Great Deeds Against the Dead - OUT NOW

'Great Deeds Against the Dead' is out now. It's 28 pages, black and white with colour covers and I'm selling them for £2.50. I've put it on my website on my shop page for sale with paypal or contact me for details. Free postage in the UK. It's the first part of a two part series.

Blackburn Art Market Report

Look at the weird place my stall was, it's in the entrance hall of the market which is just like a shopping arcade. I had a fish and chip shop behind me and a fruit and veg stall in front. It was a lot different from being at a comics convention! It was sunny, well lit and well ventilated though. Most people seemed confused and baffled by the idea of comics, I could have done with a big sign saying 'COMICS!!!' but after going to mainly comic conventions before I hadn't thought of this. Didn't sell many comics, I sold three copies of 'Train to Shanghai' and a set of the 'Random Journeys' trilogy. This covered my costs (£5) for the stall and getting there and a cup of coffee so I broke even for the day. I didn't sell any copies of 'The Pasty Anthology' even though they looked very nice in their fancy bags. It wasn't very busy on the market, maybe everyone was outside because it's meant to be the only sunny day this week.
Oh well. I broke even and have learned that markets in the North West (even art markets like this) aren't very good places to sell comics. Many thanks to everyone who bought a comic, I hope you liked them!

Blackburn Art Market

It's Blackburn Art Market on Saturday. My stall is meant to be in a good place, near the entrance, so hopefully I'll sell a bunch of comics. It's a weird one as it's not a comic convention so I'll be selling to new people entirely, might be good, might be bad. If anyone is nearby why not come and say hello... I'll write a report on it afterwards.

'Great Deeds Against the Dead' Proof Copy

I got the proof copy for 'Great Deeds Against the Dead' today. It looks cool. It must be some kind of record as I posted the disk with the comic on to Fallen Angel on Monday and got the proof copy today in the post! The front cover has come out nicely. It's 28 pages with colour covers.

Josh Blair, Pete Borrebach & Nick Marino, Noah Van Sciver - Apartment 307

This is a nice little anthology with three stories all by cartoonists who noticed that they all live in apartment's numbered 307 (not the same apartment or even the same city). They all wrote very different stories about their homes. There's a review of it by Rob Clough here. Noah Van Sciver I've seen with his 'Cartoonist Interviews' in the Comics Journal and his art here looks very similar. He draws himself very ugly but I like his drawing, nice and cartoony. Josh Blair uses a lot of diagrams and pictograms to show how climbing the 42 stairs to his third floor apartment are the main source of exercise for him. He says how it's a good thing he doesn't live on the fourth floor... here's a link to the Candy or Medicine blog where you can buy it.

John Robbins - Inside Outsiders #42 & The Monkey-Head Complaint

I enjoyed these two comics by John Robbins. 'Inside Outsiders' is about a group of dolls and action figures trying to work out what's going on, there's a lot of humour because of their different ways of dealing with things due to their characters, 'The Monkey-Head Complaint' is a much darker story about a bored couple and a descent into madness. Both have lovely line drawings. Highly recommended.

Joey Alison Sayers - Just So You Know #1

This is Joey Alison Sayers autobiographical comic about being transgendered and starting living as a woman. It's drawn in the style of the cover above with big round heads. It's a very happy way of drawing which makes the comic much lighter and happier, even when it deals with painful things, like her telling her mum and dad she's decided to become a woman. It's full of funny little stories such as a series of pages called 'Am I A Bitch Now?'. Have a look at her website as she does a series called 'Thingpart' which is often very funny.

David Mazzucchelli - Asterios Polyp

There has been a lot of hype and excitement about this book so I ordered it nice and early and hoped I wouldn’t be disappointed. I haven’t read anything else by Mazzucchelli so didn’t know what to expect. It’s very good I am pleased to say. The drawing is wonderful and the story is exceedingly well crafted, full of circular references. Everything has meanings and comes back later in the story. It’s surprisingly sweet too and a really nice read, it’s funny too. Highly recommended.

Pasty Anthology Bags

As it's Blackburn Art Market next Saturday I've been printing some bags up to sell the Pasty Anthology in. They have come out very nice I think and should brighten up my stall. I'm going to write my web address on the back of the bags too.

Pasty Anthology Review

First review for the Pasty Anthology is here now from Optical Sloth. Click here to read it with the pictures and I've pasted it in below... thanks Kevin!

The Pasty Anthology (edited by Rob Jackson)

