Not only can you listen to the podcast of our Secrets and Lies Live show from Cardiff International Comic Expo but now thanks to our sidekick camerman, Matt Pease you can see it in moving pictures. Watch as Chris Lynch, Paul Cornell, Rob Williams, Stuart Tipples, Charlie Adlard and Mike Collins take on the Sidekicks in the comic book news quiz with a twist.

Read more »

Link: http://stuartt1975.wordpress.com/

Welcome to a new series of posts that will showcase sketches I have blackmailed convinced artists to do for me (and you...but mostly me) on my ipad whilst we sit around sharing a beer or two. The choice of sketch is the artists own and all have and will be done on the Art Studio for ipad app. Today's sketch is obviously Batman as drawn by Stuart Tipples.

Read more »

Link: http://www.drawing-monkey.co.uk/

Of all the things I'm looking forward to seeing and doing at The Cardiff International Comic Expo 2011 on 26th February, the unveling of the welsh anthology book, 10thology has to take one of the top spots.

Read more »

Link: http://www.sidekickcomicsuk.com/blogs/blog5.php/2011/01/04/sidekickcast-episode-50-home-aamp-away

For the 50th episode of the Sidekickcast (which you can find here) we wanted to give a little something back to our loyal listeners so we decided to run a competition. I'm not going to tell you what you have to do to win but there is an obvious clue in this post, you'll just have to listen to the show for that. I can tell you what you'll win though; we've got a Boneman avatar branded mug (see my avatar in the right hand corner of this post, that's it) signed by a whole host of comic book creators, including:

Chris Lynch
Jamie McKelivie
Paul Cornell
Anthony Johnston
Kieron Gillen
and
Chris Claremont
If you want to win the mug simply send your answer to either

sidekickcast@sidekickcomicsuk.com

or tweet to @sidekickcast using the hashtag #Iwantamug.

Link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/910305588/the-sleepless-phoenix-comics-anthology

If you're a regular reader of this blog I'm sure you will be aware of our coverage of the untimely fall of Insomnia publications and the fate of the creators and their books. If you need reminding, Chris Lynch has a particularly thorough, personal and heartfelt description of events on his blog or you can read my first optimistic outlook here and then my particularly vitriolic piece here.

Well it's not all bad, as from the ashes of Insomnia rises The Sleepless Phoenix anthology: Survival Stories; a collection of stories from established indy and up-and-coming creators all formerly attached to Insomnia in some way. The story doesn't end there though, in order to get this book published there is a Kickstarter campaign aiming to raise enough money to get the book into print. Michael Moreci, one of the book's creators and instigator of the Kickstarter campaign was kind enough to give us a short interview to tell you what it's all about:

So, tell us about this book The Sleepless Phoenix anthology, how did it come about?

You know, it’s one of those things that developed organically. The creators have been in close contact over the past few weeks, which has been great. We’ve become a collective, more or less, and I say as much on the Kickstarter page.

One of the things we discussed was “well, what now?” I think something that often gets overlooked when you see produced work coming from self-publishing or independent publishing is how deranged the individuals involved really must be (and I mean that jokingly—kind of). You really have to be a tenacious person to put in the work required to put out a book, any book, be it prose, journalism, or comics. There isn’t much money involved. So you’re doing this work on top of whatever you do to provide yourself with income, when you could be spending time with friends, family, or playing X-Box. So you have this group of creators who have just had a substantial part of their lives put on indefinite hold; it’s only natural to find something to fill that void.

But it’s more than that. We all know each other’s work, and we also understood that this was the only material available to us that wasn’t under contract. So releasing the anthology made sense, and we knew exactly what we were getting into because we know each other.

As for me, I was in the fortunate position to have been behind a successful Kickstarter drive just recently with Reading With Pictures (a non-profit organization working to get comics in the classroom). I know how it all works, and what we needed to do in order to be successful (and I had the ability to start the page, which is helpful). We soon realized that the monetary goal we’re after is very reachable, so we decided to go for it.

Read more »

Link: http://www.spexpo.co.uk/

This year's Bristol International Comic and Small Press Expo 21-23 May will be the best so far. A bold statement, I know, but I can back it up. Nevermind the legendary Chris Claremont, Pat Mills, Ramon Bachs, Robin Furth, Paul Cornell, Charlie Adlard, John McCrea, Andy Diggles or Sean Phillips. Don't get too excited by the Eagle Awards 2010, the DC Universe panel, live music from Music Power Cosmic, The Losers panel or Claremont and Davis together again. The only place you need to be is at the Mercure Hotel Saturday 22nd May at 12.00pm for the Signs and Portents panel with Chris Lynch writer of the Markosia hit book; The Dark and hosted by none other than myself and fellow Sidekickcast host Dan Marshall. That's right, we're stepping out from behind the curtain to make a rare appearance in the real world, don't miss out.

Read more »

Link: http://www.thedarkcomicbook.com/

Fairplay I have to give it to Chris Lynch and the guys at Markosia, they're really pushing 'The Dark', a review of which you can hear on this weeks episode of Sidekickcast, it's good to see a UK comic publisher making the most of a new product launch. Good Luck guys it's a great book that if you out there want you could get for free just by following these simple instructions:

From Jan 19th to midnight on January 31st, AAM/Markosia are running a free prize draw to win a copy of 'The Dark' signed by writer Chris Lynch and artist Rick Lundeen.

To enter, all you have to do is tweet our URL http://www.thedarkcomicbook.com from your Twitter account.

Can we make The Dark a trending topic on Twitter? Only time will tell, but everyone who tweets will be entered into the prize draw for a chance to win a signed copy of The Dark. So, don't delay!

Read more »

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoBRC99qn3k

Chris Lynch shameless promotion whore monkey sent me this kick ass trailer for the first issue of his upcoming Markosia book The Dark, check it and jump onboard for what is sure to be a smash hit on itunes later on this month.

Link: http://www.thedarkcomicbook.com

CLICK IMAGE TO EMBIGGEN

The Dark is coming. At least that's what Chris Lynch told us on the Sidekickcast some months ago but slap my thigh and call me Sally if he wasn't telling the truth, I know this because he was kind enough to send me a complete preview of the first issue. The rest of you bums can pick it up August of this year as a digital comic book, via iTunes, with three more issues in the pipeline. A graphic novel is planned for later in the year but if you can't wait for either of those there's a 9 page preview available at http://www.thedarkcomicbook.com.

By this point I'm sure you're all aware of what the Dark is but if not here's a quick rundown from the Markosia Press Release:

The Dark is the story of Daniel Abbot, a brilliant young scientist on the fringes of the establishment and the creator of Memetech - a technology that encodes information and memories into a liquid form, allowing anyone to “drink” the information. Terrified that his invention will be used for military purposes he decides to destroy his research, but not before he takes one last trip ... with
disastrous results.

Read more »