The Cabaret Voltaire is born!

by on 5 October, 2012 at 3:49 pm
Posted In: comics, publishing

The mini-comic is here at last! And the Cabaret Voltaire is born! Ah yes, possibly a pretentious name for my periodical comic of assorted short stories but this is also the name of a MUD that I set up and administered way back in the mid-90’s when, among my responsibilities as a test lab engineer, I was also doubling up as a bored system administrator in a laboratory full of Unix machines. That was in another life, one I can barely recognise now. This MUD never took off beyond alpha-testing by another administrative user and myself (Fernando, where are you now?). I suppose, like many art-obsessed young people, I was fascinated by the Dada and Surrealism art and literary movements because of their preoccupation with the absurd and meaningless. Having moved on a long way since then, I still find the name of the Viennese nightclub somewhat catchy and apt for my comics journal – I intend to publish 2 short stories in each issue and print them from time to time, for comics festivals and such so I can keep my material fresh. And “cabaret” suggests a sort of variety show and these short stories are definitely varied, if nothing else! And quite appropriately, one of my short stories here is called “The Dream”, which is pretty self-explanatory.

Cover of the Cabaret Voltaire

I haven’t decided whether I should try and stock a few of these books at Gosh Comics and Orbital next week or just release them to the public the first time at Comica Comiket London in early November. I’m tending towards the latter at the moment, but I’ll also put them on sale right away on my website via mail order, and they’ll probably be priced at £2.80 a book with much cheaper postage and packaging prices, since they are rather slim volumes (30pp). Details will be on my website soon once I update the relevant pages.

Anyway I am very pleased with the printing and overall binding quality of these books. I’m very much happier with the paper (off-white, recycled, 120gsm paper) and the quality of the binding, which seems more robust. These printers InkyLittleFingers were recommended to me and they’ve definitely met their high expectations, I received my books exactly when I expected to, everything was easily done through a web interface online and the packing was also excellent, ensuring no damage in transit. Definitely a stellar first experience and I would recommend them to anyone.

So maybe I should be breaking out a bottle of bubbly tonight….

The Dream

by on 26 September, 2012 at 11:40 am
Posted In: comics, drawing, musing

The Dream - cover image

I am already feeling the pressure of having to produce a small comic booklet in time for the Comica Comiket comics festival in November. After the deflating and disappointing sales performance at the Alternative Press Festival, I have realised that to pull some more people in, it is sometimes necessary to have more than one book for sale, especially if that sole book is by an unknown artist (me) and not extremely cheap. So I thought a cheap (2 or 3 quid) mini comic might be in order, and drew ‘Ash Wednesday’ for Emanata as well as for this comic, but that story was hastily written and drawn, and I didn’t feel it was up to my usual standards. Still, the Emanata staff sent me very positive comments about it and I felt encouraged by the reception.

Feeling somewhat pessimistic about successfully plotting another short story in time for press by mid-October, I became vaguely inspired by a telephone call with my mother where she detailed a recent disquieting dream she’d recently had. Various acquaintances and contemporaries of hers had fallen ill or passed away this year and so the content of the dream didn’t surprise me too much. I thought I had the germ of an idea for a dream story, which I found easier than others to construct and write, since dreams were usually surreal. I took the gist of my mother’s dream, incorporated a few “horror” elements of my own, not outright cliched-horror but a rather more personally disturbing horror, such as a disembodied wailing voice echoing around a dark hospital corridor. It might have been one of the recurring nightmares I’d had when I was younger.  I didn’t have any problems building the tension in the story nor in whisking the reader from page to page, but I was completely stumped for an ending. Dreams always end with the dreamer waking up, but a possible (but cliched) twist might be for the dreamer to realise he/she isn’t really dreaming. But that ‘twist’ has been done to death, I thought, so my dreamer had to wake up with a lingering, unsettling feeling that the dream might cross over into reality at some point soon. The dreamer was insecure about his life, about his wife in particular, and her relationship with his best friend. I was insomniac one night, and at about 2 or 3am while my restless but exhausted mind ran the gauntlet of mysterious dream endings, I thought I had an appropriate final panel, one that didn’t end with reassurance but had a sort of portentous doom about it. I didn’t question this ending but instead, felt delighted about my early-morning epiphany, and then set about diligently drawing and inking the comic, 2 pages per day, in a sort of inspired frenzy. Hardly ever since ‘The Card Players’ have I worked almost daily on a comics project!

