On The Pulse

Our good friend Ian Cullen, webmaster of Sci-Fi Pulse has been interviewing some Insomnia creative teams over the last couple of weeks.

The interviews are available to download from Blog Talk Radio.

First up is the team behind the adaptation of the novel Fallen Heroes

This interview is split into two parts - the first with Barry Nugent who wrote the cult hit novel (and is currently at work on the sequel) and Martin Conaghan who is adapting Barry's book into a trade paperback. The second interview is with artist Steve Penfold who'll bring the visual versions of Barry's characters to the page.

Synospis: A stalker of demons and legends, a pair of master criminals, a teenager on the brink of madness and a man forever cursed with the desire for vengeance. They are all pawns in a plan set in motion over nine centuries before their birth. Pursued across the globe by enemies both human and supernatural they must overcome their mistrust of each other and uncover the truth before it destroys them all.here. Fallen Heroes pits an unlikely group of heroes and anti heroes against an evil which has existed since the first crusade. If they can keep from killing each other long enough they might just be able to stop the world from plunging into a new dark age.

• Fallen Heroes interview
  

Next up we spend time with the creative team from The Ragged Man: writer Cy Dethan, penciller Neil Van Antwerpen and colourist Peter-David Douglas.

Synopsis: The Ragged Man is a fast moving, violent character piece. It’s a psychological dissection of a man whose fear of failure is so great that he levels a world to accommodate it. Insane with grief, his self-hatred grows so all-consuming as to become a physical character in its own right, but the Ragged Man’s single-minded retreat into denial continually thwarts his own redemption. Reality is layered and fractured in the Ragged Man’s world, a world in which he clings frantically to the role of martyr, simply to deny his position as monster.

• The Ragged Man interview
• First 3 coloured and lettered preview pages

Creator Roundup

A few notes and links to what our ever busy creators have been up to recently, and where you can find their work:

• Stephen Downey and Andrew Croskery have been working as part of a multimedia fiction project to showcase the talents of Northern Irish creators called TalesOfThe which has launched with Tales Of The Cthlulu Quarter.
  
  
• Chris Lynch in his guise of one half of Monkeys With Machine guns has been interviewed by the lovely ladies of the The Comic Racks. Chris is also doing a number of signings at the moment to promote his new book The Dark from Markosia publications and details, and links to the ebook preview are over on his site.
  
  
• Corey Brotherson has a a piece called Twilight's Promise in the new Tales from The Plex from Futurius.
  
  
• James Reekie was commissioned by the BBC to produce an image for a short article on "Nature's Assassins", insects and fungus that "take out" destructive pests. That may sound more National Geographic than Comics but check out James's blog to see his concepts of turning the insects and fungus into comic book style super villains in a police line up based on the famous "Usual Suspects" poster. Look out for more of James' work in an upcoming issue of ImagineFX magazine.
  
  
• Richard McAuliffe and Mark Chilcott have recently had a Dredd story accepted for an upcoming issue of Zarjaz featuring Judges Dredd and Death if they were London based in the late 1800s.
  
  
• Will Pickering has been an extra in Burke and Hare, the John Landis movie version.
  
  
• Michael Moreci will be at C2E2 in Chicago with new preview copies of Quarantined - this time with the new cover art by Keith Burns and this is his appearance schedule:
  
  Nerd City, Friday, from 230-330 (booth 865)
  Third Coast Comics, Saturday, from 1200-100 (booth 1018)
  Chicago Comics, Saturday, from 600-700 (booth 725)
  
  
• Valia Kapadai has produced a self published anthology of dark stories called "Twisted Vision". It's pretty hefty at 100+ full colour pages and includes stories from some familiar Insomnia names. It will available at Bristol.
  
  
• Kev Levell and Rich Clements received a coveted intergalatic shout out from the Mighty Tharg with Zarjaz and Dogbreath being promoted in the Nerve Centre of Prog 1681 with a special mention for Teen Wulf. Find out more about both publications at the The Quaequam Blog

Eagle Awards

The annual Eagle Awards are now open for nominations for comics published in 2009.

