Countdown: BICS-3 Weeks

BICS is truly is the "ninja of comics conventions". It always seems really far away all summer and suddenly it is upon you! I was saying this very thing to Kev Crossley (more on him in a bit) earlier today, who finds that the show has managed to sneak up on him while he was distracted by being frantically busy.

Still, we know how to deal with ninjas here at Insomina Towers, oh dear me yes, so despite all the smoke bombs and throwing stars that it tries to hurl in at the last minute we will prevail.

I've hyper-extended it now, haven't I?

Ahem.

Right then, on to business.

New Vigil Signing

The Insomnia family has grown again. Our newest addition (I typed edtion there first of all, comics are taking over my brain!) is probably already known to you as one of the team behind Future Quake Press and the co-organiser of Hi-Ex, The Highlands International Comics Expo.

Sounds like he is a perfect candidate for Insomia already! Who needs sleep when there are comics!

Did you guess who it is yet?

It's Richmond Clements and he will be writing the "incredible but true" life story of Allen Pinkerton who founded the famous wild west Pinkerton Detective Agency.

In the course of his life Pinkerton was also a spy, campaigned for suffrage, fought in the US Civil War (having emigrated from Glasgow where he was born) helped escaped slaves to freedom, was involved in suppressing a revolution in Cuba, solved a series of train robberies and guarded Abraham Lincoln on his way to his inauguration!

He also laid the foundations for what became the FBI

Makes you feel quite lazy by comparison!

It's going to be a really cinematic story, especially in the way Richmond plans to present it, and it just screamed "SIGN ME NOW" when we saw the submission.

The day after the book was signed, in a triumph of timing made possible only by major plantary alignment, Richmond was interviewed for the podcast Small Press, Big Mouth by "honorary insomniac" Stacey Wittle and Lee Grice. I will post a link to the episode when it goes live.

If you're hungry for more of Richmond's work in the meantime, he has a two part series called Turning Tiger being publisher soon by Renegade Arts Entertainment

Wicked Witches of The West and East

Not content with moving house, going on holiday to Amsterdam and becoming a father all in the space of two weeks Barry McGowan has just turned in the first pictures of the Wicked Witches for Oz: Fall Of The Scarecrow King.

Surrender Dorothy indeed...





Liam Sharp on Kev Crossley

Despite all indications to the contrary this is not a piece of slash fic about two of the most incredibly talented artists in the UK.

It is, in fact, notice that Liam has taken the time to write a fantastic foreword for In Extremis: The Art of Kev Crossley and here is a little taster of what he has to say about our Kev:

"Oh beware the Crossley, ye artists of light and fancy! Beware the cunning hell-spat maestro and his nibs of flame! With wit and talent not born of this world he’ll carve an empire through the legions of lesser mortal artist-kind and assume a dark and rocky throne. You mark my words."

I'll put up the full thing nearer the time, but for now, you mark his words!

We're hoping Kev will be able to get to BICS to pitch his tent on the Insomnia stand - but first we are waiting to see if he can make it past the ninjas!

I'll be putting up a list of creators who'll be on the stand probably next week.

Burke and Hare Pin Up Countdown

The Burke and Hare countdown continues this week with Lynsey Hutchison, Dave Hill, Alex Ronald and Dave Alexander.

Lynsey Hutchison

Dave Hill

Alex Ronald

Dave Alexander

Martin, the Vigil editor, will be on the Insomnia stand at BICS to talk about his own work on Burke and Hare, about the other Vigil books we have in production, and ready to talk to anyone who may have a Vigil Pitch.

Until next week - beware of the Ninjas!

Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On

A few months back we announced the signing of Dream Solver by Luke Foster and Chris Wildgoose.

"When 22 year old picture researcher Ione-Rose Young has a disturbing, recurring dream about seeing her own death, she doesn’t know whether to dismiss it as just another weird dream, or worry that it’s about to come true. Unable to shake the dream from her mind, she sets out to decipher its meaning"

The first concept art for the main character design is now in, and when I opened the pages it was really quite creepy how perfectly the picture of Ione-Rose matched what I'd had in my head when I was reading the script.

Ione-Rose Young

Jacob Young


Danielle Carter

The story is set in Canterbury, and the pair have been there on trips to get location photos and soak up the atmosphere. According to his blog Chris thought the city was like something out of Harry Potter.

I'm especially looking forward to seeing the first sequential pages as I lived in Canterbury for 3 years when I was at Uni, and often go back. In fact Canterbury is the home of the wonderful Whatever Comics, which is still my "local comic shop". Hmm...I feel a tailored made launch event in the making there.

