What have I been doing? It’s been a wile since I last blogged and boy have I been busy. Walking Wounded is entering deadline crunch time so I’m feverishly trying to get the last segment drawn. Either side of Glasshouse I participated in several digital webbing blitz draw offs, coming towards the bottom every time in the readers poll and I completed a Friday fan script for Zarjaz.

This time round the Excellent Bolt-01 (sometimes known as Dave Evans) has been lettering the Walking Wounded and a fine job he is doing to. Lettering was always one of my many weak points and recently my art has improved to an extent that really leaves my lettering behind fortunately Bolt-01’s lettering is easily up to the task.

The digital webbing Blitz Draw off stuff is for practice and for fun but given the lack of interest in my work I don’t think I’ll be cracking America any time soon. it’s a good forum for any aspiring creator and there is lots to see and do but it is very America-centric.

Yes, I wrote a short story for Friday, the Rogue Trooper reboot that never quite worked. I was thinking about fanzines, I contribute to them so I would think about them. One of the hardest things to do is write for an established character that works well and is very popular. The thing I would be tempted to do is the same as the thing the best fanzine writers do. Either heavily reface the strip with affectionate in jokes or write a tale in the style of the strip at its height. With Friday I could go in a different direction, no one is going to complain about the way I changed the strip or the way I reworked the character because no one really liked him in the first place. (actually that not true, war machine by Dave Gibbons is a pretty good stand alone story but everything that came afterwards was rubbish.)

The last Walking Wounded segment looks to be a challenge, my challenge as it happens. Every page of art drawn is like a fight… it’s best not to get drunk first.

Today I completed the script for the third and final story set to be included in Walking Wounded #2. The better I get at this game the longer it takes to do it, mostly because I'm learning that there's a hell of a lot of technique involved in telling a good comic story.

For instance, in this one I constructed a whole elaborate prologue/epilogue sequence that would neatly tie in with the main story and lend the whole issue an Amicus portmanteau feel. However, when it came down to it, this was unnecessary complexity and had to go. One of the big lessons of my earlier writing is that you shouldn't try to be too clever!

Anyhow, here's my detailed plan for the prologue:

Sissinghurst Castle, Kent, 1962.

The first panel is a fairly small exterior establishing shot of Sissinghurst Castle.

A pretty garden outside the castle, off duty footballer Bosher Le Fizz and his fiancée the top model Syria Price are looking around. There are other visitors in the room too.

Syria: I never realised you had an interest in gardening, Bosher.

Bosher: It’s not the garden I’m here for, Syria. It’s this house.

They go inside to a large drawing room.

Syria: Most of it seems to have been demolished.

Bosher: Yes, but that happened a long time ago. I’m interested in more recent history.

Bosher stops to looks at the wall, A thick black ooze is dripping down it.

Syria: What’s that horrible stuff? Some kind of mould?

Bosher has dipped his finger in.

We see the tip of Bosher’s finger. Within the black ooze we can make out a tank and a spitfire and some explosions too.

Bosher: No, it’s WAR.

Not bad at all, but it had to go.

The epilogue would have been along similar lines and featured the Holts.

Now, I will turn my attention to publishing chores...

Have recently moved to a lovely new (well, Victorian) house. Of course, because BT (out of touch monopolistic bastards) consider broadband to be a luxury I've then had three weeks of being without the Internet.

It finally came back yesterday, and to be fair I am pretty pleased with my new ISP (Sky), for price, performance and ease of use.

I was also pleased to receive a confirmation that my latest Alan Moore purchase has been dispatched. It's the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel, The Black Dossier:

Due to Moore's "relaxed" attitude to copyright, this is another of his works that's not available in the UK. Therefore, as with Lost Girls, I've resorted to Amazon's transatlantic parent to act as my supplier.

I am looking forward to it very much, needless to say.

A few weeks ago I did obtain another of his disputed creations, Miracleman vol. 1 from eBay. Strangely I paid such a high price (in excess of £30) that I have been reluctant to read it, wanting to savour every expensive page. If I do ever finish it I'll post a review here.

I'm not hopeful of completing the set though. I noticed that the last copy of vol. 3 that came up went for in excess of £100! Eeeeeek!

It's been all systems go for the Massacre for Boys boys!

Steve is beavering away at the artwork for the middle story from Walking Wounded #2, which is IMHO a new best ever, and I'm still franticly trying to finish the script for the last tale of wartime derring-do. The writing is taking a while because there are a lot of ideas to pack in!

Meanwhile I've been back to the well of free graphic novel loans that is Redhill Public Library. First off was the frankly lovely Titan hardcover edition of Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth:

I hadn't read this first ever Mega-epic before, and I was again surprised by the high quality of Pat Mills' writing. Clearly in the 70s he was a comics genius, effortlessly turining out beautifully crafted, exciting and thoughtful stories. His portrayal of Dredd is particularly good in Cursed Earth, much more sympathetic than the fascistic anti-hero of later years.

However, I then swapped it for ABC Warriors: The Black Hole, which may even mark the turning point where Mills started to decline. Certainly Slaine The King from a similar period is great, but this tale of psycho war robots is distinctly ropey, sometimes effective but often incomprehensible. The story is also far bleaker than is good for it. Sadly Black Hole has more in common with Mills' present-day output (Black Siddha? My God, that's bad!) than his glory years.

Oh and I've also just re-read America by the ever-reliable John Wagner. This particular tale is a tad melodramatic for me, but it still really works. Wagner is I would say head and shoulders above Mills and their fellow 200AD mainstay Alan Grant for sheer consistency.