I'll Have What Sidhe's Having!

And what Sidhe's having is enough to make any girl jealous!

To whet your appetite, here are some work in progress pics from Sidhe, with comments from Kev and Rachel.

The passionate, intricate writing of Rachel Robbins and the beautiful art of Kev Crossley fuse the best from our oldest stories with our deepest, most troubling modern fears, to take you on a journey unlike any you will have taken before...

Over to Rachel to begin:

"Confession: I used to play Barbies when I was a child. With my very tolerant little brother."
"But we made them our own, chopping their hair and using food coloring to paint funky/punky ’do’s, shaving their heads, and designing wardrobes out of broken jewelry and leather scraps --cut from thrift store purses-- which I superglued together."


"Ken-boys wore hair extensions left over from the shaved Barbie heads, earrings, and sported ink-stamped tattoos of sharks and dragons. Everyone wore glittery nail polish as eyeshadow and magic markered fingernails. Josh and I took the clan outside; built them houses and caves out of rocks, moss, and dirt for shelters."



"They borrowed Star Wars model spaceships to get around on, and the occasional toy tractor. Some times we sat them on our cats' backs, which never made for happy felines but still provided a decent mode of transportation."


"Not ordinary Barbies, you see. These were Cyberbabes.

Cyberbarbies were nature worshippers, witches, and mediums...though we wouldn't have described them that way, that was the fact.

Cyberbarbies spoke to ghosts I sewed from lace scraps who had heads made out of painted eggshells. They had direct conversations with saints and God."


"Growing up resentfully Catholic, I felt the need to create a corrupt church against whom they fought: a parish who lived in cardboard Chiquita Banana box-- fully equipped with porcelain figures of nuns and priests, adorned with “prayer cards” on the walls. The head priest was a wind up Peter Pan toy who would spin in circles and fall over."


"Sometimes Cyberbarbies had to fight aliens, too, but that was just when my poor brother and I ran out of plot ideas. There was a lot of sex and every “episode” ended with a party or wedding. Pagan 11½ inch fashion figures with pose-able legs also spent much of their time hanging upside down from trees."


"This was, perhaps, the original incarnation of Sídhe.

Now I have Kev Crossley. We play Barbies, but on paper. Insomnia is our sandbox."



Kev Continues:

"And so the summer slunk away without telling anyone where it was going and Autumn has crawled over everything like a mould, heralding skeleton trees and greying drifts of leaves heaped, grieving."


"The world of the Sidhe now inhabits my own. As the pages develop and the script unfolds from behind my eyes I'm increasingly finding the world Rachel has created to be invading every facet of my waking days. "


"The park down the road heaves with half seen creatures and the trees themselves stalk the edges of the grassed fields, looming above the people who play and walk there, seemingly blind to the scarecrow behemoths shaking and creaking in the tormented air. The streets and buildings are not free of this taint either. It's like seeing the world through a filter of the fantastic and macabre.

Kinda cool actually."



"This is the first time I've found myself so immersed in a story that I'm partly responsible for realising. I only hope the work I turn out benefits from this; I'd hate to be institutionalised for nothing!!!!!!"

Next week Kev will be at our stand at Thought Bubble with some of his gorgeous original art on show. You will also be able to see the magic take shape beneath his sorcerous pencil as he does some live sketching during the day.

Building Kronos City

If you want to see how the magic happens in this room:



That starts with a script that turns into this:

Which then turns into this:

Head over to the Kronos City blog where Alex and Lauren will take you through it all step by step, and all the stage in between.

Alex and Lauren will also be Thought Bubble to talk about the book, the characters and show off the latest artwork.

Final Thoughts

Other goodies at Thought Bubble will be a limited number of Ashcan previews of Urban Legends by Leeds very own Steven Stone (who has just launched his new blog Written In Stone, check it out) and James Daniels which will be given free with purchases while stocks last.

We'll also be talking more about what we'll be doing in the PSN Digital Comics store, so come by a for chat.

There will be a limited number of posters of the Frank Quitely pin up from Burke and Hare available - these ones in colour and signed by the man himself. Frank is the guest of honour this year so you may be able to catch him around the show, or see him interviewed in a very special Geek Syndicate live chat on the Saturday night.

