Short Fuses

Diamond Listings and Forbidden Bargains!

2011-12-13T09:49:00.004Z

Just wanted to give you all a heads up that this month in the Diamond Previews UK Section we have the new Turpin book listed - Dick Turpin and the Crimson Plague - as well as our critically acclaimed London Calling graphic novel.

The order codes are:

DEC112169 - DICK TURPIN AND THE CRIMSON PLAGUE GN

DEC112170 - LONDON CALLING GN

Those fine folks at Forbidden Planet International have also featured the Turpin book in their recommended graphic novels newsletter and they're offering both books at 31% discount ( that's £4.83 against their cover price of £7.00!) if you pre-order them through their website - and if you click on the links above you'll be taken straight through to the relevant pre-order pages!

Obviously any shop in the UK can order it though, and Diamond UK have advised that should the orders be healthy there may be an opportunity for a relist in the main part of the catalogue, so fingers crossed.

Please can you badger your local comics shop to order copies - even better save yourself a few quid by ordering some yourself from Forbidden Planet - as it would be fabulous to see Time Bomb Comics on comic shop shelves all across the UK next February!

Dick Turpin Rides Again!

2011-11-13T12:01:00.007Z

Time Bomb Comics is delighted to announce that their next release, Dick Turpin and the Crimson Plague, is being released internationally as well as in the UK.

Dick Turpin and the Crimson Plague is being launched at the Leeds Thoughtbubble weekend of the 19th & 20th November, where the creative team will be conducting a mid-day signing session at the Time Bomb Comics table on the Saturday afternoon. This year's Thoughtbubble looks to be a spectacular, mushrooming into a two hall, two day convention that seems to be now the definitive British comics event of the year. Certainly it's now the show we look forward to the most and are delighted to officially launching a book there for the first time this year. Steve Tanner will also be part of Thoughtbubble's Everything You Wanted To Know About Self Publishing panel that's taking place at 11.00am on Saturday morning hosted by Matthew Sheret, so hopefully will see some of you there!

One week later, Steve Tanner and Time Bomb Comics will be at the Malta Comic-Con taking place in Valletta, Malta over the weekend of 26th & 27th November to launch the book internationally. This is the first time we have ventured outside of the UK to be at a show so are looking forward to it immensely. Those lucky enough to have attended previous Malta shows have had a blast, and it's a great way to end our 2011 convention season!

The long-awaited follow-up to the critically acclaimed one-shot Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead, Dick Turpin and the Crimson Plague features the notorious highwayman up against a nest of vampires in 18th Century London. Once again written by Steve Tanner, this second horrors and highwaymen mash-up from the Birmingham based company features artwork from rising star Graeme Howard – who is currently drawing Cy Dethan’s Cancertown 2 for Markosia – and lettering by the talented Nikki Foxrobot.

Dick Turpin and the Crimson Plague also contains The Rogues Gallery featuring exclusive Dick Turpin artwork from Keith Page, Stuart Tipples, Simon Wyatt, Alex Thompson, Josceline Fenton and Glenn Jones.

It has also been confirmed that Dick Turpin and the Crimson Plague will be available to order in the December 2011 Diamond Previews Catalogue.

DICK TURPIN AND THE CRIMSON PLAGUE, 56 pages, Graphic Album, perfect bound, full colour cover, black and white interior, retail price £6.99/$11.99, ISBN 978-0-9561822-4-1

Keep an eye on the website too - our latest Dick Turpin romp will also be available to order through our online shop very soon!

Dick Turpin And The First Six Pages!

2011-06-26T12:04:00.004+01:00

I'm delighted to be able to finally share the completed first six pages of Dick Turpin and the Crimson Plague with you. Some of artist Graeme Howard's inked pages were posted here a few months back without the lettering - but don't they look spectacular with the words?

For me, the moment when the lettering is added is when a page of sequential art becomes a page of comics. It's terrific then that we have the brilliant Nikki Foxrobot (yes, that is her real name!) on board to letter Dick Turpin's latest eagerly anticipated adventure. Nikki's steadily been building quite a reputation for her lettering skills - she's already one of Bluewater's regular letterers - and it's great to have her now bringing her talents to Time Bomb Comics. (This shouldn't be the last you'll see of Nikki around here either as she's already agreed to fulfill the lettering duties on our forthcoming western book The Last Ride Of Henry Holden!)

But enough from me - time to feast your eyes on these:

Spirit Of Hope

2011-05-31T21:52:00.004+01:00

Britain's Comic Book Alliance will publish Spirit of Hope this month - a stunning-looking anthology featuring work by almost 100 comic creators in aid of survivors of the Tsunami and earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand which happened earlier this year.

The image above is the Jimmy Broxton cover, but a Mike Allred cover is also available and the list of creators involved is pretty phenomenal: Natalie Abadzis, Nick Abadzis, Adrian Bamforth, Jasper Bark, Donna Barr, Jordie Bellaire, Paul H Birch, Bolt-01, Dan Boultwood, Mark Buckingham, Jim Campbell, Richmond Clements, Jason Cobley, Simon Coleby, Mike Collins, Martin Conaghan, Gary Crutchley, Glenn Dakin, Al Davison, Brandon DeStefano, Benjamin Dickson, Martin Eden, Mats Engesten, Gary Erskine, Al Ewing, Glenn B Flemming, Emma Flint, Henry Flint, Leigh Gallagher, Matt Gibbs, Gary Gilbert, Alan Grant, Jon Haward, Peter Hogan, Kev Hopgood, Graeme Howard, Inko, Rich Johnston, Ant Jones, GM Jordan, Jessica Kemp, David Leach, Tony Lee, Nigel Lowrey, Ciaran Lucas, Paul McLaren, Gary Spencer Millidge, Michiru Morikawa, Alex Moore, Leonie O’Moore, Michiru Morkawa, Eva Perkins, Grant Perkins, Martyn Pick, Maria Pickering, David Pugh, James Reekie, Regan, Neil Roberts, Darick Roberston, John Robbins, John Ross, Declan Shalvey, Liam Sharp, Akiko Shimojima, Si Spencer, Vicky Stonebridge, Lew Stringer, Steve Tanner, Archie Templar, S Thompson, Geoffrey D. Wessel, Chris Western, Andrew Wildman, WJC, Ant Williams, Rob Williams, Sean Michael Wilson and Yel Zamor.

Copies of the book can be ordered in advance and will be £14.99 + £3.00 p&p. Anyone ordering should state their preference of cover, both will soon be available to be seen on the CBA website or Facebook page. Advance orders will be sent out and will hopefully include 3 small limited edition prints of the covers and an extra picture. The address is: The Comic Book Alliance, PO Box 165, Marple, Cheshire SK6 7BL. Cheques & Postal Orders should be made out to 'The Comic Book Alliance'

We saw the preview of the book at the MCM Expo last weekend and it's stunning, so do yourself a favour and those affected by the tragedy an even bigger one by buying a copy.

Henry Holden's Moseying Along...

2011-02-06T11:34:00.004Z

The Last Ride Of Henry Holden was announced as a forthcoming one-shot early last year, written by Alex De-Gruchy with Giorgio Iannotti handling the pencils. The talented Mike Bunt has since come on board as the inker and the finished pages are now becoming a regular feature in my inbox!

A gritty oater that should appeal to any fans of modern takes on the classic Western genre such as DC's current Jonah Hex series and HBO's Deadwood, The Last Ride Of Henry Holden is now tentatively scheduled for release next year. In the meantime here's the first five pages to whet your appetites:

Aren't they fabulous? And believe me, having seen Giorgio's amazing pencils for the later pages the best is yet to come!

If you want to see more be sure to check out our Henry Holden preview booklet which I'm putting together that will be on the tables at any of Time Bomb's show appearances this year - the first of which is the Cardiff Comics Expo at the end of February!

Tom, Dick and Graeme

2011-01-02T21:49:00.013Z

2011? Already? Doesn't time fly when you're having fun! Anyway, now that the tinsel has been reboxed and all the fireworks exploded to appreciative gasps, I'd like to introduce you to Graeme.

Graeme Howard is a comic book artist living in London England. He has worked as an illustrator for several books and national newspapers and storyboarded several music promos. After graduating in 3D character animation he worked in the games industry and on various childrens television productions. He lives with two dogs and a very understanding partner. He is also the newly appointed artist on our upcoming one-shot Dick Turpin and the Crimson Plague!

As you can see from the fabulous artwork above, Graeme is set to take the long-awaited sequel to Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead to dazzling new heights. The fact that the above illustration landed in my inbox just a few hours after Graeme agreed to the gig should tell you how fired up and enthused about the project he is, and I think Graeme's classic style suits our notorious highwayman to a "T"!

Below you can see his pencilled interpretations of Dick Turpin and Tom King. What struck me about these is that that they follow Andy Dodd's original look of both characters, yet at the same time puts Graeme's own stamp very firmly on them.

Oh, and it gets better. Graeme has already completed the artwork for page one - dripping with atmosphere, it completely nails the look of the period, and I can't wait to see the rest of his interpretation of the story! Don't take my word for it though, check it out for yourself:

So, what do you think?

Time For A Change.

2010-11-09T13:05:00.010Z

The BICS 2010 show was a good one. Not only did we launch London Calling successfully it also marked our 3rd birthday - we're three years old! It doesn't seem that long since we nervously sat at BICS 2007 with freshly printed copies of Ragamuffins laid out optimistically on our table, thinking we had far too much table space to utilise. Now, with six titles available that 1 table is starting to seem not big enough!

However a mere 3 years publishing experience under the belt is no excuse for complacency, so as we entered our fourth year at least one change seemed well overdue. Click on over to the website http://www.timebombcomics.com/ and you'll see it's had a complete overhaul in design, thanks to website designer/comics publisher/all round good guy Hal Laren of Reaper Comics fame. I think Hal's done a great job, making the site a lot more visually interesting and easier to navigate than the old version. The site at time of writing is 80% done, so Hal will be continuing to tweak it over the next few weeks but if you have any comments on it so far please let us know - ideally using the new contact us form embedded in the site itself.

The other change is that Andy Dodd (who co-founded Time Bomb Comics with me back in September 2007) has decided the time has come for him to move on from Time Bomb and strike out on his own. Andy was closely involved with many of the original conceptual ideas behind Time Bomb Comics and was of course the artist on three of our releases, so I wish him well for the future and look forward to seeing what he does next - assuming his Douglas Adams-esque approach to deadlines doesn't hamper that too much!

A final snippet I want to share relates to the fine piece of artwork above from Alex Wilmore and beautifully coloured by Lauren Sharp. Some of you may recognise it from Kronos City, the graphic novel written by Andrew Croskery that had been announced by the late Insomnia Publications. The great news is that Kronos City has found a new home with Time Bomb Comics. and will now be one of our future releases. Expect more details to come very shortly!

London Calling

2010-09-22T17:27:00.003+01:00

56 pages, A4 Graphic Album, perfect bound, full colour cover, black and white interior.
Retail price £7.00/$12.00

Time Bomb Comics is pleased to announce that their next release, London Calling, will be launched at the British International Comics Show in October 2010.

Written by screen-writer Stephen Walsh with stunning artwork by renowned “Commando” artist Keith Page London Calling is a complete thrilling adventure, told in a style that hearkens back to classic British comic strips of yesteryear.

Set in a 1950’s London one-step sideways to our own, secret agent Charlotte Corday encounters invading Martians, talking puppets, unexpected cameos, and the vampire-hunting coppers of the Metropolitan “V” Squad as they deal with an outbreak of vampires at Highgate Cemetery.

Both Stephen and Keith will be attending a signing session at the Time Bomb Comics table during the BICS weekend.

Survival Stories

2010-08-16T20:35:00.006+01:00

For a change this blog post isn't about a Time Bomb Comic. But it is about the efforts of a group of mainly British comic creators (including Time Bomb's Steve Tanner and Andy Dodd) to prove that nothing, not even the collapse of the publisher they were working for, is insurmountable:

"On June 30, 2010, Insomnia publisher Crawford Coutts filed to cease trading with the UK companies house. Though Coutts never officially informed his creators (or anyone) of this decision, all signs pointed to the end of Insomnia. And the creators, well, we were supposed to move on, chalk up a loss, and let all our hard work and dedication become a memory—lesson learned.

But we came up with a different plan. In the days following the news of Insomnia’s seeming end, one thing became clear: that all the creators involved believed in each other’s work. A mutual admiration was shared for the short comics that appear in this anthology, and we are determined to see it get the release it deserves.

And that’s how The Sleepless Phoenix—a collective of up-and-coming comics talent from both the UK and the US—was born. While the Comic Book Alliance works to settle the conflict of our publishing contracts, we took the only content that still belongs to us—this anthology.
The book is 192 pages long, black and white, and features all-new content. Creators include Martin Conaghan (Burke & Hare), Ben Bates (Sonic the Hedgehog), Jim Boswell (KiCk!), Peter Forbes (Oz: Fall of the Scarecrow King), and more (including Time Bomb's Steve Tanner and Andy Dodd). It will be released in October, 2010.

Mike Carey (Lucifer, The Unwritten, X-Men Legacy) says the book is "a kaleidoscope of graphic stories - mostly in the darker colours of the horror palette, but all the better for that."
All the profit raised, after printing and shipping, will go straight to the Comic Book Alliance—an organization that fights for the rights of comic creators everywhere. Hopefully, what has happened to the creators of Insomnia publications doesn’t happen again."

Please click on the link below, and support the publication of Survival Stories in October.

http://kck.st/cnQTwh

A Taste Of Henry Holden...