In other news Chris has recently been working on the indy film Warhouse, which looks very very interesting indeed.

Clap Your Hands If You Believe in Fairies...

Oh that's nice, you are all true believers, so you can see her...


There, you're glad not you're not all cynical hard hearted non-believers now, aren't you?

This little beauty is from the brush of Kev Crossley, and she is set to appear in the 2010 'Dark Fairies' calendar Kev has just done for Infocado. She's just landed here for a second to give you an idea of what you can you expect in the upcoming Art of Kev Crossley book we mentioned last week.

Long Nights and Golden Dawns

So, you want to work on a Vigil Book, do you?

This intimidating pile is Martin Hayes initial research material for Crowley: Wandering The Wastes.



Writing on his blog this week about the book he says he " had to crawl around the attic like some kind of giant, malformed silverfish to gather up all my old Crowley books" which is quite scary in itself.

Better get on with making that circle of salt!


From the Chicago Con

Last week Michael "Quarantine" Moreci was at the Chicago con. Here is what he got up to:

"I began going to the Chicago Comic-Con back when I was a kid. One of the best memories of that time is the year Stan Lee attended; I remember anxiously waiting with my father for what seemed like days simply to be called a “true believer.”

Maybe it’s nostalgia for the past, but as I took in this year’s con, I couldn’t help thinking how much things had changed. Back in the day, the con was all about comics—one of the first things you’d encounter upon walking in was the artist tables; now they’re the last, one step away from being delegated to interact with fans in the food court.

In recent years, Chicago has followed in the footsteps of others cons—San Diego, most notably—in shifting its focus from comics to mixed media (movies, television, games). In a sense, I understand this necessity; cons are an extraordinary marketing tool and, in order to survive, comics need the crossover fans brought in through movie adaptations such as Iron Man, or even American Splendor.

My disappointment in this year’s con was seeing the artists cast off to the Island of Misfit Creators while significant focus was given to the supporting-supporting cast of Twilight, Willis from Diff’rent Strokes, and an assortment of washed-up wrestlers. It’s hard to see novelty celebrities placed front-and-center while someone like Jason Aaron (Scalped) is exiled to the far side of the con.

Griping aside, there was a lot to like about the weekend. Chicago has a great community of creators, fans, and shops, many of whom came out for the weekend. I sat in on a Battlestar Q & A panel, and got to hear Admiral Adama—er, Edward James Olmos—lead a chant of “so say we all!” Mark Millar attended, as did Brian Azzarello and George Perez. I admit, I didn’t meet any of these fantastic creators—though I’ve encountered Azzarello a few times in the past (he’s a local guy)—but there was a genuine excitement in the crowd. I did manage to get my hands on a fairly-mint copy of Uncanny X-Men 171, where Rogue (one of my favorite X-Men) joins the team, for two bucks (two bucks!).

One of the highlights of the weekend was meeting Robert Venditti, author of The Surrogates (which has been turned into a soon-to-be released motion picture, starring Bruce Willis). We spoke for awhile; Robert was a great guy, very energetic and insightful about his work. I’m about halfway through the graphic novel, and couldn’t be enjoying it more. The book reminds me of two films—Blade Runner (one of my all-tome favorites), and Gattaca. It does what all great sci-fi does, blending a unique—yet familiar—scenario with a profound look into the future, via social commentary. I couldn’t recommend it more.

So that’s that—another Chicago con come and gone. Next up: the Windy City Comic Con, which is only six weeks away."

Comics In The Classroom

And in more Michael Moreci news...

Michael will be teaching a 6 week course in Graphic Novels from October to November at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

The course description says:

"Comics, or graphic novels, are the topic of many scholarly studies and a myriad of blockbuster films. Yet many Americans consider comic books a lower form of culture, not an art form. This course will challenge that idea by demonstrating comic book authors’ abilities to examine characters and to critique society in ways that are novelistic in scope and depth. We will read Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Brian K. Vaughn’s Y: The Last Man, among others."

Full details and links to registration can be found over on Michael's blog.

Michael Moreci holds an M.A. in English from Northwestern University. He teaches at Flashpoint Academy, and his work has appeared in a number of publications.

Comic Racks

This week I'm going to be a guest on the fantastic Comic Racks podcast. We'll be recording episode 42 on Thursday night, technology willing.

I'll post details when it goes live.

And Finally...

It seems that Burke and Hare are still making their influence felt from beyond the grave.

In a sinister co-incidence this week, the very week that the book is being finalised for print, the life mask of Hare himself, thought lost to history, has turned up in a museum in Swansea.