The way is works is that the top 5 most nominated in each category go through to the voting stage. You can only nominate once and then vote once.

It's great to see the awards back again this year.

Bristol Comic Expo Update

Comic cons are always fantastic for us in terms of meeting new creators. Next week I'll be posting details of what you need to do if you have a book proposal or art portfolio you would like to discuss with us at the show.

Over the next few weeks we'll have a lot of previews of upcoming books and details of what will be going on at the stand, with a schedule for signings and reviews.

Bye for now...

After Thoughts

This weekend we were at the Thought Bubble Convention in Leeds and a great time was had by all!

Comics folk defeated both the severe weather, and the Leeds one way system, and the event was incredibly busy all day. I didn't get a chance to go over to the conference side with everything that was going on, but talking to Paul Gravett later in the day it sounded like it was going very well.

As always it was great to catch up with old friends and make lots of new ones.

Plenty of Insomnia folk were around the table throughout the event, singing, talking about their books, making great plans for lots of things that we can't reveal just yet - and Kev Crossley's live sketching wowed the crowds, while his portfolio left them speechless!

Highlight of the event had to be the Geek Syndicate panel. The boys were on top form as usual, and Dave's impromtu rendition of Rawhide was fantastic, as was the mystifying, and really slightly unnerving revelation of the existence of the "glue man" who haunts comic cons asking artists for pictures of superheroines stuck in glue! All the panel seemed to have encountered him, and at various different shows! Frank Quitely and Cameron Stewart's tales of having to draw the mad things that live in Grant Morrisson's brain were wonderful, too.

Congratulations to Alex and Lauren of Kronos City who both won prizes at the Dr Sketchy's Burlesque drawing competition on the Saturday night. Their "How Do You See Karl" non competition has been very successful and you can see the results on the blog.

Thanks also to Martin Conaghan, Cy Dethan, Ollie Masters, Steven Stone, Roy Huteson and Christopher Barker for helping hold the fort on the day.

We got to meet Ian Cullen from Sci-Fi Pulse in person for the first time, having spoken to him online and even on the radio before now!

Fallen Heroes News

Barry Nugent, Martin Conaghan and I had arranged to meet up to talk about Fallen Heroes plans this weekend as scripting is now well underway.

With an astounding piece of timing, though, we discovered, and signed up, the perfect artist only hours before the show :)

Ladies and Gentlement, please allow me to present Steve Penfold - and his initial character sketches that just blew us all away:

Martin's got brilliant plans for how this is all going to come together. I wish I could tell you more, but for now will just have to leave you with that tantalising little hint of things to come.












Burke and Hare: Getting Into The Guts

Last week Burke and Hare creators Martin Conaghan and Will Pickering had an in-depth interview over on the Forbidden Planet Blog with lots of beautiful artwork from later on in the book that has not been seen before.

For those north of the border, In Scotland, there will be a Burke and Hare signing event at Forbidden Planet Edinburgh in January, followed by a gallery event. More on that as we get closer to the time.

The excitement and interest in this book from many non traditional comics sources with an interest in history and literature is really fantastic, and shows the power and very high quality of the art and storytelling that it can cross what often seems an unbridgable divide between comics and the rest of printed literature. More in this in the coming weeks.

Shock Theory

Celeste Sharp, writer of Shock Theory, is all over the news this week. Bournemouth University, where she studied until very recently, has been writing about her success in being signed to Insomnia for her very first graphic novel.

Jersey radio have also been in touch with Celeste to request an interview about the book next week.

Imagine FX

This month's ImagineFX magazine has two pieces on Insomnia, one with a picture of Crawford Coutts, if you haven't met him and wanted to know what he looks like!

