Hello?
Is there anybody here?
No?
Just a pile of bills under the door, flyers for dodgy pizza parlours and assorted spam urging me to claim my free Phillips Air Fryer. I glance around the virtual office and what do I see? A few dusty links, abandoned drafts, fragments of potential masterpieces and a flatlined analytics graph. Emails written: 0. Subscribers gained: 0. Referrals made: 0. Total deliveries: 0. In short, a sorry state of affairs for a cartoonist supposedly 'building his platform'.
When my long-suffering agent asked if I would give a talk to a group of kids comics creators I naturally agreed. What would be the subject, I asked, secretly hoping it would be my favourite NASCAR driver (there is only one answer). Oh, she said, some people in the group are very impressed with your newsletter. Newsletter, I thought. Do I have a newsletter? Panic flashed across my wizened brain, the same way I worry that I have left the gas on at home. Slowly it came back to me. Oh, yeah, the thing I regularly write to keep people up to date with all my doings. That newsletter. She suggested I could talk about getting stuff done, how I manage to write a newsletter while maintaining a prolific career authoring graphic novels.
An awkward silence ensued. At least it would have if we were talking in person. Fortunately it was conducted by e-mail so I did what any professional does when confronted by a situation in which they're uncomfortable. I put off replying for several days.
I scuttled furtively to log onto Buttondown. It took several attempts as I had forgotten my password. I checked the date of my last entry. Mother's Day. That's not good, I muttered. The end of March. That's really not good, I gasped. 2022. Oh, well. Could be worse, I guess, I shrugged.
I couldn't do the cowardly thing forever, though. I eventually had to come clean and admit that her client, whose career she had been guiding to ever greater heights of success, is in fact a FRAUD! A shirker. A lollygagger. An apathetic slugabed. All this time I hadn't been assiduously building my platform, one subscriber at a time. I had been lazing around in bed eating dodgy pizza and playing videogames. Platform bedamned.
She was very understanding. My talk wasn't until mid-December. That gives me time to throw off the duvet filthy with grease stains and assemble my own Rocky montage.
I have a couple of months to get into shape and not appear like a COMPLETE (all caps for emphasis) fraud. Time to don my threadbare grey joggers, uppercut frozen carcasses in the meat locker and run through the mean streets of Worcester at dawn.
Sing along with me, getting stronger.
So what is the recipe of my secret sauce? The key to unlocking success? You don't have to wait for my talk. I have already revealed how I meet deadlines while writing a regular newsletter: I stop writing the newsletter when I have too much work to do.
Simple.
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Have I really been lazing around in bed eating dodgy pizza and playing video games instead of talking nonsense here? No, dear reader (hopefully there is more than one of you still subscribing), I have been busy with the pressing deadline of colouring my funny fantasy middle-grade graphic novel Punycorn. 220-something pages in colour. Hued, tinted and shaded alone. Unassisted. On my lonesome. Every single pixel painstaking (mostly) filled within the lines by your humble author. You will get to read the results somewhere around this time next year, but if you can't wait that long here's an (unlettered) taster.
Manifestations
I rarely leave the house, in fact I rarely leave my chair, but when invited I will even leave the country to attend:
Festival Lettatura, Mantua, Italy 7-11th September.
I have an event with Giacomo Bevilaqua and Zerocalcare on Saturday 10th sept. 14.45 venue: Palazzo di San Sebastiano.
This is very much a case of two extremely popular and talented Italian cartoonists and some other bloke (me), but it will be fun to attend a literary festival where I won't understand a word anyone is saying. Everything sounds like a compliment in a foreign language.
I have a one-page The Book Tour story in the festival brochure.
Shameless capitalism
Paris, the fairy tale romance beautifully drawn by Simon Gane and written by me is out now from Image comics The handsome hardcover features twenty new pages of art and extras from Simon. If you enjoyed the book please leave a positive review online. That really helps us.
Order from the fine folks at OK Comics and you get an exclusive bookplate signed by Simon and me. Thx to OK for the photo.
Books signed by us both can be bought directly from Simon and from myself.
Sunburn is the next book from the pair of us. Due out at the end of November. Please pre-order online or from your local comic shop or indie bookstore to avoid disappointment. Simon has done gorgeous work on the colours of this book and I hope everyone who wants a copy can get their hands on one.
Order from OK Comics and you will get the book with a signed exclusive bookplate.
Order from Page 45 and you will get the book with a (different) signed exclusive bookplate.
We're very lucky to have wonderful retailers who support our (and many other authors) books so please support them if you can.
Patreon
I have a patreon which I update regularly. Tuesdays and Saturdays I post sketches and behind the scenes stuff such as Punycorn colour pages. Thursdays I post a one page comic story (the fourth and final part of my gripping Tap Quest story will go up tomorrow). And this year I am posting a review of the book I have read that week every Sunday.
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I still have books out in the world, Kerry and the Knight of the Forest & the awards nominated The Book Tour. Support my efforts through my store – digital comics – patreon or by leaving a positive review online.