The Sound of Drowning

Compelling comics blog Mindless Ones recently broadcast a podcast featuring, amongst other delights, a review of the Brighton Zinefest and a 'live on air' readthrough of a thread from 'The Call' - the 'choose your own adventure' comic by myself and Laura O'Callaghan White.

Download the podcast - HERE

'The Bullet' is a special graphic issue of Melbourne based literary quarterly Torpedo which is out this month and features no less than 30 pages of recent and brand new strips by myself including collaborations with artists Lawrence Elwick and Dan Locke. Other contributors include Jeffrey Brown, Richard Cowdrey, Peter Lalley, Stanley Donwood, Ghost Patrol, Mandy Ord, Adam Golaski, Eric Dando, Oslo Davis, Laurie Clancy and many more. Plus you get a miniature full colour supplement. It sounds fancy, doesn't it?

Visit the Torpedo site for more info.

'Unspeakable Things' is the title of a strip produced in collaboration with photojournalist Marcus Bleasdale about the humanitarian crisis in DRCongo that appears in the CTRL.ALT.SHIFT 'Unmasks Corrpution' anthology which is being launched at this years Comica festival in London.

There will also be an exhbition of artwork from the book at the Lazarides Gallery in London's Soho, where limited edition screenprints of a page from Unspeakable Things will be on sale (also available to order online).

This week Design Week magazine are also running a feature on the anthology including interviews with fellow contributors who range from Pat Mills (the 'Godfather of British Comics') to Lightspeed Champion.

A full transcript of the interview with Design Week can be found on my blog.

Fresh out of Zagreb this month comes KOMIKAZE 8: 144 fat pages of underground comic goodness featuring the work of comic artists from around the world including Japan, Australia, Sweden, Canada, England, France... the list goes on and includes personal favourites such as Herr Shulze, Dunja Jankovic, Cody Brant and me old mucker Daniel Locke. For more info and samples of artists work go visit www.Komikaze.hr

As part of this years London Comica event the Pumphouse Gallery in Battersea is hosting a site specific exhibition - 'The Shapes of Comics to Come' which features work by Dave Mckean, Daniel Merlin Goodberry, Adam Dant and Warren Pleece.

Originally destined to be exhibited on the parks bandstand the four pieces above form part of a larger strip that forms a further aspect of Daniel's installation. The bandstand comic strip, which features work by several other artists including Douglas Noble, Ellen Lindner and John Cei Douglas, depicts a fictitious free festival that took place in the bandstand in the 1970's. Amongst the crowd figures from history with some kind of a connection to Battersea assemble for the show.

The more observant among you will thus no doubt spot amongst the audience...William Blake, Malcolm McDowell & Stanley Kubrik (A Clockwork Orange was partly filmed in Battersea), Morrisey, Mick Jones, Timothy Spall, Alfred Hitchcock, Ronnie Biggs, Pink Floyds inflatable pig, a crowd surfing Victorian policeman and some residents from the nearby animal shelter.

The exhibition runs from 12th August to 26th September 2010 and looks to be well worth a visit.

Norma Anne Sykes, a.k.a Sabrina, was a British glamour model from the fifties who time seems to have forgotten. I discovered Sabrina one day by accident when I came across this website. I thought her story was interesting and might one day make for a comic strip. That time time came earlier this year when Richard Cowdry contacted me about a comic newspaper he was putting together called The Comix Reader. The above is a small sample of some frames from the finished strip which can be found in the very first issue of the excellent Comix Reader newspaper which also features work by the brilliant likes of Richard Cowdry, Ralph Kidson, Lord Hurk, Steve Tillotson, Gareth Brookes, Daniel Locke and Lawrence Elwick. The Comix Reader is available in a multitude of comic shops and bookstores in the UK or online right here.

Issue 5 of HIVE, an international comics anthology published by Grimalkin Press in the US is now available for ordering here. Weighing in at a chunky 192 pages and featuring a hand made silk-screen cover and containing work by too many people (including yours truly) to possibly list here, it's a steal at the price - you can take my word for that.

Also winging their way around the world are a series of postcards which comprise the latest issue of Paris based found-art project Do Not Look at The Sun If you're not lucky enough to be a recipent you can always go over to the site and buy yourself one.

Enough with the plugs. On with the show.

Gracing the cover of the latest issue of the nations favourite music paper is none other than our very own Charlie Parker: Handyman illustrated by the man with the sideburns himself, Lawrence Elwick. Not bad for a character who was only ever intended for a few strips in SoD #14.

Inside Charlie gets a brand new 5 page strip and you'll also find comics by the brilliant Krent Able amongst others. Pick up a free copy in record stores and music venues across the country.

Thanks to Phil and Mickey at The Stool Pigeon for being such big Charlie fans!

Joe Sacco says

“A welcome push back from artists against militarists everywhere.”

Paul Gravett says

“...a landmark project, gathering from across the globe accessible, compelling graphic reportages and reflections on the price we pay as individuals, societies and human beings for the conflicts that besiege our world.”

What are they talking about?

War: The Human Cost

A graphic anthology four years in the making and collecting the work of over 67 different artists including such luminaries of the comix world as Spain Rodriguez, Steve Bell and Peter Kuper. Give it your time.

If you're a lot more technologically advanced than me you might want to check out the free Ether Books App. I'm reliably informed that this will enable you to download for nothing one of my short stories entitled A Precious Little Thing along with lots of other short fiction by other people.

Science. Ain't it a marvel?

Thinking of something new to take along to this years Comiket I decided to put together my own take on a 'b-sides and rarities' collection with a few never before seen comics thrown in for good measure. As well as my own work the 44 page collection also includes collaborations with Marcus Bleasdale (Unspeakable Things), Lawrence Elwick (Charlieland), Dan Locke (Grandad, Spring The Hare), Laura O'Callaghan White (Love is War, No More Crashing Around), Nelson Evergreen (Pipkins), Hannah Eaton (A Shaggy Dogs Tale) and an adaptation of work by cult author Richard Brautigan (The Library).

Lawrence and myself threw around various Christmas story scenarios before finally settling on a story where we get to meet the rest of Charlie's family and open up a whole new window on Charlie's universe. We're pretty pleased with it and hope Charlie fans enjoy it too. If you're quick you can grab a signed mini-comic version here or just be lazy and wait for me to post it online which I will do sometime early next year.

Future of the Left's new EP 'Polymers are Forever' is released tomorrow on XtraMile Recordings. I'm pretty chuffed to have been given the opportunity to have produced the artwork for this, the bands new material is simply astonishing. You can check out a stream of the title track here