THE NEW DEADWARDIANS - GOSH! EXCLUSIVE BOOKPLATE EDITION!

This is the bookplate I produced for Gosh! They have 200 bookplate editions of The New Deadwardians tpb (out tomorrow) signed by both Abnett and me. Their site has details about how you can get a copy of the bookplate edition:

"If you’d like one reserved or if you’d like to arrange a mail order send us an email to info@goshlondon.com and we’ll sort it out for you. Postage is a flat-rate of £5 within the UK, £5.50 to Europe, £7.80 to the USA and Canada, and £8 to Australia and NZ (if you’re elsewhere let me know and I’ll get a quote for you)."

They may take a couple more days to be ready, I only just posted them back to Gosh! today. They arrived at my house when I was in France attending Angouleme which I kept a diary account of and am currently writing up so expect that over the next day or so.

THE SHADOW OUT OF TIME

Oh my dear long neglected blog… I've been busy. Deadbeats hit shelves Nov last year - debuting at Thought Bubble where we sold out of every copy we brought with us and hot on the heels of that comes The Shadow Out of Time which is out this May from SelfMadeHero.  Here's the cover. Sneak peeks to follow over the coming weeks.  I shall endeavor to update this dear old blog more often. 

DEADBEATS!

Deadbeats has arrived at SMH HQ - The first 60 copies anywhere in the world will be available at Thought Bubble this weekend. If you want one signed and drawn in by Lackey and me then BE THERE! I'll be there Saturday and Sunday and Lackey is there Saturday only. 

There's an interview with Chris, Chad and me over at the SMH blog - I talk a little about what's different about this book for me… silhouettes is one thing I mention in the interview and you can seen an example of that on the back cover (that's from a scene inside the book), but also layout. Layout on this book was different to anything I'd done before. This time layout was all overlapping panels and panels going off into the bleed (as seen in the last snapshot here)…

THE END IS NIGH!!

The FINAL ISSUE of The New Deadwardians will be out tomorrow and a five page preview of it can be found HERE.  I have really enjoyed working on this series, its been a lot of fun and I will miss the team I've been working with - Dan Abnett (writer), Patricia Mulvihill (colorist), Travis Lanham (letterer), Will Dennis (editor), Mark Doyle (Assoc. Editor).

If you missed The New Deadwardians or you waited for the trade, the collected trade is out next February from Vertigo.

THE SHADOW OUT OF TIME

Announced on my guest bio for Though Bubble is news of my next Lovecraft adaptation, The Shadow Out of Time which will be available Spring 2013 (in time for Bristol and Kapow 2013).

DEADBEATS SNEAK PEEK 5

DEADBEATS SNEAK PEEK 4

DEADBEATS SNEAK PEEK 3

DEADBEATS SNEAK PEEK 2

DEADBEATS SNEAK PEEK 1

BRASS SUN - THE WHEEL OF WORLDS

Forgive me reader. It has been a long time since my last confession. I've been busy.

2000AD Prog 1800 is out today and in it is episode 1 of Brass Sun written by Ian Edginton and drawn by me. It is 12 episodes long and opens with a 10 page kick off.

Drawing this has been as much a journey for me as it has been a journey for the characters. I have almost 9 graphic novels under my belt so far and each of those has afforded me a chance to go back through the work and make changes before its seen print. But with episodic work you really are thinking on your feet in a whole new way. It has been an education and a hell of a lot of fun. 

Its a science-fantasy and Ian's vision for it is epic. There's been a good opportunity here for me to blow everything up big scale and really dive into the bleed with some enormous double page spreads. And the format itself is generous - 2000AD pages are pretty big. Feels like widescreen comics. 

I've enjoyed it enormously and really do hope, with any luck, that we get to do more. 

I hope you manage to pick up a copy (available in comic shops but also pretty much any newsagent in the UK from today).

PAGING DR. WILLETT

My copy of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward arrived today. I only finished it in February so I was somewhat surprised. Oh my goodness, where to start, where to start?! Rather chuffed to bits. Many thanks to SMH for all their help and expertise - especially the wonderful Lizzie Kaye who put up with no end of nonsense from me obsessing about the color!). Unlike 'At the Mountains of Madness' there's no forward in this book - the marvelous Dan Lockwood* does however provide the jacket copy which actually serves as a forward - instead we leap straight in with a curious symbol… What could it be? Oh, the mystery! The book's out this May, so, not too many sleeps till you can find out for yourselves. 

*Aside from being a marvelous fellow, Dan Lockwood is also editor and occasional writer of The Lovecraft Anthology - volume 2 of which is just out NOW from SelfMadeHero. Get it. It is brilliant! Get it also because Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer (with whom I'm working on Deadbeats) have written two brilliant adaptations for it. Go get it NOW and make your Lovecraft collection like mine.

THE DEADWARDIAN ERA

(The cover to The New Deadwardians #5)

Many thanks to everyone who picked up a copy of issue 1of The New Deadwardians from Vertigo. The response has been fantastic. All your kind and generous words have been enormously appreciated by not just me but the team also - Dan Abnett (writer), Patricia Mulvihill (colorist), Travis Lanham (letterer), Will Dennis (editor), Mark Doyle (Assoc. Editor).

