Link: http://simonwyatt.blogspot.com/

It's that time of week again, for our latest pub pad sketch we're highlighting an artist whose work youwill have seen befire on theis site, Simon Wyatt. The choice of sketch is the artists own and all have and will be done on the Art Studio for ipad app.

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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.

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Today I am pleased to announce another Sidekick exclusive, Simon Wyatt's OGN Unbelievable - The Man Who Ate Daffodils has been picked up by Markosia.

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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.

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Direct Download of Interview

Just one more short interview left from BICS 2009 (please excuse the sound quality as this was done on the convention floor right at the height of Sunday morning), this time from Bearded Skull Comics. Jamie Lambert and Dave Clifford; two of the nicest men in comics presenting the third issue of Dexter's Half Dozen which covers the exploits of a kick ass commando squad going up against Occult Nazi forces during World War II. Sound good? Well it is and well worth going back and picking up the first two issues, I'm sure if you contact the guys at their Facebook group they'll be able to help get your hands on them.

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