Massacre For Boys

So farewell then, blog.co.uk

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 10:19:46 +0200

It's time to get that bugle out and play The Last Post because we're moving to a new home:

http://massacreforboys.blogspot.com/

It's been fun here on blog.co.uk but the time has come to join the crowd over on Blogger, and to stop looking at all these damn adverts that kind of ruin things round here.

See you on the other side!

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Making War

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 09:21:45 +0200

You cannot argue with the proverb that necessity is the mother of invention. The offer of a full page of advertising space in Something Wicked came last weekend, with the proviso that it was needed within minutes. We had nothing appropriate to use but quick as a flasher, Steve knocked up:

Nothing like a deadline to hone those creative juices!

Whilst we're on the subject of war, my old uni comrade Danny Graydon tipped me off about the latest development in the bitter feud between DC and Alan Moore. It seems that Absolute Black Dossier is about the worst rip-off DC have ever managed to perpetuate. The Amazon.com reviews are hilarious.

Now I am sure that the fault is not all on one-side as Moore's artistic temperament does seem to lead him into conflict with pretty much every comics company going, but for DC to take their frustration out on his (and their) fans is disgraceful. Okay so if the Bearded Genius has denied them access to the normal absolute special features they can't publish them. However to put the book out anyway, and hike the price from the level set by the real Absolute editions of previous LXG volumes, only harms DC and their reputation.

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The Crusader: Honey Trap

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:46:44 +0200

Today's big news is that our Crusader strip is finished

This is the lead story in Massacre For Boys In Colour #1, written by me with art + letters by Bolt-01 and colours by Richmond Clements (making his Massacre debut).

I think it's utterly fantastic and, by the way of proof, let's take a look at the development of the first panel of page one, starting with Bolt's confident pencils:

He then added some equally accomplished inks:

Over to Richmond to make a first pass with the flat colours:

And finally, Richmond polishes off the colouring beautifully and then hands it back to Bolt-01 for some slick letters, and we're ready to go to press:

Cool, eh?

I quite literally cannot wait to get this into print. Stay tuned for release details...

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A Little Piece of History

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:02:03 +0200

Let’s for a moment think about the 1980’s. I read a lot of comics in the 80’s, more then I did in any other decade, but that’s understandable as I was the target age group for most publishers way back then. Amongst the usual suspects of 2000ad, the re-launched Eagle and a plethora of American superhero comics I also collected a wide range of Marvel UK titles, like Transformers, Actionforce, Thundercats and the re-packaged Punisher comics. So that’s the set up, I read a lot of comics and of the Marvel UK line one of them stands Head and shoulders above the rest ‘Dragons Claws’

Dragons Claws blew me away from the very first issue I was hooked and my collection of action figures were recast as Dragon and The Evil Dead. When the series hit the news agents in 1988 I was 12 and the perfect age before Playstation and endless TV channels sidelined comics it was also the perfect time. The comic came from the pens of transformers top creative team, writer Simon Furman and artist Geoff Senior, already a Marvel UK favourite of mine. Unlike many of the other comics of the late 80’s this tale of fare future heroics really has stood the test of time, probably because it’s themes are timeless.

Dragons Claws only ran for 10 glorious issues but what a 10 issues, bad guys became heroes and heroes were flawed. There is enough complexity to keep things interesting but it’s not so high brow as to alienate a young boy. Across the 10 issues the relationship between the 3 key characters changes dramatically and you realise that they are all aspects of the same person. Dragon, Slaughter-house and Deller are all men driven by duty or a need that can never be quenched. Dragon and Slaughter-house are flip sides of the same coin, the light and dark of the greatest players ‘the game’ ever knew and the parallel is played out though the directions that there lives have taken. Deller and Dragon are both worriers but born years apart, dragon is a middle aged man with a family were as Deller is a young super solder who sees himself as dragons natural successor. Simple enough right? Maybe, but it’s Dragons and Dellers interaction with his family that draw the parallels closer as well as Dellers maturing from a point and destroy no questions asked order following good little solder into a flawed hero with a shady past that could catch up to him at any moment.