2010-06-20T12:06:00.003+01:00

With a temporary lull in the convention circuit and final touches being put onto our London Calling release for October, it seemed a good idea to share some of Giorgio Ianotti's classically pencilled pages that are coming through for our recently announced The Last Ride Of Henry Holden one-shot.

Pages three and four are above, while below are a few of Giorgio's character designs for the book - enjoy!

Excel-ent!

2010-06-03T10:19:00.005+01:00

It's been a frantic fortnight. Hot on the heels of the Bristol Expo was the London MCM Expo held at the Excel Centre in the heart of London Docklands, and our experience of both couldn't have been more different.

Expanded into a two-day event over the weekend, this year's Small/Indie Press aspect of the Bristol Expo in the Mercure had much more going on. More exhibitors, more talks, more attendees - and more of an opportunity to relish being in a spacious, well-lit, air-conditioned room rather than the Ramada sweatbox! As usual, Bristol had a cap on ticket sales and there were the same issues with poor signage as last year - including worrying reports that a fair few came and left the Mercure not realising that the huge main exhibiting room existed, just the smaller sized room - and grumbles about the event being split between two venues.

It's clearly impossible to have everything under one hotel roof in Bristol - there isn't a hotel big enough to accommodate the entire thing - but there were still a fair few conference rooms free at the Mercure that could have been utilised I reckon. My option would be to use the Ramada solely for panels and the Mercure solely for signings and exhibitors, but what do I know? Niggles aside, Bristol remains one of the highlights of the UK comics industry and it was great to be a part of it.

The UK comics industry is a very small part of the MCM Expo, a show dominated by gaming, anime and hollywood stars. We really weren't sure what to expect. We certainly didn't expect to see 41,000 people turn up, about a quarter of them in costume! MCM is being referred to by many as the British San Diego - it's a good analogy given the numbers attending and how comics are such a small aspect of both. However, that's not to say we felt marginalised - the comics village was a wonderful place to be and the Time Bomb table received constant attention! Some of our fellow villagers we'd seen at Bristol the week before, but there were a good number of fresh faces too, and a fascinating display of steampunk paraphernalia just across from us.

This was the first time we'd been to any London event, so many of those we spoke to hadn't had the opportunity to check out our comics before - not every London comic fan shops at Orbital and Gosh it seems! We took a lot of comics to the show, but we didn't take that many back. Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead was our most popular purchase - we returned from London with just 3 copies - but all our titles seemed to be well-received, and we also met a few very talented artists interested in working with us.

It was a great weekend, and we've decided to make future MCM Expo's one of our regular events. There are two MCM shows a year and the next one falls on Halloween weekend, between BICS and Thoughtbubble. It's going to be a busy Autumn...

All Aboard The Brum-Brissle Express

2010-05-21T08:51:00.005+01:00

This weekend is the 2010 Bristol Comics Expo and as I write this we're just finishing off packing our suitcases before catching the Brum-Brissle express. All being well, we should have checked in to the Mercure by 3.00pm and have had ample time to freshen up before hitting the Ramada bar this evening and kicking off this year's Bristol show with a bang.
Our table at the Mercure this year will have our new 56-page Bomb Scares anthology as the centrepiece, as well as all our other titles including The Furies graphic novel which is making its first Bristol appearance since being published last October. We'll also have a really good deal on for any Time Bomb Comics newbies as well, with all our four one-shots (Ragamuffins, Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead, The Sisterhood and Bomb Scares) available as a set for just £10 - a true Bristol Expo bargain!
This year the Small Press Expo takes place over both days so hopefully there'll be a much better flow through between the two Expo hotels this year, and much more awareness that the convention is not just limited to whatever's in the Ramada. Hopefully we'll be able to pop in to see what's going on at the Ramada during the day as well, but if you're attending the Expo as well please come over and say hello!

Back With A Bang!

2010-05-09T18:00:00.007+01:00

With the Bristol Expo mere weeks away and our move from Leicester to Birmingham finally complete it's great to be able to finally be able to bring some more news about what you can expect to see from Time Bomb Comics in the not too distant future!

I'm delighted to be able to announce another two new graphic novels in development, adding to London Calling and Skylark announced earlier in the year. First up is Angels Of The Somme, a well-researched World War One story by Alec Robertson and Bruce McLaren. Alec featured in our Bomb Scares horror anthology and Bruce has been a regular artist on the Futurequake titles. Bruce's excellent promo image for AOTS can be seen below.

The equally stunning picture below that is our promotional piece for our other graphic novel - The Last Ride Of Henry Holden. No prizes for guessing it's a western! Written by Derby-based Alex De-Gruchy and drawn by Italian artist Giorgio Ianotti, Henry Holden will appeal to fans of Deadwood, Jonah Hex and great comics storytelling. The promo art has been coloured by Rebecca Labor, a terrific artist we met at last year's Thoughtbubble.

With all these new titles in the pipeline (and between you and me a couple more we're currently sorting the details on with their creative teams) we'll be sending out the following press release this week to all the major comics news websites, including those who've given us some great coverage in the past:

Following their recent move from Leicester to Birmingham and in advance of the forthcoming Bristol Comics Expo, Time Bomb Comics are delighted to be able to announce a number of forthcoming one-shots and graphic novels currently in development:

LONDON CALLING Graphic Novel
Written by Stephen Walsh, Artwork by Keith Page
There’s vampires afoot in London’s Highgate Cemetery – and only secret agent Charlotte Corday and the garlic-toting, stake-swinging coppers of the Metropolitan Police’s V-Squad can stop them! Channelling the spirit of traditional British adventure comics from yesteryear, with a dose of Hammer horror and Ealing Studios thrown in, London Calling features classic black and white storytelling from respected “Commando” artist Keith Page.

London Calling is due for release October 2010.

SKYLARK Graphic Novel
Written by Jonathon Darque, Artwork by Katja Lindblom
In the realms of supernatural investigations in the 19th Century Skylark is legendary. A true adventurer from a bygone age, a Man's Man and somebody who left more mysteries behind when he disappeared without a trace. In the aftermath of The Great War his son Gabriel has enjoyed a less than stellar reputation - labelled a fraud by the press and a disappointment by his father's peers. Yet it is Gabriel who on a routine investigation finds himself suffering for his father's sins and only he can turn back a threat older than time itself. Skylark - It's only Heaven for some...

ANGELS OF THE SOMME Graphic Novel
Written by Alec Robertson, Artwork by Bruce McLaren
When the Great War began Private Doherty joined the Seaforth Highlanders wanting to do his bit for King and Country, just like any other ordinary man. But ordinary men shouldn’t have to face to horrors of the trenches and the grim battlefields of the Somme. Fed up with fighting but with nowhere to go, Private Doherty joins a deserter regiment – a rag-tag unit of men from all sides just trying to survive. Based on historical facts, Angels Of The Somme features the fascinating story of the forgotten deserter regiments of World War One.

THE LAST RIDE OF HENRY HOLDEN Graphic Novel
Written by Alex De-Gruchy, Artwork by Giorgio Ianotti, Colour Artwork by Rebecca Labor
Glory, Nevada. 1871. When Henry Holden took what was rightfully his from the corrupt and ruthless landowner named John Kelly, Sheriff David Samuels was sent after him. Three weeks later, Samuels rides back into Glory with a dead man on his horse and a weight on his soul he knows he can never shake off. Kelly is happy that all is once again as it should be in his town. But he’s wrong. Sheriff Samuels knows he has damned himself – he isn’t looking for any kind of redemption. But with innocent blood on his hands and a tin star on his chest he no longer deserves to wear, Samuels knows that one way or another, a reckoning is coming. And if it’s one that costs him his life, well, that’s just fine with him…

DICK TURPIN AND THE CRIMSON PLAGUE One-Shot
Written by Steve Tanner, Artwork by Andrew Dodd
The long-awaited follow up to the popular and critically acclaimed Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead one-shot released from Time Bomb Comics in 2008!
Notorious highwayman Dick Turpin and his associate Tom King the gentleman thief are living the high-life in nineteenth century London. But Turpin’s getting itchy feet and their coin is getting low, so there’s just time for one last job before hitting the roads again. Who would have known that the upmarket brothel they decide to rob is infested with the curse of the Crimson Plague?

I've sent the promo pieces along with that as well, so hopefully we'll get some visibility before the Bristol show and the London MCM Expo that we're attending just a week later.

Finally one more thing I want to share - below is the first promo piece for Dick Turpin and the Crimson Plague! Another Andy Dodd masterpiece, I'm sure you'll agree!

Brum, Brum, Here We Come!

2010-04-05T08:56:00.002+01:00

Thanks to Selina Lock of Factor Fiction, here's me caught waxing lyrical about comics at the recent Leicester Independent Press Day. "Waxing lyrical" pretty much sums up the day itself, with lots of people who hadn't read comics since they were kids genuinely surprised that Britain still has a thriving (albeit underground) comics industry. It was just us and Factor Fiction there to bang the comics drum, as most of the East Midlands Indie Press seems to consist of poetry and literary criticism. Usually surrounded by like-minded folk at comics conventions this was a definite step into alien territory for us; it was obvious that most people attending the event were regarding us with curiosity and some with suspicion. Despite that we still sold some comics and enjoyed having lots of conversations about comics - especially with writers who had never considered writing for comics before and who we've since received some sample scripts through from a couple of them. Given it was on our doorstep (literally a 10 minute walk) and there was no exhibiting costs nor any need for hotels, planes, trains and automobiles it made an interesting change from the usual. Not sure we'd do it again though, mainly due to the title of this post...

After two and a half years being based in Leicester, Time Bomb Comics is this week moving across to Birmingham! If I wanted to put some spin on the move it would be to say that the home of the British International Comics Show is an ideal place for us to move to. The reality is the move is down to the day job and nothing whatsoever to do with comics - although the home of the British International Comics Show is still an ideal place for us to move to! We're actually going to be just a couple of miles or so from the Millennium Point BICS-venue which is a nice bonus.

We're also looking forward to be able to regard the brilliant Nostalgia & Comics as our local comic shop as they're doing such a sterling job stocking (and repeatedly selling out) of our titles!

Hot Off The (Indy) Press!

2010-03-03T07:02:00.005Z

Given that due to us having to pull out of Hi-Ex we were expecting our 2010 show schedule not to kick off until May, we're delighted to announce that we've just been invited to have a stall at the inaugural Independent Press Day taking place here in Leicester on 20th March - the weekend before we were originally to be up in Inverness. Taking place at De Montfort University and perhaps 10 minutes away from Time Bomb HQ, this is the first time we'll have the pleasure of exhibiting at a show right on our doorstep.

There seems to be quite a lot going on throughout the day judging by the official website http://www.statesofindependence.co.uk with more than forty writers giving talks and readings between 10.30am - 16.30pm and a large exhibitors hall featuring independent book publishers mainly from across the East Midlands. It looks like we'll be the only comics publishers there too, so we're really looking forward to seeing what reaction our diverse one-shots will receive from a decidedly literary crowd, and it will be interesting to see what the indie press book scene is like - as friendly and welcoming as the indie press comic scene we hope!

It's Only Heaven For Some...

2010-02-20T13:11:00.003Z

Hot on the heels of London Calling I'm delighted to be able to announce details of another up and coming graphic novel. Skylark is written by Jonathan Darque with artwork by Katja Lindblom, two creators who feature in the current Bomb Scares anthology. Both Jonathan and Katja did a fanastic job on their respective Bomb Scares short stories, and it's going to be terrific to see what wonders they do on their first graphic novel!

I asked Mr Darque to provide a few lines of what Skylark is all about, so over to you Jonathan:

"In the realms of supernatural investigations in the 19th Century Skylark is legendary. A true adventurer from a bygone age, a Man's Man and somebody who left more mysteries behind when he disappeared without a trace. In the aftermath of The Great War his son Gabriel has enjoyed a less than stellar reputation - labelled a fraud by the press and a disappointment by his father's peers. Yet it is Gabriel who on a routine investigation finds himself suffering for his father's sins and only he can turn back a threat older than time itself.

Skylark - It's only Heaven for some..."

Sounds good? I can assure you the script is a cracker and that Katja's style is a perfect fit for the story. Obviously it's too early to give a publication date for Skylark just yet but please keep an eye out for updates and art samples from now on, either here on the blog or at our convention tables. Skylark has been in development for a few months, and it's great to finally be at the stage where I can officially announce it!

So that's Bomb Scares, London Calling and now Skylark, making 2010 a pretty good year for Time Bomb Comics already. There's a couple of other things slowly coming together too, but I don't want to jinx things by jumping the gun so I won't say too much just yet!

Other news: We've unfortunately had to pull out of the Hi-Ex convention next month, which is a huge disappointment and not a decision we took lightly. We had a blast at Hi-Ex 2009, but the logistics of getting there and back with a 6 week old this year have scuppered us. However we are confirmed for both the Bristol Expo and the London MCM Expo in May, so will still manage to do 4 appearances this year with the usual Birmingham and Leeds events.

Finally on a Time Bomb Comics related note be sure to get your hands on a copy of Murky Depths #11 as the just published issue features an 8 page short story by one Steve Tanner - a familiar name to any readers of Time Bomb Comics!

You can order a copy online here: http://murkydepths.com

Our Latest Release...

2010-02-01T22:39:00.003Z

Meet Sasha Joyce Tanner, the latest addition to the Time Bomb Comics line-up! Released on Sunday 31st January 2010, Sasha could be considered our latest one-shot, but unlike any of our previous titles won't be available for purchase in any format as she comes in an extremely limited edition of just one copy, and is of course considered by her creative team of Steve and Suzanne Tanner to be priceless!

Those of you who encounter us on the convention trail can expect to meet up with Sasha before too long, although she probably won't be running the table on her own this year, or for a few more years to come!

