Looking To The Lakes?

 

Here's another of my recent sketches, again I see showing someone looking wistfully into the middle distance! Well this was inspired by the old Victorian book covers for boys adventure stories that became very popular leading to the likes of (of course) Boys Own magazine, Union Jack, Chums and many, many more leading up to the popular range of boy's adventure comics from the mighty D.C Thomson!

Maybe though our friend above is looking for the way to The Lakes International Comic Art festival  this coming weekend in sunny Kendal, Cumbria. Getting quite excited about the show now and will be catching up with good friend, Garen Ewing (he of the wonderful Rainbow Orchid) later as he makes the trip up for the show, so an ideal chance for anyone not yet  acquainted with the adventures of Julius Chancer to purchase a copy and maybe, if you ask real nice, have it sketched and signed by the man himself!

The Complete Rainbow Orchid Collection

The Very Special Rainbow Orchid Supplement



Oh and  I would be remiss not to remind you that you can of course also catch up with all the latest Accent UK titles at The Lakes show including the recent Missing:Have You Seen The Invisible Man? which has just received another fine review thanks to Jeremy Briggs and those good folks at Down The Tubes. 

 

A fine example of Joe Campbell's artwork from the Dave West scribed story

 

Looking For Livingstone?

I do still enjoy sketching and have done a few recently in between writing stories, planning and attending comic shows, (and of course work!) so here's a wee bit of one featuring my favourite explorer David Livingstone who's bicentenary is being celebrated this year with several events still to come.

Accent UK Interview !

 

Dave and I, wearing our Accent UK hats, were recently interviewed by the talented Mr Crutchley for the top indie on line magazine, Self-Publisher, and the new edition is now available to download to your ipad and android device here if you would like to read more about Accent UK and our approach to comics publishing alongside some other very interesting articles and previews.

New Shows! New Shows!

Well as you know us Accent UK guys don't get out very often (yeah right says Mrs M!) so we're pleased to confirm the final show schedule for the rest of this year!


Bryan Talbot's Lakes festival poster 

First up for us is the very exciting The Lakes International Comic Art Festival on 19th and 20th of October, which is starting to gain momentum since first being announced ages ago, it has a stunning guest list with festival founders, Bryan and Mary Talbot, Sean Phillips, being joined by literally a who's who of great comic creators such as Charlie Adlard (fresh from his Copenhagen trip!), Steve Bell, Ed Brubaker, Kurt Busiek, Hunt Emerson, Duncan Fegredo, David Lloyd, Posy Simmonds and the one I'm most excited about, Joe Sacco!

A great line up plus dozens of invited indie creators including Accent UK, Garen Ewing, Ivan Petrus, Black Hearted Press, Jenika Ioffreda, Owen (Thaddeus Mist) Johnson, Scar Comics and many more in a special Comics Clock Tower market place right in the centre of Kendal.

It's aiming for that wonderful European feeling with the whole town of Kendal embracing the event so why not give it a go, it promises to be a very different comic experience.

Next up, the first Saturday in November  (appropriately the 2nd), will be our second trip of the year to  Comica's Comiket in London. The show will return to its latest venue at Central St Martins College, close to Kings Cross station where we had a record selling fun day way back in April, see my wee report here (scroll down!).

No guests have been announced yet but as you'll read from previous shows, there's usually no shortage of willing artists to 'drop-in', soak up the atmosphere and maybe take part in the on stage drawing parade in one of the most relaxed comic shows of the year which seems to have become a welcome fixture on the Accent UK calendar.

Our final show of the year will surprisingly be.....Thought Bubble in Leeds on the 23rd & 24th November! I say surprisingly as you may recall that we were one of the many regulars who missed out when the tables went viral and sold out on twitter in 2 hours flat in February!.

The speed of the sell out surprised everyone and didn't go down well in the normally forgiving comics community, however the organiser's came good on their word to try and find a solution and recently added a third hall close to the main venue at Leeds Royal Armouries which we booked a table at while remaining on the 'reseve list' for the main New Dock Hall -  and we've just heard from the lovely Sarah that thanks to someone dropping out that we are indeed back in the main hall - phew!

We're obviously pretty chuffed with this and you have to admire the organiser's ambition in adding floorspace to an already packed arena, and we are grateful that our unbroken attendance at the festival since the very first 'town hall' show in 2007 will now continue.

With that final thought, Dave and I are already planning ahead for 2014 which promises to be even busier than this year's record breaking 11 shows. Our 'long list' has 18 different events and dates at the moment which is crazy, we obviously can't do them all so will sadly have to 'drop' some of our existing shows to make room for some exciting new ones.

Of course we better have some new books to present at these events so watch this space!

Robot Shorts Blitz Marketing Campaign!

I see that Steve Holder has blown Accent UK's marketing budget for the next decade on his and Dave West's second printing of their quirky science-fiction fun book, Robot Shorts, there's really no escape from it, so the best you can do is catch us at our forthcoming shows or order from our site, you know it makes sense!

Manchester Mart Coming Up

 

We've been lucky enough to squeeze into the forthcoming comic mart in Manchester this Saturday the 28th September. Run by Gez and his Golden Orbit team these are popular informal comic gatherings been going for years and years and a great place to pick up a few bargains or that elusive back issue.

The Manchester ones are held centrally at the Thistle Hotel on Portland Street about 4 times a year and Gez regularly hosts other marts in Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield, check out his site for dates and details.

Dave and I take a table every now and then as an opportunity to clear some of our own comic and graphic novel collections as they can take over your bookshelves and lofts if left unattended too long. It's always quite therapeutic to clear out some 'stuff' which you know you won't get round to reading again and of course to create room for some new purchases!

Scottish Scoff!

 

With all my attention during the recent trip 'home' taken with football and comics, I failed to bring back a single item of traditional Scottish fayre much to everyone's disappointment. I'm pleased to report then that the far more diligent Mrs M has done us proud with the very impressive haul above delivered after her trip North helping Adam get settled in at uni.

Everything pictured comes with a government health warning as most tasty Scottish treats are unfortunately bad for you! Rest assured though that the haggis and mealie puddings will go to a good home as we and our freezer indulge ourselves over the coming weeks.

Sadly the very impressive gallon of whisky (gulp!) is not directly for us but very kindly donated by Mrs M's father for a forthcoming Scouts auction, if you feel lucky?

Oh and I had been thinking of upgrading my laptop for a tablet so Mrs M brought back a couple of these interesting Scottish ones for me to try!