End Of Year Report 2015

After last year (read here), I’d say this year was pretty progressive for me. I'm still not getting as much done as I’d like to, but I'm giving it a bloody good go. Here’s a summary of what my year was like…

Writing.

Chivalry Isn't Dead.
Art by Joe Palmer

I had a few strips left over from 2014 (and if you’re going from when they were accepted, 2013) that saw print in July (An Intellectual Era in FutureQuake #27) and November (Greed and Other Human Compulsions in Something Wicked #11.) Both are now available to download from comiXology, which is cool if you like your digital comics.

Although Chivalry Isn't Dead was completed early on in the year, it missed out on getting published. Joe Palmer (he won this year’s 2000 AD art competition! How cool is that?!) did an absolutely amazing job with it but I had another story in Something Wicked so it got pushed… That story should be published at some point next year and I can’t wait for you to read it. It’s probably my favourite horror strip I've done to date.

Prison Conditions.
Art by Terrance Whitlow

Also completed this year was Prison Conditions with Aussie artist Terrance Whitlow for FutureQuake, which will be published sometime in the near future. Terrance has done a fantastic job with the script and I've been in love with it since seeing the rough pencils for the very first panel. Lovely, lovely artwork for this one.

I entered the Millarworld Annual competition this year, too, set up by Mark Millar. It offered the opportunity to use Millar's characters in short stories which were between four and five pages. I wrote a Hit-Girl script, which was four pages. It was a lot of fun to write but not enough to earn me a spot in the annual. You can go and check out the script for that unsuccessful submission over on the Millarworld forum (HERE), I started a thread for writers who didn't win to post their scripts up, it's proven to be quite popular! 

I also entered into the Top Cow Talent Hunt again this year, having skipped last years. I'm not expecting to win it, but if you don't buy a ticket, you aren't going to win the raffle... We'll see what happens with that.

I also made the British Comic Awards longlist for "Emerging Talent" this year which is pretty cool. Lot of guys I know on that list, too, so it's nice we were at least considered for the award... haha.

In other news, The Heathen Masses, a story I wrote last year is back and going into the same book it should have been going into (Markosia's British Showcase Anthology Volume 2). Different artist this time, though. Paul Moore is doing the art and I'm pretty excited to see what he comes back with. He's an excellent artist and you should go follow him on Twitter. You can also have a look at his DeviantArt account to see what you can expect from him.

So, heading into 2016, the only strips I have outstanding now FutureQuake Press are Kron (with Carl Pearce) and The Dabbler (with Garrison Lee). I'm thinking I'm about ready to call it a day with the small press after that. I need to push forward with my work and as much as I love writing short stories for FutureQuake Press, I have a need to write something longer. I want to write comic books professionally after all, not comic strips. As a treat and so you know what to expect... the image below is some early concept art by Garrison Lee for our story The Dabbler. I've cropped some details (you may notice that empty square. It wasn't empty before, haha...)

"The Creature" Concept Art
By Garrison Lee.

I Bought into a Comic Book Shop…

Yup. How’d that happen…? I somehow now co-own my LCS and I've also quadrupled the amount of books I read a month because of it... Which you would expect because you’re responsible for ordering them in and you need to know what's good and what's not, haha. Everything is going well with the shop so far, and I'm grateful that Dan Slater gave me the opportunity to be a part of it. Hoping we have a great year next year and end up picking up more customers and seeing more new faces through the door.

If you don't know us yet, we are The Comic Book Shop in Macclesfield, Cheshire. 
You can find us on Facebook and Twitter, set yourself up a mail order subscription with us or just pop into the shop at 71 Chestergate and have a browse. 

Places I went...

Early on in September, I went to the Comics Uncovered event in Birmingham (Organized by Shane Chesby) where I got the opportunity to hear from professional writers about how they do what they do. The writers I heard from were Andy Diggle (The Losers, Thief of Thieves), Robbie Morrison (Nikolai Dante, Doctor Who), Ian Edginton (Hinterkind, Brass Sun), David Baillie (Red Thorn) and Montynero (Death Sentence). I had a pretty good time, it was a massive pain in the arse finding where I was going in Birmingham, though, haha. Other than being filled with dread at the thought of getting lost, it was a good day.

I also went to N.I.C.E. in Bedford in September. I was there for both days but spent most of my time stood talking to other retailers with my business partner Dan. I Met John Hendrick (The Big Bang, Dublin), Jeff Chahal (Close Encounters), Jared Myland (OK Comics) and a couple of other guys but their names escape me… I’m sorry. I think the highlight of the convention was when Dan and myself decided we were going to have a look at Jeff’s shop in Bedford city centre. Despite having two smartphones with GPS enabled maps on them, we could not find the shop for the life of us. We ended up finding it eventually and we had a good laugh at how useless we are… haha.

There were a few places (should have gone to Thought Bubble!) I wanted to go to but didn't this year, hopefully I can get to a lot more shows next year and meet some people. FQP were selling Something Wicked #10, Something Wicked #11 and FutureQuake #27 at Thought Bubble this year...

Something Wicked #10 ended up selling out there, which is awesome but does mean you can no longer buy my first ever printed work... It's still really weird to think people are buying things I've written... especially at comic conventions. Thank you all so much for buying these books. I really appreciate it and it drives me forward to try and get even more work out there. Now that you can no longer get Dinner Date in print and I don't think Dave at FutureQuake has any plans to put SW #10 on comiXology, you can click the gimp and it'll take you to the story (it's on my Dropbox account!)

I'll leave it there now...

I hope you all had a great year yourselves and I hope you have an excellent 2016.

Best wishes and thanks for reading,