Reading about it you may be saying to yourself ‘hang on that all sounds fairly familiar’ and, yeah, it dose but it’s done well and what’s more it’s done for kids without duming it down or being heavy handed. It’s heroics but it’s just that bit more grown up then you would expect and do you know what? I still love it and it still works for me every time I dig out my dog eared, battered old comics and read them again. They don’t make them like they used too… they don’t make them at all any more.

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Read any good comicbooks lately?

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:28:57 +0200

I don't read any awful lot of comics, but I have stuck with the Judge Dredd Megazine even though it's Small Press section was pushed aside for reprints of Bob The Galactic Bum, and is now still dormant whilst some godawful Tank Girl revival plummets to inevitable doom.

Apart from those turkeys it's generally a good read, and John Wagner Dredd is always worth the cover price. I'm becoming quite a fan of Al Ewing too, and his recent Tempest series was pretty cool.

Graphic novel-wise, as I write I am currently ploughing through:

I understand there's now a widespread belief that Future Shocks have had their day, but not if they're written this well they haven't. Not all of the stories are classics, yet many certainly could be described as such. The great man's trademark humour, innovation with the form and general sophistication are all present and correct.

I find it amazing (and a little chastening) that Moore was that good that early. I've also just finished Miracleman Book 2 and that's basically fantastic as well. Almost worth the small fortune it cost on eBay to buy the thing!

Incidentally, imho it's quite funny really that Miracleman is pretty much the same as Doc Manhattan, until Gaiman takes over for Book 4 and then he becomes The Sandman....

More disappointing was Hellboy - Darkness Calls. I'm usually a big fan but this collection makes sod all sense and Fegredo's Mignola impersonation is competent but no real compensation for not having the great man really doing the artwork. Ah well, I'm sure the next one will be better....

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Village Gossip

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 07:54:03 +0200

Publicising your own small press comic is both incredibly important and incredibly difficult. Much of the mainstream media is not particularly interested, and you end up relying on your work striking a chord with a particular editor or journalist.

Of course there are websites and magazines dedicated to the "indie" scene, but here you are again at the mercy of others, depending largely, it seems, on whether what you produce is their thing or not.

Still, fortunately there are some really good avenues for the likes of me opening up. I mentioned indiereview in a recent post and I'd like to add to that Comics Village. The Village is a site dedicated to all of comicdom, with stacks of news, reviews and interesting columns from various luminaries in the UK comics world.

One such column is Village Gossip, an interview strand that seems to find its subjects from all corners of the industry. Including Matt Smith (Tharg), Tony Lee, Rob Williams, Oli Smith and now...

Me.

Here's a sample Q & A:

Can you remember your first fan letter, either sent or received?

Yes, it was a mad rant I sent to Justice League Europe. Basically I had this idea the Americans were all Benny Hill obsessives and I riffed on that. They printed it too, so they must have found it charming, in a schoolboy xenophobe kind of way.

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Intrusion and Profusion

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 11:00:47 +0200

The pervasive tendrils of real life have once again closed around me, so Massacre work has had to take a temporary back seat.

There have been some exciting developments to report, though:

- The script for Walking Wounded #3 is finally finished. I struggled with the final third, but got there in the end (more or less). Steve and I then had a minor artistic disagreement over the important issue of whether talking monkeys are allowed, but it was amicably resolved so it's now over to him to produce the artwork....

- Bolt-01 sent over his pencils for the Crusader story he's illustrating for Massacre For Boys in Colour #1. Jolly fine they are too I won't post any clips here just yet, but please keep an eye on Bolt's own blog where lots of juicy Massacre titbits are wont to appear.

- We've now got our own page on IndieReview.

Normal service will be resumed shortly. Meanwhile Steve is beavering away on various other indie projects, some of which have been announced here and some of which have not. Hopefully I can persuade him to list everything he can talk about that he's doing in a future post...

