May (for reals)

Squeezing this one in a little last minute, huh? things have been just a tad hectic this month but before we get into that I just realise I totally forgot to mention A Rather Exciting Development last time round;

I have an agent?!?

It’s true! A while ago I was approached by Jas Perry at KT Literary about working on a young adult graphic novel. That project wound up getting stalled (publishing is a slow and grinding beast), but round February I was approached about Something Else which lead to an offer for representation and here we are! This is still blowing my mind on a semi-regular basis- TL;DR I spent A LOT OF TIME during 2019 shopping around my MA thesis project, a ludicrously big (370 pages) and wildly NOT market-friendly (sad adults blowing up their lives with zero genre hooks) graphic novel. that, combined with a trip to Bologna book fair as part of aforementioned MA where the general feedback was ‘too spikey for kids’, I’d kinda given up on finding rep or breaking into that market… so yeah, I’m pretty freaking pumped. So far Jas has been AMAZING and I could not sing her praises more loudly. I’m also super jazzed to be on the books along side such amazing creators as SON. M, SARAH BURGESS and SAMUEL TEER who’s work you should TOTALLY be checking out.

CAT FIGHT #3

The third issue of ANDREW WHEELER and ILIIAS KRYIAZIS’ CAT FIGHT is out now in previews world! This time disgraced cat burglar Felix finds himself in France, but all is not gay en París…

A few of the options we were playing about with for this issue

Aaaaaaand above is sneak peak of what’s in store for issue #4, namely INCREASING PERIL.

ROUGE SUN

At the start of the yea Massive-Verse editor MICHAEL BUSUTTIL reached out about doing a cover for ROUGE SUN’s upcoming run of variants showcasing various villains from the series. This already sounded like a pretty plum gig but then I found out said villain was a werewolf-vampire and OH BABY. Needless to say this was a HUGE amount of fun and massive a thank you to Michael for the opportunity (and chance to go full metal!)

here’s the link to issue #14 on Previews World

DEATH DROP

This month David and I have been doing the podcast rounds to help spread the word about DEATH DROP. A few of these have already gone live, including our appearance on Keeping it Geekly. Cody’s a fantastic interviewer and I’ve been riding high off his enthusiasm for the medium for a few days. His backlog is full of great chat so do be sure to check him out and we’re super grateful to him for him helping us put out the word!

Follow Cody on substack;

Keeping it Geekly's Substack

FCO for issue #1 has been and gone but you can still order directly through the Scout website.

PROJECT #🎒

So… that Something Else I mentioned at the top of the post? The main reason this month’s been borderline dental-dusting levels of crunch is that things have well and truly kicked off on that. I’m currently aiming to have 272 pages of what will hence forth be referred to as #project🎒 (till who-knows-when this thing gets announced) laid out by *checks notes* mid-July? It’s… a pretty intense clip (especially since I have an issue and change of death drop to finish as well as some other things on the go that I didn’t quite manage to wrap up before this kicked off A WHOOPS), but so far I am so incredibly excited to be getting my teeth into this :D

RECOMMENDATIONS

Amalas

if you don’t already know AMALAS ROSA and you like your drawings full of lived-in urban clutter then i HIGHLY recommend giving her a follow. she recently dropped this great post about how-to-think-when-you-draw-window-frames which has been living in my head rent-free;

if you want more of this good stuff then it might be worth checking out her patreon where more tutorials like this are available.

Fred Again

another thing that’s been living in my head rent-free is Fred Again’s Tiny Desk Set. i’ve always really enjoyed these stripped back sets but this one’s something special when you take into account the SHEER TECHNICAL CRAFT that went into pulling it off (also that it’s a live, acoustic recreation of something that is originally very WUB-WUB-WUB;

idk… there’s something about Fred Again’s technicality and utterly infectious love-of-the-craft that really gets to me. His first appearance on the EXCELLENT tape notes podcasts is one of the most enjoyable creative interviews I’ve ever listened to and would HIGHLY recommend;

Depths

writing duo WELLS THOMPSON and DALTON SHANNON are currently running a kickstarter for their new graphic novel project, DEPTHS. This is a highly personal book for the pair, exploring themes of depression and isolation at the depths of the ocean, brought to life by the visual team of x y and z. I am EXTREMELY here for people’s go-for-broke passion projects and if you, like me, want to see more comics about sad adults, you might want to check this out! (want to know more? catch wells talking to comic book yeti about it HERE).

Till next month- In the meantime if you have any recommendations of great interviews, tutorials or Out-There projects absolutely sound off in the comments xoxox