Crawford is in there talking about the launch of the Digital Comics service for the PlayStationNetwork in December. For those with PSPs the reader software is now available to download from the Sony site.

Average Joe artist Kelvin Chan also has an interview in the magazine, and there is a preview of some of the artwork.

Working With Artists

Just a small mention of the odd world of comics production and the kinds of things you find yourself discussing.

Previously I had thought the weirdest thing I had discussed by email was either the shape of the sounds sheep make with Simon Wyatt when lettering Unbelievable, or maybe the one about how it would effect the perception of Emer's character, in Sidhe, if the underwear visible over her waistband was boxer shorts or lacy knickers.

However this week, working on The Indifference Engine Rob Carey sent me an email that included the following line:

"Does anyone object to seeing a penis in this shot?"

Followed a few days later by:

"New Engine, now with added penis" and a beautifully drawn page that delivered just that very thing!

And on that note, I'll leave it for this week.

Burke and Hare: The Grand Tour

Following the mightily succesful launch of Burke and Hare at BICS 2009 last week Will and Martin were out and about spreading the word to the next generation.

Over to Martin for his write up of the event:

"Will and I gave some talks last Tuesday to 5th and 6th year high school pupils at two North Lanarkshire libraries about Burke & Hare, and the response was fantastic.



Many of the kids were keen on graphic novels (some were avid comic collectors) and everyone enjoyed seeing the book and learning about the process via which Will and I reconstructed the story, produced the script, created the artwork and lettering - and the extensive research we carried out to recreate a sense of authenticity.




It demonstrated that comics-books and graphic novels are not always about super-heroes or goofball characters, but can also incorporate abstract themes or concepts and expand to include stories of a historical nature, like our ghoulish story of the Irish serial killers Burke & Hare.



As Will said in at one point our talk – comics are words with pictures, so whatever you want to happen, can happen – and the knock-on effects can include the widespread exploitation of the source material, such as in film, television and computer games.




We hope to do it again at some point in the future."

And we certainly hope they will do it again, too, and have requests in for a repeat of the talk in several places already. I'll posts dates and venues here, and on the events section of the main website.

If you work at a school, museum or other organisation and are interested in arranging for Insomnia creators to come in and do talks, workshops or signing events then visit our FAQ page for more details.

No one ever to came to talk to us about comics when I was at school!

Fallen Heroes

Sticking with Martin we turn now to the Fallen Heroes adaptation.

Fallen Heroes is Insomnia Publications first adaptation, and I am incredibly excited about the book getting underway. Barry Nugent's dark, stylish, cine-literate, multilayered and tangled plotting, fused with Martin Conaghan's gift for the creation of living, breathing worlds, peopled with complex charismatic characters, mean we are set for the pulp adventure comic of the year.

Truly these are the Fallen Heroes we've all been holding out for.

With Burke and Hare having safely flown the nest Martin and Barry met up for some in depth chat at BICS to really explore some of the ideas that have been flowing between them.

Martin said:

"Barry Nugent's Fallen Heroes isn't just a great debut novel - it's a wonderful collection of vivid characters whose lives interweave on a heart-stopping action-packed journey into ancient magic and discovery. I can't wait to get started and find out where Napoleon Stone and the rest of the Barry's Heroes take me."

Barry said:

"I am very, very, very excited about the way Martin wants to take the adaptation and some of the ideas nic has thrown in in terms of dealing with some of the story elements which may not make it into the graphic novel. I think it's going to be very different than what people might have been expecting the FH adaptation to be be, in a very very good way."


If you'd like to read the novel in the meantime you can get it from Amazon and from Waterstones, and we will also have a very small number of the special "sketchbook edition" available from the stand at the MCM Expo.

MCM Expo

Speaking of the MCM Expo, it takes places 24-25th of October and it will Insomnia's first time with a stand at the show.

As usual we will have books for sale, previews of upcoming art, special offers, pitching and portfolio review sessions and creators on the stand to talk about their work.

