Pin ups!

I recently left my full time job as a books art director to go freelance, and as a leaving pressie a couple of my friends at work drew some awesome Absence inspired pin-ups. I'll find a place to fit them in a future issue, but I wanted to get them up here as well.


By dino-artist and comic-editor extraordinaire Steve White.


By small-press comics guru Martin 'Spandex' Eden.

Thanks guys!

Eagle Awards

The 2010 Eagle Awards nominations have opened, and my comic The Absence is eligible for the Favourite British Black and White Comic award. So if you have a moment please pop along to http://www.eagleawards.co.uk/ and vote for it! At least one person has already voted (not me, I hasten to add!) and it now appears in the drop down menu which makes voting for it even easier!

While you’re passing, maybe you could also vote for ‘Jim Lee: ICON’ in the Favourite Comic-Related Book since I designed that in my secret identity as book designer at Titan Books!

The way it works, is that people nominate until the 7 March and the top five of each section which secure the most nominations will then be voted upon and the winner announced at the awards ceremony on the 27 May.

New Scanner!

I have a whole host of changes coming up in my life. New job as a self-employed designer, new baby on the horizon, plus I've got to finish this comic, too. Holy crap.

One of the advantages of going freelance however is that I've bought a whole bunch of cool expensive Mac kit - including an A3 scanner. So now I can post stuff more regularly, rather than having to wait and scan stuff in batches at work. Huz-and indeed-zah.

I'm into the final few pages of #3. It's turned in at 44 pages (42 of comic strip, a 1 page featurette thing and an ad. I don't really like adverts as a rule, but the page count has gotta be a multiple of 4 to work so I had a page to fill.) This is one of the final pages. Marwood has drawn a crowd...

End of 2010 Lists!

I'm immensely proud to say that The Absence has found itself on a couple of Best of 2010 lists!

Here and here!

Crikey. When you're working in a vacuum on something, it's so encouraging to discover that people are actually enjoying it!

Really must try and finish #3. Between work, a kid, setting up the new company, decorating the house and the simple fact that the issue is 42 pages long (the longest issue yet!) my deadline of xmas has long whistled past! Still, only about 7 pages away from the end now. Must admit though - since the first two have been so favorably reviewed over the last couple of months, it's a little disconcerting to find myself thinking 'Christ, I hope people like it...'

Snow and secrets

In tribute to the horrific fucking weather conditions at the moment, here's a DPS from #3 which is set, aptly, at christmas time during a particularly bad snow storm. I wonder who all those people are searching for...?


In other news, I got THIS remarkable gift as my office Secret Santa (excuse the crappy iPhone snap - was taken late at night whilst slightly drunk...):



How cool is that! Someone (not sure who, but I have my suspicions!) has gone through the trouble of branding a t-shirt and sketchbook with the logo from The Absence! Very nice indeed. Makes me wonder if I should produce some Absence-related merchandise (although just producing the damn comic is proving a challenge).

Thanks Secret Santa!

Who would live in a house like this...?

Yeehaa! We got ourselves an old timey lynchin'!

Santa's Little Helper

To speed up production on issue #3 of The Absence, I've recruited an assistant...