The shock of the new

THERE'S a new four-page story to download over at moonfacepress.com. It's called The Saboteur and was written by me and drawn by Mick Trimble, who you may remember as my collaborator on 2008's Septic Isle one-shot.

Look for the link at the top of the Moonface home page – it's FREE to download as a PDF.

* ON the subject of new stuff, my one-shot football comic – cryptically entitled Scoregasm – should be winging its way onto the net or into print (or maybe both) in the next month or two. The brilliant Duane Leslie – whom I collaborated with on the third volume of Devilchild amongst other stuff – is the artist. Duane also did the cover, with colours provided by Eva de la Cruz (see below).

Bits of the story's DNA come directly from the kind of football stories I read as a kid in comics such as Tiger & Scorcher and Roy Of The Rovers. The strip Billy's Boots was certainly on my mind when I was writing Scoregasm, although my story operates in a very different, far more cynical world.



Blokes of a certain age should remember Billy's Boots. It was about a young boy – named Billy Dane – who had a magical pair of football boots that made him the best player on his school team. It was a fun, innocent tale full of last-minute winners, plucky underdogs overcoming the odds and scurrilous opponents who'd have been more at home in the KGB than on a school football pitch. Because of the 'magic' boots, the strip also had an almost-supernatural element (although you were never entirely sure if the boost the boots gave Billy was all in his head).



As I've inferred, Scoregasm is a whole lot darker than Billy's Boots (its sub-title is 'Sex, Secrets... and Football'). I guess it's all about the loss of innocence and perhaps reflects how my own opinion of the beautiful game has changed over the years. I LOVED football when I was a kid, was obsessed with it actually, whereas these days I find many elements of the cynical, brutish soap opera it has become thoroughly dismaying.

There are hardly any football comics these days (Striker in The Sun and very little else) so I'm hoping Scoregasm may get people talking. I'd like to reach actual football fans with it but god knows how I'm going to do that. Ideas on a postcard please...

* MY old friend Phil Hall is currently telling the story of his lifelong relationship with comics over at his blog: http://alifeincomics.blogspot.com

Three chapters in, Phil hasn't got to the really juicy stuff yet (I suspect the recollections regarding his time as News Editor at Comics International will make essential reading, as will the chapters dedicated to Borderline magazine), but it's still an enjoyable, nostalgia-tinged read that British fans of 70s Marvel and DC will find essential reading.

Event Horizon

AS I mentioned in my last post, I'm keen to attend some UK comic events this year. I was going to do BICs but 2011's event has been postponed because the organisers need to find a new venue (this is a shame because I always really enjoyed visiting Millennium Point and its museums).

Anyway, after giving it some thought, I've booked a table for the Bristol Expo (May 14-15). I intend to use the weekend to meet up with old friends, recruit a few artists and to sell off some of my remaining stock of comics. It also works out quite nicely for my missus whose sister lives in Bristol and who she hasn't seen in ages.

I've booked table 60 in Hall 1 at the Mercure Hotel (I'm next to Mirus Entertainment) so if you're attending, please come and say hello.

On a more positive note...

IT'S been an interesting start to the New Year. As I mentioned in my previous post (you know, the ranty, embittered one about how awful 2010 was), I've been talking to a film producer for a few months now about turning one of the comics I wrote and published a few years back into a movie.

Anyway, things seem to be moving in the right direction at the moment and just last week I was in London (at swanky Soho House) to meet said producer, a couple of up and coming young screenwriters and a well-known actor/director whose work I admire enormously.

The premise of the meeting was to start thrashing out a plot made up of the stuff from the original comic (which would probably only make up 15 minutes of film time), a load of new material I'd written to continue the story and a variety of ideas from everyone else. It went very well and although there's still a lot of work to be done and obstacles to overcome, I got the feeling everyone present was really committed to making this happen.

I won't be counting my chickens though. I was in a very similar position a couple of years back after being contacted by an American producer who had worked on a hugely successful '90s serial killer flick. Everything was really positive for a few months and then slowly but surely the whole project crumbled to dust. I'll get round to telling that whole sorry story one day (perhaps on here) but it still hurts just thinking about it.

* I'VE been writing some short stories recently (well, I might as well get on with something while I wait for a couple of decent, reliable comic artists to make themselves known). I haven't written prose in years and years but it's going quite well so far. It's much harder work than writing comics, where you have an artist to rely on for a lot of the tricky stuff. Anyway, I seem to have settled into a kind of horror/comedy groove and am going to have a look around to see if I can find some anthologies to submit my stuff to.

* THERE should be a new four-page comic story available for free download from moonfacepress.com in the next few weeks. It's called The Saboteur and is written by me and drawn by Mick Trimble, my collaborator on Septic Isle. It was originally intended for Accent UK's Robots anthology a few years ago but the story's original artist never got round to finishing it and Mick stepped in.

Piss off 2010, you've been a crap, frustrating year and I'll be glad to see the back of you!