Cy "Cancertown" Dethan, Will "Burke and Hare" Pickering and Jeymes "Buskers" Samuel" will all be signing on the stand at various points throughout the weekend.

There will be a limited convention edition of Buskers available which includes an exclusive CD featuring music by The Bullitts & the never before seen script and storyboards for the animated prequel to the forthcoming film.

If you would like to pre-order or reserve copies of books to be posted out to you or collected at the show please visit the Insomnia special offers page and contact us with your order.


Watch out for a big announcement related to all of this next week!

Countdown BICS-2 Weeks

So much news - so little time!

Secure all personal belongings and keep your arms inside the car at all times...

Burke and Hare: Reaching the Heart

Here we go then, with the last of the pin-up previews. This week we have Hugh Parker, Gary Erskine and Frank Quitely:

Hugh Parker

Gary Erksine

Frank Quitely

Layer Zero:Choices ebook sampler

Just in time for BICS we now have the Layer Zero: Choices sampler up as an ebook.

Take a look inside for a preview of each story, the pin ups and creator biographies.

Snow Job

Valia Kapadia has been getting in the mood for some desire and depravity, ready for BICS. Hang on, that didn't come out right!

What I meant to say is that she has been creating some amazing concept pieces as part of her style experiments for Snow.




Go on, admit it, you're already a little bit frightened, and even worse, a little bit temped.


Roy Huteson: Artist Double Header!

Not, in fact, a rare example of the two headed comics creator, but Roy Huteson, who is the first artist we have to be working on both a Vigil book and an Original Graphic Novel at the same time - and we snapped him up for both books in the same week.

Having been doing dark and stunning work on Daemon Seeds (the prequel to Daemon by Alasdair Duncan) for Layer Zero: Survival we are delighted to have him on board for the full book.

Alasdair said:

"Roy has the ability to put a highly detailed and realistic drawing right next to an impressionistic almost abstract piece of artwork and make it work as a whole. His biro doodles alone are worthy of display and his style has given me as a writer so much more freedom with the story."

Daemon Seeds

And then later in the week Roy sent us his bleak, inspiring, tinged-with-madness character concept sketches for how he would approach Crowley: Wandering the Waste. As soon as Martin Conaghan (editor), Martin Hayes (writer) and I clapped eyes on them we knew we had to have him.

Crowley: Wandering The Waste

Taking Over The Airwaves: Insomnia Podcastpalooza!

You've read about them, you've seen the pictures, and now thanks to the wonders of modern technology you can also hear their actual voices!

• Richmond Clements on Small Press Big Mouth
  
  
• Stephen Downey and Andrew Croskery on the Sunnyside podcast

And next week will see Cy Dethan interviewed by Comic Book Outsiders

New Signing: Terminus

We are very pleased to announce that we have signed a second book by Michael "Quarantine" Moreci last week.

"In an imagined 2033, advances in genetics have allowed a person’s physical and mental health to be known from birth. Those who are a danger to society—the poor, terminally ill for being a drain on healthcare economy, or those deemed prone to criminal tendencies—are removed, housed in government-operated facilities.

For some, on the surface, it’s a better world, until a government agent is murdered—the first murder in nine years—and the façade begins to slowly peel away."

Terminus is a sci-fi noir described by Michael as "Blade Runner meets The Constant Gardener mixed with A Clockwork Orange."

You can read more about the genesis of the story over on his blog.

Michael was at the Windy City Con this last weekend getting the word out about Insomnia.

Not only did he give up time - but it was his first wedding anniversary. However he is keen to point out that he is not a bad person, or a bad husband. His wife was gone most of the day as well at work and being the best judge at a pie contest ever :)

Huge thanks to him for that.

Small Press Expo

If you are going to be in the Maryland area on Saturday the 26th September then you'll be able to check out some Insomnia previews, enter the competition to win one of our new books, and find out some more about us by stopping by Mickey Farineau's stand at the Small Press Expo.