Two unique competitions will be running from the stand:

1) Win a chance to visit the Buskers Film Set.

Entry to the competition is free with any purchase, or £1 per ticket

The draw will be made on the 1st of December and the winner notified by email. Any winner under the age of 18 will need to be accompanied on the set visit by an adult.

The date and time of the visit will be arranged personally with the winner.

Thanks to Jeymes Samuel for making this possible.

2) Win a PSP 3000 loaded with Insomnia Comics. This competition is in association with The Geek Syndicate. Thanks to Sony for donating this great prize.

If you will not be attending the show you can still enter the competition by heading over to the Geek Syndicate Website.

To be in with a chance to win all you need to do is send an email to geeksyndicate@hotmail.co.uk. with the title “Going digital with Geek Syndicate, Insomnia and Sony!”

The first entry pulled out of the hat will win.

Closing date for entry is 1st December.

Unfortunately this competition is only open to entrants who are 18 or over and have a UK Postal address.

Best of Luck!

Hope to see you all soon

Got MILK?

If not then you can you pre-order the special edition hardback from amazon now!

MILK is an incredible piece of work by artist Stref, and has been 10 years in the making. In fact, rather than me tell you about something so visually arresting why don't you have a look at the ebook preview:

There will only be 100 of the original hardbacks, all signed and numbered, to co-incide with a gallery exhibition of Stref's original art at the Fine Art Library in Edinburgh during September.

There will be the opportunity to buy some of the original artwork during the course of the show, although, of course, you won't be able to take it home until the exhibition has ended.

The gallery is open open 10-8 Mon- Thurs, 10-5 Fridays and 9-1 on Sat.

Alan Grant said:

“Coming from a virtually unknown artist, MILK contains some of the most beautiful, expressive art that I’ve seen in a long time. It deserves to be a huge commercial success.”

So what is MILK?

MILK is a collection of short stories but unlike the usual comics anthology, every story is written and drawn by the same artist.

MILK is an artist retrospective, but unlike most art portfolio books, each piece is masterfully executed in a completely different style.

There is currently a competition running over at the The MILK facebook group to win the original art for this fantastic page:


And if you're still thirsty for more MILK take a look at:

• His recent interviews at Jazma and RKYV
• The MILK youtube channel
  

Oxfam Comics Fest

Staying in Edinburgh this Saturday, 18th July, will see our beloved leader Crawford Coutts is taking to the podium again this week and this time "it's for charidee, ladies and gents".


Crawford will be part of a panel on “the ups and downs of small press comics” with Ferg Handley (Marvel Heroes, Commando), David Bishop (2000ad, Doctor Who), followed by a Q&A session.

There will also be a sneak peak at some of the never-before-seen pages from our imprint Vigil’s upcoming Burke and Hare Bio-Graphic Novel.

The event takes place at:
McDonald Road Library,
2-4 McDonald Road
Edinburgh
EH7 4LU
12pm - 3pm
Tickets are £3 from all city Oxfam Bookshops.

Six Months: First Art

This week I saw the very first "work in progress" art for Six Months.


Six Months is by Jim O’Hara, with art by Gary Crutchley and is an uneasy exploration of what happens when, perhaps too late, you discover the answers to what it is that gives your life meaning, the relationship between law and society, and what it means when you longer need to hide anything from yourself or others.

Sidhe Pin Up, Stage Two

Last week you saw the rough pencils for the Sidhe poster, now Kev has finished them off.



Soon I'll be able to show you the final version, which Kev hopes will cause salivation, so make sure you bring plenty of tissues.

Quilty Pleasures

Yes, you did read that right, and no, it's not often you will find a comic publisher's blog that has something to say about the world of quilting.

However, this is no ordinary comic publisher's blog, and this is no ordinary quilter!

Those you who have visited the Insomnia stand at UK events may well have encountered Ferret helping out (long dark hair, lots of tattoos, mischievous gleam in her eye!). Yes, that is her real name. No, that's all of it. Yes, really, it is. However being a stand helper is just a cunning disguise for a woman who, in her time has been a real life rocket scientist (oh yes!), a maker of musical instruments, and deadly weapons (both real and as movie props), part of a drag racing crew and who, a few years ago, unexpectedly and triumphantly turned her talents to the world of textile art.

