I'm about to pop my cherry. In the independent-graphic-novel-self-publishing-and-promotion sense, that is. This weekend is the Bristol Comic Expo, which takes place just down the street from me and is perfectly timed as I've just received my first batch of proofs for "Throat". MASSIVE, RAGING YAYNESS!!
I've never been at an expo as a vendor, in fact I usually just go to these types of things to geek out , and not very often - we're talking twice in seven years. So it's safe to say that, all things considered, I'm a little green. Hopefully my fellow comic book geeks will be kind and not treat me like the new kid in school who talks weird and smells funny. Essentially this weekend will serve as a trial run for the MCM Expo in London, which is a fortnight from now, so I can use the next couple days to fine-tune my sales patter and presentation skills. The latter, at present, boils down to throwing as much of my priced-to-own shit on a table as will fit, in vaguely-organised stacks; the former is pretty much just this:
I'm pretty sure I'll come back rich.
It's all been such a rush, what with the book only just coming out, that I haven't really had time to construct a marketing strategy beyond some local flyering. There'll be a proper website, (possibly-animated) promo videos, cards, hand-outable mini-comics and suchlike a-comin', but for now I just have my books, some sampler CDs and a poster. Okay, I didn't have time to get a proper poster printed. What I did have, however, were nine sheets of Asda's finest "That'll Do"-Range econo-paper, a guillotine and some sellotape. They don't call me ol' Resourcefulness McGillicutty for nothin':
Switching creative hats, the second Skwigly Podcast is now live! After what turned out to be a pretty successful pilot experiment back in March, Steve Henderson and I put together a fairly mammoth follow-up which we hope to in turn develop into a twice-monthly affair.
Well, I've been floating on roughly four hours of sleep a night for the last week, but it's finally over. "Throat", my very first original, non-adapted graphic novel, is finished. Only one day passed the deadline, too!
Such is the beauty of print-on-demand distribution, the book can be bought online immediately and in two formats. First there's the standard edition with black and white interior artwork for a measly tenner, then there's the deluxe, full-colour edition for a less-measly twenty-five squids. I know, I know, it's pretty steep but it has to be to cover the production costs (at 230 pages it's a fairly chunky comic).
These versions are currently being distributed by Lulu, my P.O.D. go-to, but I'll be pushing hard to get wider distribution and an Amazon listing, which I've had some luck with in the past. While I wait, the plan is to be as proactive as possible so far as pushing it at expos and such. As per, this blog will be the place for the info along with throatbook.com which has been updated to include purchase links, although it's still pretty much a teaser page until the 12th.
I'm a little too emotionally exhausted (aaw, ain't I pretty?) to get into the details of the whole process just yet, but I do want to take the time to thank those of the various people who I reached out to for feedback that got back to me. In the last couple months I managed to fine-tune the story and character development, which has made a huge difference in terms of clarity and keeping the whole thing engaging throughout. So sincere thanks go out to Sam Morrisson, Alison Eire, Karin Saari, Jane Davies, Luca Kiss and Michelle Cioccoloni, as well as special shout-outs to my old schoolmate Toby Shipway for his medical insight, Jo Hepworth for her general awesomeness and support and Nusha Amini for keeping me motivated since I started the earliest development work on the project nearly two years ago. Even for a side-project, that seems like a long-ass time to work on a book, and even though things didn't kick off properly before last August, it felt like a lot longer.
Oh well. Break's over. What next?
I know, it's been deathly quiet around here this month. The last few weeks have been devoted to finishing off "Throat" and getting the final product as polished as possible, so there hasn't been much of my bloggery. However, within the week it will be out in the world, after which time you won't be able to shut me up about it.
Meanwhile I've gone and secured a domain name for it, so add throatbook.com to your bookmarks, folks! It's just a teaser page for the time being, but a proper site with lots of juicy bits should be up for the 12th.
Brevity being the soul of so many things (self-promoting blog entries, in this case), I'll keep this one succinct just to update any Serbian folk out there on the screening time for "Ground Running" at the Belgrade Documentary & Short Film Festival, which just kicked off. It'll be part of the International Animation screening which begins 4:30pm on April 3rd, in the main hall of the Dom Omladine. Full info here, Serbs and Serbettes. Hope that sentence wasn't racist...
For the local Bristolian folk, the CineMe event I wrote of previously had to be rescheduled for later on this month, apparently the organiser's external HD with all the films on it decided to shit the bed. I've been there. Anyway it's now happening on the 24th (Tuesday) in the Tobacco Factory greenroom at 8pm. Please come, if you do I'll let you poke at me and rub my balding pate for luck.
I have no more things to say and will stop typing now.
