THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NAO (PART I)

Okay, it has been awhile since I updated this blog. It has been a very busy year. Hot off the back of last year which was insanely busy too. Plus, I lost a month due to surgery back in March which went horribly wrong but that's another story for another time and really less important than the fact that I'm alright now! No amount of time in hospital is great when you're freelance. So, I've been playing catch up and working hard.

Now I'm sort of back on top of things I'm determined to update this blog more regularly. I have a new book out, The Shadow Out of Time, and I'm currently drawing the second twelve part series of Brass Sun (due out in 2000AD this Autumn) and I've just written my first original graphic novel, Celeste. Celeste is not an adaptation and not remotely Lovecraftian. It is going to be nearly 200 pages long and full colour and there will be more about this over the coming months as I'm working on it right now and it will be out next spring in the UK and the US simultaneously from SelfMadeHero.  And to top it all, Dan Abnett and I are also set to start working again quite soon on a new collaboration.

In short, exciting times! Much to do and much to write about the doing there of.

For now, let me begin with a story that goes right back to the beginning of the year, back to January 29th.   Glyn Dillon (writer and artist of The Nao of Brown) and I travelled to France together for the Angouleme 40th year festival (where the French edition of Nao was in the running for the Jury prize) at the invitation of our French publishers, Akileos.  I kept a sort of incomplete journal of our adventures, so, here it is, this is just the first part of four which I will post over the next few days…

Cue swirly flashback graphics and harp.

JANUARY 29th.
Set off late. Wanted to say goodnight to my bairns before I hit the road. My youngest said 'see you in the morning' almost breaking my heart before I'd even set a foot out the door. 

Arrived in Mother London, tired, nauseous for eating carbs on the train, and outraged at the price of an underground ticket! I caught a train to Glyn's house, but at that price I was expecting a piggy back at the very least.

He opened the door barefoot and dressing gowned and I realised I was considerably later than I'd anticipated. The rest of the house was abed so I trod as quietly as any six foot four galah could. He made me tea and asked if I recognise the room I was standing in. Took a moment for me to realise… it was Nao's kitchen and living room.  I was in Nao's house. A surreal moment as fact and fiction collided. When I read the book, Nao became a sort of tulpa, she became real, and here I a was, one half sitting in Glyn's house, one half sitting in Nao's.

I was to sleep in Nao's room, the actual room at the actual house in the actual bed. The bed was Nao sized. My feet stuck out at the end.

I wrote my Angouleme diary long hand in the absence of a smart phone and in the light of a lamp I christened 'the moon' even though it wasn't even moon shaped. The off switch was guarded by a tiger.

So many books. So many wonderful things. But I had to sleep. Cab booked for seven am.

Tiger be damned…