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From Page To Screen

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:49:00 +0200

I sometimes think it's interesting to see how a comic script translates into a comic strip. I put this together as a quick example of how the words get turned into pictures:

Now you see how little Steve has to work with I'm sure it gives you a new apprecation of his artistic talent

Looking back I see one significant change we made after the script was done (check out panel 4). I pretty much plan to re-use this idea in a more conventionally-formated and much longer Crusader strip, and I will be having our hero go after the drugs rather than the money this time. He'll have a really good reason, I promise you...

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Time to Come Back, Big Bob?

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:42:53 +0200

There's nothing like trawling the web for your own past sins. Here's a humour page that must be a decade old, but features art by Steve and words by Steve & Pete (the mysterious Denton Brother number 3):

As for me, I used to have it in for the BBC:

(That was Steve on ani-GIF duties.)

I went through a phase of being a Linux journalist. I even got paid and everything! Although I haven't really done any of this for a couple of years now, it's nice to see some of my old writing is still around, for example:

http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/pdfs/download.php?PDF=LXF66.rev_linspire.pdf

And someone somewhere is even using a quote from me to promote their book:

http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596004101/

It can truly be said that cyberspace has made us all immortal....

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Sticky Wiki

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:54:20 +0200

As I am sure I don't need to tell you, a great way of killing time at your employer's expense is to browse Wikipedia.

However, this massive database of trivia is not all-encompassing, because Massacre for Boys is but a "page not found".

There is a link to Walking Wounded from the Eagles Awards page but so far no one has done anything with it so there's nothing to see at:

Walking Wounded on Wikipedia

Clearly modesty (also, house rules) forbids me from creating the page myself, but if anyone else would like do it I'd be more than delighted. If you do decide to do the sum total of human knowledge a favour and add some info here, why not make it more interesting by working in a song title or two into the text?

Oh and if you do ever get bored of surfing Wikipedia, I can heartily recommend Garbled Communications as a a great source of online entertainment. Massacre's friend Alex Finch has just revived this cult site after a two-year absence, and it's better than ever so you should probably click the link right now!

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Going Back in Time

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:56:41 +0200

Tron. I remember seeing Tron for the first time and being amazed, I was quite taken by early CGI, I even liked the last star fighter and much later on, Babylon 5 but it was the computer game cut scenes of the 90’s that really made me want to produce 3d art. Command and conquer, dune 2000, the Star wars Dark Forces Games and even Dungeon Keeper, it’s fair to say in fact I was more interested often in watching the new videos on the cover mount CD’s then I was playing the Demos.

There has always been something seductive about CGI and the creative demands of low polygon art for me enhanced creativity in the way that restrictions always do. though adversity you are forced to be creative, necessity is the mother of invention after all. My current modelling style was developed with the high compression look of VCD cut scenes in mind, the flat colours are my clean rendition of the heavy compression and this is the second time I have been happy with the look of a project. There are a lot of polygons in my model but intentionally very little in the way of texture.

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What, no hats?

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 10:09:14 +0200

I just had a quiet fortnight in Devon with wife and baby, which was a great way to relax but not such a wonderful method for creating comics. The last part of the Death on the Rock script remains a problem, but I did manage to plan a new 6-page Crusader story so it wasn't all drinking wine by the pool and watching Wimbledon.*

Indulging my newly-formed interest in exotic animals, during our stay I dragged the family to Exmoor Zoo and whilst it was extremely good, I couldn't help but notice the lack of hats:

I can resist the urge to photoshop headgear onto all of the above... but only just!

* Okay, it really was.

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The Impractical world of modelling 3D backgrounds that no one will ever see

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 12:15:17 +0200

You may remember a few posts ago I Started work on a 3D factory for the background of a Strip I have been working on for Future Quake. Traumatised Astronauts by Chris Stiefvater-Thomas Is set partially on earth, the moon and an orbiting factory and it’s the factory that I have decided to build fully in 3D Using an old copy of Cinema 4D.