Disturbing Horror Stories In A Twisted Vein...

2010-01-17T11:46:00.017Z

Bomb Scares, our long-awaited horror anthology one-shot, is the first big 2010 release from Time Bomb Comics!

Those of you who follow such things will know that Bomb Scares was originally slated for October 2009, but a catalogue of mishaps and problems ensured that the finished copies arrived back to us one day after Thoughtbubble - thus ensuring it had missed the 2009 convention season completely - and will therefore kick off our 2010 convention season at Hi-Ex in March.

(Of course, the ingrained curse that Bomb Scares seems to have come with isn't quite finished with us just yet - at time of writing Time Bomb's appearance at Hi-Ex is till a bit up in the air, due to my wife Suzanne's imminent onset of labour! Should things all go smoothly over the next 10 days all three of us will be travelling to Scotland as planned, should things get more complicated then none of us may be fit to travel. So we're crossing our fingers at the moment!)

I know it's traditional for publishers to big their own releases up, but Bomb Scares is a pretty special piece of work and at 56 pages for £4.00/$5.50. Ten stories, eighteen creators, and one anthology that contains as wide a range of styles and horror themes as you would want. I reckon there's pretty much something for every horror fan inside - from psychological terror to gruesome body horror and of course a liberal sprinkling of zombies - and the finished package lives up to the book's strapline: disturbing horror stories in a twisted vein.

The eighteen creators that are featured in Bomb Scares are equally diverse. We have a story by respected comics creators Gary Crutchley and Shane Oakley, and rapidly up and coming writer Richmond Clements. Then there's the rest of the creators - John Cahill, Katja Lindblom, GM Jordan, Alec Robertson, Chis Young, Rachele Aragno, MC Carper, Montos, Anglada Kamarasa, Andy Dodd, Gordon Robertson, Scott Mitchell, Jonathan Darque, Dino Caruso and Steve Tanner. Some of those you may recognise already, but all are names to watch out for in the future.

The good news is that nobody has to wait until convention season starts up again to own a copy. Bomb Scares is already available through the online shop at http://www.timebombcomics.com/ from anywhere in the world and we will be looking to get the anthology into some of the more indie-friendly comic shops before March. Nostalgia and Comics in Birmingham has already sold out of their first batch!

Another Couple Of Bites!

2010-01-07T23:17:00.004Z

Following on from Keith Page's wonderful colour promo for London Calling last time, here's a couple of Keith's quite wonderful interior pages from the upcoming one-shot. One thing that was a pleasant surprise was Keith's traditional approach to lettering - all carefully written onto the pages themselves. In this day and age of computer generated lettering fonts and captions it really stands out as something special, don't you agree?

A LITTLE NEW YEAR TASTER!

2010-01-01T11:29:00.007Z

So welcome to 2010!

To hopefully whet your appetites for what could be Time Bomb Comics' biggest year yet here's a little taster about our big 2010 release: More details coming very soon!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2010!

2009-12-24T16:00:00.002Z

Yes, the blog has been extremely quiet of late, but we have a whole flurry of Time Bomb Comics news updates on the way in January - including details of some brilliant releases over the coming eighteen months or so.

So until the New Year I'd like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a very rewarding 2010!

Cheers!

Time Bomb Comics at BICS 2009

2009-09-26T14:44:00.003+01:00

It's that time again!

Time Bomb Comics will once again be exhibiting at BICS and will of course be marking the occasion with the release of the 100-page graphic novel The Furies, written by Steve Tanner with artwork by Andrew Dodd.

We'll also have previews of a few of our forthcoming projects including:

Bomb Scares - An anthology that promises disturbing horror stories in a twisted vein. Ten stories from a mix of brand new and established creators (including Shane Oakley of Albion fame) that have been carefully blended into a chilling cocktail of both graphic and psychological nastiness.

London Calling - Ealing Studios meets Hammer Horror in this uniquely British one-shot featuring artwork by well-known DC Thomson "Commando" artist Keith Page.

Primetime - An outrageous murder mystery in a media obsessed future city where everyone wants to be caught on camera. Written by Steve Tanner with art from talented newcomer Paul Thompson.

Of course as well as The Furies all of our previous releases will be available at BICS 2009 too, and we'll be more than happy to meet and chat with any existing or aspiring creators all weekend about future project opportunities.

Enthusiastic PR aside, I'm personally really looking forward to another weekend of total comics indulgence in the heart of Birmingham! Not one who needs an excuse to buy some more comics, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on all the latest releases from the wide and diverse creators and publishers who make up the UK comics industry. Accent UK, Markosia, Insomnia, Renegade, C2D4, Cinebook, Orang Utan, Fallen Angel and of course Time Bomb are just a few - every year the full list seems to be getting bigger and bigger!

See you at BICS 2009!

Silence is Golden?

2009-09-10T15:38:00.001+01:00

Well, it's been quite some time again since the last Short Fuses update. That doesn't mean that nothing much has been happening since June - far from it - but more that what has been going on has been taking up all our time and focus. And I must be honest, I thought it best to keep schtum until I had something to say!

So since June Time Bomb's focus has been making sure that The Furies is finally done and dusted. We've been going over the pages again and again, fine-tuning where we could and making sure that all our intended revisions have been done, and doing those last minute tweaks that no creator can resist on the eve of the printer's deadline!

I'll be the first to admit bias, but when I received the completed printer's proof back the other day I thought it looked like a great little package. A perfect-bound 100 page graphic novel in a bookshelf friendly A5 format. Unlike our previous one-shots we've printed The Furies with Bristol-based Fallen Angel Media, a very indie-comics friendly set-up headed by Mal Smith, who's also instrumental in organising the Bristol Small Press Expo. I'd recommend FAM to anyone after our experience of them - and I can see us using them again in the not too distant future.

So, barring some as yet unforseen catastrophe The Furies will be this year's BICS release from Time Bomb Comics which maintains our BICS batting average a treat. Of course, that's not to say we don't care as much about the other conventions - it's just that as we first launched Time Bomb Comics with Ragamuffins at BICS 2007, and followed that up with Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead for BICS 2008 the Brum show has become our unofficial anniversary show.

There's also a chance we may have another one-shot debuting at next month's BICS as well - but those unforseen catastrophe's that avoided The Furies have hit our Bomb Scares horror anthology book with a vengeance. Vanishing files, missing creators, exploding laptops - the gestation and publication of Bomb Scares is turning into a fair horror story in itself! So with the best will in the world we may be saving that for November's Thoughtbubble.

Still it does seem appropriate in saving a release titled Bomb Scares for the last big UK comics event of 2009 - that way we finish the year with a bang!

Finally The Furies!

2009-06-26T13:46:00.003+01:00

It's been a few weeks since the last Short Fuses entry, but it's great to be back with some news of the next Time Bomb Comics release: The Furies, an original graphic novel written by Steve Tanner with artwork by Andy Dodd. The Furies is a dark, apocalyptic tale of prophecy and belief. Set in the year 2012 Britain has become more dirty, more sordid and more violent. But 2012 is also a year of prophecy, and something is going to happen. Something bad.

Those awfully nice folk who bought a copy of our first two one-shots will recognise the above image, as both Ragamuffins:Stitches in Time and Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead featured a teaser ad for The Furies on their back pages. Now, Ragamuffins was released in 2007 and Turpin 2008, so I confess we've taken a rather Hollywood stance on the phrase "coming soon", but from our point of view two years is just a drop in the ocean.

You see, The Furies is quite different from any of our existing or forthcoming releases, in that the whole story was conceived, written and drawn more than twenty years ago when both Andy and myself were callow, spotty youths with far too much time on our hands. It was the first major comics work we embarked upon after producing a slew of shorter stories for the 80's small-press scene, and was to turn out to be the last thing we seriously worked on together until we produced Ragamuffins so many years later.

Originally, this dark apocalyptic tale was accepted for publication in the late 80's anthology Ground Zero. Ground Zero was one of those semi-pro-amateur-zines that always seemed to be launching at the annual UKCAC conventions and was never heard of again, but unlike many of it's brethren Ground Zero lasted a mighty three issues before biting the dust. It even advertised its final issue in 2000AD! Debuting in Ground Zero #1, with Andy providing a Furies-themed cover, only three chapters of The Furies ten episodes ever saw publication. The whole story was complete, done and dusted, but it now didn't have anywhere to go and so we both moved on to other things.

Jump cut to 2007, and I decide to form Time Bomb Comics with Andy after getting in touch with him after a good fifteen years or so. We're discussing what comic we should launch with when Andy reminds me he still has all the art for The Furies tucked away somewhere safe. We toyed with having The Furies as our first release, a four-issue mini-series, but then we decided on our one-shots-only policy and The Furies would be better kept for later. Two more years later as it turns out.

However, it's finally time. The Furies will finally be released complete and collected, and of all the comics we've released so far this is one I'm most nervous about. You see, 99% of The Furies is my writing and Andy's art as teenagers. It's raw. Reading it through again after so many years there were some sequences that I still thought worked great - I mean, I'd challenge anyone to read chapter one and not want to know what happens next - but there were some bits that read the opposite. The urge to re-write was almost overwhelming. As it is, we gave everything a slight edit just to paper over some of the cracks and make it more contemporary (for example, originally it was set in the year 2000, now it's in 2012). Every creator wants their work to be the best it can be, after all. And back in 1985, when I wrote The Furies, it was.

So I've been looking at the forthcoming release as kind of a director's cut of a movie that was never originally released in the first place. It's been tweaked and tidied and cleaned where it could be, but not re-cast or re-shot. It's an original, not a re-make. But that original has it's flaws - and that's why I'm nervous.

Forthcoming Attractions

2009-05-22T16:01:00.004+01:00

Now that Bristol is out of the way and The Sisterhood:Morningstar is launched it's back to getting future Time Bomb Comics further along their way to future publication. Of course, that doesn't mean The Sisters are forgotten about - the one-shot has a listing in the inaugural Haven Comics! catalogue that's out this month and it will be interesting to find out how much comes out of that. Unlike Diamond's Previews catalogue, which for good or ill is still the main industry advance comics showcase, Comics! is purely designed for those comics buyers who

want something other than what the Big Guys can offer. Haven's customer base is exactly the sort of crowd who'll take a gamble on something a bit different, and there's a great range of varied publishers - including Time Bomb! - featured over the catalogue's 100 pages. Obviously we have a vested stake in Haven's success but apart from that as a comics reader it's something I want to personally support and see flourish, and it would be great to see Comics! regularly sitting next to Previews on the comic shop shelves before too long. Of course, that can only happen through reader demand, so please badger your local comics emporium to sign up with Haven and have their Comics! catalogue available.

Moving to the future Time Bomb has a number of projects on the boil, and we can now announce our remaining 2009 releases:

First off we finally have The Furies graphic novel, written by Steve Tanner with art by Andy Dodd. This was trailed on the back covers of Ragamuffins and Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead, and we now have a fixed October release date to tie in with the British International Comics Show in Birmingham. Time Bomb's first graphic novel has been a long time coming, much longer than most people realise.

You see, The Furies was the first major comic that Andy and myself first collaborated together on nearly 25 years ago, and it finally seeing print form in full is something that we've both wanted to happen for a long time. Ten chapters long and set in 2012, it's an apocalyptic tale of good, evil, and that grey area in between where most of us spend our lives, with a fair few dollops of the old ultra-violence throughout.

I personally think we're taking a gamble with this one - this is predominantly the work of two teenage creators inspired by 1980's comics, and is very different in tone and style and ability from what each of us do now. I'll freely admit that some parts of it make me cringe today but apart from a few tweaks to make it more contemporary and smooth over a couple of plot cracks it'll be published warts and all!

The other release is Bomb Scares, our first horror anthology. Also coming out for BICS, this features work from Andy and myself as well as a range of other artists and writers who have made themselves known to us over the last couple of years. Some of them are currently working on longer project's for us but a lot of the work in Bomb Scares is by very talented individuals who deserve to be recognised but just don't have the time in their already busy schedules to produce lengthier works for us - so short stories are an ideal compromise.

Anthologies seem a cormerstone of the UK comics industry these days (with Accent UK chunky yearbooks surely setting the standard) so it seemed fair time to throw Time Bomb's anthology hat into the ring as well. Horror comics have also traditionally flourished in the anthology fomat, from the notorious EC titles in the 50's and Warren's 60's and 70's monthlies to Steve Bissette's disturbing Taboo series in the 80's and 90's. Recently Accent UK's Zombies collection published a couple of years ago has been their most successful to date, so it seems comic fans love horror comics and I'm hoping they love our take on the format too!

And isn't Bomb Scares the most perfect title for a horror book from a company named Time Bomb Comics anyway?

SPExpo Report

2009-05-15T18:45:00.000+01:00

Going down to Bristol on Friday for the SPExpo, we didn’t really know what to expect. Would the split with the smaller publishers being in a separate venue make a big difference? Would the reduced numbers of tickets made available have a massive impact on footfall? Would Bristol be turned into a war zone as thousands of disgruntled fanboys rampaged through the city centre fuelled with the fury that they couldn’t just turn up and buy their tickets on the door? The answers, as it turned out, were yes, yes, and no.

The separation of the two events made a huge difference. This was no more evident than on Saturday morning when a steady line of people were queued outside the Expo’s Ramada venue in breathless anticipation whereas the SPExpo’s queue was non-existent. As us little guys were setting up our tables at SPExpo we were exchanging nervous glances, and the same question was on each of our minds: was this going to be a washout? Ninety minutes after official opening brows remained furrowed as the Mercure remained mostly empty and reports were coming in that the Ramada was packed.

