Barry Renshaw of Engine Comics writes to the mailing list:

For any comic people based in the north west, beginning from April on the last Sunday of the month, there will be a regular comics meet at Borders in Stockport by Manchester, from 2pm onwards, after the instore cartoon workshop in the morning. The only scheduled exception to the dates at the moment is May (being the convention of course).

Stockport is easy to get to by train or bus. Borders is at Peel Retail Park, Great Portwood Street, Stockport, SK1 2HH. Tel: 0161 476 3392 (map)

Garen Ewing has re-done his site as a very impressive portfolio "to help me drum up some new work" and is open to feedback, while John Bagnall has launched his own site giving a new overview of his career.

A couple of years back Top Shelf started putting extended comic strips on their site. The feature vanished during a site redesign but has now been reinstated with a new batch of comics. Artists include Josue Menjivar, Nate Beaty, Martin Cendreda, Andrew Brandou, Farel Dalrymple, Rob Goodin, Gregory Benton and Scott Malin.

Over the last few months Rick Bradford's Poopsheet blog has become somewhat essential as he pulls in links and news from the indy, alt and art comics world. It's like reading Journalista (currently on hiatus) without having to skim through all the 'other comics' stuff. Go Rick.

When Eddie Campbell announced he was shutting up his self publishing operation (responsible for his Alec and Bacchus collections along with the massive From Hell) and doing a Batman book it was all rather confusing, especially as not much more information was forthcoming. In this interview on Comicon.com Pulse he talks about the Batman book along with a stint on Captain America, denies being 'creative' in his work ("I don't have time to feel creative. There's always a job to be done and no time to think about it. Creative is for art workshops. Professionals are too busy.") and teasingly refers to his next autobiographical book, The Fate of The Artist "which will be an investigation into the disappearance of myself. It's very complicated; in the scenes where I am required to appear, my part is played by an actor. It's the last word in postmodernism."

Time to plug him and his shiny happy comics again. Perfect for the Spring catwalks.

Assume for a minute you're me. You used to read Cerebus every month but eventually stopped buying monthly comics and moved over to the trades about four or five years ago. As such you lost touch with the world of Sim watching as he went further and further up the gigantic loon tree. But having spent a significant amount of your life following the man and his works you enjoy dipping in now and again. And you do intend to buy the collections when they come out. If so, you'll probably enjoy Andrew Rilstone's long and impasioned page-by-page critique of issue 300, because after all this is what you've been waiting for for over fifteen years, and while Sim is a loon he taught you a lot when he wasn't quite such a loon.

"Hail, Dave Sim. Greatest living comic book creator, and total asshole. What a sad and bitter man. This wasn't how I imagined it at all."

(Via Reinder's blog, and while you're at it, Rilstone's other writings are pretty good too.)

Sweatdrop Studios are a collective of UK Manga small press creators - you can buy their comics from the site. While I'd heard about this setup from Laura Watton at Caption they don't seem to pass through my sphere (as it were), probably because they're getting serious sales from the massive Manga and Anime scene. If you're a Manga fan you're no doubt already aware of them but if you're not this is really interesting.

Hate creator Pete Bagge has been doing political cartoons for political cartoons for Reason magazine for a while and they're all archived online.

Well, I had a thoroughly good time at the UK Web and Mini Comix Thing on Saturday and I hope there'll be many many more of them to come. There's a report on the Thing site with video footage and everything (truly we are in the 21st century!) which will list other people's reports so let Patrick know if you've posted words or pictures online.

Well done Mr Findlay. Well done indeed.

From Saturday's Guardian, Review section:
Before John Updike settled on writing as a career, he wanted to be a cartoonist and badgered his heroes to send him signed copies of their work. Jeet Heer recently uncovered one letter, sent to the creator of Little Orphan Annie, when Updike was 15. Full article

Wostock writes, "if you would like to read some hardcore Serbian underground comics visit my homepage". You know what, Wostock? I rather think I would.

LMG points to a long and comprehensive interview with Alan Moore in the Independent which along with the usual career summary has some nice juicy tit-bits for keen followers of the Bearded One.

The interview ties in with a major exhibition of his works at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Charleroi, Belgium, organised by our own Paul Gravett who hopes to transfer to London at some point.

Just in time before Saturday's UK Web and Mini Comix Thing to plug the discussion panel chaired by Baz Renshaw of Engine Comics.
Guest line-up so far includes the the uber-talents of Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, Roger Langridge, Bevis Musson, Aaron Murphy and Ed Traquino.
If your planning to visit the Comix Thing, be there around 2pm to catch the discussion.

As well as having a gander at the ZUM! subsite for Stripblogjam contributor Zeke S Clough, I would recommend contacting him to inquire of of his new Pet Static (#4) comic book that is now available.

Biff

Reinder Dijkhuis, a key figure in the Dutch comics scene and creator of webcomic Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan, writes to inform of his new weblog Waffle.

"I've started a blog which so far contains lots of webcomic recommendations, one wordless comic (and more to follow from my vast archives) and the latest news on a digital exhibit I'm putting together."

What goes around comes around, it seems. The BBC reports that the Cartoon Art Trust is seeking funding to "establish a museum of cartoon art with gallery, archives and reference library". UK comics-types will remember them spending the later part of the 90s pursuing this dream only to be thwarted a couple of years ago by redevelopment delays at the Brunswick Centre, shrinking funds and a shift in ideology amongst the Trustees. Now it appears big ideas are back in vogue again. Here's hoping they can pull it off, though I've often wondered why they don't do something with the V&A. (Via The Hurting)

Modern Toss



I've come across "Mr Tourette" the t'web before - so it's delightful to see that he has migrated to paper so that all of you who don't have access to the Internet can read him as well.

Hey... how are you reading this without Internet Access?

John Cei Douglas wrote to inform that's he's released his comic, Sleeping Beauty as a 26 page PDF to download from the Newflux blog, and rather nice it is too.

I've just noticed that Nabiel Kanan is behind / has launched a UK-basd pushing house called New Flame. Currently they have two new comics by Kannan, The Drowners and Now and Then but they look to be setting up to publish much more.

New Flame Publishing is the brainchild of Eisner Award nominated creator Nabiel Kanan.
Encouraged by the recent growth in diversity of the graphic novel medium, Kanan sees New Flame as a great opportunity to publish a wide range of styles and genres.
From sci-fi to drama, from mystery to comedy, look for a plethora of new titles from New Flame in the coming year.

Tokyopop, the American manga publisher currently experiencing huge sales, is actively seeking submissions from all over the world.

TOKYOPOP is currently seeking submissions from talented manga-ka. If you think you've got work that combines creative storytelling, compelling characters, innovative graphic design and an understanding of manga, then ... WE WANT TO SEE IT!

If we think you've got what it takes, we'll offer you the chance to publish a series of graphic novels.

The blog has been somewhat quiet of late due to a, well, let's just call it a problem. If you're interested, read this but suffice to say it took a while for Jez to sort out. Well done Jez.

Normal service will now resume...