Sold Out

Following on from Forbidden Planet's amazing review of Zarjaz #12 we sold our last copies of two of the Massacre For Boys back catalogue:



Massacre For Boys in Colour was our first attempt at an anthology and also our first attempt to go full colour. It was made up of some uncollected material prepared for the UK Thing anthology and the MFB website, but then heavily fortified with new stuff including a beautifully illustrated Walking Wounded "Zombies on a Plane" 6-pager and my own favourite, The Crusader: Honey Trap. I'd like to get this back into print with a second edition but that will have to wait because the follow-up, Back In Action (or possibly All Action) is taking priority.



I loved Walking Wounded #2. It was our first comic with proper lettering (thanks to Bolt-01) and it features to my mind Steve and I's best collaboration to date - The Glasshouse. This was printed at a larger format then we're using now, and sadly will probably stay out of print. Never fear though because I put the whole thing online already and there will be a re-mastered US-format version in the trade collection, if not sooner.

You can read WW#2 and indeed buy WW#1 (Nazi zombies vs British soldiers) and WW#3 (Nazi soldiers vs British monkeys) on our never yet-revamped website. Get them whilst they're hot.

NoThing is Forever

Sad news has just appeared on the UK Web & Mini Comix Thing homepage:

There will be no more Things as the hall is no longer available for hire and my brain is fried. There are some options for using other venues but I think its probably best to call it a day. If I change my mind i'll let you know.

We've attended four and they've always been good to us. If the situation does change we'll almost certainly be there again next year, otherwise at least we'll still have our memories, such as this one - Steve at our very first show appearance, Thing 2007:



Actually, I don't really remember that.

Massacre In Stereo

If Steve and I have one thing in common it's that we do like talking about our comics to anyone who will listen. This tends to happen primarily (but not exclusively) at comic shows.



This is the first time we've talked about our comics with a microphone pointed at us.

The Massacre For Boys section is 4:28 - 6:35, but listen to the whole podcast, it's ace.

One small issue: actually I speak first, not Steve. Still, I'm not sure we should really worry about that too much. Just so long as no one tries to get me to do any drawing...

Thing 2010 Uncovered

On Saturday 27th March 2010 Steve and I attended the UK Web & Mini Comix Thing in London's murder-heavy east end.

We had table 45 and set it up to look like this:



Our neighbour for the day was the hugely talented Rob Jackson:



We even sold one of his comics for him, that's how neighbourly we were!

Astonishingly the benovolence didn't end there as I was allocated an hour's "volunteer" duty manning the show entrance counter. It was an hour spent in the company of none other than Woodrow Phoenix. During this time I learnt about Woodrow's acclaimed graphic novel, Rumble Strip and also that you take a lot more money selling entrance tickets than you do selling comics.

Steve is a big fan of Woodrow's and so he was rather jealous:



See. Jealous. In fact Steve later purchased his own copy of Rumble Strip and must have simultaneously done a good job pimping our stuff to Woodrow because he later came over and bought the lot!

Another highlight was the taped interview we gave Mike Leader. Hopefully the stuff we said made some sort of sense.

As always with the Thing there was an abundance of great material on show. It's hard to beat work like The Bedsit Journal, Tozo and Hope For The Future, to name but three.

Sales wise we did okay, if not amazingly. Probably a little down on last year, but nothing too concerning. We'll certainly be back next year with Massacre For Boys: Back In Action....

The Things We've Done

The hell of waiting for the new comic to get back from the printers is over.

It's time to make the final preparations for our fourth Thing:



Why not not come and say hello?

The Crying of Table 45

We'll be at the Thing:



It will be our fourth successive year! Come along and see us. I can guarantee either:

1) The brand new issue of Walking Wounded

or

2) A really excellent array of creative excuses

will be available for your entertainment.

More Mars

Steve revised the second page of our Mars strip so it could function as a poster for display on our comic show stalls last year. Here's British Mars Version 2:



Spot the difference?

Mars

It's probably time for a new comic strip. So here's the MFB contribution to the Thing 2009 Anthology, exactly as it appears in the book:





Script by Chris Denton, painted artwork by Steven Denton.