In fact one of the most famous people in the field, Ricky Tims, just said this about her in the foreword for her first book, Ferreting Around:

"Every now and again, a new talent emerges in the quilt world that transcends the ordinary and is instantly unforgettable."

You can read the full foreword and pre-order the book at her website

To put it in context for us, that's like Jack Kirby saying you draw a mean superhero!

Now that's all very nice, I'm sure you're thinking, someone you know has achieved artistic recognition and success - but what does that have to do with comics?

Well, I'll tell you: Ferret is creating what we think is the first comics/quilting cross over piece for a gallery show she has this summer. It's called Bad Rain and is the first double page spread fight scene from Cancertown. It's going to be 90" across. That is half as tall as me again!

The book will be on sale alongside the piece, and Cy and I will be going to help out at the gallery on the Saturday while Ferret is teaching, so we may even get some signing in.

Surprisingly we have found quite a lot of interest in the graphic novels in the quilting community when Ferret has mentioned the project to her students. They are, or course, both very visual media, and the project has opened up whole new audiences on both sides. But then I guess you only have to have to look at the Bayeaux Tapestry to realise sequential art and textiles have a heritage older than it might first appear.

Watch this space for news of a possibly "Unbelievable" further project in the future.

And Finally...

• We are pleased to announce that we now have our very own Hollywood Agent to look after the screen adaptation side of things for us.
  
  
• Kronos City chapter one is now complete, so look out for an ebook very soon.
  
  
• I just want to mention the beautiful limited edition of Razorjack that is out from Com.x. This is nothing to do with us, but it fills me with joy when I see other independent publishers getting out there and doing something really different and special.
  

And until next week remember the immortal words of Torquemada: "Be pure, Be vigilant, Behave".

Worth A Thousand Words

After last week's mammoth wordfest this week we have lots of pictures to gaze at, in a great range of styles. I can't tell you how excited we are about all the books and how they're coming to life.

To think, when we started this blog not yet a year ago we wondered if there's be enough to go in it to make it weekly!

So, let's kick off with the latest ebook preview:

This little bundle of greatness will let you have have a peek between those gorgeous Rian Hughes covers for a look the sequence of pages 5-12.

Sidhe Pin Up (Work In Progress) by Kev Crossley.

With this one you really need to click to get the bigger version to appreciate the trademark Kev Crossley detail.


This is really a "mood piece" that Kev is working on at the moment as he starts to explore the feel of the world. Our heroine, Emer, can be seen in the foreground, with The Goddess presiding behind her.

Writer Rachel Robbins says:

"Creating Sídhe with Kev Crossley is both an honor and an adventure. What a delight to work with such an intuitive artist, and find myself repeating ad nauseum, “Yes, that’s EXACTLY what I was picturing!”

Kev deftly captures concepts, themes, and mood—his intuition is so spot-on that he picks up on minute nuances which makes me read my own work in a different way.

We’re constantly bouncing ideas off each other; his drawings influence and shift my characters, settings, and story in exciting directions I hadn’t anticipated.

Having always wanted to be a musician, Sídhe gives me a taste of what it might be like to compose an apocalyptic rock opera with a like-minded performer who is equally compelled by what is beautiful, what is hideous, and what is hideously beautiful."

Artist Kev Crossley says:

"With Sidhe, Rachel couldn't have concocted a tale better suited to the sort of work I like to do: Grotesque villains, gorgeous heroes; ancient angry forests and the clotting shadow of a new order.

It's a modern story in which Celtic Mythology seethes beneath the asphalt as the saucer eyed masses exult with pharmaceutical zeal within cavernous temples of gaudy Devotion. ...but it's so much more than just that...."

These two complement each other so perfectly it's a bit unreal.

I first got in touch with Kev through Rich Johnson, who went on to become our art director, and as you can see, has a great eye for talent.

Damaged Goods: Manifestation Panel for Karma Police by Mark Chilcott


Now speaking of the hideously beautiful...

