Surprise Thought Bubble Release!

Hee! Hee! I like to spring a little surprise here n there, so I've quietly and quickly pulled together a very special, limited 'Artist's Pencil Edition' (APE for short!) of some of my recent Moments of Adventure stories! This has come out very nicely and shows the development of the art and story before the inks, letters and colours are added for the finished versions.

Launching this weekend at Thought Bubble Comic Festival in Leeds where I'll be appearing with Gary Crutchley who himself is releasing his long anticipated Hard Country graphic novel which was recently successfully funded on Kickstarter!

Dave will again be at MCM Scotland at the SEC in Glasgow so catch us somewhere if you want to see our latest releases and see what other surprises and plans we may have!

For those attending Leeds, you can find Gary & I in the Comixology marquee;

The first few of my 'APE' are available in special bundles either alone or with both full colour Moments of Adventure with a special print and an original sketch such as this fellow!

Welcome To The Asylum!

Enter The Asylum Comic Cover extract (art by Gary Crutchley, colours by Matt Soffe)

Busy prepping ahead of our most welcome return to the world's largest steampunk festival, Asylum in Lincoln where we will again be exhibiting, contributing with talks and panels and of course the small matter of officially launching our steampunk persona inspired comic, Enter The Asylum! 

So as you can tell our excitement levels are on the rise as this has firmly become one of our most enjoyable events to attend and we're honoured to be invited back as a guest attraction for the third successive year!

Please check out the event timetable here and our 'profile' as part of the Festival's 'Comics and Words Corner' here!  

As Dame Dunkit one of the stars of my comic story would say;

Art by Anna Schiraldi, Colours by Matt Soffe

Manchester Comic & Reading Festival!

Very nice to be asked to participate in this new event, a collaboration between Dennis Whittle of the Comics Den shop in Oldham and Manchester's Central Library. Dennis is the chap behind the successful Oldham Library events which sadly I've been unable to attend so far but is branching out as part of this year's libraries summer reading challenge, focusing on comics.

Full details here including a complete list of the many talented comic creators attending.

It promises to be fun and can be enjoyed as part of the city's bee trail of which the library may house a few special exhibits, so you best 'Bee' there :)

The Harvey Awards

A nice invite has popped up in my inbox, inviting me to vote on one of the (American) comic industry's oldest and most prestigious comic awards, The Harveys! While it's not a nomination for any of Accent UK's titles it is indeed a small recognition that we are seen as part of the industry, for this year at least, so that's something.

Harvey Kurtzman, of whom the awards are named, was a comics legend behind the likes of the MAD humour magazine, Two-Fisted Tales, Frontline Combat, a series of hard hitting war comics, Playboy's Little Annie Fanny and much, much more. A more recognisable name in the states perhaps but influential nevertheless and a hard working trailblazer in his field.

So there we go, an unexpected but nice gesture probably triggered by our visit stateside earlier this year so nice that someone paid attention, now for some difficult voting decisions to make!

A Hard Country's A' Coming!

Just launched on Kickstarter is a cracking new graphic novel from WesterNoir's own artist (and co-author) Gary Crutchley and Andrew Elliot, Hard Country!. It's been a long cherished project for the creators which a successful kickstarter campaign will bring to life.

Check out its page here  and also a preview of the art & prologue at Gary's own blog here.

Worth checking out and supporting for all WesterNoir and western fans!

Rare Remembrance Day!

An idle 'Accent UK' search on ebay surprisingly revealed quite a few of our titles on offer including a few out of print ones including the original first printing of Zombies which is now close to selling out of its second printing too!

What really caught my eye though was the very, very first release from the newly established Accent UK, Remembrance Days from March 2003 I think, celebrating our formation on Remembrance Day November 2002.

Rarer still is the fact it has been signed by - as far as I can decipher - almost all of the original contributing creators and Accent UK founders/alumni!!

The stories & art on this one will be 'raw' in part but it was our debut and was well received at the time. We printed 300 which in hindsight was pretty ambitious but they all sold out except for the couple of file copies Dave and I kept as a memento - I think mine were also signed so I won't be bidding on this copy! 

I don't know who the seller is but this is a nice seldom seen piece of our early history - 15 years ago, jings!

Comics & Steampunk Double Feature!

To make up for last weekend without an event for Accent UK Comics, we've two this!
 

Firstly, I'm delighted to return to Macc-Pow next Saturday, which I greatly enjoyed last year and is another fairly local one to me which is nice. This year's event is #3 and coincides with Macclesfield's bi-annual Barnaby Festival which I understand was the catalyst for organiser Marc Jackson to put on the first event in 2016. This year like #2 is free to attend and takes place in Macc's impressive Town Hall , which was a great venue for the comic workshops, artists and exhibitors, so I'll looking forward to this.

A nice offical event picture taken off me at last year's Macc-Pow!

Next up, the same weekend but on both days is the mysterious 'The Town That Never Was!' at Blists Hill, Ironbridge. This is a new steampunk 'wild west' themed event organised by those fine folks at The Ministry of Steampunk who are behind the mighty Asylum festival in Lincoln, the world's largest annual steampunk celebration!

The event had a highly enjoyable 'soft debut' at the same venue last year to test the waters (to which Gary & I and our better halves attended in civvies) and all were blown away by the response from steampunks, the public and the venue so a return was inevitable but necessitated a move from the previous July date to June which unfortunately for me clashed with Macc-Pow! (which itself had moved from July to match the Barnaby Festival dates), so the intrepid duo of 'Deputy' Dave West and 'Gunslinger' Gary Crutchley will be there both days, defending the fort until I join them on the Sunday - what could go wrong!

A splendid picture from last year's 'soft debut' event!