Friday, August 26, 2005

Beggorah & Bejeezus!

Well, all seems to be going well at the moment - I've finished the inks on the Pony School strip, and we've now expanded to a full issue: the Action Stations Winter Special! Alongside Pony School, we now have Secret Agent Skipper and Destroy All Japs! (which is being produced by my legendary FutureQuake alumnis Richmond Clements and Bolt-01!), alongside a Misty the Teen Detective text story that I've written and which Bryan will be providing accompanying illustrations for. Basically, the issue is a combination of circumstances, but really because of the surprisingly large number of people who've asked if we would do a 'proper' version of the Action Stations comic mentioned in Pony School #1. Since we won't be able to get PS2 out this year (not in it's original form, anyway), it seemed like a nice (if last minute replacement). We've also got some letters and fan art to round the issue out, and we might even squeeze out another couple of strips if we can find the time (remember it's only about a month until we want to see this thing printed!).

Meanwhile, on other fronts, Bryan's just finished lettering the next Binmen of the Apocalypse strip for The End is Nigh, whilst I've been working on a Protect & Survive feature (which appears as though it'll still be into the redraft stage when the maagazine is published) and I'm about to start a shorter article on World War One. I've also got a strip coming up for them, apparently to be drawn by Barry Renshaw (of Fusion/Redeye fame), though I've yet to hear anything back about this yet, so I remain healthily sceptical!

Bryan's secret project is slowly getting underway (I saw a doodle he sent me the other day, and it was bloody superb), and he's also drawing a werewolf script for something by the title of Lopus-Garou (I think!) which is written by FutureQuake editor Mark Woodland (it's really nepotistic, this Small Press world, isn't it?). For myself, I've been writing a lot of scripts for Bolt-01's Lost Property 2: Revenge of the Strip, which is a collection of short, newspaper style humour and adventure strips. Personally, I think this is going to be great, and is probably the book I'm most mooking forward to see at the moment. Bryan and I are writing an adventure strip together called 1949, centred around the too cool for school figure of airman Remmington Blaine.

On the FutureQuake front, half the editorial team's on holiday at the moment, so it's just me and la Clements in charge (AIIEE!!!). We seem to have most of our scripts in - #5's already full, and we're swiftly filling issues 6 and 7 - so most of our work is more about organisation and promotion, apart from the odd submission from reclusive genius Al Ewing. Rich and I are currently writing the Monster Squad strip for #6, following our successful combination (we hope!) on our Triumph of the Will strip that's supposed to see print in issue 5. We may even try and pitch a script of some kind to Panini, if we can get it together (Rich has already pitched stuff to The Judge Dredd megazine, Marvel Rampage, and has a strip coming up in Zap!, so I plan to hang on firmly to his coat-tails!). I've also got to finish a script about Music Halls and a ventriloquist's dummy for isse 6 (our Horror issue), which I'm told is destined for the back cover, though I've still got to get around to writing the second draft (I've got to write a song, and I hate that). Anyway, watch this space.

Next time I'll try and include some images and try and ramble less, in the hope that it's even half-readable.

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