Amphibious

I'M off-work Wednesday and Friday this week and plan to take a short break from the comics writing.

Wednesday I'm going to bang out the next of my columns for the Indie Review guys and then pop into London for a bite to eat with Joel Meadows. After that we're heading off to see the exhibition of David Bircham's art at the Animation Art Gallery in Great Castle Street.

David's the guy who draws the excellent Brodie's Law (www.brodieslaw.com) and his art is on display at the gallery until November 21.

Friday is my son Dylan's fourth birthday so he and I will be heading into London for a look round the Natural History/Science museums and a trip on the rather interesting amphibious vehicle pictured above. The idea is that you get a tour of the capital with a difference - part on land, part on the Thames but all in one vehicle. I can't wait to see his face when it veers off the road, down the bank and into the river!

* ONCE this week is out of the way, I shall get back to the writing. I've currently got four comic scripts with artists and aim to have a fifth – Kurss – finished by the end of the year.

Before I get cracking on that though I plan to spend a couple of days revisiting one or two old scripts for short stories that I never finished. I want to see if they're worth having another crack at or whether they should go into my Unfinished File Of Doom.

* THAT brings me to plans for 2008. All being well Moonface should have a lot of stuff out next year - starting with Septic Isle in the spring. Meantime, I'll be busy beavering away writing more new stuff, these include Razor Snakes (a chunk of pure sci-fi), Pendragon (a three-issue mini-series with Simon Wyatt) and a slew of other projects that, at this stage, are a little more nebulous.

There's a book set in the same world as Hero Killers and featuring a couple of the same characters, a sequel to Septic Isle, something else called The Utopians, projects with Keith Burns, Mikey B and Alma O'Carroll, and the "controversial" story I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

To be honest, I'll be happy if I can get half of them written before 2008 is done and dusted.

* THIS weekend is the Dublin City Comic Con and it's another one I won't be able to make (as I said it's my son's birthday this Friday, and Saturday is his party). I think one of my aims for next year will be to attend a few more comic-related events. I'm already paid up for Bristol and Birmingham, but new ones seem to pop up every year (like this one, for instance: www.thoughtbubblefestival.com) and I really should make the effort to get to one or two more. My stuff always seems to sell pretty well at conventions so it would make a lot of sense.