Slowly however, the SPExpo kicked into gear, and whilst it may never have quite achieved the full throttle of its sister event, the SPExpo chugged steadily along in a most enjoyable fashion. The venue was wonderful. Time Bomb was in the bigger of the two rooms; a light, airy space that was only spoilt by lack of air-conditioning, that problem was sorted out once some bright spark actually enquired about switching it on. Footfall was steady throughout and those that were there seemed to enjoy themselves. Whilst never anywhere near capacity the SPExpo attendees were definitely the more discerning comics fan with much broader horizons than their spandex-devoted brethren who eye indie comics with suspicion as they scuttle past on their way to their next mainstream fix. So while numbers were low, sales were steady, and the majority of exhibitors – including us - seemed to at least cover their table costs and then some. In fact we had a more successful one day SPExpo this year than we did at the two day Comics Expo last year.

Our launch of The Sisterhood: Morningstar went well, with some good reviews already received, and sales were also brisk for Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead – quite a few sold to people who’d heard of it over the past few months and wanted to see what all the fuss was about for themselves. Several people came up to us to tell us how much they enjoyed our highwaymen versus zombies one-shot they’d picked up at BICS last year, and the smiles and anticipation when we told them about our forthcoming vampire-themed Dick Turpin and the Crimson Plague one-shot were great to see.

Only one aspect of the SPExpo fell flat – the after-show party/disco which couldn’t really compete with the usual Expo Saturday night at the Ramada. Comics fans and creators are much more drinkers than dancers it seems, and after an hour at the SPExpo party we went off to the Ramada ourselves.

The SPExpo was a one-day affair, so Sunday was spent in pure comic fan mode enjoying what the main Comics Expo had to offer. The first thing that struck me was how small and cramped it all was – such a contrast to the spacious SPExpo the day before. Those indie publishers that had been lucky enough to secure a table at the Expo were in a tiny room at the arse end of everything and whilst it was good to finally catch up with Accent UK, Futurequake, Smallzone, Factor Fiction and Moonface Press they did seem in retrospect to get the grubby end of the stick, and that some of them felt they may book into the SPExpo next year instead really said it all. To be honest I had forgotten how tiring conventions could be if you’re an attendee and by mid-afternoon I was just flaked out in the bar feeling a bit knackered and missing a table to sit behind - admittedly part of this could have been due to the previous night’s extended drinking finally catching up with me!

Over the weekend probably the biggest negative was how little awareness there seemed by Comics Expo ticket holders that the SPExpo existed. Signage and directions for the SPExpo at the Ramada was few and far between, and exterior signage at the Mercure was non-existent. So over the weekend we heard tales of fans who had no idea the SPExpo was running, where it was or how to get there. Several people (including some of the pro’s) didn’t realise the SPExpo ran for just one day and so had structured their weekend to check out the Mercure on the quieter Sunday. The announcement that SPExpo 2010 will be a two-day affair will at least address the latter but the organiser’s of both really should get together and get something in place that will better drive traffic between the two venues.

Of course the whole point of both the Small Press and Comics Expo’s are comics themselves, and between the two events there were also some great new titles to be had including but certainly not limited to:

Westerns – the latest Accent UK anthology book which is up to their usual fine standard and to me their best so far.

Tim Skinner – Andy Winter’s latest which surprised me when I heard that it was turned down by Diamond and now that I’ve read it that decision has flummoxed me even more.

Cancertown – Insomnia’s much awaited graphic novel by Cy Dethan. I’ve yet to read this one but it was easily the talk of the weekend as shifting 200 units of a £14.99 graphic novel in a weekend is no mean feat!

Atrox – Giovanni Spinella’s horror anthology published through the Comics Creators Guild with a beautiful cover and some genuinely disturbing tales.

Finally, despite the niggles Mal and the Fallen Angel team really did a cracking job of organising the SPExpo with a much shorter lead time than is usual for these kind of events and Bristol 2010 is a weekend I’m already looking forward to!

Countdown to SPExpo

2009-05-01T10:34:00.005+01:00

It's been a while since I last posted. Unfortunately a good 2 weeks of April were wiped out when my laptop motherboard decided to blow up, thus ensuring that while the fault was identified and summarily repaired I had no internet access or access to any PC files, folders and applications either. This meant that a lot of things were forced to grind to a halt, but we're now back on track.

This time next week Suzanne and myself will be clambering aboard a train headed for Bristol, with the combined Comics Expo and SPExpo looming. Above is the latest promo poster about the event released by Fallen Angel, and it's good to see the Time Bomb logo utilised so well again. Obviously a full report will follow but this looks like it will be a great weekend, with lots going on and proof that the UK comics industry is far from stagnant. Both shows have been announced as being sold out, which is a first for a UK comics convention unless anyone can correct me otherwise - which should indicate a healthy attendance but could also mean that the hotel venues have been subjected to some over-zealous health and safety restrictions. I do predict though that a lot of fans will be just turning up on spec, unaware all tickets have gone and geting quite upset if they've travelled across the country only to be refused access. Hmmm, I wonder how much unwanted Expo passes are going for this week on ebay?

In Time Bomb terms we're all set for the Saturday trade, piles of The Sisterhood:Morningstar await the train journey, and our promotional postcards and t-shirts arrived last week. The Sisterhood artist Dan Barritt will have his own table at the show so that gives us a useful opportunity to double our presence - and no doubt on the Sunday I'll be roaming the Expo to try and get some more interest and sales. Or just spend it in fan mode and send Suzanne to do that.

The only sour note is that Diamond USA have rejected The Sisterhood for distribution. Given the current climate and recent Diamond decisions (Eagle-award winning Andy Winter's latest one shot was also rejected, somewhat incredulously, as well as Classical Comics' The Tempest being pulled after solicitation) it wasn't unexpected, but Diamond UK still seem interested to make the book available to UK shops so fingers crossed for that. The Sisterhood will also be available through Haven and Smallzone, so not all gloom and doom.

Submissions continue to roll in, some great, some not so much, and following Bristol we hope to make some announcements about some forthcoming projects that are now very close to being green-lit. One in particular - Dick Turpin and the Crimson Plague - I completed the script for this week and has already been assigned an artist; expected sometime in 2010, Andy Dodd will naturally be providing the illustrations for a second slice of horrific historical featuring the notorious highwayman.

Finally, returning to the subject of SPExpo, if you are one of the lucky few who has secured a ticket and is coming along please make sure you drop by our table and say hello. Obviously we might give you a bit of hard-sell while you're there but much of the fun of these events comes from seeing old friends again and making new ones and enjoying all that the UK comics scene has to offer.

See you in Bristol!

You've Got Talent - And We Want To See It

2009-04-03T13:48:00.003+01:00

We get a lot of submissions here at Time Bomb, certainly a lot more than a small-time Brit Indie publisher could expect to receive, but in the last couple of weeks our submissions inbox has been more than usually busy. We love to get submissions, and we're always looking for new creators, but the level of interest we suddenly seemed to be getting seemed to warrant further investigation. I mean, we're small, there's maybe a handful of guys in the outside of Blighty who have read any of our books but suddenly we're getting emails from New Jersey, Delaware, Florida, Cuba, China - everywhere. So I do a bit of digging and I come across this website which explains it all.

Personally, it's great that we're listed on this site and I'm delighted that on the site illo (reproduced above) that our easily identifiable logo is sat just to the left of the one from Marvel Comics. It's the closest we'll ever get to level pegging with the Bullpen! But professionally I'm delighted that Jason Thibault has spent what must be hours collating a one-stop resource for anybody wanting to submit their work to a comics publisher. Lone reader, visit this site and bookmark it!

So that explained the surge in emails, but what was baffling was that on the site Time Bomb's submission guidelines are clearly laid out but a lot of the potential creators contacting us, invariably due to being listed on this site, weren't actually following the guidelines that were set! I've left a comment on Jason's site adressing this very thing but it's worth repeating here:

"Guys, whether you’re writers, artists, colorists, letterers or the whole package please make sure you actually follow the submission guidelines for whatever company you’re submitting to. Time Bomb’s are quite simple: 5 sequential pages of script or art. That’s it. So a couple of unrelated splash pages, or 2 comic pages, or a resume? No, we don’t want that. A link to a website is fine, but when we get there we want to see something close to those 5 sequential pages.

"Time Bomb are tiny at the moment, and we’re always looking for new creators that we can publish, but I’m guessing that if we’re not getting submissions in the format we want, then neither are the other, bigger publishers. So please, make sure you adopt a professional approach from the start and tailor your first pitch exactly to the specs given."

But I still love to receive submissions. So much so that Time Bomb are undertaking it's first official talent search at the upcoming SPExpo in May. I've sent a press release to the major UK comic news sites regarding this so keep an eye out, but I'm hoping we'll find some great creators at the show to develop future projects with. Certainly if you're an aspiring creator and you're reading this, please come along to our table at SPExpo with some samples of your work or contact us through submissions@timebombcomics.com as Time Bomb would love to see what you can do.

SPExpo, Sisterhood, Censorship

2009-03-03T17:24:00.009Z

Since Hi-Ex there's been more fall-out announced by the Diamond threshold revisions, with the monthly Harker book from Ariel Press being pulled after the first issue. This was one of the gems of last year's BICS and it's a great shame that this title won't get the wider notice it really deserves, but the plans to release the intended six-issue storyline as a trade further down the line is a silver lining on that particular cloud. Good luck, chaps!

Despite the Diamond hiccup work continues at Time Bomb Comics and we hope to secure future listings in the Previews catalogue. So much so, this week The Sisterhood:Morningstar has been sent off to Andy Martin at Diamond UK for scrutiny and hopefully approval. Irregardless of how successful that is, we're now looking forward to the Bristol SPExpo where this one-shot will be officially launched. This is shaping up to be quite an event and, for something that was put together in the wake of the downsizing of the the main Expo, is rapidly becoming the more interesting of the two. Just take a look at the SPExpo website for the incredible amount of exhibitors that will be there. And I reckon that despite the Main Expo being at the Bristol Ramada over the full weekend, the one-day SPExpo at the Mercure around the corner will be the place to be on the Saturday 9th May.

Other news, and one project on the horizon is Primetime, which has been briefly mentioned here before. The art on this one is by Paul Thompson - another new find - and Paul has been steadily working on the story for a few months now. Primetime is a fast paced crime caper in a futuristic city where televised entertainment is the be all and end all, and should be one of our early 2010 releases.

Also due 2010 is a follow-up to Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead, this time featuring everyone's favourite highwayman battling vampires in the heart of eighteenth-century London. I'm in the middle of scripting this one at the moment, but the Dick Turpin and the Crimson Plague one-shot is proving as much fun to write as the first Turpin story - and works perfectly well as both as a stand-alone and a sequel. Needless to say Andy Dodd will again be the artist on this one, and we should have a teaser piece ready for October's BICS.

Finally to get serious for a moment, please click over to the excellent Comic Shop Voice website which has been instrumental in forming the Comic Book Alliance in response to how the proposed Government Coroners Bill could have an effect on comics. Please read the excellent article on the Comic Shop Voice homepage and please then add your name to the online petition.

Hi-Ex Hi-Jinks

2009-02-20T16:26:00.014Z

Time Bomb Comics has been looking forward to the Hi-Ex 2009 convention since last year's Bristol Expo when we were sat at the opposite table from Richmond Clements and Vicky Stonebridge who somehow organise Hi-Ex along with being part of the Futurequake team and holding down day jobs. Our enthusiastic confirmation that we would attend the next show, followed by an equally enthusiastic payment to secure an exhibitor's table was only mildly tempered by the realisation of where the Inverness home of Hi-Ex actually is.

From Time Bomb Central in Leicester it's A Long Way - Inverness sits at a point in Northern Scotland where you imagine there's not much of anything further up, excepting remote wilderness, snow and extremely doughty Scots - so the prospect of a 10 hour train journey was not something either Suzanne or myself were looking forward to. Luckily it turned out we could fly up there from Birmingham airport for £30 cheaper and 8 and a half hours shorter so that was the far more sensible option. As it was our flight was delayed due to Inverness airport being closed by a sudden and unexpected blizzard but we still arrived in Inverness on a crisp Thursday afternoon safe in the knowledge that had we had laid ourselves at the mercy of the rail network we'd be just passing through Newcastle. If we were lucky.

With Hi-Ex taking place over the weekend, we had some time to have a good look around. Inverness itself is best described as small but bustling, but the main attraction must be the infamous Loch Ness. Friday afternoon was spent on a small motor-boat chugging up the centre of the Loch, and although we didn't see any monsters the atmospheric nature of the Loch made me understand why some people do. With Nessie in mind we also visited what is known as "The Monster Centre" which was sold to us as Scotland's best-rated attraction to do with the Loch Ness legend. I'd love to meet who rated it this way as it really was an appalling waste of time, just a series of dark connected rooms that play poor quality screen projections. That the gift shop is bigger than the "attraction" itself speaks volumes, that the gift shop doesn't contain any books, pamphlets, guides or even comics about the monster legend or indeed anything else speaks even more.

The touristy bit done, we could now look forward to Hi-Ex. We'd been following the Hi-Ex website closely and were aware that some of th high-profile guests had dropped out, so it was great to arrive at the Eden Court venue and find a healthy mix of publishers, small-pressers and dealers nonetheless. Along with ourselves Futurequake were there, as well as Murky Depths, Semiotic Cohesion, Cinebooks, Omnivistascope and Renegade Entertainment - a real mix! As with the BICS event last year, this time the Hi-Ex was split across the two sides of the venue, with all the artists and workshops being at the other end to us. This meant that at times the dealer's room was empty of visitors, but this was invariably followed by a mini-rush between the workshops, signings and panels as people looked for other things to do. (Overall I'm not sure if splitting the event like that worked - as with BICS there was a feeling that some visitors were not fully aware of where everything was - and hopefully this will be something Rich and Vicky will look at for future shows. Certainly the size of the dealers room and the wide corridor outside of it could easily have accommodated the creators who were in the other half of the venue.)

