It's 2016? Already?

I'VE become one of those people who only updates their blog twice a year - oh, the shame. I'm going to try and do better in 2016, I promise. It isn't as if I've been idle though. I've had two graphic novels published in the last 12 months - Defiant: The Legend Of Brithnoth and Hushers: A Very Victorian Apocalypse - and both were well received. This stuff is also happening...

* I shall be attending the London Super Comic Con over the weekend of February 21-22. I will be signing copies of Hushers at the Markosia table on both days (3pm Saturday, 3.30pm Sunday), along with artist Manuela Bassu Lebrino, who is coming over from Milan.

* I am currently writing a new book for Markosia and hopefully signing the contract for a second at LSCC. The former features art from Jim Lavery, the latter is another team-up with Manuela. Both books will offer a very different take on well-known characters. 

* On the subject of Hushers, there have been a couple of positive recent(ish) reviews of the book. Writing over at Bleeding Cool, Olly MacNamee compared it to James Bond and said it was "fast-paced, action-packed [and] thrill a minute", while Jason Wilkins of Broken Frontier said: "Hushers is a fun, rousing diversion full of inventive world-building and lush illustrations". A hard copy of the book is available here (£13.99) or digitally here ($3.99/under £3).

* According to Time Bomb Comics publisher Steve Tanner, the first print run of Defiant has sold out. He's looking to do a second run a bit later in the year. In the meantime, you can buy a digital copy of the book from here for a very reasonable $7.99 (about £5.50). Steve - and the book - were also featured in the recently relaunched Comic Heroes magazine in an article about indie publishing. We've also started talking about a sequel...

* When time allows, I'm still writing a film blog - As Human As The Rest Of Us - which you can find here.

I think that's everything for now. Thank you for continuing to read my blog, despite its erratic schedule. Your support is very much appreciated.

Hushers on ICE

ARTIST Manuela Bassu Lebrino and I will be at the Markosia table, signing copies of Hushers: A Very Victorian Apocalypse, at the International Comic Expo (ICE) in Birmingham. The event is happening on Saturday, September 5 and you can find out more details from their website, right here. 

Manuela is flying over from Milan to do the signing so please come and say 'hi'. I'll be sticking around on the Sunday, too, for the Comics Uncovered event at which I will be trying and almost certainly failing to pitch Image Comics' head honcho Eric Stephenson an idea for a limited series. Wish me luck!

If you can't wait until then to get your hands on Hushers, you can either buy a 'hard copy' direct from the Markosia website or go to Drivethru Comics to buy a digital copy for the offer price of $3.99 (just over £2.50).

Here's another page of Manuela's art from the book...

Hushers - we got it covered!

Here is the cover to the Hushers: A Very Victorian Apocalypse graphic novel which is published by Markosia on Monday August 3. I wrote the book, Manuela Bassu Lebrino drew and painted it, and Ian Sharman lettered and designed it. 

It retails for £13.99/$17.99 and for that you get 124 pages; that's 100 pages of story, a section dedicated to Manuela's unused art and sketches for the project, plus a bonus tale - The Comeback Kid - courtesy of me, artist Jim Lavery, colourist Aljosa Tomic and letterer Nikki Foxrobot. Bargain or what? You'll find more details at www.markosia.com

Hushers is influenced by a heap of things, but most notably the stories of HG Wells (my story is, at heart, a "scientific romance"), disaster-from-space movies (Lars von Trier's Melancholia and Don McKellar's Last Night, especially), and The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec. Most of all, though, Hushers sprang from a desire to write about an "invisible" woman who gains in strength, confidence and power the more the story proceeds. I also wanted to be rude about the British establishment so there's a fair bit of that in there too. Despite its subject matter, Hushers isn't nearly as grim as Defiant: The Legend of Brithnoth - in fact, in many ways, it's a throughly eccentric madcap romp. 

Here's a slightly extended version of the blurb you'll find on the book's back cover...

England, early 1848: Despite the revolutions sweeping Europe and unrest at home, the British Empire is seemingly stronger than ever as Queen Victoria prepares to celebrate 10 years since her coronation as monarch. 

It all seems a million miles away to Sarah Buckman, who just wants to pack up her recently-deceased sister’s house and return to her rich, factory-owning husband. But, alone in the late Grace’s country retreat, Sarah is attacked by a mysterious and mute intruder. Her sister knew a big secret… the biggest secret of them all, and now Sarah knows it too. The British government and their terrifying agents – the sadistic Mr Goodluck and his Hushers – want her dead before she can tell anybody.

A huge, civilisation-ending meteor – Astraea – will strike Earth in only a few weeks and the government is determined no one finds out until it’s too late. Desperate and alone, Sarah teams up with enigmatic Frenchman Jacques and a band of anarchists and criminals called the Lambeth Rats. Their plan is to reveal the truth but what they uncover is a massive conspiracy that goes all the way to the very top of the British establishment.

Hushers is a fast-moving, sci-fi adventure story from Eagle Award-winning writer Andy Winter and artist Manuela Lebrino Bassu.