My perception of CG artwork will be forever coloured by the games graphics and cut scenes of the late 1990’s, games like ‘Z’ and Star Craft, command and conquer, dune 2000 and Tekken 3. when compression was a must and the Polly count had to be kept low. I can still vividly remember how impressed I was the first time I watched the opening FMV for Quake 2 and how much I loved the blocky and amateurish cut scenes for Dark forces. It was the 3D games revolution that prompted me into my expensive and difficult uphill quest to learn how to make my own CGI work.

By the time I Had pushed thumped and battered some basic skills into my deeply un-technical brain the world of computer graphics had moved on and left me behind. I Sill fire up the odd Application from time to time and have a crack at a new model or background but almost always it would have been quicker for me to just draw it. Working in 3D is like all the rest of my small press work, it’s doing something I love for fun no matter how impractical or out of date and no matter how far below the professional bar I am.

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Rock ‘n’ Roll

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:10:33 +0200

Johnny Lydon was for a brief moment in the 70’s of cultural importance. He was lead singer and the often bemusing but verbose front man to the sex pistols who burn briefly but oh so brightly across the cultural landscape. They weren’t the best punk band and they weren’t the first punk band but they were the poster boys of punk, the counter culture pin ups of a post peace and love nileistic youth. Sid Vicious overshadowed him and in many ways still dose. He wasn’t anywhere near as important to the band as Johnny Rotten and he never really had much to say, he wasn’t the spokesman or a self publicists but by taking punk and nihilism to its logical and fatal conclusion He has become the immortal icon.

Why am I talking about this has been spokesperson for a movement he didn’t really represent in a Blog About comics? Johnny Lydon was at the mojo awards recently and made one of his trademark semi coherent rants. He insulted the journalist and every other musician and the awards but for some reason still turned up to collect one for the sex pistols. He’s like an angry old man trying desperately to cling on to his youth, trying to be vital and important and counter culture but just coming across as a jerk and a smug fucking bully. He was once the voice of an angry generation but that generation has grown up got jobs and become the establishment as youth always do. He’s no longer the voice of anyone he’s just a aggressive old cunt.

Why was he at the awards? Why did he spew venom ant any one that would listen? Was it like he would have you believe, to honour his band mates who do care about that kind of thing, or was it just to get his face in front of some cameras?

2000ad was once the punk of comics but as it’s readers have got older it’s mellowed, 2000ad now wears a cardigan and comfortable slippers. Maybe that’s what all old punks should think about doing.

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The Good Fight

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:57:30 +0200

Fighting crime is not a job. It's a crusade.

Coming soon...

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The Work Goes On

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:25:21 +0200

Although it might seem like the Massacre For Boys metaphorical empire is currently lying a tad dormant, behind the scenes we are working as studiously as ever to expand the figurative imperium.

I have now completed 16-pages of the Death on the Rock script, and when I next get some quality writing time will be using it to juice up the plan for the finale before completing scripting duties on this mini-epic. Steve is still working on a Futurequake strip. He'll be returning to the fold soon enough, though.

Meanwhile, I am delighted to reveal that the artist for the forthcoming Crusader tale is none other than the muli-talented Bolt-01

Bolt's now posted his first sketch of the slightly suspect superhero on his own blog and jolly fine it is too. I am very pleased because it's a story that I am particularly proud of and after seeing this I am now even more confident than ever that it is in safe artistic hands.

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Doctor Who: Open Forum?

Sat, 31 May 2008 23:35:29 +0200

I am really not sure discussion forums are a good thing for me to be involved in. I haven't really frequented many over the years, and of those I have stuck with only the Doctor Who forum formerly known as Outpost Gallifrey has been outside the world of comics.

However, I've decided to knock that on the head following a rather irritating exchange regarding Rob Shearman. Now he's a writer I quite like, but it's manifestly obvious that he hasn't been asked back to Doctor Who since his season one episode, Dalek. Sadly, Mr Shearman in common with several people involved with the new run of the show frequents this forum and my comment it seems is something of a painful home truth for him. Hence he posted a response which, whilst not contradicting the assertion, clearly showed he was rather irritated by it. Probably justifiably.