For us it was great to introduce Time Bomb Comics to a whole new audience, and our table did a healthy trade through the weekend - our previews of The Sisterhood generated a fair bit of interest which bodes well for the book's official launch this coming May at Bristol. We'd decided to do a special deal for Hi-Ex, with a copy of each of the three one-shots and a signed Dick Turpin poster for £10 and this seemed to go down very well with maybe three quarters of our sales coming from this deal, so we'll probably be repeating that at Bristol too.

The lulls in footfall meant that there was more time for the exhibitors themselves to have a look around, and a great feeling of cameraderie developed amongst us that spilled into the evenings as the creators and exhibitors all got together in the hotel bar, usually in a great big circle, and just got to know each other. I ended up next to Al Davison, someone who I'd seen at every convention I've been to but never had an opportunity to speak to, and had a thoroughly engaging and fascinating discussion with him about his comics career - including some juicy titbits about the forthcoming Doctor Who monthly comic he's working on with Tony Lee. As well as getting to know Al I spent time catching up with Terry from Murky Depths, and letting Alex know from Renegade Entertainment that their "new talent" artist Rudy Nebres had actually been working in comics a fair few years before most of us. It was also good to meet Gary from Heroes For Sale, Inverness' sole comic shop who bought a big pile of Time Bomb Comics to sell on to his customers and therefore revealed himself to be a thoroughly decent chap!

Of course, no UK convention these days seems complete without Stormtroopers and it was good to see the 501st Garrison out in force again. There's something about these guys that just puts everyone in a good mood, and they really added to the atmosphere of the weekend - especially when frog-marching a young lad out of the building for making disparaging remarks about Darth Vader! There were also big smiles when Judge Rosie arrived - the cutest of 4 year olds in a Mega City Judge outfit, the home-made pudding bowl helmet the icing on the cake!

It was also great to see a real mix of people at the show. Apart from the expected comics fans there were families with children who thought it would be a fun day out (they were right, it was!) and smatterings of folk who really never knew comics existed as they do and seemed to be happily amazed that comics are much more than DC Thomson, 2000AD and Viz. Encouragingly, one phrase we heard a lot from visitors to the show was "this is my first comics convention but it won't be my last!"

However, the real stars of the event were Rich and Vicky who spent the weekend racing around making sure everything was as it should be, making us all feel very welcome and continually thanking us for making the trip North.

The pleasure really was all ours, guys.

A Welcome Haven

2009-02-08T16:26:00.003Z

It's been a mixed time of it since my assessment of the Diamond situation last week. The bad news we received was that Diamond will not now be distributing Dick Turpin due to inital orders falling short of those pesky revised thresholds. Obviously a big disappointment for us, but half-expected. Diamond UK are keen for us to continue submitting all our future one-shots so the door is not closed, but for the time being we may need to give it a bit of a shove.

At the same time we've been taken on by Haven Distribution, who for many are being hailed as the saviour to all those publisher's unable to get a Diamond deal. It's great they want to take us on, but it's no secret that they're a much smaller operation and with that not as all-encompassing as Diamond are. That said, they seen very enthusiastic to support the smaller publishers and have found themselves in the eye of the storm in the last couple of weeks, so hopefully everybody will benefit. For us, it means we get some Time Bomb prescence State-side, which is very good news. I've also directly sold 20 copies each of Dick Turpin and Ragamuffins off to a New Jersey based comic shop who sells mostly online, so it proves that if the Diamond Highway is closed to new traffic then the journey can still be completed on the B-roads!

Other better news: The Sisterhood:Morningstar is currently being printed up, and I should receive them back in time to pack some into my Hi-Ex flight bag come Thursday. The online preview is up on myebook and has already had a fair few viewings (as can you if you follow this link) and we've had some good online coverage of it already. The official launch date in May at the SPExpo seems a way off, but it's great to have something completed so far in advance for a change!

Time Bomb are also receiving a fair few submissions at the moment, which bodes well. Some are showing a lot of promise, so hopefully before too long we'll be making some official announcements, but to me it's great that other creators are seeing Time Bomb Comics as a viable means of showcasing their work and that we're steadily moving to a publishing schedule that's a good mixture of different talents. It's also a good feeling that not only are all our 2009 publishing slots full but our 2010 and 2011 slots are filling up too!

However that's still a long way off. The immediate focus now is Hi-Ex taking place next weekend, where we introduce Time Bomb Comics to Scotland, we get our first feedback on The Sisterhood and I introduce Suzanne to the delights of haggis and deep fried Mars bars!

Three Steps Forward One Step Back

2009-01-30T13:07:00.003Z

I've been following the unfolding story on some of the comics news sites of Diamond's decision to increase publisher thresholds. The thresholds are the minimum sales numbers a book must achieve through Diamond for them to agree to distribute it. More importantly these numbers equate to the profit margins that Diamond are looking to achieve on each comic and book sold through Previews. Needless to say this move has caused uproar in certain quarters of the comics community but here's my opinion of it all.

First of all, irregardless of how much this decision makes it that more difficult for smaller comic publishers including Time Bomb Comics to achieve wider distribution, I can wholly understand the business decisions where Diamond is coming from on this. Diamond do NOT have an obligation to stock every comic book under the sun. They're a distribution business, they only need to stock product they think they can sell and make a return from - just like any other distribution business the world over. If a distrubutor has a product that's not shifting the required units for it to make the costs involved in that distribution viable then they will no longer stock that product. Period.

Secondly there seems to be a general wave of anger with the comments on the various news sites that Diamond are killing off the small press with this announcement. That, somehow, it's Diamond's fault that the indie press may be squeezed out of business. Sorry guys, but Diamond aren't the big bad here. If any fingers should be pointed it's to the comics buyers who only read Marvel/DC, the retailers who only stock the mainstream, the shops who over-order just to get those variants which can be sold at a ridiculously inflated price. You see, it's a lot of us that's to blame here, for not supporting publishers who really needed it or even giving them a chance. Case in point, there's many comments on the varoius comics news forums that go something along the lines of "I really support the little guys but I never buy any of their books" which to me perfectly illustrates one of the big hurdles that the little guys have to jump, often fail to, and are now likely to be taken out of the race as a result.

That said, we indie publishers are a tenacious lot. Unlike the big guys, a lot of us really aren't in it for the money but just because we love the comics medium. So, alternatives will be found whether it's smaller distributors like Haven or (here in the UK) Smallzone, embracing more fully e-books and the opportunities they bring, Amazon listings, e-commerce or building up a base of friendly retailers with which to deal with direct. The only major drawback is the sheer global coverage that Diamond provides as a one-stop-shop will be removed if an indie book doesn't get that all-important Diamond listing in the first place.

Time Bomb Comics are looking at this whole situation with a three steps forward and one step back attitude, which I think is the best stance to take and which seems to be how a lot of our fellow publishers are approaching it. We have projects slated for 2009 and 2010 that will be completed and published whether or not Diamond feel we make the grade, so although it's no guarantee we'll be listed in Previews again we're going to be putting out quality one-shots no matter what.

Not a bad thing, surely?

HI-EX on the Horizon

2009-01-23T15:09:00.002Z

Time Bomb Comics' convention circuit is getting off to an early start this year with the Inverness Hi-Ex show on the weekend of 14th February. This is Hi-Ex's 2nd year and the first Hi-Ex gained instant notoriety not just because it was a great addition to the UK convention calender but also because it was snowed in following a very heavy Highland downfall! To be honest, the idea of being trapped in a convention centre for days with only 1000's of comics and their creators doesn't seem too bad a thing to me - but I'm not really sure how those variant covers would taste once the food ran out.

We had hoped to attend the first show but the logistics just didn't work out so we're delighted that we'll be there this time around. Our attendance involves a first for us - the first convention we've flown to, the 2 hour Birmingham/Inverness flight time much more attractive than the 9 and a half hours it would take by train. There's also been a great deal of thought given to how much we can bring with us, what with the luggage restrictions you get with flights, although I'm looking forward to travelling light with only 2 bags rather than the usual 5 that somehow are essential for those more Southern shows. We've also decided to leave our funky roll up banner behind - it was either that or no fresh clothes for four days.

Andy can't make it to Hi-Ex (it's much too far for him to travel without a carer) but both Suzanne and myself are getting very excited about it for a couple of reasons. Probably the main one is that it will be the first time most comic fans in Scotland will be able to sample our wares as I suspect not that many take the lengthy journey to Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds or anywhere else which has become the convention mainstays of recent years. So unlike the latter shows where we pitch up with one new one-shot as well as the previous releases, all three of our one-shots will be brand-new to a lot of the Hi-Ex crowd.

That's right - three one-shots - as we'll be using Hi-Ex to present some advance copies of The Sisterhood:Morningstar, fresh from the printer but hopefully not still wet. To be honest it was touch and go if we'd manage this, but Dan's finished the artwork and next weekend will be coming down to Time Bomb Central in Leicester to make sure that everything is set to print. The official launch won't be until May for this one - at the SPExpo in Bristol no less - but I'm really keen to be able to bring Hi-Ex a Time Bomb Comics mini-exclusive as well as getting some advance feedback about the book that we can hopefully use in our main launch.

To me, it's a key element to bring something new to each convention we appear at. Whether it's a new one-shot, merchandise or the brand in itself I'm a great believer in added value and when I'm taking in a convention as a comics fan - even if it's those quick 10 minutes away from the Time Bomb Comics table - I always get a big kick out of seeing what new stuff the other exhibitors have this time around. If it's the same old stuff as last year, then I'm disappointed.

The other thing I'm looking forward to at Hi-Ex is the fact that it's not as huge as the other shows just yet, so there's a chance I can meet some of the other exhibitors and guests that will be there. Sometimes the big shows can be overwhelming, the smaller events tend to have a tighter focus and usually everyone is slightly more relaxed about things. Two people who I'm suspecting won't be that relaxed are Richmond and Vicky, Hi-Ex's organisers, who will no doubt be displaying that manic stare and rictus grin over the two days that all con-runners seem to get due to putting anything like this together being no easy task.

But apart from them I'm expecting a pretty chilled vibe - and not just from the snow outside.

Fathering The Sisterhood

2009-01-16T09:55:00.006Z

Over the past few months there's been a few mentions of The Sisterhood on these pages. Now that publication of this latest one-shot is imminent it seemed a good time to give you an idea of what it's all about. Firstly, here's a few lines from the initial premise put together in November 2007:

In the far future the Church is all. Not since the middle ages has the domination of church over state been more manifest, but in this future the church rules on an interplanetary scale, system after system bound by rigid dogma – a dogma as convoluted and contradictory as the different belief systems that it has adopted into one.

The Church’s rule is absolute, but it is also ruthless. Anyone and everything that does not conform is branded undesirable and is marked for conversion. Anyone and everything that opposes conversion faces one thing – annihilation.

The church has many agents, but along with it’s popes, cardinals, bishops and priests is another faction that are feared by those even at the higher echelons of the church itself.

They are the Nuns of the church, women with the appointed the task of maintaining the proscribed faith and ruthlessly destroying any who would dare to oppose the church and its teachings.

They are The Sisterhood.

Or to put it another way: Space Nuns with Big Guns. The concept came after meeting with Dan Barritt at the 2007 Thoughbubble, deciding I wanted to work on a one-shot with him, and then coming up with an idea that seemed to suit his art style. The Sisterhood seemed ideal for that, Dan's manga-inspired artwork deserved showcasing with a story that could feature some of the elements so associated with that: science-fiction, action heroines, and hardware.

Following the original premise Dan and I spent a couple of months bouncing designs back and forth, locking down the look of the character's and the world they inhabit. This was a rewarding experience, the creative wellspring had just been tapped and the concepts and ideas gushed forth, not all of them useful and one or two pretty useless. I'll admit the useless ideas were mine. What was more exciting though was how the concept continued to evolve, the initial storyline I'd developed transmogrifying into something that really drove home how collaborative comics are.

I usually work on a comic script in sections. There's couple of reasons for this. Firstly I personally hate decompressed comics and the feeling that a 5 page story has been stretched out to 20 for no great reason, so I work on each six pages as a mini-episode in itself. This means that during those pages the story has developed somewhat and given me a focus to really tighten the dialogue and to lose any flab. By the end of page six there has to have been some development to carry the story forward into the next six, and so on. The second reason is that if something goes horribly wrong and I need to re-write or re-work a script substantially, scripting in smaller segments seems to allow me to fix things without too much of a headache. It's also useful to find out what the artist thinks as we go along as in some cases the story changes in the latter stages because of the feedback from the earlier stages.

The Sisterhood is a case in point, with a conclusion springing from some comments Dan made after receiving the first few pages of script that only enhanced what we'd already planned. The story road remained the same, but now there seemed some more interesting things to look at along the journey. Of course it didn't end there, at each stage of The Sisterhood's completion Dan and I would swap suggestions to fine-tune what we had, right through to the finished art stage. It's a great way to work and a true synthesis with writer and artist, creating comics as a collaborative process which is what they always should be.

Pending any last minute disaster The Sisterhood will be heading for the printers in February, and with the distinction of being Time Bomb's first full-colour comic. At the moment we're hoping we'll have some preview copies available for Hi-Ex but if not will be available through our online shop shortly.

9781845765132

2009-01-09T09:43:00.004Z

That, lone reader, is the exclusive order number allocated by Diamond UK for Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead. If you haven't already done so, please, please, please have a word with the nice chap at your local comics emporium and ask him to order a couple of copies.

