THE JOB KNOWS

The job knows.

I haven't been able to sit down to update this blog in a hell of a long time. Let's have a look - May 28th. Yeesh! That's a long time (I actually thought it was April so already I'm telling myself 'oh, its not that bad').

Okay, so where was I? Right. I've been busy. REALLY busy. I started work on Charles Dexter Ward earlier this year then midway through took a break to draw A Princess of Mars (that's right, I took a break from working on a graphic novel to work on a graphic novel - in my world it makes sense there's just less holidays) and now I'm back again on Charles Dexter Ward finishing that book off before Christmas and starting something new. It's been busy. And I've only had one book out this year (technically three books if you count The Lovecraft Anthology Vol.1 and Blankslate's Nelson). Last year I had two! But before you think for even one second I've been slacking off- STOP! I have THREE GRAPHIC NOVELS out next year, AND a mini-series (can't say anything about that just yet) and a 10-12 part weekly at some point in among all that.

I've been busy.

Oh, AND At the Mountains of Madness won best graphic novel at the British Fantasy Awards 2011 back in October - you can read about that here!!

Now, a couple of weeks ago I went to the Quai des Bulles festival (I'm going to write more on that in another post quite soon, I promise) which is in St Malo (the picture at the top here is one I drew at the festival and brought home and colored up - now I got my scanner working again! YAY!). Right up to that point I was working crazy hours getting A Princess of Mars done. And about a week before the trip to France (my only break since April really) I was thinking 'this is great, this is going great. I'm gonna get the book done and have time to relax a little and unwind before I go away. I've got DAYS left! Everything is gonna be just fine.' What could possibly go wrong, right?

Well, nothing did go wrong really except that I worked right up until the very last second of the very last minute of the very last hour before my flight to St Malo. Literally no time to spare. I used up ever second I had. It was like THE JOB KNEW. There I was thinking "I've got a week, I'm on the home straight, this is easy." But no. It's like the job knew exactly how long I had left and that was exactly how long it was going to take. Not a second more. Not a second less. THE JOB KNEW!!!

And since I got back from St Malo I've been catching up on my sleep and getting in the right headspace again for Charles Dexter Ward and I'm back in Lovecraft country where I can post sneak peeks (this picture here isn't one of them - don't worry, a Gug doesn't show up in a suit in the middle of the story).

LES MONTAGNES HALLUCINÉES ET LE SIGNE DES QUATRE

I will be signing copies of At the Mountains of Madness and The Sign of the Four (and A Study in Scarlet and Hound of the Baskervilles) published by Akileos in France at La Librairie Mollat on Wednesday 26th at 4pm in Bordeaux!

I'll be then traveling up to Angoulême for the festival there on the 27th till the 30th!

(Pssst - the book Dyer is reading is A War Come Near by R. Carter)

THOUGHT BUBBLE!!!

Okay - I will be at the SelfMadeHero tables at Thought Bubble - the Leeds Sequential Art Festival, signing copies of my latest graphic novel, an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. There will be also sketches for sale - a selection of creatures from a Mythos Menu which I'll be drawing throughout the day.

Gug

“It was a paw, fully two feet and a half across, and equipped with formidable talons. After it came another paw, and after that a great black-furred arm to which both of the paws were attached by short forearms. Then two pink eyes shone, and the head… large as a barrel… eyes jutted two inches from each side, shaded by bony protuberances overgrown with coarse hairs… That mouth had great yellow fangs and ran from the top to the bottom of the head, opening vertically instead of horizontally.” (The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kaddath)

THOUGHT BUBBLE THOUGHTS

I will be attending Thought Bubble this Saturday and will be shackled to the SelfMadeHero tables like Kong. People may approach (with caution) and would be best advised not to use flash photography. If you pick up a copy of At the Mountains of Madness I will sign it for you and scribble in it too (a Mythos entity of your choosing or character from the book). And I will be doing that pretty much all day.

Rob Davis (keep an eye out for his upcoming adaptation of Don Quixote - its an incredible comics opus) has written his recommendations on what to buy at Thought Bubble this coming weekend (as he too will be attending and will be promoting Solipsistic Pop3 to which he's contributed the excellent Torturer's Garden) and he's also written a review of At the Mountains of Madness:

Ian's adaptation is perhaps the best of his SelfMadeHero books. Here "Britain's answer to Darwyn Cooke" works in double page spreads and uses the broader space to give us snowy vistas, frozen oceans, alien cityscapes and vast mountain ranges. The writing is stripped down and the book zips by, in stark contrast to the heavy going Lovecraft texts. All is rendered in Ian's trademark style, a kind of Yves Chaland/Frank Robbins lovechild.

