Here we go, page 2 in colour, it’s all Photoshop and all my own custom brushes. I probably should have worked out how to use the brush and styles setting about 10 years ago but what can I say? I have tried painter and it’s all right in a limited kind of way (admittedly it’s a limited version of painter that I got bundled with my Wacom tablet) Photoshop really is an amazingly versatile program and so easy to pick up, everything I know I have learnt from randomly clicking buttons. Randomly clicking buttons, it’s amazing how that works sometime with computers, pressing stuff just to see what happens. Sure you can cook like that but your going to make a lot of people sick and cook a lot of shit. the worst that’s going to happen on a computer is you crash it a few times. Computers freeze and you freeze food. You cant really crash food and computers don’t really taste that nice. I guess there is no connection between learning Photoshop and learning to cook.

After my moany last post I am happy to report some positive progress. I spoke to Mario of Apocalyse Comics today and we've agreed to do some cross promotion.

Apocalypse are a startup comics e-tailer who have a strong commitment to the indie scene. The upshot is that they'll be selling/promoting our comic and we'll be carrying ads/banners for them.

We've not really made any headway in selling through distributors before, but this avenue seems very promising.

Furthermore, Steve's now finished the pencils/inks on Jimmy Baker Animal Hatmaker, only the colours and letters to go! Because I think it's coming out really well, here's a peak at page 2:

Animal Magic

Ah, here we go.

Now I'm focused on promotional matters rather than comic strip creation I am encountering the usual enthusiasm-sapping bollocks.

Walking Wounded #2 went to the printer's last weekend, but so far they have steadfastly failed to respond. We went through this last year and I am not going to panic. Yet.

My attempts to secure a slot at the Bristol Comic Expo have also proved fruitless. There's nothing on their website to explain how one becomes an exhibitor, and approaches to the listed contacts have been ignored.

The icing on the cake has been an interview for a small press blog I was supposed to do which was cancelled at the last moment and then not re-arranged. Totally the perogative of the blogger concerned, but a bit of a kick in the teeth all the same.

None of these problems are going to set us back unduly, though, it seems to come with the territory.

Walking Wounded #2 will be printed and ready for the Thing.

We will exhibit at a major comic show this year, if not Bristol then perhaps the friendlier Birmingham show.

I will get some promotion done. I can always interview Steve and vice versa!

Creating comics is the nice bit, trying to get people to read those comics basically sucks!

Issue 2 is out of my hands now and in the care of the publishing side of our ummmmm… operation. Maybe it’s the excitement or the risk that sees us leave publishing our work to the last minute. It’s that deadline crunch that lets you know you’re doing something for a reason, there is a destination and its date is set. Or maybe we are just rubbish at time management and predicting how long things will take.

I have begun work on Jimmy Baker Animal Hatmaker, our 5-page a5 full colour project for the thing anthology and we have 2 more projects in the pipeline including walking wounded issue 3. Add to that my intention of contribution a larger number of small press strips this year then I ever have before and I’m starting to look pretty busy already.

This will be our 3rd year on the small press comics scene and hopefully our fist year at a major show (if we can book a table) and should usher a new era in spending money on a hobby.

Blogging is easy, maintaining your own website less so.

Still, as we've got a new comic out and a convention appearance in the offing, I've been updating the "proper" Massacre for Boys site.

The main changes so far are the home page, which has a nice new central image and a banner linking to the Thing, and the comics for sale section, where I've made the following amendments:

- A major price reduction. I've knocked postage and packing costs off all comics which means you can have Walking Wounded #0 for two quid and issues 1 and 2 for £2.50 each.

- Walking Wounded #2 is now available to pre-order. This will be shipped after 22/3/08. I am pretty pleased with the write up I've given it too!

- I added a link to the Silver Bullet Review of WW #1.

I've also re-mastered our short Crusader-on-your-mobile strip and put it out there. I still need to make other revisions, most urgently to the "characters" page (very out of date now!) and also to add a bio for Bolt-01 to the "About Us" section.

A bio full of utter lies, obviously...

I may not have watched the programme, but I love the name of the famous 1988 ITV documentary that exposed the "shoot to kill" policy that led to the death of 3 IRA members in Gibraltar.

I used it a few years ago, for a humour website in a spoof synopsis of a coming cinematic attraction:

Death on the Rock
Comedy action thriller starring Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones and Mickey Rourke as three loveable IRA bombers and their battle of wits with a team of SAS assassins led by Julian Sands. The whole of Gibraltar was recreated in Mexico for the filming, which took a record-breaking 4-days to complete. Anthony Hopkins cameos as Defence Minister Alan Clarke, whose "Shoot to Miss" policy is misheard, with hilarious consequences.

(Incidentally, there are plenty more where that came from here. Mostly written by my friend Alex Finch, but I also contributed a fair number.)

Well, at the risk of repeating myself, I'm also calling Walking Wounded #3 "Death on the Rock". I honestly can't imagine a war action strip set in Gibraltar going under any other title...

With the scripts for issue two safely in the bag, Steve and I have agreed to jump straight to Walking Wounded #3. The idea is to turn the next one around in less than the year this comic will have taken.

So I've started the research and planning in earnest. This will be a 24-page self-contained story set in a place that's always intrigued me:

Although my current circumstances make a visit to the Rock unfeasible at this time, I've bought that guidebook anyway and it's going to come in very handy. As I discovered when I visited Lundy in 2005 for Island of Terror, having a real physical location as the setting really helps with the choreography of what can be very complex action.

I’m still beavering away on the walking wounded but when I should have been asleep I found time to do a quick(ish) greeting in the style of Mr T.