Since the beginning of the New Year I've been speaking to lots of comics emporium chappies myself, calling as many UK comics shops as I can and generally bigging up Time Bomb Comics' highwaymen vs zombies extravaganza as much as I can. The listing in Previews is fantastic, but not much cop if we don't get any orders at all.

What's been interesting is how different some of the shops seem to be from my expectation of them, built up through years of seeing them mentioned online or in print. Some of the unknown, smaller shops turned out to be the most supportive and, yes, excited by our Dick Turpin book and that we'd taken time to call them about it. Others who I thought would be a shoe-in were far more difficult a sell, coming across as pretty disinterested. Fair enough, some you win and some you lose, but it was eye-opening when a shop who'd advertised in Comics International for years turned out to be more Indie-unfriendly than their full page monthly ads had always suggested. The other surprise was the comic shop who've always seemed to be championed as the role-model for what a comics shop should be turned out to be quite snooty, the voice at the other end of the tone laced with that "why are you wasting my time" tone of disinterest that I'm sure everyone has experienced at some time! Yes, comics are an art form but no, to promote that doesn't mean you have to act so bloody superior. Oh well, you live and learn.

But the good vibes far, far outweighed the bad and there's now a handful of shops out there who I'd say are very Time Bomb Comics friendly, and links to their shops will be on the main site in due course. One of these is also keen for us to do an in-store signing!

In the meantime go back and read the first paragraph again. Please.

Christmas Prescience

2008-12-24T12:45:00.003Z

So just before Christmas a great thing has happened. SFX, that well-respected and much-loved British monthly that covers all aspects of SF/Fantasy/Horror has spotlighted Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead as their 'zine of the month. They describe it as a "whimsically dark engaging read" which is a quote I'm more than happy with, and will sit there with Comic Shop Voice's opinion in November that we "create comics that everybody can tap into, everybody can enjoy" as our most favoured soundbites.

The SFX review appears within their lively letters pages, and being one of the most popular sections in SFX means that a fair proportion of the readership will see it and perhaps even go so far as to buy it. However the biggest thing SFX has given us, apart from being our first mainstream printed press exposure, is awareness. If even a handful of SFX readers stop by our table at our next convention appearance and pick up one of our comics based solely on the fact they've heard of us through the magazine then job done. If just one person remembers we featured in SFX at Christmas we won't complain, because it means the exposure worked and somebody who never knew of us now does.

The issue of SFX featuring our review came out last week. This week the January 2009 Diamond Previews hit the UK comic shop, featuring our Dick Turpin as one of the comics available to order in the Previews UK section*. The timing couldn't have been better in my opinion, with a comic being highlighted in the former being offered for sale in the latter. Maybe, just maybe, some UK comics fans will ask their retailer to stock the comic because they liked the sound of it in SFX and that little bubble of awareness inflates ever so slightly.

You see, Time Bomb Comics is still a very small fish, but we're a species that some are beginning to recognise and remember. This awareness, this prescience, is something solid that we can build on as we enter our busiest publishing year yet.

And at this time of year, what really could be better than some Christmas Prescience?

*9781845765132 is the Previews order number for Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead, but expect to hear a lot of this number over the next few weeks...

Christmas Comes Early

2008-12-02T16:54:00.003Z

In fact it came in mid November when we received confirmation that Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead will be featured in the UK Section of the January 2009 Diamond Previews catalogue. This marks a great step for us as potentially every comics shop in Great Britain and Northern Ireland can have copies on their shelves in April 2009. But of course, it's not really that easy.

Having a listing in Previews is no guarantee that a retailer will order the comic, which is where the seriously hard work comes in. At the moment the plan is to send to all Diamond UK accounts some promo material in January along with their order forms to hopefully encourage them to take a punt on us. No mean feat given the sheer amount of stuff that's listed in each Previews catalogue (in fact show any non-comics fan the catalog and watch their faces when you tell them that's just the product coming out during one month) but we're hoping that some of the positive reviews we've received and the fact that we're a new British publisher will snag us a few orders. That and the fact that I'll be phoning as many retailers as I can once our listing is published to encourage, request and blatantly beg that they order at least 1 copy. There's over 300 shops who carry stock through Diamond UK. Suddenly my 500 free minutes deal seems pitifully inadequate.

Of course the other thing would be for you, lone reader, to ask your shop to order a copy. Or maybe a few so you can get your mates to buy one as well. Trust me, neither Andy or myself would be offended by that - in fact, let us know you banged the Time Bomb Comics drum and we'll definitely add you to our Christmas card list for next year!

Other news: Dan Barritt has completed the line art for The Sisterhood and it looks pretty damned good. Now Dan is getting on with the colour artand when that is done it's a fair bet that statement will justifiably change to "pretty damned amazing".

Andy Dodd is finishing off the inks for the First Kill short story we've been working on for Accent UK. Andy's done a cracking job again, his artwork seems to get better and better with each project we do, and I'm really looking forward to what Dave and Colin at Accent UK think of it. Once Andy's done then he's back to the final touches on The Furies.

Paul Thompson has begun to send some pencils through for Primetime. Still early days on this one but looking very good so far, and a project I'll say much more about when the time is right.

All in all, lots going on and lots more bubbling under!

The Best Convention Of The Year.

2008-11-17T17:12:00.008Z

That's what a lot of attendees, guests and exhibitors are saying about the Leeds Thoughtbubble Show that was held this Saturday gone and I have to say I'm inclined to agree. It was a terrific day and the way Thoughtbubble had matured from an intimate little affair in the crypt of Leeds Town Hall in 2007 to a full-blown, bells and whistles, must-be-there comics party at Saviles Hall in 2008 was nothing short of remarkable.

The Time Bomb Comics weekend in Leeds started on the Friday where, after an excruciatingly long train journey that wound it's way between grimy Northern town after grimy Northern town, my wife Suzanne and I met up with The Sisterhood artist Dan Barritt on the Friday night. This was the first time I had managed to socialise with Dan since meeting him last year, and it was a great opportunity to get to know him better. Dan had sorted out his own table for Thoughtbubble and was feeling nervous as to whether he would sell any of the lavish posters of his artwork he had spent the week producing. I assured him he had nothing to worry about and Dan started to relax, no doubt helped by the stunningly cheap bar prices at the venue he'd chosen for our get together: The Angel Inn. A pint for £1.39 on a Friday night. I kid you not.

The Saturday of the show was wonderfully stress-free (if a little heavy-headed) as it turned out the hotel we'd booked into was, quite literally, a stone's throw from the Thoughtbubble venue. Saviles Hall is located opposite the Royal Armouries and turned out to be a wonderful venue, with a large reception area leading into the main hall beyond. Walking into this hall I realised how big this year's event actually was - over 100 tables that could give the BICS main hall a run for its money. We found our table and quickly set-up and the first attendees were let in bang on 10.00am - and at 10.01 we made our first sale.

There seemed to be an endless stream of people coming through the doors, a lot of them in a baffling variety of costumes and for the next 7 hours we had an almost constant stream of people looking at our comics. Some of them bought, some of them didn't, but each of them seemed delighted that Leeds was hosting such a vibrant comics festival. There were families on day trips (one man had driven his daughter up from Cornwall that morning for a birthday treat and was driving back straight afterward) and people who were discovering modern comics for the first time (a man in his sixties had read about the show in the local paper and was overwhelmed, and overspent if his heaving bags were anything to go by). Then of course there were the rest of us, who already know how great comics are and were just soaking up the vibe.

And over the day the vibe became The Vibe, as everyone began to agree that there was some atmosphere about Thoughtbubble that was making it a bit different to all the other comics gatherings. There was a real feel-good atmosphere in the hall, people were having a good time - even the exhibitors that weren't actually selling that much were enjoying themselves. By the end of the afternoon The Vibe had soaked into all of us. Then was the after-party, held in the nearby casino where some of the day's talks had been held and which was obviously going to be going on for a lot longer after we left at just before midnight.

So why was Thoughtbubble so damn good? Well, it could be that the eclectic range of exhibitors, panels and guest made it a show for everyone, or it could be that by being a single day convention it removes the "very slow Sunday" syndrome that the two day events can suffer from. Maybe. But a lot of the reason for Thoughtbubble's success falls at the feet of Tamsin and Lisa who'd organised the show and produced a wonderfully organised event - something that had been evident from the pre-show planning, to be honest - and maintained a cheerful can-do will-do prescence right until the very end.

You did a fabulous job, ladies. May your Bubble never burst.

Evolution Of A Cover

2008-11-12T15:46:00.013Z

With the cover to The Sisterhood now being pretty much locked*, I thought it would be a good idea to show the processes we went through to get to the final stage. I can't stress how important I feel a cover is to a comic, mainly because it's often the first thing a potential buyer becomes aware of when they survey the wall of new comics inside their local comics shop. Okay, the latest issue of Amazing Spider-Man may be sitting there as expected, but if the eye is drawn to a great looking cover belonging to something entirely unexpected then there's a chance the comic may be picked up, flicked through and hopefully bought. And for a small-time publisher like us that cover hook can make us or break us. So it's why whenever we begin to put a new one-shot together the cover is something we begin to work on immediately after the scripting stage - with the cover art being the first fully completed artwork in-house.

Of course, every cover image starts with an idea, and the idea I had for The Sisterhood was to have a riff on the iconic photograph that depicted the US flag being raised on Iwo Jima during World War Two:

Why this image? Well, it seemed to fit ideally the militaristic angle that The Sisterhood features as one of its central themes, and gave scope to produce a suitable action pose featuring all the main characters. I passed this idea to Dan Barritt - The Sisterhood's artist - and asked him to work something up. He came back with some rough sketches including this:

This perfectly captured the look I was after, the flag in the background adding some desired weight to the image, so I confirmed with Dan that the cover would be based on this rough and asked him to work up a suitable finished version. Dan soon gets back to me with this:

To be honest, Dan had strayed from his brief here. The Sisterhood cover had never been planned as a wraparound, but Dan had worked it up that way with the notion that if I didn't like the widescreen version the left hand side could easily be cropped with the right hand main image not losing anything. Part of the fun of working with artists is seeing what they come up with creatively and the work they produce often surprises and delights. It was a no-brainer to me - The Sistehood would not only be the first full colour comic from Time Bomb Comics, it would now also feature the first wraparound cover.

The cover artwork completed, I now brought Andy Dodd on board to start adding the cover text to the image, and working with The Sisterhood logo that I had also had Dan design. Despite not being the artist for The Sisterhood Andy is responsible for the editorial design of the comic, and his first crack at a finished cover resulted in this:

There were a number of things I didn't like about this, the primary one being the placement of the logo at the bottom of the cover. I could understand Andy's reasons for the placement - he wanted to show off as much as Dan's artwork as possible - but I felt that we would lose display prominence when displayed if the logo deviated too much from the traditional location. I also felt the Time Bomb Comics brand label looked too squashed, the addition of our "Telling Great Stories" strapline making it look too busy. I detailed these issues to Andy and he then came back to me with some more options:

Both of these were steps in the right direction, but elements in each were not quite right. The logo placement was better but still needed a tweak, as did the placement of the creator credits, and I felt the cover price would work better if integrated more into the branding. The biggest visual change was probably the logo being re-coloured to pick up the grey elements of the artwork. Other than that I was happy, and Andy's assurances that these further changes would be quick and easy to accomplish made me feel less of a picky bastard!

Which brings us to the final locked image which is this:

Here you can see all the design elements in place, with all the layout changes fixed. I think the integrated price/brand box really works, and the main logo layout the strongest it can be. This finished version is what we'll be using for marketing over the next few months, and is already up on the website and linked pages. All in all, a job well done.

*Of course I say "locked" but it's really only the front cover that's sorted out. Andy and I still have to work on the back cover text layout before the cover can really be said to be completed!

Sisters and Shopping and Stuff

2008-11-02T17:33:00.003Z

Above is the wonderful artwork for our upcoming one-shot The Sisterhood written by Steve Tanner and with full-colour artwork by Dan Barritt. It's our first colour comic but as you can see is designed to be our first wraparound cover. We should have a finished cover dummy ready for Thoughtbubble which will have all the text and logos on but the above is as close to a virgin incentive variant as you're ever likely to get from us - so enjoy! Work on The Sisterhood's interior continues at a steady pace, with a tentative release date of early next year.

Our online shop is also now up and running which can be accessed through the main site. Both Ragamuffins:Stitches In Time and Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead are currently available, and until 1st December we're offerring free postage and packing so place an order if you've yet to enjoy either of these two.

Other stuff:

Paul Thompson now has the full script for Primetime which will hopefully be released before the end of next year. This is Paul's first major comics work and has a vibrant classic cartoon style that matches the script perfectly. As to what Primetime is actually about - another post for another time!

Andy Dodd is working on First Kill, a short 4-pager that we want to put under the noses of Accent UK, as well as completing some art changes for The Furies and continuing to build the website whilst holding down a part-time job and completing a University degree. Eee, what a busy Barnsley lad!

And as for me, I've just started work on another Ragamuffins one-shot which Andy and I want to have out for next year's BICS in October.

Thoughtbubble 2008

2008-11-02T13:26:00.002Z

In just under two weeks the wonderful Leeds Thoughtbubble one-day convention will be taking place on Saturday 15th November. We were at the first Thoughtbubble event last year and had a great day there so are really looking forward to this year's event. We'll be manning our table and selling our comics and hoping we'll find another artist as fabulous as Dan Barritt who we met at last year's show. All in all, we're expecting to have as much fun as last year. One thing that is going to be different is the scale of this year's event - over 100 tables compared to last year's 30 or so, which is a huge increase and necessitated the change in venue from Leeds Town Hall to the Armouries.