When we said Damaged Goods delivers "short dark tales to keep you up all night" this is what we were talking about.

As they were having one of their more lucid periods we let Mark and Richard out of the dark attic where they are usually chained to let us know how things are going:

Artist Mark Chilcott says:

"From my point of view, it's the story [Karma Police] I've had the most fun with, and I just love the character. I hope me and Rich and can expand on him and his "worlds" in the future, Rich's scripts are always fun and leave me enough room to add my own personality.

The THING panel was easy, you've met Rich"

Writer Richard McAuliffe says:

"We are getting to the half way point now and seeing the stories come to life the way they have has been kick ass and a little disturbing. I keep thinking "Wow, Mark is really messed up" then check back and realise he's just done what was in the script. That stuff never seems quite as dark in my head as it does on Mark's pages with all the cool touches he adds.

I honestly cannot wait till we get this done and I can show it off... especially to my mother in law who always thought I was too weird for her daughter.

Couldnt be happier with how this has all come together and with the support we've got from the lovely people at Insomnia (I have to say that, they have my signed copy of Nemesis the Warlock hostage)"

First, though, he said a bad thing involving Princess Leia,, and don't listen to his lies about Nemesis the Warlock either, that's how he gets in your head. He just covets my original sketches by Kev O'Neill and Bryan Talbot - and I have my OWN signed copy, thank you.

Oz: Fall Of The Scarecrow King coloured page and Concept Sketches by Barry McGowan



So, above you can see the fully painted page one, and the character sketches for the Lion, Tin Man and the Scarecrow. It's almost like they could just step right off the page isn't it?

This is another artist who was introduced to us at Bristol by Stephen Downey, who, it seems, breeds exceptionally talented people down in his cellar or something.

Butterflies and Moths splash page test by Jennie Gyllblad



Speaking of artists herded up by Stephen, Jennie Gyllblad, despite the heat and lack of wrist supports, has been painting at something near the speed of light. Last week if you remember, we had just signed her up, and she had done some concept sketches. This week she has already done a rough for the first splash page.

If you skip on over to her blog you can see the pencil stages there as well.

And Finally...

• For those wanting to order Cantertown via a comic shop it was in previews this month and the order code is: JUL091827
  
  A reminder that the Cages code is NOV085310
  
  
• Layer Zero:Choices is about to go for a second printing and will be in Previews next month.
  
  Speaking of Layer Zero, Survival is now full, and there is a waiting list for inclusion. The next book will be Exile, but I'll be doing a proper announcement about submissions for that in a few weeks.
  
  
• Alasdair Duncan will be running a workshop as part of our Essex Libraries tour on the 11th of July at Pretty Gate Library from 10-12am
  
  The event is part of the launch of the the teen/young adult reading section at the library.
  
  There will be a chance to participate in several events that give an unique insight into differrent aspects of comics story telling including the ever popular Cages Consequences, a colouring competition and a Caption Creation with art previously published in Layer
  Zero Insomnia/Time.
  
  There will also be a display of current and upcoming Insomnia books.
  
  
• Cy Dethan and I will be running an Insomnia Comics workshop at Newport Waterstones on the Isle Of Wight on the 25th of July. As well as being able to get signed copies of Cancertown it will be a chance for all aspiring local writers and artists to come in and chat about getting into comics, working with a publisher, see books in production and pitch ideas or show portfolios.
  
  If you haven't heard the story, Cancertown was first born out of an incredible migraine attack on the island, following a huge thunderstorm. When inspirations strikes, it can strike hard.
  
  
• For those of you going to San Diego Comic Con, have a great time. We don't have a table there this year, but look out for several of our creators, including Mel Cook and Kelvin Chan who will be around all weekend.
  

Take Care of Yourselves...

...And Each Other

All The News That's Fit To Print

Right sooooo much news this week. I don't know if it's ever been so busy! Let's get on with it then, or we'll be here all night.

Zoo Keeper Cover Artist Confirmed

Just too late for last week's blog we got confirmation that we have a cover artist signed up for Zoo Keeper by Ben Morgan.

He's just got to get that pesky Batman and Robin Reborn out of his way and then...

