Get ready to ROCK!

In an explosive end to the year, Accent UK has just launched the Kickstarter for an exciting new comic’s collaboration with industrial post-apocalyptic band V2A!

A continuation of the creative concept unveiled at last year’s Asylum steampunk festival, (in the short story contained within the Return to the Asylum anthology) DOOMSDAY is the first of a two part series involving an exciting team of top creative talent.

V2A with Accent UK's Dave West & Gary Crutchley at Asylum Festival 2019

Scripted by Dave West and V2A’s Drone, the comic is being illustrated by P.J Holden of 2000AD fame, coloured by Accent UK stalwart Matt Soffe (and recent 2000AD & Heavy Metal gigs) and will sport a choice of two covers by V2A’s album cover artist, Vlad McNeally and comics rising star, Ryan Brown, (2000AD, Marvel, D.C etc).

The campaign was fully funded in its first 4 hours and promises to be a bright start to next year. Check out the Kickstarterpage here and Dave’s blog for full information and WITNESS!

A snippet of Ryan Brown's stunning cover!

2020 Gone ?

Ah, in not unexpected news both September's re-arranged Edinburgh Comic-Con and November's Thought Bubble Festival have now been cancelled due of course to the coronavirus pandemic. Both events immediately confirmed their return for 2021 at their respective venues and regular calendar spots. Obviously everyone's health, well being and safety have determined that this was the sensible course of action but does starkly lay bare the massive impact the virus has had on our shared hobby and community with this year's calendar of events effectively wiped out.

There are still a couple of potential events in the autumn/winter timeslots that have yet to make an annoucement, (or to invite exhibitor applications) but it seems unlikely they will be able to proceed for the same health & safety reasons and/or for logistical, economic reasons as the UK, and sadly most of the world, face an uncertain immediate future.

Thought Bubble have quickly confirmed that they will fill their now vacated November dates with a virtual event so we'll see how that goes and there are similar recent announcements about  Asylum, our cherished steampunk festival doing likewise, which should be fun, if the earlier 'Steam Over Ether' event was anything to go by, so there are a couple of highlights to look forward to in an otherwise empty landscape.

At Accent UK HQ, we are, like all independent creators feeling the pinch as planned releases, appearances and of course earnings have taken a hit. We remain though optimistic and with the likes of Kickstarter - still time to check out the current succesful Kia Wordsmith campaign - we are exploring available avenues and platforms to make our future endeavours available and are using the unexpected free time to develop a surprise or two.

SHAKA Comic!

While checking on the new rewards and excellent progress of Kia Wordsmith, Accent UK's current Kickstarter campaign, I stumbled upon the interesting sounding SHAKA comic, also currently funding on Kickstarter!

The video and campaign details speak for themselves but this promises to be a fun and dramatic re-telling of King Shaka's legend and the origins of the mighty Zulu nation, both subjects close to my heart! I'm not familiar with the creators, who seem to be based in Australia with South African roots but it all looks amazing.

Comics. History and Zulu's what's not to love, please check it out and remember PDF's are a good economic option if international shipping proves costly.

Kia Wordsmith Continues!

The Kickstarter for Dave West's and Ian Ashcroft's second Kia Wordsmith comic is now live and looks to be an exciting continuation of the story. Please check it out here where both issues to date can be ordered!

John Freeman at his Down The Tubes comic news site also features the campaign here.

"That's Weird!"

My Accent UK comics buddy, Dave West is always working away on something and then has a habit of that 'something' eventually appearing and so it is with this his latest project, intriguingly titled " I before E except after W, that's Weird!" currently funding on kickstarter.

He's been working on and off on this for years, initially - if I recall correctly - as 'The A to Z of Superheroes' with an overseas artist but as he became interested in vintage books an idea developed to use some of those old obscure but fascinating images in some way and armed with scissors, glue and a fevered imagination this unique comics n collage project came to life.

