Exciting news! The first issue of ink+PAPER is out this week. This is a brand new comics magazine put together by the fabulous David O'Connell, and it includes a photo essay by yours truly. I haven't seen a hard copy yet, but David assures me it looks fantastic. That's his cover illustration up there. London Underground nerds can have fun trying to work out which tube line he's illustrated, but it's a bit of a trick question because he's incorporated several elements from different tube lines (the seating is the Design Research Unit's 1970s District Line moquette design, though).

If you're in London, come to the launch party at Orbital Comics this Friday from 7:00pm.

ink+PAPER will also be on sale at Saturday's Comiket fair on Saturday as part of this year's Comica Festival (another brilliant line-up of events this year). This year Comiket is being held at the newly refurbished Bishopsgate Institute. I'm looking forward to seeing what it looks like.

If you can't make either of those events, it will be on sale in Orbital Comics and Gosh Comics, or you can buy it online from here.

The other big comics news this week is of course the release of Nelson, the ambitious comics anthology/exquisite corpse story told by over 50 of the UK's best comics creators, with all profits going to homeless charity Shelter. (You may remember I made some fan art of the cover.) I've been looking forward to this one for months, not just because loads of my friends are involved or because it's for a good cause, but because everything I've seen of it speaks to the dedication and creative brilliance of the people involved. I'm very excited be getting my hands on a copy tomorrow, courtesy of Alison at Space In Text. (I will be buying a copy as well. I just haven't decided whether to pick up a hardcover from the Blank Slate table at Comiket on Saturday, or one of the Frank Quitely bookplate softcovers from the Nelson launch/signing at Gosh Comics.)

November 19-25 is Nelson Week, so look for more about the book then. I strongly suspect that you're going to be hearing a lot about it in the run up to Christmas!

Last week there was a launch party for David B's Black Paths, at Clerkenwell Tales, a lovely little bookshop in Exmouth Market. I'd only heard about the launch the previous evening, which meant I was a bit late in getting a place — in fact I didn't get a response until 6:30 that evening, which was exactly when the event started. Oops! As a result, I entirely missed David B being interviewed by Paul Gravett, which was a bit annoying, but at least I got there in time for some free booze, and also a chance to catch up with Dan Lester before he flew off to teach English in South Korea the following day, as well as lots of other people.

I did have a flick through the book, however, and it looks pretty good, with lovely paper stock and full colours throughout. I have to say publisher Self Made Hero really excel at good production values, compared to some other publishers. Having only seen David B's work in black-and-white, where it works so well, it was nice to see that it translates well into colour too (you might think that's a given, but it isn't always). I definitely want to give it a proper read at some point, even though a couple of friends read it over the weekend and said that although it's visually stunning, the story isn't very compelling. I wondered whether this might partly be to do with translating a work from another language, and having read this fascinating post by the book's translator, it seems quite likely. On the other hand, I do remember that, as much as I appreciated the artwork in David B's Epileptic, the story did lose me along the way (although it's been almost 10 years since I read it, so I may feel differently now).

After waiting for friends to get their copies signed, I went to get some food with Woodrow Phoenix, Rob Davis and Glyn Dillon, which I mention only because it gives me a good excuse to plug Nelson again, as I discovered over dinner that even more amazing creators have signed up to participate. It's a shame I can't say who, because I'm sworn to secrecy, and if I told you I'd have to kill you, and there's no easy way to round up a bunch of mostly anonymous readers on the internet and quietly bump them all off, but trust me when I say NELSON IS GOING TO BE AWESOME. Glyn's new book (his first foray into comics publishing since, what, the 90s?), The Nao Of Brown looks likes it's going to be really good, too. If you want more proof than just my word, then have a long browsing session on Glyn's blog, which is chock-fulla-pretties. There's more on Space In Text, too.