AS my rather unsubtle title implies, the last 12 months have been somewhat difficult. This has been especially true when it comes to my writing.

As you may remember, my plan for 2010 was to team up with a variety of artists to pitch story ideas to comic-book companies such as Image, Markosia and Insomnia (of whom, more in a minute). I had several ideas that I duly worked up into pitches and wrote sample scripts for. Unfortunately, not a single one of my collaborators actually completed - or in several cases, even started - the work. There are many reasons for this (one guy simply had a better offer) and I'm not one for recriminations, but it still put a major crimp in my game plan and left me feeling rather disillusioned.

I also came close to getting a project off the ground with British indie publisher Insomnia - or more specifically their historical imprint, Vigil. Martin Conaghan, who was the editor of the company's Vigil line, loved one of the two pitches I sent him and was keen to take it on. Unfortunately, it was very shortly afterwards that the company imploded. I'm still hoping to place one or other of my historical pitches with another company so fingers crossed...

There is another possible light at the end of the tunnel, too. I was contacted by a film producer in May and have been working on something for him that I'm hoping will pay off in the new year. If it does work out, it will make all the frustrations of the past 12 months more than worth it. If it doesn't, I shall probably go and sit in a dark corner somewhere and sob...

Due to a profound lack of cash, I haven't attended a single comics-related event this year. I missed BICS for the first time since its inception and Bristol for only the second time since 2001. I still haven't attended Hi-ex or Thought Bubble. I've even missed the MCM Expo events in east London that are a short train journey from my home. Hopefully this is something I'll remedy in 2011. I still have a few boxes of Moonface Press stock (Hero Killers, Blood Psi etc) knocking about the place so I may even book a table at a couple of events. Probably not Mark Millar's new Kaboom! event in London though as the price of table space there is extortionate.

In the new year I shall also continue my search for artists to collaborate with. I have a few cracking ideas for graphic novels and mini-series and I'm not going to let them fall by the wayside.

To hell with Twilight

Edward who?

CI R.I.P.

VARIOUS sources on the net (Bleeding Cool, Down The Tubes etc) are reporting the demise of Comics International, the long-running British comics news magazine.

CI seems to have breathed its last after the magazine's publisher - Cosmic Publications - was closed down. Admittedly, CI hadn't published a regular monthly issue in over a year, but I for one will still mourn its passing.

Not only was it a great source of information for me when I returned to comics fandom after a decade away in the late '90s, but it was always very supportive of my writing and publishing. I remember being elated when they gave the first Devilchild volume 8 out of 10 and even more so when they ran a big news story on Blood Psi. Such positive coverage gave me a real confidence boost and definitely helped hike my order numbers with Diamond.

Despite the huge amount of comics stuff on the net, I genuinely miss having a cheap and cheerful British-flavoured print magazine full of news, gossip and reviews to read every month. But maybe I'm just old fashioned.

Reader, I eviscerated him...

THOUGHT it was high time I got hip to the latest literary sensation - classic novels with a horror/sci-fi twist. You know the ones I mean - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Android Karenina and lots of others that clog up the shelves in Waterstones forcing out immeasurably better books written by proper authors.

I've decided to adapt Charlotte Bronte's classic Jane Eyre for my purposes, reimagining wilful Jane as a depraved serial killer (perhaps she hosts the same demonic spirit that possessed Charles Manson and currently resides in Vernon Kay).

Hilariously, I've decided to title my rewrite Jane Scare and I think you'll agree it's an inspired - not to mention jolly clever - play on words. Because 'Eyre' rhymes with 'Scare', do you see?

Anyway, here's the cover (I laboured long and hard for all of 10 minutes to knock it up on CorelDraw) and an exclusive preview of the book's first page...



CHAPTER ONE
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question.

I was glad of it; I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed. How I hated the fuckers.

The said Eliza, John and Georgiana were now clustered round their mamma in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarelling nor crying), looked perfectly happy. I was about to put a very permanent stop to that.

I moved quickly towards the sofa keeping my hands behind my back (I didn't want to ruin the surprise that awaited Mrs Reed and her reviled litter of shit-kittens). The old woman let out a pathetic rodent-like squeak as she saw me raise the knife once I'd reached her side. Eliza, John and Georgiana spun round as one, then scattered as I brought down the jagged blade and plunged it deep into their mother's chest. The impact of the blow vibrated up my entire arm leaving it numb. But I'm willing to wager any pain I may have suffered was tiny indeed compared to the eye-popping agony that then engulfed their indolent mamma.

The loathsome old bag howled like a kicked dog and crawled about on the floor, red pumping from her wound and pooling on the floor under her. The sight would have probably got me quite moist down below had I not already turned my murderous attention to her three ugly spawn, one of whom, Miss Lah-dee-dah Georgiana, had already soiled herself. I was going to enjoy burning her.

(Not) to be continued...