Mickey got in touch with us to see if he could do anything to help with promotion at the show after hearing me on Comic Racks a couple of weeks back.

It was an incredibly generous offer, and right out of the blue. Things like that are what makes it so great to be part of the indy comics world, and they restore your faith in human nature.

Thanks Mickey!

Fallen Heroes Special Edition

We will have a limited number of copies of the Fallen Heroes Special Sketch Edition for sale from the stand at BICS.


This edition will contain a section called Lost Passages which are scenes that never made it to the final version of the book and Barry's reasons for why they were left out (including his original opening chapter).

There will also be a section of the book called Fallen Heroes Sketchbook where comic book artists (some of whom have worked for Marvel and DC) have given their interpretation of some of characters from the book.

Sketches are provided by:

Emma Vieceli, Scott ‘Atomic Robo’ Wegna, Andie Tong, Leigh ‘2000ad’ Gallagher, Steve Sims, Gary Seaward, Jimmy Bott and Michael Schwartz

If you cannot make the show, or want to be sure of having a copy, then you can pre-order the book directly over on Barry Nugent's own site.

I wish I could share the things we've been talking about for the comic adaptation recently as I'm so excited about how it is taking shape - but they are not quite ready to go outside on their own yet!

And Finally...

Happy Insomnia birthday to me! Yes, today is one year to the day that I joined Insomnia on the management side as Creative Director.

The year has flown by, and it has been a wild wild ride. It's a wonderful time to be involved with comis right now.

Thanks to everyone, especially all the creators, for showing me such a great time.

Next week I'll putting up a Ptiching and Portfolio Review FAQ to help those of you coming to see the Insomnia Crew at BICS and try to make the whole experience as painless as we can.

If anyone has any particular questions they'd like covered drop me a line and let me know.

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.

Signs Of Spring

Spring seems to be in the air today, at least where I am in London. The sun is out, the birds are singing (you can hear them when the traffic stops) and little weeds are poking up their heads in the flower pots outside the office.

It is probably just a pratical joke on the part of the capricious English weather system - but I fall for it every year.

Adding to the general air of hope and expectation we have news on some new signings, the start of the Fallen Heroes adaptation, Layer Zero pages starting to flow in and the plans for the Bristol Comics Expo starting to get underway.

So, to begin at the beginning with the signings:

Dream Solver by Luke Foster

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.

Urban Legends by Steven Stone

A collection of short stories all based on the urban legends that everyone swears happened to a friend of a friend. The book's 15 stories range from the comical to the terrifying and all of them leave you with the uneasy feeling that it could happen to you. But they're only stories right? Right?

Fallen Heroes

The Fallen Heroes adaptation now has a writer attached.

Martin Conaghan will be picking up the pen on this one and working closely with author Barry Nugent over the coming months.



I didn’t so much read the first scene of Fallen Heroes back in 2008, as see it come to life out of the page, so visually arresting is the writing. With the sharp, multi-layered plot and slick characters of modern crime writing juxtaposed against the shadowy agencies, ancient magic and bold dynamic characters of pulp adventure Fallen Heroes is going to be a truly striking comic

With any adaptation finding the best writer for the job was crucial. Given the book’s increasing cult status we had a lot of very good pitches from both known and new writers hoping to get involved with this project. Fallen Heroes will be a very complex adaptation, as those who have read the novel will know, and there is huge amount of work to be done on the structure and coaxing the characters over to a new medium before the writing even begins.

We asked Martin to do the honours as he is a very experienced writer and researcher and is making a welcome return to comics (with Burke and Hare, also for Insomnia) after a 10 year absence. Martin’s background as a journalist, his incredibly deep knowledge of comics, their creators and their history, and his ability to deftly re-structure disparate historical sources into gripping stories with vibrant, vital characters all make him the perfect person for the job.

