Bristol Reports

Check out Oli Smith's Bristol Convention report which is almost as good as ours.


Was drunk and thought it would be a good idea to try and revive my childhood superhero alterego "Ollie Orbit" as a sci-fi fairytale. Might happen. But probably not...

'Alo

So, yes, spent the past weekend in the rolling fields of the Midlands to attend one of them MCM Expo thingies. A curious world where you must own a car to get anywhere and herds of emo kids graze on grassy laybys like cattle.

These expos hold a different crowd than the usual Bristol or Birmingham shindigs. Lots of families, children, kids dressed up for that cosplay lark and collector types who are there to get autographs from Vampire Extra #2 from episode 2.5 of Buffy (we actually got chummy with the son of 'Alo 'Alo! actor, Richard "Herr Flick" Gibson, who was there signing).
Had a great first day (we're now officially sold out of TFTF#2 after two print runs), we had a sign on our table proclaiming "FREE SKETCHES!" which was swiftly changed to "FREE SKETCH WITH EVERY PURCHASE" after we'd been swamped with requests (mainly for demonic kebab shop owner, Stavros who I hate drawing).

Many thankyous to Modern Monstrosity's third man, Jake Harold who we crashed with over the weekend. His hospitality was second to none. His sense of direction and geography however was pants. Love you Jake!

Sunday wasn't quite as hot. Only a few comics sold but it was made up for by good conversation and plenty of jokes. Very much looking forwards to the London Expo next month (the weekend after Birmingham) which last year was a huge success for us.

And lastly, here are some pics of the
new album from UK hip-hop
supremo, VerbT, "Verbs With A Vengeance", for whom Modern Monstrosity provided the sleeve's two page comic strip and cover image. Great music, great package. Go go get it.

Another lastly. Curtis and Terrorist now have a proper site, it's only in baby stages at the moment so stuff's still being added as I scan it.

Peace out.

Convention Update

Getting ready for a convention this weekend but it doesn't look like our printer's gonna have the TFTF Collected Edition done in time. I'm really wanting to get into the world of real self-publishing, whereby we print the little fuckers out ourselves at home and don't have to deal with a printer who're located miles away.

The convention's located in the midlands. It's one of them big manga/sci-fi "expos" where, as Rich Johnston said, they get a load of extras from Star Wars, put em ina room and charge you 20quid to see them. They are however, good fun. It's a younger crowd and TFTF seems to go down well with them.

No worries about not having the collected thing printed in time though, since there's another two cons coming up next month, the sequel to last year's Birmingham con and another expo shindig both in a week of eachother.

Below is a piece done a while back that was intended to be the front cover for a planned Tales From The Flat Anthology which would feature TFTF stories by other writers and artists.
But realising no one would actually buy it, we decided instead to use the stories within the actual TFTF issues as backups to the feature story (Malory Chan is up first in issue seven).
The cover will now probably get used as a back cover of an upcoming issue or promotional duties.
It started as a vague pencil sketch by me a while back and then my good Pal Chris Thompson worked his painting crazy powers over it and turned out this beauty.
Chris is in America at the moment, carving out a big piece of the pie for himself. Miss ya you cunt!
Check his site.

And back to the drawing board with me. Currently working on a six page Cheerleaders vs Zombie/Vampires story for upcoming MM comic "Rindhouse" along with Dan Lester's Muder Mystery (now an ongoing series!).
Just trying to get as much drawing done as possible before Halo3 comes along and steals my eyes...

Harry Harry Pothead

Been a slow couple of weeks. Just finishing up our contribution for Dan Lester's Mikey Rourke Anthology (doing more work for him than our own stuff lately) which is entitled "Being Mikey Rourke". Speaks for itself.

Over here we have my interpretation of that naughty little crackhead, Harry Potter. It's for my Potter-obsessed girlfriend who's having nasty withdrawal symptoms after finishing the last book. I have however, bought her a Harry game for her Nintendo DS along with this pic and she's still a shivering wreck. I must say, I draw a great Voldermort...

Second up is a pin-up for Jake Harold's upcoming "Tards", his first proper printed work which will (hopefully) be premiering at the Midlands Expo in a couple of weekends time.

I'm actually convinced that Jake's a robot. Tards is 44 pages, all done on within four weeks. He's drawn, inked and lettered it all himself. You're a freak, Jake. But I'm fucking proud of you.

Unfortunately, I didn't draw this. It's by one of my heroes, Jamie Hewlett and painted over by Ashley Wood. Definitely one of my favorite comic covers of the year.
Tank Girl was one of the first comics I ever read and has always been a big influence. This new series from IDW is great so far, even without Mister Hewlett on board.