I've only seen a handful of these images over the years but Dave's assured me that he recently completed the whole book, so I'm intrigued to see how it's turned out in it's execution.

The Kickstarter is doing pretty well and close to funding already but if your interest is piqued, please consider backing it as the campaign's pre-order is the best way of securing yourself a copy which may be one of the oddest books Accent UK have ever released.

Dave has included some of the original art pages in the reward tiers and I've already bagged my favourite and as they say, once they're gone they're gone!

Return To The Asylum!

Aha, I'm delighted to confirm that Accent UK's brand new comic; Return To The Asylum will launching this weekend in Lincoln, appropriately at the Asylum Steampunk Festival!

This is a sequel of sorts to last year's Enter The Asylum comic which proved very popular and again features comic strip adventures inspired by and starring the alter-ego steampunk persona's of festival goers, who have co-operated with our creators to produce 6 original comic strip stories plus a bonus short in this new all colour perfect bound issue.

I have two stories, one again illustrated by the talented Anna Francesca Schiraldi, featuring a Licensed Elemental Conservationist (aka 'Faery Catcher') and a seemingly cheese-obsessed Professor!

  
Secondly, I've both written and drawn a story featuring the legendary Count Rostov and Lady M, Asylum festival stalwarts and contributors who enjoyed  their own real-life moment in the spotlight at last year's event, which I was fortunate to witness. I therefore just had to come up with a wee story to explain the resulting 'happy ending'!

If all this sounds of interest and sadly you're not able to attend this weekend's festival, then the comic is currently the subject of a pre-order campaign on kickstarter - check out the link here where you can find out further information on the other stories and creators involved!

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!

Asylum Steampunk Comic Kickstarter!

Accent UK's first ever Kickstarter campaign is currently running here for the opportunity to pre-order our exciting new comic launching at this year's Asylum, the steampunk festival which inspired the concept and the comic!

Find out more about the project from Dave West here with incredible cover artwork provided by Gary Crutchley, coloured by Matt Soffe - dodgy fellow on the cover notwithstanding! The project both features and is inspired by real steampunk personas encountered at last year's Asylum Festival so is very different from our normal stories.

A further departure for me is that I have scripted a story to be drawn by a talented new artist Anna Francesca Schiraldi who I first had the pleasure of meeting at last year's Edinburgh comic festival and caught up with again this year.

There will be more news to come but we're delighted that the Kickstarter was funded in less than 24 hours (around 14 we think!) of its launch so its safe to say that the comic will definitely be coming to life in August when you can Enter The Asylum!

LIFE SUPPORT!

Life Support is a wonderful idea to raise funds for Children's Hospices Across Scotland - the charity CHAS. It's the brainchild of Colin Maxwell, a Fife based comic creator who before Christmas made a request for comic creators to donate Sci-Fi themed strips and pin-ups to form a comic to be launched at Edinburgh's Capital Sci-Fi event in early February, which is also an important fundraiser for CHAS.

Many creators answered the call and I wanted to contribute but not having any existing 'Sci-Fi' themed material to hand quickly wrote a hopefully fun one-page comic strip which I drew over the festive period, completing in the New Year to get 2018 off to a creative start!

I won't reveal my finished strip but show instead a panel's progress from 'BOOM from the ROOM!', my wee homage to the Tin Tin & Oor Wullie strips of my youth!

Pencils

Inks & pencils (Uncleaned)

Cleaned Inks

Finished Lettered Version (Scots edition!)

I submitted the above finished black & white version but wondered how it would look in colour so turned to Matt Soffe, who has done an amazing job on several of my Moments of Adventure strips (and forthcoming ZULU!), who once again did a splendid job!

Matt's fantastic colours!

Complete coloured & lettered version

You can support the project and guarantee yourself a copy of the finished comic by backing the current Kickstarter campaign to cover printing costs here or at its launch in Edinburgh on 3rd & 4th February.You'll have to wait a little longer to see the full coloured version of my strip which may well be included in one of my future projects 😉