Still, much as I hate the idea of annoying people I respect and who's work I admire, I think there's absolutely no point in discussion forums that aren't allowed to discuss anything that might annoy the subject of the discussion. I've seen this in the comics world too, at places like 2000AD Review although in fairness there's a lot less toadying from other posters to "the talent" there.

Now my problem is that in my capacity as a fan I can be quite critical of even my absolute heroes. Indeed, I am more likely to be, as it's their work that interests me the most and I have nothing really to say about people who's creative output I can't stick. But I have no particular wish to share these feelings with the people concerned. I don't really think Alan Moore needs to know my views on his dealings with Hollywood and similarly I didn't really want to tell Rob Shearman I suspect he was ditched because Dalek was rubbish (even if that probably wasn't even his fault).

Furthermore as someone that could conceivably end up on the other side of the fence if my comic writing ever becomes the subject of an Internet discussion I need to seriously consider how I would feel if I were in Shearman's place and some other "fan" in mine. Probably a tad annoyed.

So I am going to back away from these forums for a bit. I just don't have it in me to be a sycophantic twat, and I also really don't want to annoy people who basically I think are great.

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Going into the Next Dimension

Tue, 27 May 2008 19:57:19 +0200

The best thing about the small press is the lack of any intense deadline. It’s partly a product of no one really having enough free time to complete a comic on a short deadline and partly from every one giving there time for free. That’s the practical side, the fun side is the chance to really go crazy and experiment with impractical techniques that you could never get away with commercially. That’s the set up, that’s the kind of opportunity that it would be rude to refuse.

For about the last 10 years I have been mucking about with 3D software, using it mostly for layouts and background perspective. Integrating 3D into a comic page is a bit like using a photograph for a background, it rarely works. I think the Glimmer rats By Mark Harrison is the closest any artist has ever got to getting away with it and he spent years on Durham Red with varying degrees of success. Kevin walker gave 3D what could be considered A brave but massively flawed Stab on his Demonifuge strip, so you can understand why I have been hesitant to try my hand at something that even good artist at the height of there powers have largely failed.

Up until now my largest single project in 3D has been an animation I did at university that had limited construction but lots of animation. This Project for Future Quake is the most complicated modelling task I have ever set myself. I’m going to keep the Blog up to date on my progress so I’m not going to say too much about the Strip now because it would leave me with nothing to write next time, but it’s a story set in space and the section I’m building is a giant automated factory. The big difference this time is that I’m not just blocking in objects for perspective, something to draw over, not for an animation or a computer game or an architectural Pr-visualisation, I’m trying to build a model for publishing, for a comic.

For practicality I’m trying to keep it reasonably low resolution, it’s going to be in black and white so I’m not really worrying to much about texturing except to add detail and I’m not trying to smooth out all the hard edges. It will be interesting to see from hear on in how much of a success or mess I make of what has to be the worst way to approach a comic strip.

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Eagle Awards 2007

Thu, 15 May 2008 21:10:16 +0200

Alas, I can only report failure in our brave bid to take an Eagle:

The voter's favourite black and white comicbook - British was How to Date a Girl in 10 Days, a very different kettle of fish to our own modest effort.

I was convinced that Eleventh Hour would take the trophy, as it was the only professionally published comic in contention and I wanted Futurequake to do it because those guys are great and so is FQ. Still, I am delighted that a work like "How To..." can get recognized by what are effectively the BAFTAs of comicdom, my heartiest congratulations to Mr Spleen for his victory.

The ceremony itself was really good fun. I enjoyed the meal immensely and we were sat with a some great people so the conversation flowed. A rather strange intro to the awards themselves from our host Frazer Ayres (so you're a Hindu? Good for you) soon led into the real meat of the event and although our name steadfastly refused to be called, it was rather exciting in any case when the moment came to see who had won our category.