Monday saw the launch of Reinhard Kleist's Castro, in the gallery upstairs at Foyles, which had a bit more space than Thursday's bookshop, but wasn't quite as well attended — even though there was the promise of free mojitos! And such promise: this is the pile of mint and limes at the start of the evening. A couple of hours later, the mint was all but gone and there were only about six limes rattling around the basket. The mojitos seemed to get exponentially stronger, too (my third drink was stronger than the first two put together!).

I took a few notes while Reinhard was being interviewed by Paul, which I've tried to knock into some kind of sense rather than the stream of consciousness that my notes read like. I should say to start with that I've not read Kleist's biography of Johnny Cash yet, and I'm not especially fascinated by Fidel Castro, but I am quite interested in the general history of Cuba, as it seems like a interesting country, albeit often romanticised, and in a constant state of some sort of flux (plus, I'll be honest, it is hard to say "no" to free mojitos!)

Kleist himself admitted that he initially had little interest in Cuba — "Cuba was for the old guys" — but he ended up visiting after a German editor asked him if he wanted to go and make a book about another country. This book was Havanna, which doesn't seem to have been translated into English (yet). In Cuba, he sometimes had trouble understanding people because "the Cuban people have horrible Spanish. It sounds very beautiful but they swallow all the syllables" (this made everyone laugh).

Kleist is pretty good at talking in snappy, visual soundbites. Describing some of Castro's early life, he said that "Havana university must have been like a Mafiosi melting pot" and that Castro has a nose "like a Greek statue." He'd wanted the art to look "a little bit more rough" than his art in Cash, but to keep it black-and-white because "you can do so much with black-and-white and create such a strong atmosphere." I'm inclined to agree, but I also think you can create strong atmospheres with colour too. His Greek publisher felt strongly enough that it should be in colour that they showed him a colourised version, but he hated it. (I'm curious about that, because Cuba is so strongly associated with colour in almost all media. Havanna is full colour, though, so maybe that'll get an English translation soon.)

The book was lettered in Photoshop, and Gravett pointed out the speech balloons are more "emphatic" than in Kleist's previous work. Kleist admitted that in earlier work he had tried to "erase" the balloons, but it didn't really work, as he realised that "text is important". This was an interesting point for me, because one of the things that has put me off reading his books are the cluttered-looking speech balloons — which is only exacerbated in something that is filled with pages of long political speeches, but is evident even in earlier work like Havanna (see pic below). I also noticed from looking at some pages displayed on the gallery wall, that, although Castro is lettered with capitals, there is also an inconsistent use of lower-case i's for no apparent reason other than whimsical idiosyncrasy, which doesn't really fit the general theme of the book and therefore irritated me a bit, because it kept distracting me from what was being said. But maybe most other people don't notice stuff like that.

The interview also touched on some other aspects, such as Cuba's ongoing political situation, and whether the state of the country was doing good for people or getting more corrupted. "Everything raised more questions." There were some comparisons made with China, and Kleist said "we might have a Chinese edition, but I don't know if we'll be allowed to print it." He also mentioned once being asked to sign a copy of Castro "to Fidel" and then learning that it was actually for Castro himself, and that Castro already owned a copy of Havanna, which was a bit nervewracking to discover.

The story itself is a fictionalised biography of Castro, using the character of a young idealistic journalist from Germany, whose look was based on a young French journalist that Kleist saw at an event in Cuba. (I don't know if the young man ever learned how he'd been immortalised), and of course other characters like Che Guevara appear in it as well. According to Kleist, in soundbite mode again, "the main point of the story is how to deal with your ideals" because "there is always another position and you have to show both if you want to be objective". With that in mind, I am quite interested in reading the book now. I quite like his artwork, which in moments reminded me of such disparate artists as Jose Muñoz, Hugo Pratt, Scott Morse and even a touch of Paul Pope in the brushier panels. Overall, it was a pretty interesting evening — and I'm not just saying that because of the free cocktails! Thanks once again to Self Made Hero for the invitations.

