On this day in history

While I deal with the dirty business of book 5, blog posts will be minimal. So today why not enjoy "On This Day In Scary Go Round History", a painful trip through the years that made me feel weird and kind of ill. Click here and SEE!

Godiba's powers bring good juju

Book 5 back cover! I hope to get this off to the printer within the next week.



ALSO: I've finally added the canvas Curious Orange prints to the SGR shop!

A ringing endorsement

Longtime readers of this blog know that I am not over-enamoured of Oldham Metropolitan Borough. It's not really the place for a person like me, but for some reason I seem to have lived here for 8 years. Anyway, I think things are gathering a kind of critical mass - see the leaflet (below) that came through my door this morning.



Shamen are now congregating on my doorstep. I anticipate this new local trend for spells can only be the tip of a terrifying iceberg.

A giant hat covered with gems has been ordered

The Webcomix Thing in London was a total super great success. Obviously it was not a 100% success, as most conversations I had with people after 3pm in the afternoon were very abstract. I think I offended a whole table full of Brighton's most gifted cartoonists just by trying to tell them, unprompted, about the few facts I could scrape together from my by-now-ravaged brain. By God I dug myself in deep there. Note to self: avoid the south for some months.

I think I also upset a poor lad who thrust a tape recorder under my nose and wanted "to ask [me] a few questions". When I asked him to come back at a slightly quieter time, he wheeled away as if shot. Sorry, tape recorder man, no offence intended.

Having now made amends to people who have scratched my name deep into their hating books and enemy lists, I'd like to thank everyone who came to see me. It was the busiest I have ever been at any show, at home or abroad. I wish I could have talked to people for longer, and spent a bit longer with folks who'd come a long way. My neighbours on one side were Nude Magazine, a design-led publication that seems just right for most eyes, and on the other side Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeier, who I think may be some of the most talented and best people in the world!

In the evening it was a pleasure and an honour to make sport with Weebl, Madsen, Dr McNinja, Ali, and the hidden man of UK comics, Kelly Hernandez. Good men, and thorough.


Note: I do have quite a few of the limited prints I did left, and I'll put them up for sale later in the week once I've caught up with making comics. They'll go on sale at 12pm GMT, giving almost everyone a fair crack of the whip I hope.

Who's got the looks, who's got the brains, who's got everything?

I have revised the cover for SGR book 5 (now tantalisingly close to going to the printers), as having lived with the previous one for a few months I realised it was a nice idea but not up to much. Here's the new one! The back cover will have some kind of fancy decoration too but I don't know what yet.



It's still subject to tweaks as my mind doesn't work very well in the late evening, but it certainly seems books-ish.

Despite wounds, I continue

I think I'm getting old, or just incredibly fragile. I can't lift my right arm above the, let's be honest here, Hitler salute position, without suffering a pain (like touching a freshly grazed knee) in my tendon. I hate the Fuhrer and his ways so there is no need to punish me for accidentally saluting him.

But despite all that, I have made some little prints for the UK Web Comix Thing. They're in runs of ten and any left over will be available on my return from the capital. The first one is my riposte to "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" entitled "Bats Get In Your Hair". The second is of course entitled "The Day The World Changed".



My only concern is that they might be displaying 'tood - which I will of course be forced to eliminate prior to turning on the printer.

Dog problems

I was going to do drawn intros to all the chapters in my new book but what I came up with didn't really work the way I wanted it to. I did think this rough was quite funny though.

Updates update

For those of you who are curious, I am approximately one page away from completing Scary Go Round book 5. Having drawn a suitably simpleton intro, I need to make a simpleton outro to finish the job. Then it is just a question of whether I draw a back cover or just make it the same soothing and mottled yellow as the front. I have a feeling that the solution will involve a combination of both.

Last night I rocked anew and saw Brakes, Absentee and Bobby Cook on one splendid bill! I have made their names into cyber-node hyper-links for the curious of ear.

The Absentee singer man was running the merchandise stall and having stood on the other side of the table, so to speak, on many occasions, I warmed to this kindly and talented fellow. Let's hope Absentee have a million pounds very soon.

Finally, I will be packing up prints on Sunday to send out on Monday. The canvas prints are in and look really nice, so I will probably put them up for sale next week. There are only ten, so I'll announce beforehand when they'll be available. If this proves popular, I'll probably do some super short-run canvas-only prints in future.