Some random memories of the evening:

- Mike Conroy declaring that Tony Lee did not cheat. I had no idea what that was all about until I googled today and found this.
- Dave Gibbons winning Best Letterer. Eh, what?
- Cassandra Conroy's dress.
- Spectacular Spiderman winning Favourite colour comicbook - British. EH, WHAT?
- D'Israeli's acceptance speech.

All in all a cracking night.

Oh and even our hotel was excellent. £45 for a twin room, although £16.60 each way for the taxi into town...

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Bristol Weekend

Sun, 04 May 2008 17:09:43 +0200

Ah, it's that time again and next weekend Steve and I will be trekking over to Bristol Temple Mead for another of these Comic Expo thingies:

We'll be attending the Eagle Awards dinner, but we won't be exhibiting as the organisers don't actually explain how you go about doing that and I'll be damned if I could find out in time.

Maybe next year...

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Immortality Updated

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 11:06:23 +0200

I decided that this morning is the time to send Walking Wounded #2 off to the British Library.

Following the link from last year's blog article on this subject took me to a 404 error. I really hate it when websites arbitrarily re-arrange themselves like that!

Still, the BL home page is kind of navigable and pretty soon I found the new URL:

http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/stratpolprog/legaldep/index.html

Interestingly the two comics I sent them before don't seem to have made it into their catalogue. Am beginning to wonder if this is a legally-required black hole...

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Needs More Hitler

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:05:59 +0200

And here's my script for page one of Death on the Rock:

1) Wide shot of a large Germanic drawing room in the late evening. ADOLF HITLER sits on an ornate armchair, warming himself by a blazing fire. The Fuhrer is dressed in uniform, but his collar is undone; a mug of hot chocolate steams atop a small table by his side.

The room is fairly dark save for a strip of light representing an open door. A shadow of a man in officer’s uniform falls within the door-light.

CAPTION: BERLIN, 1942.

2) Just inside from the doorway of the drawing room. A sophisticated-looking man in late middle-age, wearing an impressively decorated uniform marking him out as very senior, is giving the “Heil Hitler” salute. This is GENERAL FREUND.

FREUND: HEIL HITLER!

3) Close on Hitler, looking up towards the general. He appears icily calm.

HITLER: ARE YOUR MEN READY, GENERAL FREUND?

4) Medium shot of the room that shows both men. Hitler has risen from the armchair so he is now on the same eye level as Freund. The General is probably taller but he is lowering his head slightly in deference to his leader.

FREUND: JA, MEIN FUHRER. VE ONLY AVAIT YOUR COMMAND AND THE INWASION SHALL BEGIN!

HITLER: THEN EXECUTE OPERATION FELIX AT ONCE. SHOW NO MERCY.

5) Close on Freund turning back purposefully towards the door.

FREUND: IT SHALL BE DONE.

6) Very close on Hitler’s face. He is angry now, although it is not immediately obvious why the sudden change has occurred.

HITLER: BUT FREUND… BRING ME CAPTAIN VILLIAM TIRED. I VANT HIM ALIVE!

Ah, Adolf, such a bad man, such a great character.

And Operation Felix almost happened. Had it done so then the events depicted in Walking Wounded #3 almost certainly would be entirely accurate.

Instead of utterly made up.

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Polonium Cats or Strontium Dogs?

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:11:56 +0200

Our esteemed Walking Wounded letterer is a bit of a dab hand at loads of other stuff, including drawing and inking.

Here's the cover for the upcoming Strontium Dog fanzine Dogbreath issue #18:

Art by Bolt-01, Colours by Steven Denton.

Long-term readers may recognize the mise-en-scene, as this cover depicts an event from the 8-page strip Steve illustrated for the comic last year and which is now going to see the light of day within these hallowed pages. He posted lots of "in development" stuff which you'll find in the blog archives...

If you want to know more about Dogbreath, not to mention it's stablemate Zarjaz! - and frankly, who doesn't? - then you should visit their new home here.

Steve is still working on stuff, by the way, most recently the colour back cover to the new Something Wicked.

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Radio Silence

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:26:15 +0200

I am now officially giving up on UK-based comics news sites.

