British Comic Awards

Well, here's a thing - after issue #5 of The Absence being nominated for Best Comic at the British Comic Awards last year, the whole blimmin' thing has been short-listed for Best Book this year! I KNOW, RIGHT!? I'm chuffed, amazed, stunned and chuffed some more.
I'm up against some stiff (hahaha because my name is Stiff) opposition (particularly Celeste which I loved):

The Absence – Martin Stiff (Titan Books)
Celeste – I.N.J. Culbard (Self Made Hero)
The Encyclopedia of Early Earth – Isabel Greenberg (Jonathan Cape)
Lighter Than My Shadow – Katie Green (Jonathan Cape)
Sally Heathcote: Suffragette – Mary Talbot, Kate Charlesworth and Bryan Talbot (Jonathan Cape)

The award ceremony is on the 15th November at the Thought Bubble ComicCon, so keep your fingers crossed for me! I'll be going along, so if you're there come say hello. I'll be the one nervously pacing in the corner.

Zarjaz!

Ever since I was a kid I've been in a relationship with the cult sci-fi comic 2000AD. Sure, we've had our difficulties – periods where we have grown apart or fallen out – but somehow we've always ended up back together again. It's impossible to quantify exactly how much impact characters like Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, and Zenith have had upon my life, especially creatively. With it's weird British sensibilities and lashing of ultra-violence, it offered an insight into the world of comic creating that would have an enormous effect of me growing up. All I ever wanted to do as a kid was write or draw for my favourite comic and it was a passion which ultimately saw me creating my own stories.


I think you can see it in The Absence. The strange, slightly off-beat humour, a little experimental, bonkers sci-fi ideas, thick black line-work… so much of everything I write and draw today is influenced by a lifetime of reading 2000AD. And now, at (almost, ahem) 40 I'd still bloody love to write or draw for it.

But until that day should happen, I've done the next best thing and written and drawn a short story in the new issue of the 2000AD fanzine Zarjaz. Like it's parent comic, Zarjaz is an anthology comic and my story is about the Brit-Cit Detective-Judge Armitage, (imagine Judge Dredd crossed with Inspector Morse). I'm proud to be featured in a comic with so many other ace creators and it's a great opportunity to play in the 2000AD world.

You can buy a copy of Zarjaz #21 here. Let me know what you think of it.

In other, 'The Absence' news, I've been asked to do something rather exciting! As soon as I have more information I'll post about it, but suffice to say there should be some Official Absence merchandise along shortly…

Yes, more reviews

Reviews for The Absence continue to come in, most of them pretty bloody great thanks for asking. One even goes so far to call me a 'literary genius' which is rather lovely/hilarious/bizarre/wrong.

http://www.fandompost.com/2014/05/07/the-absence-hardcover-graphic-novel-review/

http://portlandbookreview.com/the-absence/

http://www.fortressofsolitude.co.za/os_book/the-absence-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-absence-review

http://www.themacguffin.net/absence-review/

http://www.comicsbulletin.com/reviews/6689/review-the-absence-is-an-atmospheric-and-spooky-small-town-horror-gn/

http://www.atomicmoo.com/2014/04/20/atomic-moo-comic-book-review-of-the-absence/

http://www.thecultden.com/2014/04/the-cult-den-book-club-comic-review.html

Additionally, folk have been saying nice things about the book over on Good Reads, too.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18373418-the-absence?from_search=true

And just in case you think this blog has become nothing but a platform for me to plug the book, here's a sneak peak of something I'm working on at the moment. It's a little 7 page strip I've written and drawn for the 2000AD fanzine Zarjaz. As with The Absence I pencilled it all using, well, pencils, but as an experiment I'm inking it all on the computer. And for various reasons it's driving me absolutely batty, but I'll blog about that later…

Competitions, signings and awards…

Here's some things:

You can win a copy of my graphic novel The Absence, here. But be quick, the competition closes tonight at midnight:http://www.thecultden.com/2014/04/competition-win-copy-of-absence.html

On Saturday, I'm doing a signing at Forbidden Planet, London (3-4pm) for Free Comic Book Day (And no, The Absence ain't gonna be free – you gotta pay for that) Come along and say hi!:

https://forbiddenplanet.com/events/2014/05/03/martin-stiff-signing-absence/

And finally, if you have a spare moment, I'd be forever grateful if you could vote for The Absence as Best British Comic: Black and White in the Stan Lee Eagle Awards (here: http://www.stanleeeagleawards.com/nominations.html) and/or Best Book at the British Comic Awards (here: http://britishcomicawards.com)

Ain't It Cool News reviews The Absence!

Lovely review for The Absence on top cult geek website Ain't It Cool:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/66776#5

Some quotes:

"While it plays on many levels, the crux of THE ABSENCE is filling voids."