As I know from struggling through my adaptation of The Dunwich Horror (which Ian has drawn and, in my opinion, is his best strip work yet!), voice overs are pretty inevitable in Lovecraft comic adaptations. Here the best sequences are where Ian shakes off the voice over and lets the characters play off one another or the action move seamlessly. If I have any criticism of the book, it's really a criticism of the source material - and that's the characterisation. I didn't really care about them. Lovecraft's characters are flat; he's all about ideas and the characters too often become cyphers. What Lovecraft excels at is spiking the imagination with his poison and enveloping the reader with a sense of menace beyond our ken. Ian's version loses non of that. You won't buy a better Graphic Novel or comic at Thought Bubble, don't hesitate to get it.

AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS!!! GRAPHIC NOVEL OF THE MONTH!!!

Just picked up a copy of The Observer and Rachel Cooke has picked my adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness as GRAPHIC NOVEL OF THE MONTH!!!!

It is not only that Culbard has so cunningly boiled down Lovecraft's rather weighty novel, leaving its exciting plot free to breathe; it's also that his superb ligne claire drawings so effortlessly evoke both the world of Tintin, and the Edwardian science fiction of HG Wells and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. If you are a fan of the golden age of polar exploration – if you still hanker after Boy's Own stories of derring-do – I promise that this is the graphic novel for you.

Here's the online version of the article.

WRITING ABOUT WRITING AND DRAWING AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS - OH, AND A DOC FATHOM UPDATE!!

Just finished writing three blog pieces for SelfMadeHero - the first is about the inspiration for some of the .... design work for At the Mountains of Madness.

The second article is with regard to some of the architecture in the book.

And lastly there's a reasonably lengthy article about the actual process of adapting, which compared to the other two is relatively spoiler lite. But that said - these articles are otherwise spoiler heavy - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!

In other news: I was pleasantly surprised by some of the response that DOC FATHOM* has been getting! Now, if only I could find a way to make it so....
*For those only just tuning in....

AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS NOW AVAILABLE!!

This is the bookplate I produced for Gosh! A portrait of H.P. Lovecraft sitting in Miskatonic Library. You can get the bookplate edition in the next couple of days. They do have copies of At the Mountains of Madness in stock and if you want a bookplate edition I am reliably informed they will put one aside for you.

AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS REVIEWS!!

My adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness is out this Thursday and here's the first three reviews to come in.

The first comes from Ernesto Priego's blog, Butterfly Hunt.

The second comes from Barry Nugent and Geek Syndicate.

And the third from Richard Bruton and the Forbidden Planet International blog.

Additionally there will be a bookplate edition from Gosh! in London.

CERTIFIED MADNESS!!

My advance copies of At the Mountains of Madness arrived today!! Very excited!! Must calm down!! Maybe later!!

Rather pleased with the gate fold cover which means you get pretty much all of that cover I did ON THE COVER!! and not just on the outside but on reverse side too!!

The book is out in just a few weeks time and you can order your copy here!!

AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS SNEAK PEAK 5

(At the Mountains of Madness © 2010 SelfMadeHero)

This is the full wraparound art for the At The Mountains of Madness cover. Finished the interior art today. Yay!

AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS SNEAK PEEK 4

(At the Mountains of Madness © 2010 SelfMadeHero)

A double page spread (with ample bleed I might add). Pages 28 and 29 to be precise. When I set about working on this book I wanted it to be significantly different to the Sherlock Holmes books I've been working on. This book was my first opportunity to work in full splash double page spreads and the process has been one I'm certainly keen to adopt for future projects. The scene as centrefold. I've left off the text here because it is a bit 'spoilery' - that said, I've always liked seeing pages with empty balloons. Reminds me of what reading comics was like before I could read.

AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS SNEAK PEEK 3

(At the Mountains of Madness © 2010 SelfMadeHero)

AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS SNEAK PEEK 2

(At the Mountains of Madness © 2010 SelfMadeHero)

AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS SNEAK PEEK

(At the Mountains of Madness © 2010 SelfMadeHero)

FROM THE CRYPTIC REALMS OF ICE AND DEATH...

AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS (cover)

Sneak peek of the cover for At the Mountains of Madness from SelfMadeHero which you can find over at their brand new site.