First couple of reviews are in for ‘Talking To Strangers‘. Very positive reviews so far, with minimal negative critique. That’s always great with an Anthology, as it’s a very hit-or-miss project to take on.

First of all, I’d like to say that this anthology exhibits something I love to see in comics: a writer who obviously works closely with the artists illustrating their work. The style and presentation of each story in this anthology clearly matches the content, and the artists have obviously been given room to let their own story-telling styles influence the flow of each piece. I’d be tempted to say it’s worth picking up Talking to Strangers for this fact alone, but that would cut the review a bit short! – Paul Duffield
# read more

You should really check out Paul’s recent blog post about his Cover Process here. It’s well worth the read.

The book’s strengths actually lie in its varied nature. Each story is unique in the kind of story it tells as well as the style with which it is executed. Where one story is chilling, another might be celebratory. Where one functions as fable, another runs toward parable. The author shows range and invention and with one exception the collection is an easy and fun read, by turns thrilling and sweet and tragic. – Seth Hahne
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On a totally off-topic side note, my sister recommended I listen to Bon Iver and I’ve really been getting into his work. Check it out while you read the reviews.

I wanted to sum up the event, but so much had happened that I feel a little overwhelmed every time I try to put it all into words. Let me just run through the highlights.

London Expo, quite honestly, Rocked! I always look forward to this event, but this year more so, as it marked the release of my new book, Talking To Strangers, which is now available to buy online.

The Artists Vs. Writers showdown was fantastic fun, with us Writers coming out on top, surprisingly by beating the Artist’s at Pictionary, no less! We received equal points for the word game Taboo, mind you. I hope they do it again next year. Not sure they’d invite the same teams again, but I’ll definitely be around to watch it! Quick Edit: Nana took some photos of the Showdown here.

Didn’t really buy much this year. Picked up a copy of Morris The Mankiest Monster by Sarah McIntyre, because we like her a lot and her artwork is always worth owning! Got a copy of Derek the Sheep signed by Gary Northfield, a very nice guy with a wonderful sense of humour. It shows in his work. From the Sweatdrop table, I grabbed Selina’s latest titles, ‘Sunny’s Field’ and ‘Bellringers 2′ (not yet available online, but hey, did you know she launched a new webcomic? Go check it out!)

Finally got round to picking up a copy of Nana’s new book, Twelfth Night (did I ever get round to mentioning that Faye’s book, The Merchant of Venice, was out too? … I didn’t?!? *shock-horror* I should be shot!!).

Caught up with Paul and wrangled a signature out of him on a couple of artbooks. Lovely work, as always! How I wish he’d release a new comic both written and illustrated by him. It’s been too long dude!! … Quizzed Kate with regards to when her collected book, The Spider Moon, will be officially released. It’s fairly soon, so keep an eye out. It will be in HARDCOVER!! I’m quite excited about that.

What else? … Oh, never had this happen to me before – Had a gentleman recognise my name off my badge, turned out to be a Clarence Principle fan and seemed genuinely excited to learn that I had a new book out. Nice guy, called Ennis I believe? Gosh, hope I got your name right dude! I suck at remembering names.

I’ve had people walk up to the Sweatdrop table many times to tell me how much they enjoyed Clarence before, but those were people who actually came looking for me. This time round, it’s been a varied mix of people returning the next day after reading the new book to tell me how much they loved it! Wasn’t expecting feedback that soon. Great feeling, that.

Due to carrying a lot of books to the event, I wasn’t able to bring my camera along. So instead, here are some photos from Joanna’s camera that both her and I took. Also, have a link to Flickr with a collection of everyone else’s photos!

The latest Sweatdrop Podcast is out. Always worth a listen for fun and giggles. A little drinking game for you: Take a shot every time someone says “Yes” XD see how long you last.

Emma Vieceli has launched Dragon Heir: Reborn – totally redrawn and available as a webcomic online.

Also, I’ve been invited to take part in a fun event at the upcoming London Expo on Sunday 25th, 14:00-14:40. Details follow –

Expo showdown – Writers Vs Artists

The concept: Two teams of 5. One team of Writers and one team of Artists. Two rounds. One Pictionary and one Taboo. You see where we’re going with this! We’ll finally find out who is in fact better. Writers or artists!

The Writers: Tony Lee, Antony Johnston, Kieron Gillen, Andy Diggle and Fehed Said

The Artists: Dan Boultwood, Ben Templesmith, Jamie McKelvie, Jock and Faye Yong

Should be a laugh, especially Pictionary. My Art Skillz!! Come, let me show you them XD

A great big Thank You goes out to all the artist’s involved and to those who helped with the DTP side of things. But especially to my girl Faye, for her support and hard work throughout the project. What follows is a straight cut and paste of a prepared press release.

