Goodbye Mister Henson

I've got some things going on right now. Not very fun things that most grown-ups have to deal with at some point in their lives. This is probably not the place to discuss the details, but it's certainly the place to address the fallout, so...

I've chosen to step down from the Muppet Show Comic Book. The story I'm currently drawing, "The Four Seasons," will be held back a few months, to be released next year sometime; Boom! Studios have been super-helpful and supportive at what is turning out to be a difficult time for me, and I thank them for that from the bottom of my heart. I thank them for a lot of stuff, actually. It's been an amazing couple of years. I hope to be working with them again when things have settled down.

Though probably not on the Muppets. Thing is, I was ready to move on - this personal situation made me jump when I did, but I was looking for an appropriate time to jump anyway. I feel like I've done about as much as I can with the Muppet characters - really, I'd rather move on while it's still fun than carry on grinding away long past the point where I'm enjoying it.

As I say, I'm not quite gone yet - "The Four Seasons" is supposed to appear some time next year, and I'm still working on that until the end of 2010, albeit not as quickly as I normally would. But eagle-eyed Muppet-watchers will probably have noticed by now that The Muppet Show Comic Book didn't come out this month, and I felt some kind of explanation was in order. So now you know what's going on. My particular and heartfelt thanks to all the readers out there for your amazing support over the book's run. Hearing from you, meeting you at shows, has been an absolute highlight of my time with the Muppets.

More on Thor

Bit of an update on Thor stuff. Firstly, can I just say the last 48 hours or so have been insane? In a good way, I mean. I'm blown away by the affection for our little funnybook that appears to exist out there. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And you. And you.

There's an interview with me about the whole business, and Thor: TMA in general, over at iFanboy right now.

There's a "Save Thor the Mighty Avenger" Facebook page.

And Chris Samnee has quite sensibly pointed out over on his blog that the best, most useful, most productive thing you can do if you want to see the story continue is to buy the darn thing. If you've been waiting for the collection, please consider pre-ordering it. If you know somebody else who might like it, why not get one for them as a Christmas present. And there's three more issues to go before the doors close - your comic shop is waiting to take your money. Marvel is, after all, a business, and that's the sort of thing that can make a difference.

Again - thank you, everyone. You've made an old man very happy.

Thor the Cancelled Avenger

It's been officially announced now, apparently, so I can mention here at last that Thor: The Mighty Avenger has been cancelled - issue #8 will be the last one. Thanks to everyone who bought the book - it's been such a great experience working with Chris Samnee on this thing; his artwork consistently exceeded my expectations. He and colourist Matt Wilson made that book the best-looking one on the stands.

Chris and I were four issues shy of wrapping up the mega-subplot we'd been setting up since issue #1 - if we'd reached issue #12 a lot of questions would have been answered and the series would have been tied up with a nice little bow - so if you're Twitter-enabled and you'd like Marvel to publish those last four issues at some stage, let them know.

Update: Some commentary from around the internet...

iFanboy: A Note for my Boyfriend Thor
The Comics Reporter
Newsarama
Digital Spy
Bleeding Cool
Comics Alliance
Robot 6/CBR

And perhaps most intriguingly...

Malinky!

I recently had the pleasure of doing a pin-up for the phenomenal Sonny Liew to go in his Malinky Robot collection, the English language edition of which will be out soon from Image Comics (though it's been out elsewhere in the world for a while). We worked together on a Spider-Man backup a couple of years back, and I was blown away by how much he brought to the story. It was a great privilege to be invited to contribute something to his own project.

I thought I was out...

This week, I thought I'd share a spot illustration I did recently for Doctor Who Magazine - it's for their soap-opera-themed issue, #427, out later this month. They're taking advantage of the fact that I used to do these kinds of illustrations for Inside Soap magazine and DWM, y'see... anyway, it was nice to be back in the saddle again, however briefly. That's the thing about Doctor Who... it's a bit like the mafia. You think you're out, but they pull you back in...

Comica Comiket

People around the London area might like to know that I'll be making an appearance at this Sunday's Comica Comiket, sketching and signing along with a number of other fine cartoonists, among them Charlie Adlard, Darryl Cunningham, Hunt Emerson, Garen Ewing, Paul Grist, Ellen Lindner, Gary Northfield, Woodrow Phoenix and the legendary Ed Pinsent. So that's a hell of a line-up. We'll all be there from noon till 5pm - details below.