One Item Bad, Three Items Good

Item the First: It looks like Disney Adventures, who were going to be running my Muppets strip, have bitten the dust. There has been talk of trying to get as much of the work I've done so far into the final issue as they can. Here's hoping. I'd hate to think none of it ever sees the light of day.

Item the Second: I'm currently drawing a few Fin Fang Four shorts for Marvel. The first one is nearly finished, and Sinister Scott Gray is putting the final touches on his last couple of scripts as I write. There'll be five in all, one featuring the entire group and four solo stories. I have absolutely no idea where or when they're likely to appear at this writing, so watch this space.

Item the Third: Those wacky guys at Doctor Who Magazine have asked me to draw a Christmas story for them, which I should be starting work on shortly. The script is by Jonathan Morris, who's written some of the funnier Who strips of recent years, and the premise sounds like a hoot, so this one should be loads of fun.

Item the Fourth: The Knuckles the Malevolent Nun special, She Might Get Rather Crude, is currently in the hands of those nice people at ComiXpress and is on track for release at SPX in October. Written by Cornelius Stone with most of the art by me, the issue is rounded out with one-pagers drawn by Dylan Horrocks, Mike Mignola, Bob Fingerman, Ant Sang, Chris Slane, Roberto Corona and others. It'll be available online from the Hotel Fred once I get back from SPX on October 16th.

We Still Have Muppets (very badly - but they're clearing up nicely)

I've had some queries about the Muppets strip in Disney Adventures (or lack of it), and I have to admit I was wondering about it myself, as I had been under the impression it would be starting in the August issue. So I asked the comics editor, Steve Behling, what was up - last I'd heard from him, he'd sent my PIGS IN SPACE effort off to some Disney high muck-a-mucks for their official nod, and that was a while ago. I was beginning to worry that the whole thing had been vetoed. Fortunately, I received this reply last night:

"We’ve had pretty tight space constraints in the last couple issues, so we’re holding off on running the three MUPPETS strips we have until either the Dec/Jan or February issues. I did send the PIGS IN SPACE strip off, didn’t get back a detailed response, but did get a general “this is cool!” response. (I’m a big fan of the general “this is cool!” response.)"

So there you go. It looks like I'm not going to be doing any new Muppet strips for a couple more months at least, which is fine and dandy, as it happens - it will give me time to work on the odd side-project. Hooray!