Scheduling is strange this month. It appears all my books are out this week, with nothing in the rest of the month (as far as I’m aware – I admit, I haven’t checked.) So 7.5% of Direct Market Comics is written by me. 

Er… sorry?

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE 14, which is the much discussed oddball one. If we do Making Of stuff in the trade, I suspect there will be a bunch of this. It is a strange one. The strangest thing is that in the end, it looks as coherent as it does. MATT WILSON FOR EISNER, etc, etc.

In this issue, Woden takes you behind the curtain to reveal all, mainly that he’s a shit. But you knew that, right? Plus the alternate cover by none other than the amazing Grimes.

You can get it from your local comic shop, or digitally either from Comixologyor direct from Image. 

The second part of PHONOGRAM: THE IMMATERIAL GIRL goes straight into its high concept. This one has everything, if by “everything” you mean “Homage!” Plus a B-side story by Jamaica Dyer.

You can buy from your local shop, or digitally from Comixology or direct from Image. 

The third part of Mercury Heat, where Luiza has a lovely time on Mercury and we show off some ludicrous heavy duty exoskeletons.

You can buy it from your local shop or digitally.

Darth Vader tries to solve a crime that he’s actually to blame for while Aphra goes to secure certain information. 000 threatens murder, probably.

It’s available from your local comic shop or digitally. Preview here.

And SIEGE basically does all the exploding. NICK THE FURY versus PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING! Tragedy! Drama! Chronomines! Robots! Hand-holding! Stuff! Things! 

You can get it from your local comic shop or digitally. There’s a preview here.

And finally, Marguerite and Stephanie take Angela further on the hunt for Faustians, while I team up with Frazer Irving to do 1602 Cloak and Dagger.

You can buy it on Comixology or your local shop. Preview here.

And now I don’t have to do this for a month, and can hang around and eat crisps.

One more time.

Phonogram was Jamie and my Breakthrough book. Matt joined us on the second volume, and we’ve been having adventures ever since. It’s a book where music is magic. It’s an urban horror-fantasy that works as coded music journalism. It’s warped autobiography. It’s not quite like anything else, while including fragments of lots of other things. The people who love it love it. It is weird as fuck. It remains the ur-text of everything I’ve done in that side of my voice, and arguably where you get a purest burst of us. 

All Phonogram series stand alone. The idea is they work albums. You can jump along here, and everything you need to know is explained. If you’re assuming something is explained elsewhere, it’s because the book is really fucking weird. We never explained it. We’ve always been terribly metaphorical and obscure.

(It does pick up elements from previous volumes, and interlinks nicely with it – but that’s something else. If you want to go back to read the volumes, we’d normally suggest starting with PHONOGRAM: THE SINGLES CLUB, as it’s more accessible.)

Basically with Phonogram, you engulf yourself in it, and it either works for you or doesn’t. 

It works for more people than you’d think. 

In short: give it a try. If you like our stuff, it’s possible this will change your life. At the least, it will be unlike anything else you’ve bought this year, for better or worse.

And I can’t believe we’re allowed to do this again.

In short: The 5 years gap hasn’t left me any less unbearable about Phonogram.

Preview here. You can buy from your local shop, or digitally from Comixology or direct from Image.

And the end of Uber Volume 1. Oddly, not a bad issue to actually pick up by itself – it’s basically the equivalent of those last episodes in a season in Game of Thrones, where it sets up the direction of the next series. Volume 2?s title is revealed in here, plus a lot of reveals, deaths and similar. Busy issue. Hope you find it interesting. Uber is another singular creature, and I can’t quite believe we’ve done this much of it.

Available from your local shop, or Comixology. There’s also a preview in that Comixology link too.

And the second issue of Mercury Heat 2, where Luiza continues her investigations, mainly involving talking and punching. Plus more of the world building. Man!

You can buy it from your local comic shop or digitally. There’s a preview and a link to the free comic book day book in the digital link.

Spoilers, obv.

(more…)

We’re joined by Tula for our final introduction to Tara, the secluded member of the Patheon. Also includes a one-pager from Jamie and Matt. This was a hard one to write, but I think it’s worth it. Tula was just astounding.

You can get it from your local comic shop, or digitally either from Comixology or direct from Image. Preview here.

Aphra and bounty-hunters get rich or die trying. Darth Vader gets a new assistant. Also, twists and complications which clearly are going to end well for everyone concerned.

It’s available from your local comic shop or digitally. Preview here.

Kissing, woe, weaponised puns and lots more, in the comic people are calling “Why is it called Siege?”

You can get it from your local comic shop or digitally. There’s a preview here.

I’m being let out the house over the next couple of weeks. Let us gather! Let us be beautiful and/or write names on books and generally do stuff.

NINE WORLDS – Saturday August 8th
Nine Worlds at the Radisson Blu Edwardian at Heathrow is an excellent multi-fandom progressive con that’s now in its third year. I usually describe it as a petri dish for the future of fandom, and I think that still holds. It’s on there for three days, but I’m only attending on the Saturday, and have two official commitments.

