Vanessa Davis - Make Me a Woman

This was a very nice collection of autobiographical comics by Vanessa Davis. I'd read most of the fancy colour ones on-line as there were lots of links to them as they came out, from the Comics Reporter. They are well worth reading again. The book also has lots of lovely pencil drawing pages from her sketchbooks. I am always a big fan of good pencil drawings and these are great. It's nice to read some autobiography that's more finished for a change and pretty to look at, after all the diary style, done in a hurry, autobiography I've been reading lately. Not that there's anything wrong with that stuff, it's just nice to have a change. It's a very good looking oversized book, very well printed.

Maybe the Front Cover of 'The Gods Must be Bastards'

Any good? I'm not sure. It still needs some work anyhow.

Signs for Thought Bubble

I've made my new signs today for my table at Leeds Thought Bubble. There's one for 'Gin Palace 2' and one for 'Goblin Hall'.

'The Gods Must be Bastards' Back Cover

This is going to be the back cover for 'The Gods Must Be Bastards'. I'm going for something much more subtle for the front cover, but I've finally decided what it'll be now. Once 'Gin Palace 2' is back from the printers and on sale I'll get this one sent off, hopefully it'll come out in January.
Actual colours are much better than this, it's a poor quality scan....

Johnny Ryan - Prison Pit 2

Yay! I'd been looking forward to this and I wasn't disapointed. It's got fancy silver shiny covers too. More brutal violence and scatological goings on in the prison world. It's more of the same from book one but I'm not bored of it yet, at all, if anything it's got funnier. It has a great opening sequence too which I won't spoil by telling what it is in case people haven't seen it yet. If you liked the first one I highly recommend it.

'Goblin Hall'

Garen Ewing liked 'Goblin Hall', he mentions it here on his blog. That's good news as I really like his 'Rainbow Orchid' series. I must get part two at Leeds if he is there. I've still got lots of copies of 'Goblin Hall' for sale if anyone wants one, £3 at my website.

I spent this afternoon cutting up cheese. It's a nice way to spend the day. Also I could eat all the bits that I cut wonkily.

Look at my Cheese

I bought 10kg of cheese today to try and sell on my stall over the winter. It's lovely stuff. I have Creamy Lancashire, Crumbly Lancashire and Ewes Milk Cheese. Now I am a kind of cheesemonger.

Correction Robot

Here's the first half page of my new space story 'Correction Robot'. It might look like I am only drawing space stories at the moment but the last one I did was in January. I can't decide what to do for the cover of 'The Gods Must Be Bastards' so no news on that yet.

'Bastards 2 - Bastards Score Again' Review

Here's a nice review of 'Bastards 2' from the Forbidden Planet blog.

AX Alternative Manga Vol. 1

I hope that Volume 1 in the title means there are going to be more of these as this is very very good. There's some really great stories in this anthology. 'Love's Bride' by Yoshihiro Tatsumi cracks me up, it's very funny and dark and was my favourite. I also really liked Katsuo Kawai and Kazuichi Hanawa. It's great to finally read full stories in English of all these manga artists I have only ever read about before. I had never heard of Toranusuke Shimada before but I really enjoyed his 'Enrique Kobayashi's Eldorado' about the strange history of a rare motorbike. Some of the other stories didn't do much for me, but they all have interesting and very varied art at least so there is always something to look at. It made me want to go and draw after I'd finished reading it so that's cool.
Highly recommended to everyone.

A 3 Hour Comic

As I was feeling a bit stuck all this week with the drawing, I did this 3 hour comic today. I had to draw as fast as possible and do all the people with my brush pen. Those were the rules... it's nice to make up stupid rules for drawings.

Gin Palace 2 Contributors

Here's the full list of all the 'Gin Palace 2' contributors.

Andrew Cheverton
John Robbins
Dave Hughes
Francesca Cassavetti
Jarod Rosello
Pete Batchelor
Barry Cook
Rob Jackson
Paul Rainey
Sin-Cat
Brad Foster

thanks everyone!

Gin Palace 2

I've just got the last contribution in for 'Gin Palace 2'. It's a brilliant story from Francesca Cassavetti.

It's all done now so tomorrow I'll put them all in order and then send it off to the printers. Thanks everyone! It will be 56 pages long with colour covers.

Gin Palace 2

Today I got a three page story from Andrew Cheverton for 'Gin Palace 2'. It's very cool. Nearly finished now!

Gin Palace 2

Today I got a new 5 page story for 'Gin Palace 2' from John Robbins. Here's the first page, it's very good.