Just go to www.strip-for-me.com - nothing to see here

Just go to www.strip-for-me.com - nothing to see here

Well, 24-Hour Comics Day has come and gone, and at the end of it I find that I have 24 pages of new comics completed, or rather I find that I have a single 24 four page comic completed. I’m absolutely shattered, but feel strangely calm inside, like Ralph Macchio at the end of the first Karate Kid film.

Let me tell you a bit about the comic first. It’s called “What It Is And What It Was” and as you can probably guess from my other work, it’s a bit of a melodrama. To be honest, if I had the slightest idea of what I was doing, there’s no way that I would have attempted something of the magnitude that I did – the story is a multi-threaded monster of a thing, taking place over forty years and various countries. It’s one of the oddest things I’ve done, though it bears some similarities to “The Space Between Words” from SFM18. There’s a lot of writing in it, and an lot of complicated panel layouts.

Which is why once I finished the layouts and lettering I found myself with just under five hours to go.

I got it done though, and you’ll be able to see it with this weekend’s update – so expect twenty-four pages instead of the usual two this Sunday.

In attendance at the ICA as well as myself were my fine front-line friends David Baillie and Dan Fish, as well as Matilda Tristram, Matt Broersma, Steven Appleby and many more. Also in attendance as support or in other duties were the marvellous people who bear the following names, in no particular order: Sean Azzopardi, Ade Brown, Paul Gravett, Mark Stafford, Anna Jellinek, Jamie McKelvie, Dan Goodbrey and the rest. Ade updated the 24-Hour Comic Day blog with all the names that I’ve forgotten, so hi to you all from me. There’s also a bunch of photographs up on flickr where you can watch my gradual disintegration before your very eyes.

Thanks to all involved who made it twenty-four consecutive hours to remember.

Proper news update to come - but the new pages are up now: Silent Choir and There's Nothing Worse Than Being Worst. Enjoy!

Newsflash! - -If you're in London today or tomorrow, come along to the ICA for Comica, where I'll be manfully struggling to complete a 24-hour comic, in the company of such luminaries as Steven Appleby , Matilda Tristram, David Baillie, Gary Northfield , Dave Simmonds, Matt Abbiss and more.

Read all about it at Paul Gravett's site.

If you are so inclined, my dear fellows, you should pop over to the words section to catch up with the retrospective of Matthew Craig's work that I'm conducting over at TRS2. It'll continue into next week, after which the normal selection of reviews should start again. I'll probably do another retrospective at some point again in the future. It's been fun.

I saw two films this week in the cinema - one of them was the first great film of the year so far and one was possibly the worst I've ever seen in a picture-house. Funny how things balance out. For the record the great film was Children of Men, which I really can't praise highly enough - perhaps the first great science fiction film since Cronenberg's take on Crash. The other film I saw was Clerks 2, which was so awful it made me like all of Kevin Smith's other films a little less.

Anyway - on to today's comics! Long-time friends of the site will no doubt be excited to see the triumphant return engagement of The Silent Choir, who shall be sticking with us, on and off, for most of the rest of the year. in addition to this we have another in our series of one-page stories with Renovating Our Last Time Together. Enjoy!

Another week, and more to see and do. Plenty busy at Chez Strip For Me, as ever. Not only have I got the normal updates to deal with, but I'm just about to embark upon the new issue. Also, I'm doing some art for some other folks - more news on that when I'm finished.

As usual we have two new pages for you. Firstly, we have the last borders for a few weeks. This one fits in somewhere near the beginning, if you're playing that game. Also up this week is The Fall of the 1912 Foxglove Club, another story in the favoured format. Hope you enjoy it. Remember, if you do - tell all your friends. In addition to al this comic goodness I have put up the picture I did for the 2006 Caption booklet in the sketches section.

In other news, I was reading some old comics this week - and this made me laugh:

What do you mean, out of context?

And finally - you've all remembered that it's my birthday on Wednesday, right? Celebrate with gifts, that's my advice.

Hello, my fine companions. I hope that the last week has treated you well, as it should, and that you are all in the best of spirits as you join me today. As ever, we have new comic pages at the site for you this week, plus news of what the site will be doing up until the new year, and more reviews.

So anyway, yeah, , today sees new pages, as Sunday's usually do. First up is a new page of borders, which follows on from last week. With borders, I feel as though I finally have a handle on what I've been doing with the strip for the last while, and I know what I need to do in order to continue telling the story that I wanted to tell. This means that a number of borders stories that i've done in the past are, well, redundant now. There's always been a story waiting to be told, and that's one of the things that we'll be pushing toward now. So expect to see more.

Our second page this week is yet another in the series of short subjects that I like to term unfriendly romance - this time its about things that remain unsaid, or that should. It's called "A Fox is First A Friend". I hope you like it. This particular run of stories will continue for the next fortnight before it's replaced by something else... as to what...

...Well, that's partly what I've been up to this week. I've drawn up a schedule to take me to the end of the year, and can reveal that you've got some fun treats lined up for you. We'll be continuing with new borders, but also you can expect to see a chunk of new episodes of The Silent Choir, as well as the long promised Solitary Heart. Look out for all these before Christmas.

In the mean time, do check out my continuing series of reviews over at TRS2. You can access them directly from my page here - or go on over to Bugpowder and read the news too. I'm trying to get two or three reviews posted each week, though from time to time I'll run a week long retrospective of a single artist's output. Look forward to the first of those soon. If you'd like me to review your work for the site, remembering that I'm not always going to be positive if I don't like it, then feel free to contact me using the email link up top.

New news page for a new era at chez Strip For Me. With the end of Live Static last week (and do look back and read it if you haven't already) it's the welcome return of some old favourites.

I know that some people are going to be happy to see the return of borders with a brand-new, never-before-seen episode. Look for more borders to come over the next few weeks. Our second next page today is a new story in my personal genre of unfriendly romance. This one is called "Why Did You Wait to Let Me Go?" and is a neat little thing which I hope you like. I'm still experimenting with this particular format, and I think it is able to do some interesting things. Decide for yourself.

I think we'll continue in this kind of self-contained vein for the next month or so, at least into October. There are some longer stories coming up, of course, but they're a little way off.

In the meantime - do check out Steve Bissette's gloriously on-the-money destruction of The Wicker Man remake. Having seen this deplorable nonsense only yesterday, I can only whole-heartedly agree with Mr Bissette's comments. Now, go read.

If you'd like to follow these two links you'll be able to read the final pages of Live Static, the story that I've been putting up on the site since January this year. That's eight months and some change that I've been working on this same story and I almost feel sad that it's over. Glad too, of course. Relived. I think that I managed to tell the sort of story that I set out to tell, although it changed along the way, but to be honest I'm still too close to it to really know. That's what you're for, dear readers, and I would entreat you all to take a read through and let me know what you think. I'll be interested in hearing what your reactions are to the completed tale.

I've nothing else to add today, as I'm sure you can understand. Do please take the time to read Live Static though. I like to think you'll find something interesting.