Free comics up for grabs

Richard Bruton has kindly posted a review of Striptacular 2 on Forbidden Planet.
You can read it HERE







And don't forget Saturday is Free Comic Book Day. Matt Sheret and We are Words + Pictures will be handing out a free newspaper featuring a veritable smorgasbord of the best of British independent comics with work by Sean Azzopardi, Tom Humberstone, yours truly, Joe Decie, Lizz Lunney, Mark Ellerby, Jamie McElvie and countless others at Orbital. More information HERE
Tonight I will be heading over to Kings Cross for the launch of Solipsistic Pop 2 at the Cross Kings. This one looks to be even more awesome than the first issue!

The story so far

The last few months have been a whirlwind of activity after years of furtively drawing my comics on my own with little or no feedback.
Having fortuitously met Gary Northfield at an Indesign course, he encouraged me to put my comics in Gosh! and Orbital where they were picked up by Paul Gravett who invited me to take part in the 24 hour comic event at the ICA.

This summer I also created a strip for the Observer Graphic Short Story competition. I didn't win but was pleased with my effort and the standard of entries was so high that I didn't feel embarrassed

( although slightly baffled by the winning entry).


You can check out some of the other entries here.

















The 24 hour comic thing was a complete blast – very little sleep, warm coca cola and a fantastic bunch of very talented other participants including Sean Azzopardi (Twelve Hour Shift), Takayo Akiyama (Siamese Twins), Richy Chandler (Tempolush), Tom Humberstone(Vented Spleen) and Alex Potts (Lost Shoe Comics) to name a few.

You can read it here

A couple of weeks later I took part in the ICA Comiket small press comic fair. I made up my 24 hour effort into a mini comic to sell along with my other efforts. Again a brilliant day (not from a commercial point of view- spent more on comics and beer than I made).
Not only caught up with Richy and Sean and got a chance to talk to some of my other fellow 24hrers like Richard Peel and Oliver East but met even more great people and did loads of good swaps.
Having finally worked my way through my big pile of swag, I'm still chuckling over the wit and wisdom of Richard's Fights and Wizards, loved Oliver's beautifully observed Trains are...mint 1-3 and the raw miserabilism of Bedsit journal is hilariously drawn by Richard Cowdry (an awful lot of cartoonists seem to be called Richard...)