A Birth
When one door closes...
2000AD is bringing back its seasonal specials - well, it's releasing a Winter Sci-Fi special this November anyway. From what I understand, the theme is that it will be a showcase for new and/or up-and-coming writers and artists. Considering I was racking my brains to find a suitable follow-up to my one-and-only published strip in 2000AD, I was eternally grateful when editor Matt Smith contacted me about contributing to the Winter Special.

It wasn't a completely open proposal: the brief I had was to write a five-page intro to a new series that would feature the main characters, concept and world, which would hopefully excite readers enough to write in and 'demand' that it becomes a full-fledged series in 2000AD. The brief basically requested a fantasy spin on the Magnificent Seven, set in a Lords of the Rings-style world, and pitching the heroes against zombies.

I wrote it a couple of months back now and the strip is currently being pencilled by Kev Crossley whose zombie-fuelled art was recently seen in Mamtor publishing's Event Horizon anthology. Fingers-crossed that it goes down well enough to warrant a series...

A Death
Well, after little less than a year, my one-page gag strip 'Nanas & Custard (along with another one-pager) has been quietly 'decommissioned' from Toxic magazine. I knew about this way back in April but, hey, when was the last update!

It's a shame that N&C has been canned as PJ had put together a list of potential stories that were arguably better than my last few efforts (where I was having real difficulty coming up with a new and wacky idea and character in each strip) - pity they will never get to see print. Apparently 'the kids' just didn't get the strip during one of Toxic's many market research doo-dahs. And if the target audience isn't interested, then that's as damning a criticism as any you could get!