I haven't been buying books lately, due to a slight lack of funds, and also having far too many books that I haven't read yet, or haven't read for many years. So I've decided on a new-book moratorium, even though there are so many brilliant books coming out at the moment, at least until I've read (and got rid of) some of the old ones. However, there was one book I had to buy, because I'd been waiting for it to come out for about six years, and that was Carla Speed McNeil's latest Finder book, Voice.

I've been a huge fan of Finder ever since I first discovered it through Sequential Tart in 1999 (side note: I'm sort of amazed that ST still has the same design it started out with in 1998, and that the design still actually works). I was hooked from the first issue I read, enjoying the mix of slice-of-life observation and densely detailed science fiction setting. The deceptively simple artwork was full of intriguing background details that hinted at further stories, and I couldn't wait for each issue to come out just so I could find out more about the world that Carla had created. Even though I had many of the single issues, I bought some of the trade collections too because I loved the end notes printed at the back of them; they were like a director's commentary of extra background detail which added to the richness of the experience. After reading them I always feel a keen desire to visit the places, which is always a good sign that the environment has captured something in my imagination. I was even enough of a fan to buy several pages of original artwork from Carla several years ago (although three of them sadly went missing in the mail and never showed up).

As much as I enjoyed Voice (a lot, and even more so on the second read), there are elements of it that would definitely be very confusing if you'd never read any Finder before. So this post is really an an attempt to convince you all to go and buy Volume 1 of the Finder Library. It's actually really good value, collecting the first 21 issues of the series for only $25, which is probably about twenty quid in UK money at the moment — books don't seem to follow the exact rate of exchange, but that's less than £1 an issue, which is brilliant value. There's something in it for everyone and I promise you you'll thank me.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go to a book launch. Which I will try to write about later this week…

Makes you wonder how many other things you might have missed in your everyday wanderings, doesn't it?

I was at Conway Hall for about the last 15 minutes of the (International) Alternative Press Fair on Sunday, and after browsing tables in the very cramped aisles, I found myself taking photos of the lovely interior (I do rather love this building!)

I didn't have enough time to buy much, but I highly recommend Onion Soup by Dan Berry (buy it here), and The End of The Line by Woodrow Phoenix (not sure where you can buy that one from).

And on Monday I saw lots of things in Margate but I haven't been through all of my photos yet (I actually used my camera for some of those, rather than just my phone)

Here's something that looks a bit like a cooling tower, taken for the Cooling Tower Appreciation Society.

And here are some pylons.

I am fully aware that most people go to MCMExpo to take photos of the cosplayers. I don't care. Pylons are beautiful. And they were on my mind that day, due to several articles being posted and discussed: pylon design competition; design appreciation; these elegant ones; these ugly ones; this; also this. OK, I'll shut up now.

And here's Warwick Johnson Cadwell framed by some marvellous clouds (the skies have been fabulous lately).

And, um, that's it from MCMExpo this time. (here's last year's reports from MCMEXPO: part 1, part 2)

Last night my friend Viv Schwarz had a launch party with Alexis Deacon to celebrate their new children's book A Place To Call Home. Viv was one of the winners of this year's Booktrust Best New Illustrators Award, and already has a few great picture books out, and she writes one of my favourite blogs (she posts a lot of interesting work-in-progress and says sensible things about ebooks, and makes up bread recipes that actually work!)

The party was at Colour Makes People Happy, a nice posh paint shop in East Dulwich which also sells nice plates and books.

Sarah has a much better post about what happened and who was there, so I'll just leave you with some photos.

Here are Viv and Alexis making their official launch speech. Alexis appears to be phasing out of this dimension, but to my knowledge he's not actually a pan-dimensional being (I've only met him a couple of times, though, so maybe he saves that revelation for people who've known him longer).

Viv was wearing a fab Moomin dress that I didn't manage to get good photos of because she was moving around so much being the life of the party! I did manage to snap the fab vintage dresses that Sarah and Holly were wearing though.

