AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS SNEAK PEEK 3

(At the Mountains of Madness © 2010 SelfMadeHero)

WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE POWYS

I got back yesterday from the Guardian Hay festival in Hay-on-Wye where Edginton and I did a talk about the Holmes books we've been working on for SelfMadeHero to a packed out tent of 200 people (it was originally supposed to be 50!)

And I have to say, the festival organisers and our publishers, SelfMadeHero, looked after us tremendously well.

Hay-on Wye is a book town. The first of its kind. Richard Booth (the King of Hay-on-Wye) changed Hay from a small market town into a book town for book lovers and it's full of second-hand bookshops. Had I died and gone to heaven? It was an almost surreal experience. And Booth's own bookshop itself is absolutely wonderful. I was stood in the theology section when I was approached by the bookshop cat. I was so giddy with the idea of being in a small town with millions of books it wouldn't really have been such an unusual occurrance if the cat had asked me if I would have liked a glass of red wine!

Glorious bliss. I hope to return one day.

LAUGHTER IS NOT THE BEST MEDICINE

So.

I attended the Bristol Comic convention this year. Just 10 days after another hernia operation. I thought I was fine. No heavy lifting - had kept myself sensible for a good few days and not raced back to work - I had rested! Little did I know that meeting up with HUZZAH!! squadies at the con (the likes of my dearest brethren, Colin Fawcett, Dave Taylor and Rob Davis) would result in me ending up in Bristol A&E on Friday night. And why? All because Rob Davis cracked a joke that made me laugh SO hard I actually did quite literally bust a stitch. We were sat in the bar in the Mercure Hotel and after an evening of raucous laughter I got up and noticed a flowering circle of red blood appearing on my t-shirt that signaled I was bleeding and quite badly. So Col, gawd bless him, ensured I got to hospital and got sorted. The night ended with me at one in the morning getting patched up proper and sent back.

But this of course meant that on the Saturday I could not lean over a desk in the traditional hunched manner of an artist and do sketches for people. And for that I apologize. I only wish I'd had the presense of mind to those who asked to say 'but if you find me at the bar do say 'hey, how about that sketch' because the bar counter is higher up = no leaning involved I could quite easily do a sketch - but alas no.

Anyway. More now on who I met:

Simon Gane. The illustriously illustrated illustrator. Lovely chap. Helped me narrow down my choices of tattoos as he has many and they are marvelous.

Garen Ewing. Equally lovely chap. Flattered he thought I would look like Holmes (I suspect he was disappointed).

(The Sign of the Four © 2010 SelfMadeHero)

Interesting conversation regarding goofs! Fair play. Managed to nab a copy of Rainbow Orchid vol.2. Just beautiful.

Overall a lovely time was had even if Friday night was a bit of a horror. Bought a lot of books from Cinebook as has become traditionally the case. They're set to start publishing Valerian & Laureline in July and I cannot wait!!! Only wish I'd got to speak to Geek Syndicate. Damn!! Maybe next time, gadget!!!

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)

(The Sign of the Four © 2010 SelfMadeHero)

(The Sign of the Four © 2010 SelfMadeHero)

AND WITH STRANGE AEONS...

FROM THE CRYPTIC REALMS OF ICE AND DEATH...

A STUDY IN SCARLET - GRAPHIC NOVEL OF THE MONTH

A review of A Study in Scarlet appeared in The Observer last Sunday, declaring it Graphic Novel of the month!

"Culbard and Edginton are adept at concision... I relished every page”
- Rachel Cooke, The Observer

Also, Richard Bruton over at the Forbidden Planet International blogged upon the books release:

"SelfMadeHero’s Sherlock Holmes is turning out, thanks to the combined brilliance of Mssrs Conan Doyle, Edginton and Culbard, to be a wonderfully entertaining series of books. I can heartily recommend them and I’m already finding myself lamenting the fact that there are just two more in the series after this."

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.

(The Sign of the Four © 2009 SelfMadeHero)

(The Sign of the Four © 2009 SelfMadeHero)

(The Sign of the Four © 2009 SelfMadeHero)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHERLOCK HOLMES

(The Sign of the Four © 2009 SelfMadeHero)

(The Sign of the Four © 2009 SelfMadeHero)

(The Sign of the Four © 2009 SelfMadeHero)

(The Sign of the Four © 2009 SelfMadeHero)

HUZZAH NEW YEAR!!

And now 2009 is the year that was. 2010 is upon us. And Arthur C. Clarke's wrong yet again.

And its been a blast. I thought 2008 was all about big changes?!?! Wow. Hit the ground running at the turn of 2009 with a chunk of the as-yet-to-be-published Hound of the Baskervilles under my belt but with a good solid month and a half of really hard work ahead of me before I turned it in. By this point my wife and I had discovered much to our delight that another baby was on the way and then almost as quickly as work on Baskervilles had ended then work on A Study in Scarlet was underway. In the middle of it all I got to work with Rob Davis on a Doctor Who story for the 2010 Doctor Who Storybook. I had my studio built/converted and I moved in to finish Study in Scarlet. Then just as I finished the book the baby (a boy!) was born!! Not too long after that I learned I'd be doing my first solo book (At the Mountains of Madness) as work began on The Sign of the Four. And right at the tail end of the year CBBC called me in to help with the visual development of a new TV show - So there you have it. 2009 in a nutshell. My feet have barely touched the ground.

And during all this two HUZZAH!! blogs have been rumbling along. There's the main HUZZAH!! which this year has evolved into HUZZAH!! Part 2 (or rather HUZZAH!! VENGEANCE OF VOLDAR) and there's HUZZAH!! NOIR which started back in April and concludes this April. So.... busy busy busy!

New Years resolutions: Well I don't smoke, and I'm a moderate drinker (I enjoy a glass of red wine with a meal and rarely drink beer now... not having hangovers when you've got two kids is a plus), but I do need more fresh air, more exercise. I sit at a desk all day so that'd be the first one. We live a stones throw from a choice of country parks (we even overlook a large recreation ground) so I'm going to be getting those shoes on more often and going out with an audiobook on the ipod and a notepad of course ;-) Also, I cook but I'm not an amazing cook. I want to learn three dishes and learn to cook them amazingly well. Oh and blog more frequently. Naturally.

Roll on 2061.

HUZZAH!! 2009

Finished HUZZAH!! for 2009 late last night with a sprint to the finish line. It's been an interesting year. I think we realised towards the end that this really wasn't a year long self contained story but the beginning of a much bigger story and so it shall continue into 2010. Who knows where it will lead? All that is known is that the backdrop for next year's story is war.

Next year will see a small rule change. Contributors will still have 3 days to contribute, however they'll have up to nine plates they can contribute on their turn. Running HUZZAH!! NOIR slightly later in the year gave me the opportunity to try out the extended page count rule (which allows NOIR contributors to use up eight plates at a time on their turn) and what this gave the story was some considerable clarity and pace. So next year's HUZZAH's story will likely be a different beast to its previous year. Hopefully we'll have a couple of new contributors too.

Don't forget - you can read HUZZAH!! in full from start to finish here.