The Sunday Morning Report: 09/10

I've decided I'm going to try and do a regular post every Sunday morning, filling you in on what I've been up to. Some (probably the majority) will be mundane shit, but it serves two purposes for me: It helps me record what I'm doing and forces me to actually do things (some days I can't be bothered doing anything) and it also makes me write stuff on this website, which I usually have a hard time doing because I struggle to come up with things that could go on here... So here we are, the inaugural Sunday Morning Report. This is how I've spent my week.

I read a manga book for once based on what my good man Dustin Cabeal (of Comic Bastards fame) said about it on CBMFP (the Comic Bastards podcast.) It was the first volume of One-Punch Man by writer ‘One’ and artist Yusuke Murata. It was pretty good and I would recommend picking it up. Took me a while to get the hang of reading manga but once I did I flew through it. My only regret is that I didn’t get volume two and three at the same time because I burnt through the first volume so fast and wanted to read the next one immediately afterwards… Plus I talked to Dustin after reading it and he said the REAL story doesn't start 'til the second volume which made me even more anxious to read it.

I've been trying to catch up on some comics this week. I read a few and put a tiny dent in my pile but the only thing that sticks out is Brian Wood and Garry Brown’s Black Road from Image Comics. That’s a great title and I’m looking forward to more of it in the near future. I read a couple of books digitally, which I will be reviewing for Comic Bastards next week, James Bond: Hammerhead #1 and The Lost Boys #1, check out CB around Wednesday for those.

I’ve been reading an actual book this week, too. NOFX: The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories by the punk band NOFX and Jeff Alulis… It’s funny as shit but pretty dark at times as well. I recommend picking that up at some point. I’m about seventy pages or so in and at times it’s pretty hard to put down because it’s so interesting to me. I say that but I've got three or four books I probably said the same thing about sitting around not doing anything... I start books, I don't finish them.

This week I’ve mostly been writing reviews and blog posts (like this one.) I'm quite enjoying writing reviews right now and the freedom it gives me. I try not to be a dick to most books because I understand how hard it is to get your work published and you should know that even if I do give you a bad/shitty review, I still respect your effort in making it happen. 

As for comics writing, I still have my Nemesis script for the Millarworld Annual competition to do. I should’ve been finished by now but I made a snap decision to go with a different story after realising my story was a bit too brutal... Like, seriously brutal. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever written. But I realised it could be done better and it would be more original to take a subtle approach rather than writing an in-your-face, bloody brutal story… 

I’m struggling now, though. I was pretty much done with the original script I wrote and bringing myself to write another one is at the bottom of my priorities list… It gave me a bit of a knock, too, because I thought the original one was ace. Now I’m writing another one and hoping I don’t change my mind about it too late. I’m not as confident as I was, but I’ll get there. Since I started writing reviews, I’ve been having a hard time switching styles back and getting on with things. There’s also the fact that the majority of things I’m writing might not ever see the light of day. I do have one thing, though, that I hope gets finished and I’m going to see if the artist I’m working with minds me sharing a page of his rough pencils for that thing… I’ll be posting it here if he doesn’t mind.

Apart from going to my full-time job, I’ve been doing all of the above plus trying to sort out getting some reviews for The British Showcase Anthology which will be out next month. So far I’ve sent the book to eight or nine comic news websites, so hopefully we’ll all start seeing some reviews of that pretty soon. Adam (Cheal) posted a photo of some physical copies the other day, so it's getting a bit more real now. I can't wait to hold one, haha.

I submitted the story I did with Paul Moore for The British Showcase to The Ghastly Awards, too. So if we get nominated/shortlisted, that’d be great... but you have to look at all the horror stuff that has been out this year. It’s a tough field and in all likelihood we’ll get pushed out by something that’s been published by a bigger publisher… Something that has bigger names attached. If we don't get pushed out, we are gods among men. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

I’m going to make sure Dave Evans of FutureQuake Press submits the new Something Wicked to the Ghastly Awards as well, because it contains my favourite story, Chivalry Isn’t Dead. Myself and Joe Palmer did a fucking great job of it and I can’t wait for you to see it…

Anyways, that was The Sunday Morning Report. I’m going to try to make it a regular thing here, we’ll see how long that lasts… I might try to do a Q&A at some point, too. So if you have any questions, leave them in the comments below.

Also, feel free to follow me through out the week on Twitter where I usually post random thoughts and bullshit. There's a follow button in the sidebar. See you next week!