There's a few things about Thoughtbubble that make it different from the usual comic conventions. One thing is that it seems to be an event embraced by the city itself, running alongside the Thoughtbubble film festival taking place throughout the week before. It's no secret that BICS runs very independently to Birmingham itself with no real awareness of the event outside comics fans, but not so Thoughtbubble whuich seems to have flyers and posters at every Leeds entertainment venue worth its salt. This approach is borne out by the show's sponsors which include bars, restaurants, a casino, local entertainment websites and a local newspaper group as well as the usual Diamond UK, Forbidden Planet and local comic shop prescence.

There's also a sheer exuberance about the show's organisers that's hard to beat. Last year all the exhibitors were given home-baked cookies and cakes throughout the day by the organisers. This year there's an after-show party being held. But throughout there's a real sense of professional organisation that makes being part of Thoughtbubble such a joy in itself. Now, this is not to say that the other UK conventions lack that, not at all, but there's a level of service that gives the guys in Leeds an edge. Case in point: yesterday I received the Thoughtbubble show passes and tickets through the mail. Along with them came a useful crib-sheet about setting up on the day. I didn't ask for these to be sent me. They just did. The other conventions don't do that. It's such a small thing. And the passes were already nicely marked "Time Bomb Comics" and with ribbons for ease of use. Another small thing. But believe me, from an exhibitor point of view it makes such a difference.

Thoughtbubble could well be the dark horse of the UK comics convention circuit. It was overlooked by many last year for being a small-scale one-day event. This year it's making some waves with a palpable bzz about it at BICS. Next year? It'll be bigger than Bristol.

BICS and Pieces

2008-10-12T12:15:00.004+01:00

One week on from BICS and there seems to be a whole host of things going on in the Time Bomb Comics world!

Dan Barritt is storming through The Sisterhood, with some beautiful artwork being produced for our first full-colour book. The image here is not the cover but page one of the comic itself - the opening splash page. I'm sure you'll agree it looks pretty awesome - jaws collectively hit the floor when we first saw it - and the cover is pretty breathtaking too, which should be up on The Sisterhood page on the main website pretty soon.

As for the website Andy has been doing a great job knocking it into shape and it now has the foundations in place for what we had in mind for it originally. Over the next few weeks there'll be more tweaking and some bells and whistles added that Andy's getting quite excited about, including some animations. If you haven't seen the new website yet click on over here and then let us know what you think of it.

Looking to the future, I'm just putting the final polish to the script for Primetime, a forthcoming one-shot with art by Paul Thompson, and Andy is cracking on with the final few pages for The Furies graphic novel. At the same time Andy will be working on a 4 page short story of mine that will hopefully be published in a future Accent UK anthology book. After he's done all that, I suppose I'll have to start taking Andy's mutterings of putting together another Ragamuffins comic seriously...

We've also just had our final table confirmation through for the Leeds Thoughtbubble show on Saturday 15th November. No new releases for that, but looking forward to seeing what the Leeds contingent think of Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead and the preview art for The Sisterhood. I'm also wondering if we'll find another "Dan", given we found the talented Mr Barritt at last year's show!

Then we've had some follow-ups from some of the fellow creators we met at BICS including writer John Owens and artist John Cahill. No definite plans as yet, but one of the great things about shows like BICS is the chance to find some new talent to work with - and there's always the possibility that the Next Big Thing in the comics industry will have had their first published work in a Time Bomb Comic!

Finally the guys over at Comics Village have given over their latest Eye Candy column to showcasing Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead. Check it out and indeed the rest of the site which has a pretty hands-off approach to it's contributions and can be wickedly entertaining as a result. Glenn Carter, one of the brains behind the website, was another face from BICS and we look forward to seeing his review of the Dick Turpin book on the site soon. The feedback we've had about the comic already has been very positive - so fingers crossed!

BICS 2008 - On Reflection

2008-10-07T20:08:00.003+01:00

Time Bomb Comics had a blast at BICS. Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead was unleashed on a mostly unsuspecting public and they seemed to enjoy it! We had a steady stream of people stopping by the Time Bomb Comics table over the two days and it was great to meet so many people who'd picked up Ragamuffins last year - enjoyed it - and came back for more. There were also a fair few newbies who were oblivious to Time Bomb until we encouraged them to part with their cash and sample our wares, but on the whole they didn't seem to mind too much!

This year the show was split between two rooms simply due to the number of exhibitors there. We were in the Main Hall but there was a much smaller Exhibition Suite adjacent to the main entrance. All well and good but this definitely gave the show a different vibe this year, the Hall so empty to the Suite at some points during the Saturday that some of us were wondering if the fact there was two rooms was lost on some of the attendees and they'd came and went before discovering the much bigger Hall existed. Not such a wild flight of fancy given the two rooms were seperated by a large permanent exhibition and there was initially no signage directing the unititiated to the other part of the show.

The Saturday was much quieter than the previous year - at times on the afternoon there were definitely more exhibitors in the Main Hall than visitors - but the unexpected flip-side was that the Sunday was much busier than 2007. This was no doubt in part due to some canny panel scheduling, with the keynote Dave Gibbons Watchmen talk being allocated the early Sunday afternoon slot - thus ensuring the second day was not the usual graveyard shift!

It was great to meet up with some fellow exhibitors, and to see how the British comics industry continues to thrive - albeit with smaller Indie publishers like ourselves. There were two new arrivals on the scene in the form of Reaper Comics and Ariel Press, and both these publishers had some great looking comics on display, but it was also enjoyable to catch up with some of the longer established publishers like Insomnia, Accent UK and Murky Depths. The latter is one of publishing's best kept secrets - a unique magazine that blends comics with short stories that really should be much bigger than it actually is.

Despite some grumblings from some of the exhibitors and attendees (proving you really can't please all of the people all of the time) BICS 2008 once again proved itself to be one of the key players of the UK convention circuit. There are plans to cap exhibitors next year - suggesting the two room format wasn't as successful as expected - but it really is a well put together event and already pencilled in our events diary for 2009.

BICS - As Ready As We'll Ever Be!

2008-09-30T16:39:00.004+01:00

The Birmingham International Comics Show is mere days away, and Time Bomb Comics is as ready as we'll ever be:

Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead has arrived back from the printers, looking fabulous and as different in tone, style and genre to Ragamuffins as we'd wanted. Naturally I'm biased, but this is a great comic and I'm looking forward to seeing the reaction it will get - especially as the cover art that we had on display at the Bristol Expo last May seemed to generate lots of enthusiasm in itself!

Yesterday I took delivery of a brand spanking new free-standing banner that proudly displays the Time Bomb Comics logo which will be our new table backdrop. It looks great and is wonderfully portable and easy to erect, unlike our existing backdrop which was great to look at but a bugger to cart around the country and a nightmare to put together. From the front it looked mighty fine, but was held together with clips, string, sellotape and luck - and with a tendency to sway threateningly if breathed upon when anyone had to squeeze past it. Our new banner will at least make those essential mid-afternoon toilet breaks much easier to achieve.

We have been confirmed as being at table #95 in the BICS Main Exhibition Hall, which is almost exactly the same place we were last year but just facing the opposite direction. I'm delighted with this spot, as we're in one of the main BICS small-press dens, and on an end-table which again makes those toilet trips a breeze. Don't get me wrong, Time Bomb Comics are not all a weak-bladdered bunch (well, maybe Andy...) but it's much easier having to just slide off the end rather than crawling underneath or moving everyone else in your table row out of the way. We're also nowhere near any pro-artists, which is a bonus, not because we don't want to mix with the comics superstars (because we so do) but because the lengthy queues of fans snaking past your table tend not to be interested in what's sitting on your table and block the way for those that do. However the bonus for us this year is that we're sat next to the guys from the Geek Syndicate podcast (by far the most entertaining comics podcast on the planet) - so at least if no-one buys our comics we've got some fun people to talk to!

It's also going to be a Time Bomb Comics mini-summit, with some of our other creators coming along to catch up with us on their forthcoming projects. There's Dan Barritt, the artist of The Sisterhood and Paul Thompson who's working on Primetime* as well as a couple of others who have yet to commit to anything specific but hopefully will by the end of the weekend. Hopefully we'll also meet some brand new talent too.

So if you're at BICS this coming weekend search out the Time Bomb Comics table, buy our wares and say hello - it's going to be a fantastic weekend!

*Primetime - a brand-new project set for the middle of next year. No details to report as yet but that I'm still finishing off the script and Paul's still getting comfortable with the look of the characters. Still, Primetime is the latest Time Bomb Comic. You heard it here first!

The Real Dick Turpin

2008-09-26T11:41:00.003+01:00

One of the essential aspects of writing is research. No matter what you write there has to be some element of research to it, whether it's five years of arduous study for that historical biography or five minutes to confirm the menu prices for that restaurant review. When I decided to write Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead one of the tasks I knew faced me would be to find out a bit more about the legendary highwayman himself.

Like Robin Hood, Turpin is a character who has become ingrained in the British consciousness and most people could rattle off few things about him. Highwayman. Robbing coaches. Black Bess. The ride from London to York. Flintlock pistols. "Stand and deliver!" Everyone knows that is what Dick Turpin is all about. But as it turned out, that isn't really what Dick Turpin was all about at all.

The facts are thus: The real Richard Turpin was born in Essex in 1705 to John and Mary Turpin. A butcher by trade, he became a notorious highwayman who was eventually captured in York and executed there in 1739. The real Dick Turpin was a scarred, violent thug who fell in with a number of other like-minded individuals and comitted robberies that were brutal and sadistic. He was, in reality, a nasty little bastard.

The trappings that we associate with Turpin are - but for the fact that he had a habit of taking things that didn't belong to him - false. He never had a horse called Black Bess. He was not some romantically attired gentleman of the road, all billowing cape and twirling flintlocks. He never made that fabled ride from London to York. And barely 100 years after he swung from the noose hardly anyone remembered him.

Discovering this about Turpin was a fascinating reveal. I had been suckered along with everyone else and felt a mild pang of disappointment that the legend of Dick Turpin was just exactly that. Fake. A made-up story. But then I found out some things that were really interesting. It seems that pretty much the entire re-imagining of Dick Turpin came from one man, William Harrison Ainsworth, and his novel Rookwood published in 1834. This featured highwayman Dick Turpin as a romantic anti-hero, a dashing rogue atop stallion Black Bess who rode the London York road in record time. This is where the modern interpretation of Turpin comes from, the popular images of whom have little changed since Ainsworth's novel.

Not many will know the name WH Ainsworth today outside scholars of early Victorian literature - it's almost as if the bitter price made by Ainsworth for his efforts to imprint Turpin back into our collective memory was that he himself be in turn be forgotten. How remarkable that is can only be appreciated once you know that Ainsworth was the biggest writer of his day, heads and shoulders above his rivals. One of those rivals was a certain Charles Dickens, who Ainsworth regularly trounced in the popularity and sales stakes, to the point where Ainsworth's novel Jack Sheppard outsold Dickens' latest work by three to one. That Dickens novel was Oliver Twist.

The Dick Turpin I wanted to write about was the one popularised by Ainsworth. I was pretty much certain that would be the Dick Turpin everyone would want to read about as well. I made certain concessions to the truth - the Turpin in Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead has an obvious ruthless streak. He's grim, hard, and can undoubtedly be a nasty bastard if he needs to be. But my Turpin has a sense of honour and would be the type to watch your back in a fight rather than thrust a knife into it.

The truth will out, but sometimes the legend is a far better bedfellow.

Fit to Print!

2008-09-23T16:27:00.004+01:00

So finally, after months of anticipation, today I signed off Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead at the printers - that's the splash page above. It was the conclusion to a frentic two days of proof-reading, lettering, proof-re-reading, balloon placement, artwork fine tuning and proof re-re-reading to make sure that the finished book will make us proud at BICS and worth anybody's £2.50.

One thing's for certain, whatever anyone makes of the content the production quality of the comic itself will be absolutely first-class, which is why finding the right printer is such an important priority. Willday and Son in Leicester is where we get our printing done and they do a phenomenally good job and have done since we first contacted them last August when we were looking fo a printer for Ragamuffins.

Before I formed Time Bomb Comics I'd always assumed that printer's were a pretty clever bunch with black ink in their veins and paper sizes in their heads. Not so. The search for a printer proved to be one of the most difficult aspects of publishing as we discovered that printers are two a penny, good printers are thin on the ground, but really good printers are as rare as rocking horse shit.

We initially contacted dozens of printers with the same brief: How much for a saddle-stitched 24-page comic an in American B5 format with a colour glossy cover and black and white interior? Some of the responses ranged from the ludicrous to the bizarre. We were told that the American paper sizes were illegal to use in the UK. We were told that due to the amount of black ink in the artwork extra costs would be incurred as the presses would need to use more ink. A significant amount of the quotes we did get included VAT despite printed matter being VAT exempt. It was becoming obvious that there were a fair few cowboys moonlighting as printers.

Not everyone was a rip-off merchant of course but in the end we chose Willday not only due to their very competitive quote (not the cheapest but more than £1500 cheaper than the most expensive quote we did receive) but because they seemed genuinely interested in what we were trying to do and had a passion for quality control that left us grinning. Case in point: when we signed the proof of Ragamuffins off one of the interior pages contained a typo in one of the word balloons that both Andy and I had missed. When I did spot it the comic had gone to print - too late to be corrected. When I picked up the printed comics later that week I noticed the typo had been corrected - Willday had spotted it and done the fix for us. How great is that?

So if you are seriously thinking about putting out a comic of your own (and if not, why not?) the message is shop around. Find a printer that's as passionate about your product as you are. And if you're having a hard time finding one then contact the team at Willday - but make sure you tell them I sent you!