Writer Dan Abnett has a word or two to say also AND a competition to mark the occasion so do be sure to check out his blog here.

To celebrate this occasion, it’s time for another blog competition, and a dead posh one it is too. Mr Culbard and I have signed, with our own fair marker pens, two copies of the first issue - the standard version and the variant cover. I will happily send them to the winner.

What do you have to do? Just post a link here to the blog (or email the site) with the most amusing or exotic place you’ve been able to place the phrase ‘The New Deadwardians’. A camera phone snap or a screengrab will do. Have you put it in your Facebook status? Have you spelled it out in magnetic letters on the side of your fridge? Have you written it on a sheet of paper and held it up in front of you on the beach in the Maldives? Have you painted it on the side of Big Ben (okay, don’t actually do that last one)? Entries will be judged on originality and amusement, and our decision will be entirely mercurial and whimsical. Good luck. Entries in by the last week in April, please (in time for the second issue!).

Dan also spoke to USA Today about the book here, and a little while back I spoke to the L. A Times about working on the book and about adapting At the Mountains of Madness for SelfMadeHero here.

D-DAY. THE NEW DEADWARDIANS HAVE LANDED

Issue 1 of New Deadwardians (an 8 part mini-series from Dan Abnett, Vertigo and me) IS OUT TODAY! And to mark the occasion here's the cover to Issue 4!

THE STARS ARE RIGHT!

As was announced today over at SMH HQ - DEADBEATS is coming to a bookshop near you this autumn, both in the UK and in the US. I first talked about this Graphic Novel all of a year ago! Its finally happening!

In other news, the cover to issue 2 of The New Deadwardians is up and has been up a couple of weeks now over on the Vertigo blog (I have been frantic busy getting stuff done this month - much calmer now). I just recently finished the cover to issue 3 so you should be seeing that soon too. All very exciting stuff and a heck of a lot of fun.

And that's not all… more announcements coming up (in March I think). Stay tuned…

THE NEW DEADWARDIANS

The cat is out of the bag. Vertigo have announced a new mini-series. The New Deadwardians by Dan Abnett and me! I have had to keep that one a secret for absolutely AGES!!! But its out now (well, first issue is out in March 2012) but I can finally say I'm doing a series for Vertigo! 

And here's the opening line to Dan's original pitch:

"May I just confess that this is a story that involves both zombies and vampires, two things I swore I would never write about because they had both long since jumped the shark. Then this idea came to me and wouldn’t leave me alone. Please be tolerant of the zombie-and-vampire-ness of this until you’ve heard me out. It’s essentially a detective story set in an alternate history England, circa 1900.”

Hence - I've been busy. 

Here is the cover to issue 1! Be sure to keep an eye out for it. 

SEA FOOD

Here's another Quai Des Bulles doodle (colored in when I got home). 

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).

A PRINCESS OF MARS COVER ART

Here's the final cover art for A Princess of Mars. The one seen in the SelfMadeHero catalogs was a texture/color rough and not quite finished. And, like the cover for At the Mountains of Madness, it is a full wrap around cover but I won't be revealing that for a bit yet. But you will be seeing sneak peeks over the coming months of the interior art.

Now, what goings on have been going on since last I posted? Well, I attended the Bristol Comics Expo a couple of weeks back where I was part of a panel discussion with David Hine, Ian Edginton, Rob Davis and Dan Lockwood - talking about the Lovecraft Anthology. I also met up with many many lovely people including Alison Sampson who's blog Space In Text is an absolute must visit (I drew Juno for her), and Stacey Whittle of Small Press Big Mouth (I drew Johnny Alpha for her). Also met, very and all too briefly, Ernesto Priego from the Comics Grid, with whom I really wish I'd had longer to chat, and Mark Clapham from Shiny Shelf who I also wish I'd spoken to for longer. I managed to miss a lot of people but hopefully will see them all soon.

LIFE ON MARS AND OTHER PLACES

(A Princess of Mars ©SelfMadeHero)

It has been a while since I last posted. I've been busy.

Above is a detail from the cover to A Princess of Mars which I'm currently adapting with Ian Edginton for SelfMadeHero. The cover to Princess of Mars as it appears in SelfMadeHero catalog is just a color/texture rough. The real deal will be revealed soon. If you haven't seen the catalog I strongly suggest you check it out now.

I thought initially that making stuff up for A Princess of Mars would be easier than sifting through mountains of research but actually the work load is no less and a lot more prone to procrastination. Really got to keep on my toes with this one. KEEP IT SIMPLE. But design time carries with it just as much ballast. It is a lot of fun though, starting my working week designing aliens.

You'll also see a snippet from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward in the SelfMadeHero catalog. Here's a little bit more.

(The Case of Charles Dexter Ward ©SelfMadeHero)

Lots happening right now. Lots in the pipeline. Exciting times.