An updated and extended version is intended for Massacre For Boys: Back In Action.

About The Author

I recently read Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. I know it's been out ages, but American Gods put me off.

Anyhow, whilst Anansi Boys was quite good in Gaiman's sadly now typical "I don't know if I'm British or American" kind of way, I was struck by the short bio on the opening page, and particularly this sentence:

He has written books and films and children's books and television.

So, ashamed of the comics then?

That is probably one of the least accurate but entirely true sentences ever devised. It's a bit like describing Alan Moore as a novel-writer and performance artist.

Still, given the Gaiman bio doesn't even mention Good Omens (still to my mind his only successful adult novel, excluding Stardust), I think we can safely assume that it is either purposefully omission-heavy or written by someone who hasn't got the first clue about Gaiman or his work.

In MFB news, I just booked us a table for Thing 2010. It will be our fourth glorious year at the show, and somewhere nice to show off Death on the Rock.

Thing '09 Report

After some fun on the tube, Steve and I made it to the Thing by about 9:30am. The first task was to pick up our supply of Massacre For Boys In Colour from printer and fellow exhibitor The Fallen Angel Media. That done, we promptly set up our table like so:



Doors opened to visitors at 10am and we waited for our first sale.

And waited.

And waited.

The table was right by the door and visitor numbers seemed to be well up on last year, but very few people seemed interested in our wares. To be honest we started to think that maybe our display was perhaps a little too reliant on irony and that what people were seeing was a potentially neo-fascist table they were not keen to approach.

In fact each time someone did stop and take a look it was almost an event:



Our first sale came a good two hours into the show and by that time we were about ready to call it a day. Fortunately we held on because the turnaround in the afternoon was somewhat dramatic. People started seeking us out having bought our work at previous Things and enjoyed it. New visitors arrived, much more interested in checking us out than their early-bird predecessors.

Even the poster, a source of early neurosis, started to attract a lot of positive interest:



In fact we had several requests to buy it as a print. That was both fantastic and pretty much entirely unexpected, so is something we will definitely be following up on in the neat future.

Business continued to be brisk as the afternoon wore on, then our fellow contributor Matthew Hunt dropped by:



Matthew's arrival livened things up even more, aided somewhat by his generous supply of "lime cordial" and the hall was properly buzzing as the event entered it's final phase.

Although generally tied to the table, we all managed to wander around to check out the work of our fellow creators, which looked to be a bumper crop. I was very happy to pick up a beautiful looking collection of Odd Fish. Matthew sought out and obtained both issues of the London Horror Comic. To be honest though this was the tip of a very large iceberg of great stuff. No wonder many people were wandering around not knowing how best to distribute their funds.



I am looking forward to going through the Thing Anthology (beautiful as ever) and checking out the work of many many more writers and artists.

Well 5pm rolled around and there was just time to press a copy of MFBIC on Paul Gravett before heading to the local Wetherspoon's to imbibe some extremely cheap and fairly potent cocktails with our many fellow creators.

All in all, a fabulous day out.

Say Any Thing

Just six days to go until:



Come and see us!

And a Third Thing...

We're now confirmed attendees at:



The Thing is taking place at London Mile End on Saturday March 28th 2009. This will be our third consecutive year exhibiting and it's always a great showcase for indie comics. The bigger conventions such as Bristol and Birmingham mix up the big names with the small fish and it can mean that whilst those events are great too, many of the visitors are not really into the wild side of comics. At the Thing everyone who goes knows what they're in for.

Mr Thing has done a great job on the show website this year, and he's maintained the tradition of the home page displaying a random picture from any of the exhibitors. Our random picture is this one:

You may notice it's from our contribution to last year's Thing Anthology. That's because we don't have any art available for this year yet. Steve's still working on a strip for Futurequake but hopefully he'll finish that soon and move on to Massacre stuff again.

I love the Anthology, it's a real plus for the show and it's really nice to see your work in a high-quality colour book. This year I suggested the theme, which is "Mars", and have already penned our contribution, which is a change of direction for us but also really in keeping with the whole Massacre ethos.

Roll on March 28th!