Reeling, Writhing and Fainting in Coils

Now, you see what I'm doing here. I'm waiting until I've allowed a critical mass of news to build up -- something which usually takes, say, six months or so -- and then I let it all out in one big blog-dump and then I let the dust settle and wait another six months until I do it again. This way I avoid boring my long-suffering readers with insignificant trivialities or long, tedious opinionated rants which might come back to haunt me.

So here's what I'm up to. Guaranteed meaty-fresh until it isn't any more:

* I'm working like a bastard -- a BASTARD, I tell you -- on a 13-page story for Science Fiction Classics, an offshoot of the Graphic Classics line of literary adaptations. The story I'm illustrating is "The Disintegration Machine", adapted by Rod Lott from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story featuring Professor Challenger, he of The Lost World (and other tales with fewer dinosaurs). I finished inking it last night, but I have still to colour it, as they're splashing out for full colour this time around. So there's that.

* Also in the middle of a two-pager for the upcoming X-MEN: FIRST CLASS Halloween Special. I'm writing and drawing this one. It features Li'l Charlie Xavier in a mash-up pastiche of Village of the Damned and Edward Gorey. I have no idea if this is going to work -- I probably won't know until after I've done it, and possibly not even then.

* Also gearing up to start writing and drawing a regular monthly book for Boom Studios in September, which means I'm writing plot ideas whenever I get a moment. This hasn't been officially announced yet, so I should keep the lid on it until it comes through the Proper Channels, but I can tell you that it will mean picking up where I left off on a project that was very dear to my heart. Wakka wakka.

* Also plowing through a number of short solo stories featuring the Fin Fang Four members, to appear randomly throughout the Marvel line in the near future in unexpected places, thereafter to be collected into a book if all goes well. The most recent one had Googam, Son of Goom being adopted by Angelina Jolie (or a reasonable approximation thereof). The next one on the drawing board will probably be "Curious Gorgilla"... Scott Gray is on board as co-conspirator, as usual.

* Signed up to attend the Birmingham Comics Show in October!

* I'm about to start a new web strip, Mugwhump the Great. This has been planned for some time, but over the weekend the delightful and talented Mister Simon Fraser contacted me with an intriguing offer which has thrown a new spin on things. So there will be a short hiatus on the regular web strip content (which I'm guessing about five people have noticed in any case -- anybody been reading the brand-new Doctor Sputnik serial? No, I didn't think so) while I get ready to go with the new arrangement. Forgive me for being unnecessarily cryptic, but the details are still being nailed down at this writing. Let's just say that my next web strip will be appearing at an exciting new venue. Followers of Simon's work may already have a clue...

* Still available: the marvellous anthology Superior Showcase #3, published by AdHouse Books, for which I did the cover. The interiors are very much worth your time: the wildly popular Street Angel by Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg, plus stories by two of my favourite new cartoonists, Dustin Harbin and Laura Park. In addition to being a very fine cartoonist, Dustin is the driving force behind Heroes Con's spectacular Indie Island, at which I was a guest last month; and Laura is one of those people (like Mark Stafford) whose sketchbooks utterly blow your mind and you walk away wondering why they're not drawing every comic in the world. Laura, start drawing every comic in the world please!



I think that's picked the bones out of it for now. More when something exciting happens, unless nothing does, in which case there won't be.