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Zoo Keeper will be sporting a Frank Quitely cover, and we most certainly do give a damn.

Quarantine Artist Signed

The quarantine team is now complete, with Monty Borror signed on as artist.

Writer Michael Moreci saw this sketch arrive in his email box:

And said: "Wow. Absolutely nailed it. This is probably as close as I get to giddy. " which is always a good sign.

Monty has worked with us before, of course, in Layer Zero, and I've been itching to put his talents to use on a full length book for a while.

Monty recently won a Bronze medal at the 2009 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Horror category for work on Cold Blooded Chillers with Bob Heske.

Butterflies and Moths

Not content with only one happy writer per week we put smiles all over Corey Brotherson's face by causing these to show up in his mailbox.


These characters sketches are the work of Jennie Gyllblad a young artist I met at the Bristol Con back in May.

Jennie had come along to the show as a visitor for a look around in the afternoon as she lives locally, although she hails from Sweden, originally. Falling into conversation with Stephen Downey as he was sketching at the Insomnia table she let slip that she was an aspiring comics artist, currently an illustration student at UWE, Bristol and just finishing her second year.

Stephen, sharing the Insomnia love, immediately sent her home to gather together a portfolio in whatever form she could, and promised he would find me for her to talk to by the time she got back. Difficult as that was in the craziness of the con he did find me, find the now returned Jennie, and brought us together.

With only 15 mins til the doors closed we headed to the Mercure bar where I first got to see the mad talent that is the work of Jennie Gyllblad.

Her colours are dazzling, and the intuitive use of space and form in the layout was incredible. The expression and emotion in her characters gives you the feeling of something alive looking back at you through the panels. It didn't matter that she didn't have a business card printed (she wrote me her email on a scrap of paper), or that I had her work in a pile across both our laps and not in the smartest portfolio case money can buy.

Her talent and her passion radiated from every word she said to me, and from every image she showed. That's what's important.

Welcome to Jen, and a big thank you to Stephen Downey for encouraging her to show her work. It's great to see people who have got into the industry holding the door open for others.

Conway Signing

This week we welcome two new faces to the Insomnia Original Graphic Novel fold, Sean Michael Wilson (writer) and Adam R Grose (artist) who are the creators of Conway:

"By trying to financially help his grandmother, a young Scottish man gets in over his head with Irish gangsters.

On the journey that follows he begins a loving relationship, steals a large amount of money; and finally resolves the life long tension between himself and his grandfather. "

Sean is a comic book writer from Scotland, now living in Japan. His work is mostly mature stories: biographical, historical, slice of life, though sometimes also fantastical stuff, especially magickal stories, collaborating with artists such as Sakura Mizuki of the popular RING horror series and Mike Collins, art on Superman, Batman and Harry Potter, etc.

Most recently Sean has been working on books for Classical Comics (The Canterville Ghost, Sweeny Todd and Wuthering Heights), Top Shelf (The AX alternative manga collection) and NBM Publishing (the Hong Kong based Story of Lee).

He has recently been contracted to write a long historical manga, based on the classic bushido samurai text HAGAKURE for Kodansha in Tokyo. They are the biggest publisher in Japan, therefore one of the biggest in the world. Samurai Japan being one of my personal interests I'll be snapping this up myself, even if I have to brush up my (very!) rusty Japanese to read it!

I met Adam in person for the first time at Bristol this year, although we had been in touch before this as he is a contributor to Layer Zero (with a story in the 09 Choices volume, and and one in the upcoming Survival for 2010).

When Sean first got in touch about the project, he didn't know that I knew Adam already and really loved his work, so that was one of those lovely coincidences that the universe is kind enough to throw out every so often, when I've been good.

Adam divides his time between writing, drawing, painting and teaching.Following exhibitions of his paintings in a variety of galleries, cafes and shops he continues to create paintings exploring the relationship between the image and the viewer. His current work is focusing on a variety of abstractions and the figurative, exploring themes associated with politics, war and religious iconography, from a humanist perspective.