You'd think they would be there to promote British comics, but no, in fact they seem to exist largely to indulge their owner's interest in television science fiction.

So, whilst my attempts to get them to mention Walking Wounded #2 to their readers have fallen on deaf ears, if a sodding Stargate DVD is released that seems to be worthy of immediate and extensive coverage.

Ironically, I have seen more than one of these sites moan about their failure to get nominated for this year's Eagle Awards and yet if they won't support British comics to any significant degree how can they expect the British comics community to support them?

Furthermore these sour grapes seemed to prevent the proper reporting of even the Eagles. It was not until I saw the SFX report on the commencement of voting for the Eagle Awards that I even realized Massacre for Boys got a mention in the press release.

So, rather than waste any more time or effort trying to get UK comics news sites to mention us, I am now turning my attention to US comic news sites and UK print publications. Still a waste of time, I expect, but if you're words are going to fall on deaf ears, they may at least be important deaf ears!

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Massacre For Girls

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:06:54 +0200

I'm currently part way through the script for Walking Wounded #3 and once again my count of female characters is low. In fact it's zero.

This is not through misogyny but rather because World War 2 stories have a tendency towards being male-dominated. Obviously there are exceptions, such as Charlotte Gray and Enigma to name but two, but the comics that we're to a certain degree pastiching weren't very interested in appealing to girls anyway, nor even appealing to boys' interest in girls.

So is Massacre For Boys just for boys? Well, hopefully not but I am aware that most of the readers are men. Indeed I did feel this was pretty much how comic audiences are made up anyway but at the Thing I did see a lot of girls, virtually all of whom weren't interested in our work.

However, interestingly we did get one female customer pop over to pick up Walking Wounded #2. She'd won the first issue in last year's "guess the number of comics and keep them" competition and had liked it enough to remember it for 365 days then pop back for seconds.

So Walking Wounded is a hard sell to the female audience but it's not necessarily because they won't like it but more because it doesn't seem to be for them. I guess this is something to live with for now, as Walking Wounded is what it is, but the issue is worth revisiting for future projects.

Oh, and there will be at least one major female character coming into Walking Wounded eventually....

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You Know It Makes Sense

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:22:26 +0200

The nominees for this year's Eagle Awards have been announced and, somewhat astonishingly, we've been included

Walking Wounded is up for Favourite Black & White Comicbook - British. We're pitted against a strong field, and in truth you'd have to rank us as outsiders to take the award, but it's still great to have our work recognised like this.

A big thank you to everyone that nominated us! Now the voting stage has begun and if you'd like support our candicacy please do so at:

Eagle Awards Online Voting Form

I'm glad to see that of my other picks, The Black Dossier for Favourite Graphic Novel and Brian Bolland for Roll of Honour have also made it through.

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Silliness is next to Holiness

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:06:55 +0200

I'm not in so much of a post-Thing lull this year as I've been using the momentum created by the show to work on some scripts for Massacre For Boys In Colour. I've completed a 6-page Crusader effort and just today composed the short but sweet return of Jimmy Baker Animal Hatmaker.

Jimmy is probably our silliest creation, and in that spirit I've been googling for similarly themed stuff. My favourite so far has to be this:

Ah well, I'm off to try and drum up some publicity for Walking Wounded #2. Back Soon!

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Where It All Begins

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:43:41 +0100

For last year's Web and Mini Comix Thing I made absolutely sure that I would have Walking Wounded #1 back from the printers in time. When ComiXpress seemed to be dragging their heels regarding my order (they do that!) I sourced another quantity from a different, UK-based supplier.

Of course, ComiXpress came through in the end and I had both batches by the day of the show. In the end we decided to go for ComiXpress for the series, but I still have most of the other set ready to go to good homes.

Therefore I am pleased to announce that UK-based readers of this blog can exclusively Buy Walking Wounded #1 for only £1.50 (including P&P)!!!

It's the ideal place to start and once you're on board we hope to keep you with us...

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Are You Looking At My Thing?