And, finally, here's a page of Manuela's unused art that we couldn't fit into the book's backmatter...

A damn fine book

THERE was a lovely review of Defiant: The Legend of Brithnoth over at the Forbidden Planet blog last week. Highlights from Richard Bruton's piece included: "It's a damn fine book, the pacing the thing that really stuck with me" and "This is a thrilling tale, well told, writer and artists really getting over the legendary nature of the history here". 

You can read the whole review here.

And you can buy Defiant for a little over a tenner from the FPI store here.

While I'm encouraging you to buy the book, we also have digital copies available through DriveThru Comics - it's a snip at $7.99 (a fraction over £5). Get it here.

* HUSHERS - my collaboration with Italian artist Manuela Lebrino Bassu - is being released by Markosia on August 1. The book - a tale of Victorian apocalypse - will retail for £12.99p/$17.99 and I shall be doing a proper blog post about the whole thing next week. In the meantime, here's some of Manuela's art. This isn't featured in the story itself but will appear in the book's back matter, along with a ton of other stuff...

Four months later...

Defiant: The Legend of Brithnoth is finished and should appear in Previews (at least the UK bit of it) early next year. There has been talk of launching the book at one of the country's multitude of conventions but nothing has been confirmed yet. Possibly the London Super Comic Con, in March, or The Birmingham Comics Festival (publisher Steve Tanner is one of the organisers) the following month. Perhaps even both. When I know, you'll know... 

I'm really pleased with how the story came out - artist/letterer Dan Bell and I spent a lot of time tweaking bits here and there to get it right and I think that has paid off. I think it's one of those stories that will need to be read more than once to really get the most out of it. I've tried some storytelling ideas that I haven't used before and taken some serious liberties with the original poem but hopefully it all works as it should. I'm very proud of it and can't wait to see it printed and published - Dan and I have spent the best part of two years on it!

* Most of my time this year has been spent working on Hushers, a graphic novel for another UK publisher being drawn by Italian artist Manuela Bassu Lebrino. It is all written and Manuela is due to start illustrating the final chapter any day now. It's looking good and will almost certainly be the thing I talk most about on here in the coming months.

* Working on Hushers meant that plans for the Tim Skinner: Retconned webcomic slipped down the schedule but I've now finished the third chapter and only have the fourth and final one to write. Artist Ruairi Coleman sent me the first few inked pages the other day and it looks brilliant. Ruairi is signed on for at least the first two chapters but might have to drop out after that to concentrate on his work for US publisher Dynamite, where he is currently drawing Turok: Dinosaur Hunter with the equally excellent Stephen Downey. One way or another, though, there should be new Skinner in 2015.

* And that's about it for now - we're nearing the end of another year in which this blog has been updated even less than usual. I'll try and make it one of my new year's resolutions to change that. In the meantime, have a lovely Christmas and a happy start to 2015.

Douglas Adams on meth

SUMMER'S over, the kids are back at school and that means I can put my feet up and watch one of the stack of DVDs that have been sat gathering dust under the TV. Oh, except that I can't do that because I have a shit-ton of writing work to catch up on. A shit-ton of writing work I should have been doing over the summer but couldn't because of the kids, or rather the noise they make. All the time. Even when they are supposedly in bed. 

In some ways, the lack of actual writing has been a good thing because I've been able to properly recharge my mental batteries. Which is just as well because I really have to hit the ground running today, right now, this minute.

Work I need to attack includes...

* One last pass through the final third of Defiant! The Legend of Brithnoth. (I say 'one last pass' when there will be several dozen more passes until I am 100 per cent happy with it).

* A lengthy scene-by-scene breakdown for the editor working with me on Nix. Then, eventually, a script.

* A 10-page sample script for Hushers, the project I'm working on with artist pal Manuela.

* Detailed – but punchy – plot synopses for four more projects I'm going to be pitching around towards the end of the year. An international smorgasbord of brilliant artists has been busy producing sample art pages for these. 

* Writing issue #2 of The Good Ship Otzi, the 'Douglas Adams on meth' space opera I'm doing for R-Comics. The artist hasn't started drawing issue #1 yet so I have wriggle room here.

* Web comics, including new Tim Skinner (teaser image on the way very soon), and a bizarro horror thing I'm doing with artist Nick Wright.

That little lot should take me up to Christmas (and probably beyond). I'd better get on with it all then...

Hushers

HERE are a couple of pics from a project set in Victorian London I've been working on with artist Manuela Lebrino. It's called Hushers and is something very different from what I've done before. I'll post more of Manuela's lovely art on here soon.

* IN other news, Defiant! The Legend of Brithnoth is pretty much finished writing-wise. I have been going over and over the last third of the script, though, ensuring it all works. One plot point took me months to get right but I think I nailed it in the end. Dan Bell is 30+ pages into the art now. Look for the book at some point next year from Time Bomb Comics.

* I THINK we may have found a publisher for Nix. Still early days but I've just started work with an editor on it and will confirm things as soon as I am able.