He began writing the 550 page graphic novel Cosmogenesis: The Chronicles of Quongo in 1998. The series was collected together as a Trade Paperback in December 2007 and released to rave reviews. It has been compared to the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, Franz Kafka and Joseph Campbell in its scale and depth of this epic mythological tale. The saga contains many hidden codes that readers can decipher, leading to a deeper understanding of human history as told and written down in myths and expressed in celebratory rituals.

His current projects include The Dragonfly: An Eleanor Moreau Mystery, a Detective Story told in twelve chapters. Chapter One is currently available online at Clown Press. This will see print as a graphic novel in 2010.

A fantasy piece called Phoenix: A Warrior's Tale with Tony Suleri (who will be making his Insomnia debut in Survival), is to be published in September 2009 and a larger graphic novel which will explore hidden knowledge based on the origin of human civilisation and how this links to current political events and modern popular culture is in the works.

Crowley Signing

The next Vigil bio-graphic novel has now been signed up and it will be Crowley: Wandering The Waste by Martin Hayes.

Martin says:

"The first Crowley book I ever read was The Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley: Tunisia 1923 edited by Stephen Skinner. That would have been around 1997 or 98, when I was nineteen or so.

I’d always been fascinated by characters who were surprising and unusual – Peter O’Toole, Bon Scott, Harlan Ellison, Alan Moore, William Blake, David Lynch. Anyone who set out to do interesting things, their way, and who didn’t care what the world thought of them. And if they got smashed off their face on drink and drugs while doing it, then so much the better. That's probably why Crowley caught my attention.

Over the next five or six years I read pretty much every Crowley book I could get my hands on, even the early poetry . . . “The burden of caught clap. How sore it is!”

When I heard that Insomnia were starting a new line of in-depth, historical graphic novels, I immediately knew that if I got the chance then my subject would have to be Crowley, Perduabo, The Great Beast 666, The Wanderer Of The Waste, The Wickedest Man In The World.

He's the only subject I'd be willing to expend this much effort on. There will be an awful lot of research involved, but at least I know that none of it will be boring"

And this is what we will be in for:

"Aleister Crowley was a man out of time, born too soon to a world that was not ready for him. Raised among the conservative Plymouth Brethren, he soon shook off their grim shawl of enforced piety and embarked upon a life of sexual adventurism, drug experimentation, and a serious and lifelong study of the occult.

He was a man of extremes and opposites; a formidable chess player, a world traveller, a noted mountaineer, the giver to humanity of a new religion for the aeons, a victim of venereal disease, a British Spy (or treasonous wastrel), a drug fiend, a poet, a prophet, a spoilt child, and someone who would become known in his own lifetime as The Wickedest Man In The World."

Martin’s short stories and comics have appeared in places like Nature, Neon, Futurequake, Wasted, and The Stinging Fly. He’s also currently working on an original graphic novel, Project Luna 1947 with artist Jim Boswell, to be published by Markosia.

Burke and Hare

As another book draws to a close I'm currently enjoying that "I love it when a plan comes together" moment as the final lettering layer is applied to the pages.

See what I mean?

Burke and Hare, it turns out, is now in the "eagerly anticipated" slot (even by someone's non comics reading Dad who knows the history) and it was receiving a lot of interest at the Waterstones signing on Saturday. Can it be time to start the pre-orders sheet for the Birmingham launch already?


The Big Fat Cancertown Weekend

Cy, Alasdair and I had a good time at Chelmsford Waterstones. This was our first bookshop signing (rather than an event or convention) and it was a very civilised affair.

The nice calm bookshop atmosphere meant that people could hang around and talk for much longer without there being some kind of pandemonium in the background, and we had some incredible conversations with people ranging from fairytales to chaos theory - via superheroes, surveillance culture and sexuality.

As always at events there was a certain amount of discussion with creators about submissions and ideas they have - so watch this space for more.

I've already mentioned the interest in Burke and Hare, and we also had some flyers for Kronos City, Unbelievable, Damaged Goods (and just how hard it was to find a page that would work on a flyer at an "all ages" event was harder then you realise!) and The Ion Monger's Daughter. The reactions just went to reinforce what we knew all along - we've got some amazing talent working with us. Thanks guys, we're honoured to be along for the ride.

Meanwhile, far to the North...