A note to the American readers who have never watched any tv shows or read anything from the UK: pasties look like calzones, but with (I’m guessing here) fruits and cheeses inside. They look to be a bit much for a breakfast food, assuming that’s all they are, but what do I know? This is an anthology, with all of the stories theoretically dealing with pasties. First up is a story by Steve Butler which relates a conversation between two friends. One of them is going to get a pasty, the other has been told by his girlfriend that he has to lose some weight so goes off to get something healthier. Without giving anything away, it has an excellent ending. Next up is a piece by Francesca Cassavetti about… chewing gum. Nope, no pasties in that one. It’s still a great story, dealing with being told as a child that swallowed gum always stays in your stomach and eventually kills you. Jim Medway is next with a unique perspective, as he has a week in the life of a pasty clerk told through the faces of the recurring customers. The next piece by Dave Hughes deals with an obsessive young man, making his pasty and having everything planned out just so, only to have it all ruined by gravity. Our hero Rob Jackson has the central piece in the comic, dealing with the Greggs and their role in inventing and then improving pasties over the years. As I have no idea how much of this is historical I’m just going to leave it alone, but it’s an excellent story either way. Next is… hey, who put a text piece in here? There’s a three page story by Anthony Mercer called Devil in a Blue Tabard and, as a sucker for the hard-boiled stuff, I loved it. It’s all about a pasty shop, a missing young woman, a grimy detective and a very shiny worker. Dave Hughes has another piece next, this time dealing with a pasty festival, a pasty eating contest and the effect this contest has on the wife of one of the contestants. Finally there’s another text piece, this time by Matt Badham, dealing with the Japanese equivalent of the pasty (sort of), the natto. It took me a second after reading this to get the catch of the story, and it’s wonderful in an anthology like this, so there’s no way I’m going to ruin it. Good stuff all around, which is more than you can ask for from anthologies. I think it should also come with a free pasty so we can get an idea of exactly what they’re like, but I have no idea how that would work in the real world. No price, but I’m guessing it’s around $4.

Pasty Anthology Still Out

The Pasty Anthology is still on sale in my shop. I thought I'd post it up again as a reminder as the original post has gone way down the page now.
Here's the list of contributors again... Hopefully it'll get some reviews soon.

Matt Badham

Jim Medway

Steve Butler

Francesca Cassavetti

Dave Hughes

Ant Mercer

Rob Jackson

I like trading comics so if anyone has anything interesting they'd like to swop for a copy let me know.

Michael Kupperman - Tales Designed to Thrizzle Issue 5

This is the best issue of 'Tales Designed to Thrizzle' yet. It's a good place to start if you want to read one. They work very well as stand alone comic books. I got this one, with the Jordan Crane's from Fantagraphics as their post rates are cheap at the moment. This issue has loads of 'Twain and Einstein' stories and fake covers to comics, and also a story at the end about a man who is zapped by a passing alien and given sexy lady legs. Various events ensue. It's very funny.

Jordan Crane - Uptight 2 & 3

Look how beautiful the cover is for Uptight 3! It's lovely. It was great to read some old formatted style proper comics for a change instead of graphic novels. I was reminded of how much I enjoy the comics format like this. They are both very good comics with a great mix of short stories about relationships that reminded me a bit of Adrain Tomine, families, and one about kids exploring a freezer and finding a monster, along with their talking cat! So a good mix of stuff. Highly recommended. The drawings a bit like Kevin Huizenga but with lots of interesting swirly shapes to show movement and wind blowing past.

Michael Kupperman - Tales Designed to Thrizzle Volume 1

Hurrah! This arrived in the post on Friday so I read it over the weekend. It's a very good book. It has the first four issues of 'Tales Designed to Thrizzle' in it, all in colour this time. If you like Kupperman you should get it, have a look at his blog to see if you find him funny as I guess some people won't. There was quite a lot of his stuff I had seen before, in various places, in the book but enough new stuff to make me happy. My only problem with it was there was quite a lot of filler pages with strange abstract patterns on them, I'd have liked to see these pages filled with his awesome cartoons instead of the patterns. There are some great new 'Twain and Einstein' stories in the book, especially funny was a 70's cop show version of the characters. The wording in his little comic strips is often just perfect like were Twain says 'and there's a little boy who needs us, very very much'. See it's just right.

Cover for New Comic

This is going to be the cover for my new comic 'Great Deeds Against the Dead'. It's all finished now, just needs sending off to the printers in a week or two. This thing on the front is a weird plastic sweet / toy machine I saw in Croatia and took a photo of.

News

There's an interview with me tonight on Alex Finch's podcast radio 'Panel Borders'

Strip! - Small press Sci-Fi and Fantasy

Continuing Sci-Fi comics month on the show, we have a couple of
interviews recorded at comic book conventions with small press
creators who are working in the SF and Fantasy genres. In an interview
recorded at this year's Bristol Comics Expo, Dickon Harris talks to
comic book creator and musician Dave Lander who contributes to the
anthology comic Decadence which in the last couple of instalments has
been heavily SF themed, Dave also produced a CD soundtrack to go with
recent issues. Also, Alex Fitch talks to Rob Jackson about his fantasy
comics Random Journeys and Bog Wizards which combine unreliable
narrators, humour and magical landscapes, in an interview recorded at
a pub in the East End after the UK Web & Mini Comix Thing.

5pm Thursday 09/07/09, repeated 11.30pm Sunday 12/07/09 Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / podcast soon after transmission at www.panelborders.wordpress.com

I haven't heard it yet so I'll have a listen when I get home tonight. I hope I don't sound too stupid. I was fairly drunk from 3 pints of Stella in rapid succession and no food all day, so that's my excuse...
It was just after the UK Web Comix Thing at Schmurgen Con.

ALSO
Paul Rainey says nice things about 'The Pasty Anthology' on his news blog.

PS- Listened to the interview now. I wish I'd sounded more enthusiastic about my comics... oh well, I was a bit grumpy as I had hardly sold anything at the UK Comix Thing that day. I like my comics really...

Pasty Anthology - OUT NOW

The Pasty Anthology is back from the printers and now on sale at my website, just go to the shop page. It is 28 pages with colour covers and priced only £2.50... free postage in the UK. Otherwise ask me for postage rates. It's very good. Thanks everyone who has done stories for it, they are great! I'll send the contributors copies out tomorrow.