My hearts not really in any of the pieces I’ve started: nothing that would allow me to finish them in an hour.

Tonight, I’m producing  an audio segment for Stephen Millar and Colm Clarke‘s WAB FM project which enjoys a brief resurrection at Belfast’s Golden Thread Gallery as part of a Catalyst Arts retrospective. I’ve a special idea in mind for this. Listen for ‘The Call’ at the gallery over the next month, or on this site.

I got two or three DJ spots on Wab FM with my sometimes collaborator, Richard Barr. We’ve some flash-fic showing up here over the next month. There’s also plans for the two of us to work with our friend, Irish comix artist, letterer and playwright John Robbins. After a year of failed projects, I’m looking forward to a more organic return to work. If I could give one piece of advice to somebody wanting to make comics as a career, it’s this: don’t, and secondly, work with people you like and trust and only them.

One happy exception to that this year has been with Ruairi Coleman. I saw Ruairi’s work at 2d last year and got him on board hours before Uproar Comics spotted him and did the same. He’s been the lead artist on three issues of their Zombies Hi! comic, and is now doing some stuff for Rob Curley’s Atomic Diner imprint. Ruairi has been drawing from my script for “Brand of Britain” for the “To End All Wars” book published by Soaring Penguin Press and due out before next June. There’s been a lot of reference to follow, and a lot of editorial demands and Ruairi has been handling it all very professionally. I have set things I want to do however the process of creation is organic. Making comics or any creative work is not factory work: it’s communication and needs communication period.

To End All Wars, Soaring Penguin Press, 2014 (Image creator unknown)

Some relationships haven’t worked out this year. I’ve bowed out of Studio NI’s Skeletons in the Closet collection and Borderline Press’s Zombre over creative disagreements. I think when I’m not being paid for a job, it’s perfectly acceptable to walk away in some circumstances. Creativity is not an obligation, it’s a freedom.

The project I’m most excited about at the moment is a solo project due out in oh ho about two weeks. I’ve been very lucky to have been blessed with an editor who took my work and made changes to make it better. I know! Imagine my shock. Here’s another teaser from the project:

 

And there’s a few bloggers I should probably be talking with this week. Get in touch with my agent if you’d like to run something.

(yeah, I’m still my own agent)