"The naturalistic dialog, intricate black and white pencils and Stiff's reverence for the time period from style to sayings are worth the price of admission, but it's the sci-fi twist that makes THE ABSENCE a true comic book as well as a great story."

While you're there, scroll down a bit for a review of Psycho Gran by my friend David Leach.

New reviews and news

A couple more reviews:

http://www.popcults.com/book-review-absence-martin-stiff/

http://retrenders.com/2014/03/17/the-absence-by-martin-stiff/

Another Q&A (on the hugely influential cult comic and film website Bleeding Cool):

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/03/03/the-absence-is-a-dark-wwii-mystery-play-the-bleeding-cool-interview-with-martin-stiff/

And, bizarrely, here's a website that has made The Absence their April book club choice! How terribly flattering!

http://www.thecultden.com/2014/03/the-cult-den-book-club-aprils-book-of.html

A few more reviews and a signing

Nothing to see here - just a little more self-congratlatory back-slapping, move along, move along*…

(*LOOK, I WANT ALL THESE REVIEWS STASHED IN ONE PLACE FOR CONVENIENCE SAKE, ALRIGHT?! JEEZ.)

http://markclapham.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/ten-minutes-on-the-absence-by-martin-stiff/

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2014/03/09/review-time-with-the-absence/

http://www.awkwardgeeks.com/absence-graphic-novel/

I did my first signing for The Absence at Forbidden Planet, London on the 5 March and had a great time. Thanks so much to everyone who turned up! Here's a photo of me looking terrified:

I'm doing another signing at the London Superhero Comic Convention on Saturday 15th March at 4pm on the FP stand (tables 115-121). If you're visiting the con, come along and say hi!

Links to reviews, and some general self-congratulatory stuff

(Apologies in advance: I'm putting all this stuff on here mainly so I have it all in one place but the upshot of that is that it looks a bit showy-offy. Um, not much I can do about that, sorry.)

With The Absence graphic novel out shortly (this week, in fact!) the reviews have started appearing. Here's a few links. In an attempt to be as unbiased as possible, I've also put the more negative reviews here too…

On the whole people seem to be very kind about it, which is great! I'm really pleased with the response so far. I've had a few people drop me a line on Twitter as well, which is incredibly nice of them.

http://curiosityofasocialmisfit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/the-absence-graphic-novel-review.html

http://www.brokenfrontier.com/the-absence-a-welcome-collection-of-martin-stiffs-dense-evocative-mystery-story/

http://www.existentialennui.com/2014/02/titan-comics-graphic-novel-roundup.html

http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/titaqn-books-absence.html

http://www.clandestinecritic.co.uk/2014/02/comic-book-review-absence.html

http://www.capsulecomputers.com.au/2014/01/the-absence-review/

Here's a review from Comic Heroes (it's available on the Apple Newsstand, so I can't link directly to it. You should all be buying it anyway…)

I've also written a really long (rambling, self-indulgent) 'director's commentary' over at The Forbidden Planet International blog. Those guys have been supporters of The Absence since the beginning and I'm hugely grateful to them. Here's a link to that.

http://www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2014/directors-commentary-martin-stiff-talk-the-absence/

And here's a Q&A I was asked to do (which included the curiously tough question, 'What was the most horrific thing that happened to you when you were working on this book?' Whatever happened to asking people the price of milk?):

http://decapitateddan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/deep-discussions-with-decapitated-dan.html

Finally, here's a photo from the London Forbidden Planet store (which had The Absence on early release), showing it at #17 (!) in the graphic novel charts…

Jeez, slapping yourself on the back is harder than it looks! I'm off for a lie down. Next week I have a signing at Forbidden Planet on Wednesday (hey, you should come along!) and at least one more Q&A due for publication. Oh, and the small matter of the actual proper official publication of book itself…

The Absence - The Graphic Novel

Well, with publication date fast approaching I thought I'd better check in. Been neglecting the blog a bit too much recently.

With the complete collection out in a month, I've had to remove the last 3 issues from sale on Lulu. That said, if anyone has been collecting the individual issues (for the last five years - well done for sticking with it…) and needs one to complete their collection, just drop me a line. I have a few copies kicking about at home.

Here's a photo at the graphic novel. And look! Fun can be had matching up your face with the cover.

I'm really rather pleased with how the book turned out. It's 272 pages long (including 8 pages or so of extra features at the back) and the matte paper stock has quite a weight to it. The production quality is lovely - my slap-dash black inky artwork has never looked so crisp!

You can buy it at this places. Just click a link:

AMAZON UK
AMAZON US
FORBIDDEN PLANET
FORBIDDEN PLANET INTERNATIONAL

I gather I'll be doing some signings and various bits of promo for the book as we near the release date, but more on that soon. And more on what I'll be doing next, too…