BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
Six months since the last update and the only thing that's prompted me to post is an email I got this morning from PJ Holden - "For gods sake man, update your blog!"

He's got a point.

Personally and professionally it's been an up-and-downer this past half a year. My father lost his battle to cancer at the end of October, and since he was only diagnosed during the spring, it was still a major shock for all the family when the inevitable happened. Consequently, pretty much everything careerwise (other than the day job as Group Editor for Uncooked Media) has taken a backseat.

So what's happened comic book-wise since my last update?

Unholy Warriors for 2000AD received an online bashing following its publication in the Winter Special. By far the biggest problem people seemed to have with it was that there were too many characters and the use of Amercanised dialogue. To be fair, the dialogue is in keeping with the style of the hugely popular manga books, which perhaps wasn't appropriate for the more traditional 2000AD reader who are likely in their thirties. As for too many characters... well, that was the brief provided by Tharg - all seven of the characters needed to appear as a fully-formed team in the first episode, along with an introduction to the world and concept. In hindsight, trying to pull all that off that in five pages was perhaps a little too ambitious. Still, it was fun to try though.

That said, Unholy Warriors did receive a lot of support through the 2000AD letters pages, with many readers actually getting the point of the lightweight series, praising the uniqueness of each character and actually enjoying the tongue-in-cheek tone - seemingly proving my theory that online communities might be the most vocal, but seldom represent the majority opinion. It's still unlikely that the strip will be picked up for a series but Unholy artist, Kev Crossley, and myself are interested in doing something else together. This time using our own concept and not a pre-provided brief. I've got a few ideas, but it's just finding the time to get them down.

The day job's going great guns. NEO is doing remarkably well and has evolved so much in the past year - considering that the concept of an "Asian pop culture" mag was a risky proposition at the time, it's odd to consider that it seems a no-brainer now. I also helmed the launch of Xbox 360 GAMER late-last year as well, which is Uncooked's three-weekly mag dedicated to (the clue's in the title) Xbox 360 gaming. This is also performing above initial expectations, but fronting two regular mags leaves little time for comics writing... or eating... or sleeping.

So the big question remains: will it be six months until my next update!?