Newsround

It's been a quiet year this year, one way and another, but I've got a few things it's probably worth making a noise about around now, so let's make some noise.

Noise One is that my Muppet Show Comic Book work will soon be collected into a big fat Omnibus Edition by Marvel. Really surprised about that one, frankly – but I'm happy to hear the work will continue to be available in a nice, bookshelf-worthy edition. So there's that. There's some more guff about that here. It looks like the work I wrote that was drawn by Amy Mebberson and Shelli Paroline won't be included, which is... let's just say it's not what I would have done; but it is what it is, and I'm grateful that any of it will be available at all – I'd pretty much written it off as work that would disappear forever.

Noise Two: I'm going to be appearing at not one, but two Stateside conventions in September. First I'll be at the Baltimore Comic Con on September 7th and 8th. In addition to sketching, signing and selling artwork, I'm down for a panel on The British Invasion while I'm there (yes, I'm not British, but I've been here long enough that I sort of fit) and will be presenting a couple of Harvey Awards on the Saturday night. I attended the show for the first time last year and had a fine old time, so I'm really looking forward to a return visit.

Noise Three: Then I'll be attending SPX the following weekend. I will have a new Fez minicomic debuting at the show, twice the length of the first issue at a cracking 24 pages (and for those of you who won't be there, I'll make a digital edition available once I return, so look out for that). I'm doing a couple of panels there, too - one on Kids' Comics, and one on The Australia/New Zealand Comics Scene. SPX was the first US convention I ever attended, and it holds a special place in my heart as a result. I'm looking forward to seeing many old friends there.

(Incidentally, this will be the first time in a long while that I've been to a convention where the panel I was asked to be on wasn't "Humour in Comics", so that in itself probably deserves some kind of award.)

Noise Four: I've been chatting to my friends at Boom! Studios about doing a kid-friendly graphic novel for them, an original story of my own. Right now I'm writing the script and it's going pretty well – I'm about three-quarters done at this writing and very pleased with how it's going. More about that anon, I have no doubt.

One last, little noise, more of a quiet fart in the night until a formal announcement is made: I'm going to be drawing a licensed book for IDW in the near future. It's been talked about for months, but this week I received official approval from the licensors, so it's finally happening. More info when I'm allowed to blab about it, and sorry to be such a tease in the meantime.