You can see the mask and read the story over at the BBC Wales site and find out more about the Crime and Punishment exhibition at Swansea Museum, which runs until the 30th November.

Cancertown Stitched Up

The glorious "double page bedspread" (as Cy Dethan has memorably named it) that is Bad Rain, the Cancertown / Quilting crossover event of the summer is now complete.

The original art by Stephen Downey, with colours by Mel Cook, looks like this:

and the quilted version looks like this:

If you visit Ferret's (the quilter responsible) blog then you can see photos of the various stages of production and read more about how it was done.

In the meantime here are some key stats she posted about it - and I always love stats:

• When bound the quilt will be at least 90"x70"
• There is over 4000m of thread on the front of the quilt
• About 40 pre-wound bobbins were used in this quilt
• More than 1/2m of solid black appears in the quilt - it surprised me, as most of the black - isn't
• 4 1/2 cans of 505 spray baste held the pieces down so I could stitch them
• 3/4 roll of freezerpaper was used to make patterns
• 5m of washaway stabiliser was the pattern and quilting design
• over 15m of ombre fabrics went in to this quilt.
• the master pattern was 112 sheets of A4 paper

More on the quilt and other related Cancertown matters will be revealed in The Insomniac's Guide to Cancertown next year. As well as additional background material, unseen art from Stephen and more on the various techniques and processes, there will be an all new prequel story thrown into the mix, and maybe some clues about Volume 2, Blasphemous Tumours.

It'll be a lot like the bonus discs you get in some DVD packages, only in book form, and will be the first in a series expanding various Insomnia books.

New Signing:

The Empyre by Stephen Aryan

On his first day in office, the Prime Minister meets a member of his Cabinet he didn’t elect - Alistair Donovan, the Secretary of State for Nocturnal Affairs.

Donovan runs a secret government department that has existed for over a hundred years. In extreme circumstances, when a swift resolution is needed, the Prime Minister calls on Donovan and his team of hand-picked specialists.

The Empyre mixes fast-paced action with politics and drama, charting how the UK starts to become a world leader in a secret technology, and the effects it has on international politics.

If you watch 24 and The West Wing on TV and enjoy comics such as Ex-Machina and Queen and Country then keep your eye out for more news on this one in future.

Stephen is the co-host of the Comic Book Outsiders podcast and creator of Mythos, a mature superhero comic.

The Art of Kev Crossley

We are extremely pleased to announce Insomnia's next art portfolio book just as the first, MILK by Stref, goes to print.

Kev Crossley, the superhumanly talented artist on Sidhe is working closely with Art Director Rich Johnson to compile a book so beautiful it will break your heart.

Kev says:

"In life you have ambitions for the future: Get a nice car, find a great job, swim with squid, get your own art book published... those sorts of things. So far I've not managed to find any Squid to swim with, but that doesn't matter anymore as Insomnia have offered me my first ever Art Book!

If that wasn't enough, the design A.C.E. that is Rich Johnson will be designing the layout and graphics, so it is going to look STUNNING.

I'm so honoured, and hope to repay their awesomeness by filling this book with as many cool, weird, exciting and amazing illustrations as possible, including plenty of brand new pieces. "

Watch this space for up-dates!

I wonder if I can find him a squid from somewhere?

Fallen Heroes News

Barry "Fallen Heroes" Nugent was a special guest on the 30th episode of the Kryptographik podacst.

He discusses how his novel FALLEN HEROES started out being self-published through Lulu.com and has since been optioned for adaptations into both a graphic novel and a TV series, and the show also looks at how and why changes are made when stories are adapted to other media, past and upcoming adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, opinions about The War of the Worlds (starring Tom Cruise) and Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Kryptographik is a trans-continental podcast featuring Brian (in the U.S.) and Damian (in Australia), providing news, reviews, commentary and interviews covering horror, dark fantasy and science-fiction.

You can listen to the episode here

Insomnia Comics Workshop and signing on the Isle of Wight

The first workshop and signing went extremely well with lots of interest in the books that were, the books that are, and the books as yet to be.

Once again we had some brilliant, interesting and extremely wide ranging chats with people of all ages, into all kinds of different things, and the local newspaper (the Isle of Wight County Press) came along to take photos and talk about the books and the company.

This was the first time I had combined a signing with a pitching and portfolio session for local creators and there were some very promising discussions, so watch this space.

The shop is very keen to have us back for more of the same, so we must have been polite and well behaved.

Thanks to Paul Armstrong, Manager, for organising all of this.

More details next week, as I have literally just stepped through the door on returning from the trip and am now off for a well earned cup of tea!

See you in seven.