Bound for BICS

2008-09-17T18:14:00.004+01:00

In less than 3 short weeks this year's Birmingham International Comics Show takes place on the weekend of the 4th/5th October.

This is a show that's very dear to us at Time Bomb Comics and here's the reasons why. The very first BICS was held in a small intimate venue in December 2006, and was the first comics convention I'd been to since the UKCAC shows in London that ran through the 80's/90's.

The UKCAC was a highlight of my year, and something I attended religously - even flying back to the UK to attend it during the time I worked abroad. I even attended it when, to be honest, they weren't really that much fun anymore. I would go out of a sense of duty, in the same way you would visit an aging relative that you didn't really recognise as the person you once knew. So much so I missed the final two UKCAC's - and by all accounts I sadly didn't miss much.

Having moved to Leicester in 2005 the first BICS was practically on my doorstep being just an hour away on the train. The December date also seemed to be an ideal opportunity to snag some early Christmas presents! What I didn't expect was the wide range of small press and indie publisher's who had tables there, who far outnumbered the more traditional comic dealers. I spent the day chatting to these creators and buying their books, amazed to see ranges of titles that were as professional and enjoyable as anything you could find in the local comic shop. More importantly I came away with the realisation that this was a club I very much wanted to be a part of. If I hadn't attended the first BICS, then I doubt I would have caught the spark that led me to co-create Time Bomb Comics.

The second BICS was a far grander affair and now in the less Chritmassy but far more economically sensible month of October. Last year's BICS was huge - a massive gear change upwards from the previous year. This was now a comics convention for the big boys, held in the massive Thinktank conference centre in Birmingham city centre. Everything about it was bigger and better (if you were there I'll just mention "goody bag" - 'nuff said!) with more dealers, more creators, more attendees and more importantly a Time Bomb Comics exhibitor table. Our first title Ragamuffins:Stitches In Time made it's world premiere at BICS 2007 and it was great to be selling our comic alongside the same creators tables who had inspired me the year before.

Which brings us to BICS 2008. It seems this year the Birmingham Show will cement itself as the British comics convention of the year. That it's in a position to already eclipse the long-running Bristol Expo is astonishing but really a testament to the guys that have worked incredibly hard to grow such a mighty oak from such a small acorn. And the gossip seems to suggest that this year's show might be outclassing BICS 07 in much the same way last year's show outclassed BICS 06. Simply put, if you read comics you really should be planning to be in Birmingham in a couple of weeks.

One more thing: BICS 2008 will also be where Time Bomb Comics second title officially makes it's debut, and we can't wait to see what attendees and fellow creators make of Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead. Reason to attend alone, methinks!

Black, White or Grey?

2008-09-03T19:24:00.005+01:00

So here's the current Time Bomb Comics dilemma. I've received through a copy of the latest pages from Andy Dodd for the upcoming Dick Turpin And The Restless Dead, including page 11 which is posted above.

Why are there two versions? Well the top left page is the one I received first - and I got straight back to Andy saying that I really didn't go for the greytones on the page. I thought they looked out of place with the pure black and white of the rest of the artwork and, in particular, felt that the large central panel with the group of zombies lost a lot of its impact by having most of the figures fading into the background.

The top right page is the revised version of the page, with the graytones either removed or converted to solid black. I thought this page was a huge improvement but now thought the final panel with the big black clouds was too much. Maybe that last panel needed a final tweak but all done and dusted.

Or so I thought. As well as sending the revised version to me Andy posted both versions on the Smallzone creators group - a fine invitation-only networking site similar to Facebook but set up exclusively for comic creators - asking for other creators opinions and general preference to which page version is best. What's been fascinating is that there's a pretty even split between those who prefer the original version to those who prefer the revised page. For example Bryan Talbot prefers the original grey-toned version. But then Leah Moore prefers the black and white revision.

Which leaves us pretty much in a quandary - a real six of one, half a dozen of the other kind of situation. However, at least everyone seems to be looking forward to seeing the comic itself irregardless of which version of page 11 they do prefer!

What's your choice?

The Sisterhood Sneak Peak

2008-08-31T16:33:00.004+01:00

One of the greatest things about having a talented team of artists working away on future Time Bomb Comics are the regular updates I get from them as to how the pages are coming along. Whether they're initial design sketches, page roughs or finished pages any art comes back to editorial for approval before moving to the next stage. This way I make sure that any changes can be implemented before any pages are actually complete - I'm always greatful for the time our artists spend on Time Bomb projects and would hate to waste it.

There's an extraz buzz when the pages are from scripts that I've written of course - every comics writer gets a kick out of seeing what they visualised in their heads actually on a finished page of artwork!

So here's some of the designs for the upcoming The Sisterhood by Dan Barritt, which came to me the other day.

Web Woes

2008-08-30T16:36:00.003+01:00

I'll be honest, although I think our comics are great there's one area where Time Bomb has been seriously lacking since inception - and that's the official website. Just prior to last year's BICS I obtained the timebombcomics.co.uk domain along with an instant website kit. This rapidly proved to be completely unsuitable for what Andy and me wanted (and envisioned) our website to be about. Bound to an existing template design, we discovered that the bells and whistles we'd come up with could not be integrated into what we were working with. The pages were lifeless, boring and just dull. Something had to be done!

Unfortunately the existing demands on Andy's time meant that the something would have to be done later rather than sooner. So I treated the website like a senile old relative, hid it away in the corner and tried not to talk about it. At the same time I made sure we had some kind of web prescence on Comic Space, Facebook and here on Blogspot. But it wasn't the same, and for the last year the awfulness of our official website has hung over me like the mariner's albatross.

However, the "later" has slowly shuffled its way to the head of the queue and I'm delighted that nearly one year on we've removed the existing website and happily consigned it into the bin marked "crap" to undertake a complete upgrade. I've also snagged the timebombcomics.com domain in the process which we couldn't get last year as it was being held by a US-based domain realtor for no other reason than they wanted to charge an arm and a leg for it.

So expect a much healthier official web prescence for Time Bomb Comics in the near future, which will include previews, updates, animations and an online shop where you can buy the very products that I'm always banging on about!

Carry On Dick!

2008-08-29T11:28:00.004+01:00

In just over a month's time the next Time Bomb Comic - Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead - will be available at the October BICS in Birmingham. Our first title Ragamuffins launced at last year's BICS so it's a good way of rounding out Time Bomb's first proper year.

Pretty much as soon as Ragamuffins went off to the printers we were discussing what we would do as a follow-up. I was keen to do something historical. Andy wanted to do something with horses in it. We both wanted something that was completely different to what we'd just completed - a total change of pace, genre and style. I also was keen to have something quintessentially British and featuring something not seen in comics very much at all - highwaymen. And what better highwayman to spotlight than the one that everybody knows - Dick Turpin!

I admit that for a while I was mulling the idea of coming up with our own highwayman, a self-created character that would have all the iconic trappings of the highwayman mythos that we could further develop if need be. But really, what was the point? Dick Turpin is one of those quasi-historical characters that everyone knows. Ask anyone about Dick Turpin and they'll trot out the same stuff - Black Bess, that ride from London to York, "stand and deliver" - Turpin's as ingrained into British folklore as Robin Hood. And just like the bloke from Nottingham Turpin's a legend. Could I really pass up the opportunity to work with a legend? Interestingly, once I started researching Turpin I discovered that, as with Hood, Turpin the legend was vastly different from Turpin the man - in reality a thoroughly nasty piece of work with none of the trappings and traits that he's remembered for. How Turpin came to be remembered as a dashing anti-hero is a fascinating story recounted in James Sharpe's Dick Turpin - The Myth Of An English Highwayman which is thoroughly recommended for anyone interested.

The script for Dick Turpin And The Restless Dead was completed in November 2007 and summarily passed to Andy Dodd. Andy spent until March 2008 researching costumes, flintlocks and horse anatomy before getting to the artwork proper, by which time we realised the original Bristol Expo release date in May 2008 was a mountain much too big to climb. Never one to miss a marketing opportunity, I got Andy to complete the cover artwork in time for the Expo so that we could have some fantastic high quality signed and numbered prints of it to sell and to get a bit of buzz about the project.

Which brings us to where we are now, with the artwork in the final stages and BICS on the horizon. The extra time it's taken Andy to complete the art really shows in the finished pages as you can see on the pages posted here, with a very "British comics" feel to it, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it will be received at the BICS Time Bomb Comics table!

Highwaymen, Nuns, False Prophets and Scoopermen.

2008-08-26T07:12:00.007+01:00

At the moment Time Bomb Comics have four titles in various stages of completion, so here's a quick overview of what to expect from us over the next several months or so.

Dick Turpin And The Restless Dead has been in development since last year and is slowly but surely inching its way to completion, and with it the distinction of being our second release. This one's pretty much what it says on the tin - a good old romp with highwaymen and zombies! To be honest I have high hopes for this one. I think Andy's artwork on this one is a huge step up from the Ragamuffins work - the pages so far look gorgeous - and I think the story is more linear and easier to follow. From my point of view it was a delight to write, and I'm looking forward to seeing what feedback we get on it. Hopefully, this will also be the book that gets us into the Diamond catalogue which will really take Time Bomb Comics to the next level.

The Sisterhood is a future war story in an environment where the soldiers are all nuns. The artwork is by Dan Barritt who we met at last year's Leeds Thoughtbubble convention. Dan's a great artist - check out his website here - and his style very much influenced the final script, injecting a manga vibe that gives the characters a very individual look. Dan's hoping to have this finished in time for this year's Thoughtbubble which will bookend the project quite nicely.

The Furies was the first serious comics project that I began working on with Andy Dodd back in 1985, so this graphic novel really can be said to be more than twenty years in the making! Originally the story concerned the apocalyptic events of the year 2000 - it's now been updated to the similar forecasts about 2012, but the basic story remains the same: a grim take on the true meaning of religion and prophecy with some thoroughly nasty deaths. I've done some revisions to it that makes the story more comtemporary as well as re-working some of the plot elements that 20 years on I really wasn't happy with, but otherwise this limited release will be an example to experience Andy and me as fledgeling creators, warts and all!

Finally there's Primetime, which is still very much in the early design stages. The artwork is by Paul Thompson who we came across on Comic Space and his style fits the concept like a glove. I've just started scripting it so it's very much a work in progress, but we're hoping this blackly-humourous story set in a City which revolves around mass-media lunacy will be ready for the 2009 Bristol Expo.

Expect some more in depth posts about each of these titles as the months go by!

Ragamuffins: Stitches In time

2008-08-25T18:17:00.000+01:00

This was our first title, a one-shot that debuted at the 2007 BICS. It features the first appearance of the Ragamuffins, a disparate group of unusual individuals that repair problems with time. I'd had the idea of the Ragamuffins for a number of years and it seemed the ideal concept to set out the Time Bomb Comics stall with. It's a complete mind-bend of a story, with some great time travel art effects that artist Andy Dodd did a phenomenal job on that really showcases his talents.

We also wanted to set the quality bar quite high in terms of the product itself, so it could quite easily sit alongside the shelf in the comics shops with the latest releases from Marvel, DC and the rest. A nice glossy cover and good paper stock was a must, and has made a difference at the convention tables and in getting the shops to stock it. Quite simply, sales for a small-press comic are much more likely the less small-press it looks.

As for the concept itself I guess the biggest and most obvious influence to the book was the late-Seventies TV show "Sapphire and Steel". Featuring Joanna Lumley and David McCallum as the title characters this series played with the whole notion of time and both baffled and terrified me as a 11 year old. As with that bizarre series Ragamuffins share a cast of characters that are very individual and operating on a very different plane to the rest of us. The intention was that the Ragamuffins had a history and an ultimate purpose but it's not something we were to be privy to, instead we were to be caught up in the weirdness of what they do without understanding why and how they do it.

What's interesting is that the feedback we've so far received - and one of the things about self-publishing is that feedback is few and far between - is that people seem to love the characters and want to see more of them, but also want to know the whys and wherefores that we made such a point of ignoring. Maybe it's the "secret origin" fixation that comics fans have with characters that pique their interest, but if the Ragamuffins revealed their secret origin then it wouldn't be much of a secret anymore would it?

You can order a copy of Ragamuffins:Stitches In Time here.

WELCOME TO SHORT FUSES!

2008-08-25T17:43:00.000+01:00

So here we are with Short Fuses, the official Time Bomb Comics blogspot. Time Bomb Comics is a new British comics company based in Leicester, England, formed by myself and artist Andy Dodd in September 2007 and intending to showcase the work of talented writers and artists currently working outside the mainstream comics industry. (Obviously those talented writers and artists were originally me and Andy but shameless self-promotion is a cornerstone of the comics industry so who can blame us?)

Unlike many other comics publishers our we just have two simple editorial policies. The first is that we only publish one-shots - completely self-contained comics with a beginning, middle and end. The second is that each of those comics meets our basic requirement that we've also adopted as the Time Bomb Comics slogan: Telling Great Stories.

What makes a Great Story worth Telling? Well it can be fun, frightening, entertaining or thought-provoking but ultimately has to be something we regard as good solid comic book entertainment. Therefore any comics released under the Time Bomb Comics banner can wide and diverse in theme, genre and format, with only a single limitation - the imagination of our creative teams. Sounds good?

Whether we succed or not is what Short Fuses is all about. It's an ongoing journal of how we try to achieve our goal of putting together a comics company, our highs and our lows, to share the perils and pitfalls of self-publishing comics. There's also the shameless self-promotion bit of course - we'll be bigging up our project's like there's no tomorrow here make no mistake. Forget the PR - we want you to buy our comics!