Martin himself says:

"Fallen Heroes is jam-packed full of fantastic ideas and thrilling set-pieces. I’m looking forward to finding out where I can take Barry’s rich characters when I translate them on to the comic-book page; from the reluctant hero Jason Chen to the ruthless demon stalker Napoleon Stone. It has everything; a great blend of mythology, science-fiction, action and the supernatural - all told in a very visual style - it’s perfect for the graphic novel format."

If you would like to read the original novel before the adaptation then you can find it in Waterstones , Borders, or Barnes and Noble (if they can keep it on the shelves!), or on Amazon.

However the really lucky ones can get hold of one of a limited number of special editions from our table at the show in Bristol. These include some of the original sketches of the cover and some deleted scenes (which come with an explanation as to why they were cut).

We also hope to have Barry signing copies and talking about the story at the table at some point in the day, if his Geek Syndicate duties allow. If you want a signed copy and can't make the con then Waterstones around the country have Barry on a regular signing schedule, keep an eye on his website for dates and details.

Right then, I am off to try and sort out bowls of eyeball sweets for the table at Bristol. "Why eyeballs?" you say. Well, that is all to do with the Cancertown launch, but more on that later.

Until next week...

Happy New Year

So here we are in 2009. Only 5 days in and it is already looking like this is going to be a storming year for Insomnia.

So, to kick things off here is a list of what we are going to be working on in 2009, and so what we will be talking about here.

First, here are the books with 2009 publication dates already set:

• Cages by Xander Bennett and Melanie Cook (available to order from amazon)
• Cancertown by Cy Dethan, Stephen Downey, Melanie Cook and Nic Wilkinson (available to pre-order from amazon)
• MILK by Stref
• Unbelievable by Simon Wyatt
• Burke and Hare by Martin Conaghan and Will Pickering
• Shaman by Xander Bennett and David Montoro
  
• Layer Zero: Choices (anthology)
  

Secondly, here are the books "in progress" which are signed and underway. Some of these will be out this year, some next:

• Damaged Goods by Richard McAuliffe and Mark Chilcott
• Daemon by Alasdair Duncan, Daniel Lopez, Yel Zamor and Nic Wilkinson
• Average Joe by Thomas Romeo and Kelvin Chan
  
• Death Hunter: Dead Man's Gold by James Johnson, Georgios Dimitriou, Thanos Tsilis and Leonardo M. Giron
• Six Months by Jim O'Hara
• The Ragged Man by Cy Dethan
• Shiver by Christopher Barker
• Oz: The Fall of The Scarecrow King by Peter Forbes
• Cancertown 2 by Cy Dethan, Stephen Downey, Melanie Cook and Nic Wilkinson
• Layer Zero: Survival (anthology)
• Fallen Heroes by Barry Nugent
  

And these are the events we will be at if you want to drop by and say hello:

• New York Comic Con (February)
  
• Bristol Comics Expo (May)
• San Diego Comic Con (July, Hopefully)
  
• Cymru Con (August)
• BICS - Birmingham International Comics Show (October)
  
• Leeds Thought Bubble (this is more of a fingers crossed, hope they do another one but if they do we will be there!)

Sounds like we are going to be very busy.

Good busy, though...

Night Thoughts - Thought Bubble 2008

On Saturday the 15th of November Insomnia had a stand at the 2nd Thought Bubble convention as part of the Leeds Sequential Art festival.


This is a fantastic show with a really great atmosphere. It seemed more creator focussed than other cons and we met a lot of very talented people, all of whom had many unique and interesting ideas they wanted to talk to us about.

There was very much a sense that creating comics is suddenly, dizzyingly, possible, that people are no longer believing what they are told and are finding new ways of cutting through, tunnelling under, bounding over or just completly ignoring what they have been told for decades were impassable obstacles. This is exactly why Crawford Coutts formed Insomnia, and it was a real pleasure to meet so many of you face to face.