Crawford had a whale of a time at the Dundee Literary Festival by all accounts. He started the day by looking in on David Bishop’s creative writing workshop for an injection of Thrill Power, involving creating a 9 panel page to show the whole story from a choice of Jaws, Star Wars or The Wizard of Oz in only 5 minutes... not as easy as it sounds!

The event was held at Dundee University and Crawford had a good chat the art curator there and it looks like there may be original work from our creators on display there in the future.

Cages, Cancertown and Layer Zero: Choices were on display at the Insomnia and Borders stand, and after a quiet start, with most people in the lecture theatre listening to Ian Hague who’s writing a thesis on Comics and the Linearity of Time followed by talks from Emma Vieceli and Mel Gibson (no, that one, the other one!), things suddenly got busy in the afternoon with a lot of interest in the preview books, containing pages from our upcoming titles, Burke and Hare in particular.

I was very pleased to hear that a good number of creators who attended the event are very interested in what we’re doing and several had very promising ideas which I’m looking forward to seeing.

Crawford’s talk was the last slot of the afternoon and after a few technical hitches, and despite the latest of the hour he was well away. He had a lovely shiny slide show and received lots of positive comments afterwards about so, as I thought, his nerves about it all were misplaced.
He says:

“It was great talking with lots of people who were involved in the industry and getting their opinions about what’s happening to the medium and the industry, and the compliments about what Insomnia are endeavouring to accomplish.”

He also managed, in between all that, to sort out the local Borders stocking our books, so you’ll be able to find them there now, should you ever find yourself in need of something to read in Dundee.

Meanwhile, across the sea…

Over at the Q Con things were going well with Stephen Downey and Andrew Croskery sketching and selling as fast as they could.

The Kronos city colouring competition went down a storm. The winner was Kieran Devlin with his trippy psychedelic version of the page. In Andrew’s words “It's funktacular!”


All the other entries will be posted up on the Kronos City blog for you to see as soon as Andrew can get them scanned in.

Stephen got a lot of sketch commissions, some of them bordering on bizarre. His first was a pirate fighting a ninja and a dinosaur, which he subsequently challenged Andrew to draw and that will be up on his blog very soon. They also designed some fun characters including Belinda the Depressed Banshee, Rosie the Troll Pimp, Mortimer the dapper skeleton and an unnamed pumpkin head man who gets attacked my birds who want to eat the creamy insides of his head.

You can see some sketches and photos over on Stephen's blog.

Apparently there was a lot of interest in Layer Zero from budding creators – so I’d better get the call for submissions out for the next one very soon!

To top it all off we found Cancertown had received yet another great review, this time from John Freeman at Down The Tubes. He said:

"I described to someone asking me what it was about as a "rip-roaring mindf***".

Now, that is a cover quote for the second printing!

He continued:

"The overall feel of the book is distinctly unsettling but rivetting -- a graphic novel you'll find yourself wanting to read in one sitting...While this is still early days for Downey, with the right guidance I can easily see him making the jump to, say, drawing for Vertigo or other publishers. Good luck to him -- and Cy, too, whose potential as a writer is, frankly, enormous."

You can read the full thing on Down The Tubes.

And Finally...

• Alex Willmore and Lauren Anne Sharp, our Kronos City art team have been illustrating for Paranormal magazine this month. Pop over to their blog for a look at the pages.
  
  
• The technical gremlins that were plaguing sci-fi pulse last week and now been dispelled and you can hear Simon Wyatt's interview from the website.
  
  
• Kev Crossley, artist on Sidhe by Rachel Robbins, has a 4 page "Artist Insight" feature in this month's ImagineFX magazine on designing insane aliens.
  

I did say there was a lot of news!

Baggage, Books, Bones and Banshees

Well, Crawford has left for New York, with his bags packed full of books, where he will be manning the Insomnia stand at the New York Comic Con 2009.


This will be a great chance for him to catch up with some of creators for the first time in person, and hopefully get to talk to lots more talented people with stories to tell. Me, I'm snowbound in London, but he's promised to bring back lots of pictures for the blog.

If you've got something to pitch to us (here are the submission guidelines if you want to check them first) , want to find out more about Insomnia, or just want to stop by and say "hi" in person you can find us at stand number 2447.

