I generally try to avoid submitting to anthologies. Unfortunately I have very little time but even a quick pin up I like to spend many hours on and I’ve always had concerns with the cobbled together nature of local anthologies which often have as many crudely drawn pieces as there are great comics and call me a snob but I’ve always disliked the idea that my comic will sit next to someone who’s put no effort into theirs.

I didn’t have that concern when Owen Heitmann asked us to submit to the Adelaide based Fist Full of Comics anthology, Owen is the genius behind the webcomic Basic Wage Kids and his tight draftsmanship and sharp writing proved he has a desire to produce quality. Last night I finally had a chance to read the issue we featured in and I wasn’t disappointed.

I won’t discuss every contribution to the book but the standouts for me were:

• the Belgian collaborators Peter Moerenhout (writer) and Pieter Rosseel (artist) and their work Jammed. Peiter’s layouts use some really interesting angles and I’m planning on stealing some of his ideas in the future.
• Greg Holfeld’s meeting with the devil.
• A one page poem by Catherine Brittle (writer) and Loren Morris (artist). Loren’s art is really stunning, she uses what appears to be some really clever custom brushes in Photoshop to create a look reminiscent of Ashley Woods stuff. Plus it featured a bunny.
• and of course Owen and regular collaborator and nice chap Mark Selan contributed their usual high standard of work.

All in all I’m really proud to have our work featured alongside these guys. I think we also owe Owen an apology as we were apparently asked to submit a rhyming couplet centrespread but that got lost in translation and we submitted one of those fancy new style non-rhyming types.  Sorry mate.

-Trev

This dismays me. apparently Seth Grahame-Smith has written a follow up to his Pride & Prejudice & Zombies that paints honest Abe as a axe wielding vampire killer. For some reason this makes me cringe.

I think what excited me about P&P&Z was the idea a new narrative was weaved into the existing one creating a whole new storyline. It’s why I think Wicked is such a great story. While Dorothy is going about dropping houses on people and scalding a lion for roaring there was a whole other drama. It’s also why people were excited about the Star Wars prequels (although the execution of that was just woeful).

This latest volume though feels like the work of a 7 year old, or the guy who wrote “From Dusk to Dawn”. Random ideas thrown together. Zombie Hawks, Unicorn Transformers, Dawrf Spacemen. All amusing momentarily but damned if I’d want to sit through 90 minutes of it. What the film does promise is stunning visuals if Burton is involved but I’ll pass thanks.

-Trev

Hey folks, I recently did an article for Webcomics.com about how I do cell style shading. It’s just gone online. Now webcomics.com IS a subscriber based site bit it’s also a fantastic tool for people interested in webcomics and comics in general and at only $30 a year (what some sites charge per month) it’s well worth the expense. I don’t get anything for promoting it, it’s just something that I think is worth it. At some point I might put it on this site but for the moment it’s only available over there.

-Trev

Hey folks. Just wanted to let you know that it’s been confirmed we’ll be at Melbourne Supanova. We’ll be sharing a booth with Guardian Comics Paul Spencer who does the great Ticket To Ride webcomic about a group of guys who run a superhero themed adventure park.  We should have books 1 & 2 as well as issue one of the current arc which due to it’s mammoth size we’ll be breaking into shorter comic book style publications.

I also plan on heading up to both Brisbane and Sydney’s Supanova this year (for the very least to meet Joe Kubert!) but i’ll give you more details as we get closer.

Huzzah
-Trev