Colour Makes People Happy is in a long building, with four or five rooms going one-behind-the-other. Viv has her studio in one room, which is nice and light, although a bit chilly.

Even further back, there's a workshop with a paint-spinner for making spin paintings. I used to love making those when I was a kid — I bet it would be fun to have another go.

This is Charles, who I made for Viv after she saw Maurice Morris and decided she wanted one of her own. Last time I saw him he had pride of place surveying her studio.

And speaking of hamster joy (which I only mentioned in the title, but they do feature in the book), here's a lovely post over at Quad Royal (and yes, I totally nicked the title of her post to use it in the title of mine. It seemed too apropos not to.)

Fans of light trickery and abstract imagery should visit this exhibition before it ends on March 27th (and hope when they get there that it's not too crowded).

Rather than write a long review, I'll just post a few pictures, but to really appreciate the work you need to see it in person to get a sense of both the movement of the installation, and the slightly odd dislocation of your vision and balance — it's not as extreme as I described here after seeing his last exhibition, but worth experiencing all the same.

More photos here.

Fradley Benford

Austin Flisk and Skeechy Dwippford

Mr & Mrs Treep, with the twins Klipsy and Fring

Lady Penelope Grimm-Fribbington
(note the FM logo on her scarf, designed by Woodrow Phoenix)

If you can't get to Selfridges to see them for yourself before December 24th, there are more pictures here.

(Incidentally, it looks like Jonathan is still selling copies of his ace silly gangster comic Aunt Connie and the Plague of Beards. Go buy.)

Last month I went to a great, if small, exhibition of influential designer Barney Bubbles' work, at the tiny Chelsea Space gallery. Although it's a subject arguably deserving of a much larger overview — at the Design Museum, for example — it was dense with inspiring imagery, including working proofs and glimpses into sketchbooks. I took some pictures on my phone, which you can see here (they're very blurry, so you should really check out the work on Reasons To Be Cheerful). 

My favourite part was seeing his process of ideas, from taking inspiration from old newspaper illustrations, to experiments noted in his sketchbooks. 

One sketchbook in particular was opened to the description of an intriguing artistic experiment Bubbles undertook at home with a friend, during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

This is a transcription of his notes (which tantalisingly break off because I couldn't turn the page of a sketchbook on display in a glass cabinet). The comics fan in me found his musings on the relationship between images and words of particular interest (emphasis mine): 

"An interesting experiment in visual and oral arts. Nothing is more important to artists than the 4-dimensions. I tried to achieve this by drawing, painting, reading, talking, etc (in fact in length, breadth, depth tried to assimilate a piece of time that is coming, has come and is now gone and must be caught for always) similar to the Chinese artist poets. The time, Sat. 27 Oct. 1962. The location. My house at Whitton. We played "Thelonious at Blackhawk", "Beethoven's 5th", and read Tennyson. I painted between 8 o/c and 9.30 o/c, interspersed with writing these notes and talking. We talked about boyfriends and girlfriends, and leather coats, and college at Birmingham, and the Royal College of Art. And we wrote poetry as the mood took us. 
_________________________
N.B. 1st point. We came to the conclusion that writing and painting are the same thing, so that one leads on to the next and necessarily helps the other. Building up inevitably to a climax. Which in our case was a discussion of Religion, black magic, Cuba and the planes that flew over from London Airport. Why can't writing be on  a canvas to help the painting? The visual helps the spectator, while the writing acting as a sort of scrapbook, grips his attention and allows the painting to set the exact location and spread the action over a series of moments.
_________________________
The next logical step would seem to be a painting trying to convey movement by any means possible. A painting done quickly is fresh, infintely more interesting and is capable of movement. Actions are fast, angular, sharp, vicious or can be lazy, sensuous and slow yet both create mood and help the –"

I wish I could find out what his conclusions were — if he made any. There was a nice portrait of the friend who spent the day working with him:

There's a great overview of the exhibition, with more pictures, at Creative Review.