.

New Stuff Coming Soon...

Lot's of new Moore & Reppion stuff coming your way very soon:

We received out boxes of Albion #4 a little while ago and we couldn't be happier with it. #4 will be on the shelves in the USA on the 12th and here in the UK on the 13th (un-lucky for some).
Visit http://www.dccomics.com/comics/?cm=4256 for more details.

The Accent UK "Monsters" anthology, featuring a story written by Leah and myself and drawn by the brilliant Dave Hitchcock as well as a cover by Shane Oakley, will be launched at the Copenhagen International Comics Festival at the end of the month.

We got the lettered pencils through from Th3rd World for our Space Doubles story drawn by Jeremy Dale. Which looks like it's going to be fantastic! (watch this space for a release date).

The Dark Horse Book Of Monsters (featuring a story by us and Timothy Green) should be out in June/July as should Strange Attractor Journal Three which contains an article penned by yours truly.

At present we're working away on our first Dynamite Entertainment project, issue one of which should be in the bag before the end of this month.

Busy, busy, busy.

J.