PR: A girl trapped in a box, a boy chained to a rock and a friendship between a child and a flower. These are just a few of the themes that storyteller Fehed Said explores in this collection. Joining Fehed Said, the acclaimed writer behind SLG’s Clarence Principle, and Sonia Leong, the award winning artist behind SMH’s Romeo & Juliet is a sterling lineup of the UK’s best new talent. Featuring artwork from Nana Li, Wing Yun Man, Chloe Citrine and Faye Yong.

“It was such a varied mix of stories” says Said. “When I was trying to come up with the title for the book, I wanted to find a connection between them all. Evidently, the critical moments in each piece came up as the protagonist’s talked with strangers.”

Nana Li was the artist for ‘Box’, and sums up that story as: “It’s a short and dark story, but I think the ending will leave a tingling sensation in the spine.” The same could certainly be said about the reading experience of this title. From the morbid fairy-tale style ‘Malignant’ and the sweetness of ‘Flowers’; this anthology showcases a variety in storytelling and artistic talent.

Talking To Strangers is due for release on 24th October 2009 at the London MCM Expo and available to buy online from the Sweatdrop Studios website.

Just yesterday, I had finally completed the first draft script of a new book I’m putting together. I’ve never printed out my scripts before, and was excited to see how it would look on paper. Came out to about 91 pages in total. That’s about standard for a script, I believe. There is an artist attached to this since last January and work starts on the project in October. I’m afraid however, that nothing more will be aired until the first quarter of 2010.

I’d been talked into publishing it online while we shop it around. I normally shy away from putting full projects on the web, but the Pro’s outweighed the Con’s in this particular case. I’ve considered doing this using episodes, similar to Freakangels, primarily because this is not a webcomic and a page-a-day release just doesn’t pack enough punch, in my opinion, nor do the flow of the story justice. I do like this new episodic trend and hope more people pick it up!

Faye ran through half of the script last night proofing it for me and as I occasionally glanced over her shoulder, I realised some of the earlier dialogue may need tweaking. It never ends! The last scene was rewritten about 5 times in my head, then 3 times on paper. I found myself stuck at one point going forward because the moment I was on just read horribly wrong.

I had to take it in steps and literally reverse engineer the scene, almost like looking for bugs in programming code, until I found the dialogue that started the downward spiral in the first place. Once I made the cut from that point on, I was able to rewrite the scene and finish it.

It always feels really strange reaching the end of scripting out a story. It’s hard to explain. Really, it’s merely the beginning of the project, but to hold the full story in my hands, when just a mere 10 months ago it was all notes and pieces of dialogue inside my head, gives me a sense of pride. For now, this is the first goal on a long ‘to-do’ list. I’ll enjoy this moment while it lasts.

A few weeks back, I’d reached a critical moment in the script, on a scene that I had been planning to write for months. It’s a turning point in the character’s psyche, but a difficult one to capture and wasn’t at all sure how to tackle it. I punched out the scene, tweaked it a few times and believed that I’d executed it well enough to pass it on to the artist for feedback.

The artist felt the character was contradicting himself. Unsure what his motivation behind this sudden random act in the scenario, left her feeling unsettled.

I’d considered this myself in the past and had at one point intended on coming back to this moment in a scene later in the story and allow the character to explain himself, but after more thought, I felt it unnecessary.

I was ready to compromise, however, and had set aside some time to tackle the dialogue in that later scene to discuss the ‘random act’ situation.

Reading through my book one evening, I came across a rather insightful passage that I shared with the artist a week later. It read -

Generally, the more the writer nails motivation to specific causes, the more he diminishes the character in the audience’s mind. Rather, think through to a solid understanding of motive, but at the same time leave some mystery around the whys, a touch of the irrational perhaps, room for the audience to use its own life experience to enhance your character in its imagination.

# Robert McKee

So it seems I was on the right track after all. I was filled with a new found confidence that I do actually know what I’m doing. However, I was still in the wrong as well.

I had failed to explain my character’s motivations to the artist. Of course it all makes sense to me, I know all the intricate details of my character’s every thought. Failure to communicate that to the artist is an amateur mistake.

I usually convey these things verbally, rather than put them in the script. Obviously, it all might have made more sense if she had the full story from beginning to end, but as it is a work in progress, you should always bare the details. It falls under the same principle as a Director explaining the character’s motivation to an Actor.

The conflicts we put our characters through often rely on some form of life-experience. As the artist said to me, “that was a case where I didn’t have any real life experience of my own which I could superimpose on the situation, so it just didn’t make sense.”

I don’t like spoon-feeding the audience, but at the same time, I don’t want to be far too obscure. There lies the problem.

I believe the answer is to understand your audience. But that’s a discussion for another day.