So, what else happened last week?

For starters last Wednesday, the 28th of January, was the 180th anniversary of the hanging of William Burke, one half of the infamous Burke and Hare. As you will remember, Insomnia has a book by Martin Conaghan and Will Pickering out later this year on this very subject.

The research that is going into the book is just staggering. The "extras" we are going to have for the back of this one this will really deserve a book of their own. Martin and Will took a trip up to Edinburgh last week to do some on-site work, get some more visual references, meet with Crawford, and even get a personal showing of Mr Burke's skeleton.



Huge thanks to Lynsey Hutchinson, who works at the Surgeons' Hall Museum in Edinburgh, who took Martin and Will on a personal tour of the incredible exhibits related to the Burke and Hare case.


They also managed to take in a private tour of the Anatomy Museum where Dr Findlater removed Burke and Hare's life masks, and Burke's death mask, from the cabinet for them to photograph. This where, as mentioned earlier, they got a chance to see Burke's skeleton face-to-face, which was "quite incredible" according to Martin.


Making comics is not all sitting in the warm thinking about scantily dressed superheroines in distress, you know?

I am also pleased to be able to announce Insomnia's latest signing: Sidhe by Rachel Robbins.

The pitch outline was so good I am just going to reproduce it here in Rachel's own words.

"PEOPLE DIE. LEGENDS LIVE. AND HISTORY INEVITABLY REPEATS ITSELF.

Emer O’Connor is a Shaman Priestess, capable of performing simple white magic, “kenning”, and traveling between the worlds. Yet the line between the land of the living and the kingdom of the dead has been blurred as of late.

A fundamentalist Christian cult usurping democracy, pharmaceutical companies with political clout, and growing discord between the Irish clans crept into existence, and the world is giving way to early apocalypse.

Like the few other practicing witches, Eden tries to blend in with the brainwashed masses, lest her dedication to the Old Religion lead to her “disappearance”, as it has with so many others.

Then the screaming begins.

According to Gaelic mythology, five spectres of darkness descended from the ancient fairy race Tuatha De’Dannan: the Bean Sídhe, more commonly referred to as Banshees. Each of the five banshees were bound to one of five powerful families: the O’Gradys, O’Neills, O’Briens, Kavanaghs, and O’Connors. Once upon a time the Sídhe’s hair-raising screams merely alerted friends and family of a loved one’s impending death. But times have changed, and the Sídhe have returned with a more sinister mission: to put the universe back in balance via mass genocide, at last fulfilling an ancient prophesy.

Where in days past they foretold and warned of impending death, now their piercing screeches claim the lives of the ailing and infected—before the diseased hosts have become terminal. After the alleged double suicide of Emer’s parents, her saintly sister’s fatal overdose, and baby brother’s sudden illness, she feels called to action. And so begins her quest to silence the Sídhe.

Every prophesy has a loophole."

And some info about Rachel herself

Sídhe creator Rachel Robbins resides on the coast of New England with her thirteen-year-old son-- writing, sculpting, reading, drawing, exploring, and always seeking a new soundtrack to life. She earned her M.F.A. in creative writing, while her undergraduate degrees were in English and psychology. Rachel’s interest and focus has always been on the mythological and mystical aspects underlying a text, and from whence said fascination Sídhe was spawned. Citing a blurred line between genres of artistic expression, Rachel is as much inspired by self-portraits of Frida Kahlo, the faeriegrrls of J.H. Waterhouse, nightmarish creatures of Geiger, Goya, and Bosch, and the rough-hewn sculptures of Louise Bourgeois as she is by Latin American magical realism, dark Russian prose, Romantic era authors, and neurotic confessional poets. She finds the graphic novel a perfect medium within which to interconnect and respect these expressions of the creative process. Rachel has recently completed a novel titled The Land Of Nod, is developing a line of organic healing teas, painting a larger-than-life deck of tarot cards, and plotting the sequel to Sídhe.

At the time of writing I have just been told that Jazma magazine wants to interview Richard McAuliffe and Mark Chilcott about Damaged Goods (out later this year). More on that with links once the interview is published.

Until next week.