So yesterday saw the launch of my latest endeavour for which I have no discernible background or education, that being my first ever podcast. Put together with fellow animation writer Steve Henderson as the most recent and logical extension of Skwigly, one hopes it'll kick things up a notch in terms of reader/listener participation. So far it seems to have gone down rather well, with over 300 listens in the first 24 hours, along with some really encouraging feedback.
Yes...YES! VALIDATE me!!
Of course the draw isn't my awful, lisping, transatlantic-accented rants but the caliber of guests on board, and obviously with "The Pirates!" opening this week having my aforementioned chat with Peter Lord is a huge boon, not to mention some insightful contributions from Aardman's Miles Bullough on last week's tax break announcement and Fraser MacLean on his recent book.
The next few podcasts have some fantastic guests lined up as well, so knock wood people will continue to tune in. For now it's a monthly thing but depending on interest it may wind up being a little more frequent. Until then, please do give the ol' 'play' button below a click and share the Lord-have-mercy living shite out of it.
If nothing else, you don't have to read a goddamn word. Gotta count for something, right?
This month's Skwigly feature is up, and it's a fairly monumental one. I was very privileged to get to meet with Peter Lord (one of the triumvirate which brought the world a little animation studio called Aardman, in the farcically unlikely scenario that anyone reading an animation-themed blog such as this wouldn't know that already). Obviously given the impending release of his new film "The Pirates!", getting time with him was a real coup, one owed to fellow Skwigly writer (and current editor) Steve whose interview it should've been but unfortunate circumstances dictated I step in. Not that I'm complaining. It was a great opportunity and yet another legend I've been able to sit down and natter with. Also the interview goes hand-in-hand with the latest Skwigly development - which will be revealed next week - that we're all quite excited about. In the meantime do get settled and give it a read, he's a very fascinating, candid fellow with some very interesting insights into the film and filmmaking in general: •A Conversation with Aardman's Peter Lord on "The Pirates!"
Three of my films - "Ground Running", "The Naughty List" and "Norton & Friends" (my Opie & Anthony mini-short) are getting a rare local screening this coming Tuesday (20th, not the 27th as suggested by the flier below) at CineMe Shorts here in Bristol. It'll also be the first and possibly only time my O&A animation will be seen on a screen bigger than a computer monitor so I'm looking forward to that.It'll take place at the Tobacco Factory - a fine venue where I frequently go to, amongst other things, draw naked people - at 8pm and tickets are a fiver (more info here). So if you're a local come on down and berate me.As well as being shown Monday afternoon at 2:05pm, two more confirmed April broadcast slots for "La Lista Traviesa" (the Spanish incarnation of "The Naughty List") will be on Thursday 12th at 2:05am and Thursday 26th and 1:35am over on Canal+ Xtra. So if you overdid the ol' afternoon siesta and can't sleep, give it a watch. On a completely separate musical note, I've started doing my first live shows of 2012. Nothing worth advertising, just little slots here and there to stay practiced and work out some new material. I've also started recording again and have put online my first studio recording since "The Book of Women". It's kinda different, sort of melancholy country-western-ish, which is something I'd never imagined coming out of me. Give it a listen and, if you like, a free-as-gratis download over at SoundCloud. High Midnight by Struwwelpeter
Assuming you've been able to pick yourselves up off the floor (doubtless struck down by the staggering originality of today's blog heading) here are some more examples of my strides taken with the ol' life drawing. And by 'strides' I really mean 'trembling, baby deer steps': I'm gradually working through my issues with faces, using a less-is-more approach with women especially. I've also been taking some cues from the class organiser and attempting some more abstract approaches. These are from a few body-in-motion exercises, having the model's movements inform the curvature of the line work. They came out sort of caricature-ish, not the kind of thing I'd usually come up with so it was quite interesting in that respect:Here are some more with a male model, creating shapes using the joint positioning and weight distribution as a springboard: While the scanner's on and the sketchbook's open, I may as well bung up a few more scribblings from going out with the Bristol Sketchers. Some standard stuff: And some sketches from a recent Arnolfini exhibition to end on:
Something musical for you all, this is a video I worked on recently for the German band Die Ärzte. It's for the lead single "zeiDverschwÄndung" off their next album which, now I'm seeing it all put together and not in little chunks, is pretty darn catchy. They hadn't been on my radar but as far as I can tell they're pretty huge in Germany, as the number of views indicates.
Ordinarily I like to have this blog be just about personal projects and keep the commissioned work separate, however this kinda falls more into the category of pitching-in with mates for the fun of it than 'work' work. I mainly did compositing and VFX with a few snatches of animation thrown in here and there. It was directed by Tine Kluth, also a bit of a legend down Germany way and the only animator I've ever met who can competently dance. Her website is barren but, in the hope that one day it won't be, check her out here.
Three of my films - 