The drive and creativity of the indy scene is staggering - and extremely inspiring. The generosity of creators is always heartening and hearing how many people were recommending each other for projects, or introducing people to each other because "they need to meet" is great to see. We have seen some amazing work and met "just the right person" so many times this way, which we would, most likely, never had done so were it not for this collaborative attitude.

The visitors, publishers and creators were the most diverse mix I have seen at a comics event, and it is really becoming very apparent that comics as a form are making their way out of dank back bedrooms and clammy collectors paws to stand proudly alongside any other storytelling media. Kind of reminds me of what happened to computer games when the original Playstation made it into clubs and front rooms and gaming became not only socially acceptable, but cool. Still, I digress.

Different cons have different feels and so each is better for getting particular things done. The buzz and enthusiam from creators from all aspects of the industry made being a publisher at Thought Bubble like being a kid in the world's best sweetshop. Now we get the great job of stickily making our way through all the goodies we gathered and signing up our next wave of books and creators in a sugar fuelled frenzy.

As well as meeting up with lots of old friends and seeing people "live" for the first time that we had only spoken to online, particular Insomnia Related Highlights from the show were:

• A great meeting with Barry Nugent where we discussed how the Fallen Heroes adaptation is going to work in practice.
  
  
• Signed up several new stories for Layer Zero on the spot, and discussed ideas with several more writers who want to make submissions. Watch this space for a Layer Zero update about some of the stories, writers and artists very soon.
  
  
• Found several new artists for our longer projects on the strength of some stunning portfolios on show. Any artists who brought portfolios and but didn't get to speak to us please drop me a line at nichola@insomniapublications.com (the biggest file I can receive is 7mb in one email, though)
  
  
• Discussed several full length Graphic Novel proposals of exactly the kind of challenging, left field, thought provoking stories we are after. For those wanting to make submissions, but could not make the show then have a look at our submissions guidelines page.
  
  
• Had a brilliantly in-depth meeting with Chris Barker about Shiver a creator owned original graphic novel that we first discussed at BICS. In the last few weeks it has gone from an outline concept to a full proposal for an unsettling story that is by equal turns , horrifying, moving and, best of all, deeply troubling. I can't reveal more at this stage, as nothing has been signed, but I am hoping to be able to tell you that has changed in the very near future.
  
  
• Spoke with Markosia boss Harry Markos, MyeBook and the Superman of Independent Comics Publishing, Shane Chebsey about a plan to make it easier for readers and retailers to find out about independent books in a bit more depth than you get from Previews. We know all about how annoying it can be as a reader or a retailer to hear about an independent book from a friend, online, via a review or whatever and just not be able to find any details about where to buy it, or how your local comic shop can get hold of it for you. Big thanks must go to Manny Armario of Whatever Comics for adding a veteran retailer's experience to this discussion over the last few months. More on that as we work out the details.
  
  
• Spoke to Neil "Dynamo 5, X-men, Iron Man" Edwards about drawing a new OGN by Cy "Starship Troopers, Cancertown" Dethan. More news as and when, if everyone's schedules work out so it can happen.
  
  
• While I was having all the fun talking to creators, our sales manager and co-founder of Insomnia, Alasdair Duncan, was doing the hard graft of manning the stand and talking distribution and logisitics and all the organisational side of things with various retailers and chains. He really knows his stuff, and we are pleased to say that if your hometown has a comic shop it won't be hard to find Insomnia books on the shelves.
  
  
• Alasdair also found time to run the interactive "Monster Wall" where you had a chance to design your own monster. This been succesful at cons in the past but was a huge hit this time.
  
  
• I was gratified by the number of people who said they were reading this very blog, and the fact that people were coming over to speak to us about project because they had heard good things about working with us. But you'll have to ask them about that.

Which is all a very long and round about way of saying the con was great for us - if there is any chance of you making it next year I highly recommend you take the trip to Leeds.

Thanks to Tamsin, Lisa and all the other organisers for making it happen.

Until next Monday...