Show, Don’t Tell: Wordless Comics – why make wordless comics? What do they represent? – 10.00am – 11.15am, Connaught A
From sign-language to space to animal speech, why make wordless comics and why are they so effective?
Panel with Howard Hardiman, Sarah Gordon, Kieron Gillen, Sally Jane Thompson, Stephen Lacey

Drawing Dinner: Food and Comics: noodles to pizza, why is eating so evocative? – 6.45pm – 8.00pm, Connaught A
Manga is full of food-as-feeling, from domesticity to ceremony. Why does a drawing of the steam rising from hot soup work? What’s the language of food?
Panel with Kieron Gillen, Charlotte Geater, Zoe Burgess, Hazel Southwell

Which are two agreeable oddities.

As I’m there and I know assorted WicDiv sorts will be, I wanted to also do an informal gathering. If people want to meet at 4:30 in the Bijou Bar (Which is the one on the left as you come in) I’ll sign whatever you wish and talk all things to do with anything I’ve written. If too many people turn up, we can go outside and crouch in the sunshine.

I’m big on improvisation. Will be good to see people. I suspect I will be in over candid mode, so think of it as an AMA. In a pub. Because I’m me.

Tickets are still available, both for the weekend as a whole and just for the Saturday. Have a nose at the programme. I suspect if you think you’d like it, you’d like it. And for a tiny minor note which may appeal to some of you, it’s been a big influence on various things in WicDiv – Inanna, especially, and the first Ragnarock Laura went to.

GOSH, LONDON – 12th August, 6-7pm.
Phonogram returns. Jamie and I are doing a signing at GOSH in London. We’ll sign anything, but we have a limit of five books at once. If you want to re-queue, we’ll sign some more. 

THE BIG BANG, DUBLIN – 15th August, 11am-1pm.
As the Big Bang have a lovely new shop, we thought it’d be fun to go over and do a signing. Tula Lotay and myself will be there, which makes it an idea time to get your WicDiv 13?s signed. Details here, though worth noting the exact times may change a little. I think it’ll be more likely to continue longer though.

Anyway – that’s where I’ll be. Come unto me, etc.

Spoilers, obv.

(more…)

A quiet week, with just this out. BUT WHAT A JUST THIS OUT! Our adventures continue, where Marguerite and Stephanie does excellent things with the Guardians of the Galaxy and

Irene Koh and I team up do truly brutal things to Measure for Measure. 

You can buy it on Comixology or your local shop. Preview here.

On a relevant note, we’ve just started getting the first parts of Stephanie’s pages for her issue of WicDiv, and they’re astounding. I mean, this is no surprise, but I thought I’d confirm that. Astounding.

First of all, this. We’ve been talking about this for years, and after a lot of adventures, it’s finally come out. In short: this is us doing a hardish Sci-fi cyperpunk adventure comic set on Mercury, digging into my 2000AD roots and playing a love song to all those R-rated VHS videos I watched until the tape warped in my teenage years. 

I think this is a little under the radar, so it’s probably one to try and grab quickly, as your shops may not have many.

You can buy it from your local comic shop or digitally. There’s a preview and a link to the free comic book day book in the digital link. The FCBD issue is a lot of world building and a 11 page story, so definitely worth looking at.

And SIEGE is my new four-issue mini from Marvel, with Filipe Andrade and a cast of (if not thousands) at least many. It’s designed as a swan song to my current era of work at Marvel, and I’ve described it as a spiritual sequel to S.W.O.R.D. and NextWave as a Tragedy. If you’ve liked my stuff at Marvel, I suspect you’ll be all over this. 

You can get it from your local comic shop or digitally. The link includes a preview, and there’s another one here.

And the final, inevitably horrific part of my Crossed arc, where everything gets tied up in a neat bow. As it’s Crossed, the bow is made of someone’s intestines, but it’s a bow nevertheless.

You can buy it from your local comic shop or digitally. The digital link includes a preview. 

Phew.

Let’s reverse order from that mouthful.

The second trade for the comic, collecting issues 6-11. Details of mail order can be found over here. And here’s the trailer…

You can get it from your local comic shop, or digitally either from Comixology or direct from Image.

Issue 26 of Uber, the penultimate issue of Uber: Volume 1. It’s the Battle of Calais, and the largest confrontation so far. 

Available from your local shop, or Comixology. There’s also a preview in that Comixology link too.

The second arc starts here, with Darth visiting a certain couple of homes on Tatooine and Aphra getting a new mission. Also, violence and politics.

It’s available from your local comic shop or digitally. Preview here.

And finally…

And the start of our third arc, with Kate Brown on art in the main story (and Jamie/Matt doing a short back-up.) Yes, that means if you pick up the trade and feel the need to jump aboard, you totally can.

You can get it from your local comic shop, or digitally either from Comixology or direct from Image. 

We’re pleased with this. Seeing our work animated is quite the thing.