Hi. Sorry. It’s been a while since my post. Which isn’t entirely my fault… On top of my laptop having a nervous breakdown before I went to TCAF, I’ve been having problems with WordPress – which seemed to decide, on a whim, that it would delete any new posts I wrote the second I clicked publish. I’ve lost a couple of long, in-depth blog posts this way but – fingers crossed – I think I’ve finally managed to sort it out.

These annoying technical problems have been even more infuriating for me than they usually would as I’ve been preparing to use this blog a lot more frequently lately. I’ve decided I tend to use it simply to advertise new events I’m organising or show off new work. Which isn’t explicitly a bad thing, but I’d like to write a bit more too. Use this blog the way it should be used. I have a few pieces I’ve written for other sources that I’ll be posting here, alongside some new thoughts I’ve been having about various aspects of the comic industry – so keep an eye out for all that now that I’ve got a working computer and blog…

Comics for sale

In the meantime, you may have already noticed images of my books down the sidebar of this blog. Clicking these will take you to the individual pages for each book where you’ll be able to order them. International orders are slightly more expensive due to postage I’m afraid. Of course, if you live in London you can still pop into Orbital Comics and save yourself the postage costs. I’ll also try and drop a few copies into Gosh! today. Those of you wondering where Art School Scum is will be interested to hear that the fourth (and final) printing is now sold out. There are maybe two or three copies in Orbital but otherwise it’s gone. More about this and why I won’t be printing it again in a future post.

Book launch pics

A couple of friends who came to the book launch gave me these pictures which I thought I’d upload for anyone who’s interested. The exhibition of my original artwork has remained in Orbital all month and will be taken down at the end of tomorrow so stop by if you haven’t already. Thanks again to everyone who came to the launch. Those of you who didn’t make it are dead to me and shall never be forgiven.

(photos by Rachael and Chloe)

First off, I’d like to thank everyone who came to the book launch on Friday night.

I was my usual stressed bundle of nerves as expected. But I was genuinely touched by the amount of people who came and the night was incredibly successful, pleasant, and enjoyable. This is mainly thanks to the wonderful staff at Orbital Comics who kept everyone in drinks and stuck around after hours to help out.

At some point soon I’ll find a bit of time to blog some photos from the evening and take copies of the comics to all the London comic shops.

For now, Orbital is the only place with copies. I’ve already restocked the sold out first batch of books for those who couldn’t make it but want to pick up a copy. Those of you looking to order them online may, sadly, have to wait until I return from TCAF before I can focus on getting that side of things ready. But bear with me.

On the subject of TCAF – I’ll be making my way to Toronto tomorrow morning in preparation for the weekend of comic book goodness. I honestly haven’t seen such an amazing line-up of alternative and independent comic creators like this before. I am beyond excited.

Check out the current line-up here.

I’ve also been asked to be part of a panel discussing the pros and cons of studying comics at art school. This will be on the Sunday afternoon. Hopefully I won’t embarrass myself:

1:30pm-2:30pm: Going to School For Comics

Are there benefits to going to an institute of higher educated in order to learn… comic books? We’ll meet several graduates of art, illustration, and comics-specific programs who do comics, as they talk about their experiences in art school, and how they’ve applied them to their comics career. Panelists include Lucy Knisely, Ross Campbell, Ginette LaPalme, Tom Humberstone. Moderated by Douglas Wolk.

Check out the rest of the impossibly impressive schedule of events here.

You can also read a short interview with me (and several other attending artists) via Toronto’s National Post here.

I’ll be hanging out in Toronto for a few days afterwards – hopefully catching a Toronto Pen Club and attempting to sneak into the Scott Pilgrim sets. If you happen to be in the area and want to say “hi” (and possibly other, preferably encouraging, words) during TCAF, please do!