Saturday, November 03, 2007

Thanks Due


The excellent Gosh! comic shop on Great Russell Street

Thanks to everyone who turned up for our signing at Gosh! on Thursday night - Ian and I had a terrific time. Particular thanks to all you nice Gosh! staff for looking after us so brilliantly (especially my old mate and collaborator Will Kane for being our minder during the event).

Left: the window display for our signing, including three separate cut-outs.

Gosh! has been a favourite haunt of mine since my days as a spotty fanboy, so it was a genuine pleasure to do a signing there. The signing had been threatened as Ian was forced to delay his arrival in London due to an illness in the family, and my trip home was complicated by a rail strike; but in the end, everything came together. Ian made it in good time, and I made it home without either having to skip out early or suffer excessive delays. My arms are about a foot longer from lugging carrier bags full of books home, though. I thought having Page 45 as my local comic shop might inure me to Gosh!'s charms, but no such luck; that place is just too good...



Above: sample pages from The Murders On The Rue Morgue from the Nevermore anthology
Written by Ian Edginton, drawn by me


The Nevermore launch at the ICA (including a talk on Horror in comics hosted by Paul Gravett) went well; it was great to catch up with old mates and to meet a few new ones; I also had my first chance to see the book. It's an anthology of Edgar Allen Poe adaptations, featuring work by Jamie Delano, Steve Pugh, Shane Oakley, John McCrea and Natalie Sandells as well as Ian and myself.

The cover to the Nevermore anthology, published by Selfmadehero

Though I completed my story back in March, I've held off publishing details here until the book was out. Our segment is an updating of Ur-detective tale The Murders On The Rue Morgue, and it was the first thing I worked on following the first series of Stickleback. Given that the latter was so reliant on digital jiggery-pokery, I decided to do Rue Morgue "straight" - ie no grey tones or effects (except for a couple of bits where I simulated the use of white Letratone). I wanted to see if I could still tell a story as if I were just using pen and ink, and I'm pretty pleased with the results (see above). Working this way forced me to think a lot harder about drawing and composition.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your Rue Morgue work looks awesome! Can't wait to see it in print.

Jayleon said...

It is always nice to see you both at any signings as you are both always happy to talk about your work in such a friendly way (I got sucked in to you talking about colouring your Miracle Man work even when the young chap whose Eclipse comics you seemed less then interested). I recently found on your site, a picture of me at Bristol with the sketch of a Jar of Star Brand Fish Paste you where kind enough to draw me. I look like my 6 year old son did in his "on a steam train with the driver’s hat on" picture.
Gosh, I am such a fanboy :D

Thanks again
Jay

Will Kane said...

Hi Matt,

T'was a pleasure and a privilege to have you both at our humble establishment.

I hope it is not too long before we see you both again.

-WK