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:49:41 +0100

Welcome Back to the UK Web And Mini Comix Thing, our second year there and we’ll still be going back for more. All in all we had a good day and even if throwing pound coins at tramps would be a cheaper hobby we wouldn’t enjoy it anywhere near as much. Creating publishing and selling small press comics is a compulsion not an act of reason and chances are every one who exhibits or visits the thing are similarly compelled. The best thing about the Thing is the Blurred line between the seller and the customer and the genuine acceptance of low-fi comics and esoteric content.

I think that this year we had a stronger product line (by that I mean we had 2 issues instead of 1) and the walking wounded is starting to find its feet. It’s easier to find your audience if you know what your product is after all. We did acquire a few comics as well as the Excellent Anthology but due to logistics Chris is custodian of the creative bounty leaving me with the fairly difficult job of writing a review without having read any of the work we came away with. The Crystal Knights giant union flag was one of the best thought out pieces of promotional decoration and has inspired us to consider dressing up as World War 2 officers for the next show we do.

The most positive thing for us was the returning customers, a few of the people who had purchased issue one and even issue zero came back for more and that has to be a good sign. If people are coming back and were getting better that’s got to be a positive thing. As a comic just starting our profile is pretty low and so far we have only done 2 shows but with continued exposure I’m sure we will find our audience and we will find out who our target audience is. At the moment that looks to be boys of an age that should be worried about staying at the Neverland Ranch and men who remember war comics from the first time around.

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How We Made It

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:49:45 +0100

So now Walking Wounded #2 is finished, has returned from the printers and goes on sale in 48 hours time:

For the first issue I actually had two editions published, one from a print-on-demand service in the US and the other from a traditional printers who specialise in comics here in the UK. Steve and I were unanimous in our preference for the former. It was miles better on grounds of price (thanks in part to the weak dollar) but also had the edge in term of quality.

Therefore when we came to do a follow-up there was only one choice and we went with

ComiXpress

Now those guys aren't perfect because they do tend to take their time and you sometimes need to push for a response. However they are extremely good value for money and the finished product is nice quality, so it's got to be worth it.

If you are interested in producing your own comic you could do a lot worse, and if you want an extra discount list "Chris Denton" as the guy who referred them to you.

As we're launching at a comic show we also needed something to handout to non-paying customers. I decided on a business card bearing just a suitably striking example of Steve's art and our web address. It wasn't actually that easy to arrange this as Google led me down a few garden paths before I eventually found

Goodprint

They've done me a hundred nice custom cards for just over fifteen quid, which I reckon is pretty reasonable and I'd use them again.

So now we've got our comics and promo material, but there's still the thorny issue of distribution. This is a black art as far as the small press goes and I have some real problems in the past with retailers who will take your comics then never give you the monies owed or indeed let you know if they've sold any.

Therefore these days I tend to favour selling from our own website, which I designed and administer myself. It's hosted by

Easily

Who I have previously used in my day job and can vouch for as a good all-round web service provider.

You can't do everything yourself, though, and I have also entered into a very promising arrangement with a startup etailer called

Apocalypse Comics

This company have got a real commitment to small press endeavours, but they also sell the mainstrem DC and Marvel offerings that most comic fans are really interested in. If we are to reach a wide audience it's basically eseential that companies like this support us, but it has to be on fair terms and that is why I salute these guys.

Of course, as with any self-publisher our primary method for achieving sales is to attend comic shows. That's why this Saturday we'll be at the

2008 UK Web and Mini Comix Thing

This will be our second year and we can guarantee a good time with plenty of willing punters eager to hear our speil. If you do decide to come along then please make sure you pick up the outrageously cheap Anthology. Over a 100 pages of comics (including 5 full colour pages from us) for just 50p. The Anthology is one of the highlights of the Thing, although now you can see what goes into producing an issue of Walking Wounded I'm sure you'll want to buy them all

PS Apologies if this post comes across as one big advert! I promise I haven't sold out, but if I was just getting into comics now I reckon info like this would have made things a darn sight easier...

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