Riot Grrrl Book Project: Hot Topic Trading Cards

The brilliant Julia Scheele (69 Love Songs, Illustrated/I Don't Like My Hair Neat/Metroland) is putting together a zine to celebrate Riot Grrrl, the radical independent music and publishing movement.
As part of the project I'd like to produce a trading card set made up of the 57 people named in the Le Tigre song Hot Topic.




All of the names have been assigned now but if you would like to go onto a standby list in case someone pulls out please drop me a line at - 
halvesnewts@gmail.com Cheers! Steve

Pitch a strip to Your Days Are Numbered.

Next month's Process (June 2014) will welcome the team from Your Days Are Numbered, who will talk about putting the magazine together and how they work with comic creators in terms of assembling reviews, interviews, features and strips.
In July the YDAN team will also be putting together a gallery show at Orbital Comics and an anthology, both entitled When Will The Creeps Meet, and will give attendees to next month's session the chance to pitch an idea for a strip that could end up in the anthology.
Have a look at their outline and brief -

OVERVIEW
Your Days Are Numbered is a quarterly comics and graphics pop-culture magazine that interviews creators from in and around the industry about their work, influences, and creative processes. We also feature reviews, features, and cartoons from creators such as Krent Able, Shaky Kane, Mazen Kerbaj, Tom Scioli, and Alex Schubert.

BRIEF
We're publishing a graphic story collection called When Will The Creeps Meet to coincide with an upcoming exhibition of the same name. So, as part of our Process panel, we'd like you to come up with a short, A5 b&w story that features an unnamed transmission (based loosely on the UVB-76 broadcast) and pitch it to us. In what capacity the transmission is featured is up to you, it can be central to the narrative or in the background, it can be weird, or a slice of life, the story is your own. Only stipulation is that you don't explain it, that is already being dealt with. Your story should also feature a cockroach somewhere, as this is another motif appearing throughout the collection, and again this is up to you where, why and how.    
In terms of page count, space is an issue but we'd rather hear a four page idea that is sick than a stilted one page idea. We can work round it if its good enough, but 1-4 pages is the range we're after.    

PITCH
You will have between 2-4 minutes (depending on how many people pitch) to tell us your idea. We would like you to tell us about your idea, outline the narrative, show us some very rough ideas (emphasis on rough, chances are the finished piece will be different from the original pitch) and any examples of previous finished work in the style you will be using. The story should be original and unpublished. In all it should be interesting, map out the total idea, and you should sell us on your idea. You should also be prepared to answer questions from the panel following the pitch, and don't worry, if we run out of time at Gosh we'll finish it in the John Snow. 

NOTES
We would like to take the best pitch(es), work with you and publish it in the collection if possible. Remember this is an exercise in pitching rather than finished work and ability, so the pitch will be what our final decision is based on. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop us an email, we can't help you with story ideas, but if you want anything explained then fire away.

Comics Are My Rock And Roll

Daniel Baldwin is a film-maker who has spent three years putting together a love letter to DIY culture in the Small Press scene with his documentary film Comics Are My Rock And Roll.
It follows the efforts of a band of inspirational comickers and zinesters as they attempt to build from scratch an International Small Press Fair in London.
Daniel has completed filming and just requires funding for the post-production work so the film will be ready to be released.
Here's the trailer -




And here's another clip where Daniel tells part of the story using a comic -


Comics Are My Rock And Roll: Intro sequence from Daniel James Baldwin on Vimeo.

It looks to be a tremendous film, especially if you have any interest in comics.
Daniel has set up a Kickstarter here so do back it if you can so that we can all celebrate people making wonderful things whether they are comics, festivals or films about comic festivals.

Process # 5 Optional Exercise: Make a Zine!

In honour of International Zine Month it would be nice to see what people can cook up over the next couple of weeks in the way of a zine to bring along to the next Process meetup.To keep it simple the brief is to make a black and white comic entirely by hand.No colour, no computers and no collaborators.The most advanced technology you should need is a long arm stapler to put it together!(The use of photocopiers to reproduce the finished work is also acceptable...)Any subject, any size, any style is acceptable.

Artist Required!

Writer John Dunning has got in touch to try and find an artist for a new project he's working on.
John has been published before by Walker Books, with 'Salem Brownstone'.










He says -

I am just completing a long form comic script and I'm after a very particular type of artist to realise it - the spread below is the kind of style I'm looking for. It would be colour, and quite realistic, but with a definite style - I really like the architectural and design element of these pages too. Very cinematic - think Rosemary's Baby meets Hitchcock. The styles of Sean Phillips or Frazer Irving are a good guide. The genre of the piece is crime, with a twist of Noir, and is set in contemporary North London. The idea is for for the artist to work up a few pages as a part of the proposal that my agent will then submit to publishers, so it's not too labour intensive. Ideally this would be a young British artist as I'd like to be able to work closely with them.

Wu Wei

'Wu Wei' is an anthology of comics themed around spirituality that has been organised by Mike Medaglia and features an incredible selection of comics talent including Elliot Baggot, Richy K. Chandler, Francesca Dare, Matthew Duncan, David Ziggy Greene, Howard Hardiman, Tim Hassan, Kripa Joshi, Zarina Liew, Lizz Lunney, Tanya Meditzky, Adam Murphy, Owen D. Pomery, A.J. Poyiadgi, Alex Potts, Emmeline Pui Ling Dobson, John Riordan, Kimika Sweeney, Christian Ward and Aneurin Wright.

The book itself is a mix of strips, stories and illustrations, like this stunner from Christian Ward -

The first 100 pre-orders will get a free bookplate from this amazing selection -

Including these beauties from Christian -

Zarina -

Elliot -




And Richy -

Dan Berry: Make It Then Tell Everybody

Dan Berry makes excellent comics, has a website that showcases how he makes excellent comics and has a podcast that talks to people about how THEY make excellent comics.