But upon rereading it after finishing the final page, it feels like it might fall a bit flat after all. A bit of a high school story, perhaps, with too little of the disquiet I’d intended to leave behind in the mind of the reader. I am undecided whether to submit this story and ‘Ash Wednesday’ to press because I am not sure of its true merit. It doesn’t quite stand together with some of my stronger stories in ‘Painting Stories’ and I’m afraid it’s not necessarily the best advertisement for my work, although I am quite satisfied with the artwork and feel that I have improved in that area. Anyway this story has also been submitted to Emanata for online publication in its next push – maybe then I’ll find out if readers will connect with it. I haven’t shown it to very many people at all and so other people might think differently, I’m often the harshest critic of my own work!

‘Ash Wednesday’ on Emanata

by on 30 August, 2012 at 11:07 am
Posted In: comics, publishing

Excuse the silence on this blog! I’m not in a habit of updating blogs and telling all and sundry about the latest happenings in my life, but I have been working on a short story since sometime in early June and finally released it to the Emanata iPad comics reader app in early August. Yesterday ‘Ash Wednesday’ was released to the public on Emanata – a short, 8-page story about a man who has a nostalgic trip back to the city where he used to live, on a somewhat unusual mission.

My free postcard advertising 'Ash Wednesday'

At the Small Press Festival earlier this month, I gave away some free postcards from my table to advertise this short story and my own work in general. I will publish it eventually in another collection of short stories but for now, it’s only available on Emanata (download it if you have an iPad, it’s FREE! And it’s great for discovering new, indie artists that you may never hear about otherwise!). I don’t  know yet if I will put this story up on my website. It will depend on other projects I have in my pipeline, and of course, upgrading my 2006 iMac to a new Mac setup which may suck up a good portion of spare time over the next couple of weeks. Of course, if I decide to put it up on my website, it’ll be announced on this blog.

So that’s all, folks… for maybe another few weeks or months, depending on when I feel inspired to blog something again, hopefully sooner rather than later. I’m already pondering over a second short story, ideas are pretty vague at present.

 

Alternative Press Fair, Aug 4 2012

by on 19 July, 2012 at 10:47 am
Posted In: comics

 

Alternative Press Fair

I will be selling my book at the Alternative Press Fair in Conway Hall on Saturday Aug 4. It will be my first time at this fair and things are looking fairly exciting as nearby Lamb’s Conduit St will have participating independent shops with little exhibitions of their own. If you’re in town that weekend, it should be worth checking out. I have a fair few copies of Painting Stories left to sell and am happy to autograph the books. I was hoping to have another short story in small comic booklet format ready for the festival, but a few recent hitches have made that plan a little unrealistic, so I will probably just be selling my book. This booklet should definitely be available for sale at Comiket in November though, if all goes well. Although the Small Press fair in Conway Hall takes place on the entire weekend of Aug 4/5, I will only be there on August 4.

Here is the blurb about the events will be taking place:

The 2nd International Alternative Press Festival features an inspired assortment of creative events between 20th July – 10th August 2012. The festival events lead up to the 4th-5th August weekend Small Press Fair in Holborn’s Conway Hall.

ABOUT US
Alternative Press is a group of artists who promote creativity through the mediums of comix, zines, book arts, screen-printing, poetry and other forms of self-publishing. The first International Alternative Press Festival in 2011 attracted over 1,000 eager visitors. Alternative Press is building upon the success of last year’s festival to establish an annual programme.

EXHIBITIONS
From the 22nd July – 5th August, a parade of 11 venues on Lambs Conduit St and Great Ormond Street will host artwork by a broad and exciting selection of international comic artists.
GOSH! Comics and Orbital Comics stores are hosting related exhibitions as part of the festival This includes the work of Private Eye cartoonist Dave Greene at Orbital Comics and the launch of the new issue of The Comix Reader at Gosh!
SMALL PRESS FAIR
The focal event to the International Alternative Press Festival at Conway Hall is the two-day Small Press Fair, made up of over 100 exhibitors, with zines, book arts and other small press publications.
Across the weekend the fair is a lively schedule of creative workshops including poetry, typography, drawing, printing and bookbinding sessions. Please view workshop details listed fully at www.alternativepress.org.uk.
Saturday 4th August – Sunday 5th August 2012
Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, Greater London WC1R 4RL