Thought Bubble 2026 and Bury Con

My application to the 2026 Thought Bubble, under my new 4D Comics company, has been accepted which is great news.

I've been at these events since they started in Leeds Town Hall many many years ago, as part of either AccentUK or TimeBomb Comics. It'll be strange doing this as 4D Comics but I'll have the usual support from Jemma and Gary so all is good.

Also, we've been accepted at the Bury event on the 28th June.

It's getting nice and busy.

POWER Con

Steve and I really enjoy our trips to Glasgow for the POWER and ACME events.

Well organised, easy to find and park at, a good number of people coming through the doors, friendly staff... what more could you ask for.

It's a long drive, which includes a slight diversion to pick up Steve Tanner in Brum and this year another detour to drop off Quantum 13 stock at the Diamond UK warehouse in Warrington. 

But it's worth it.

Stopping off at Tebay services (up and down) is always an added bonus, and breaks the journey up nicely.

We had good sales, lots of chats and it was great to have a customer who bought our black and white version of the WesterNoir Book One TPB come to the table to pick up Book Two.

And I managed to find a restaurant that did Crumble.

Of course, there was the slight embarrassment when Steve had to check out the Things... errr.. thing.

You really can't take him anywhere.

Emma Munday cover titles...

My go-to designer, Andy Bloor, has sorted out the titles for the book now. 

And I'm very happy with what he's done. It feels nice and sci-fi-ish.

I just need to finish writing it now 😊

And then when it's printed I'll have a little pile of them, looking a bit like this...

One day...

Comics Assemble!

Shane Chebsey is trying something new. 

A new convention that is aimed at keeping costs down as much as possible, and also hopefully attract a good number of potential customers.

Free with each table booked you get 10 free tickets, which you can sell for the £10 or give away, and then another 10 if needed. This is aimed at getting the creators to help raise the profile of the event but advertising the tickets to all of their readers. 

It's not a bad idea and worth a try... and worth supporting.

So, I have a table.

You can find out more over at Comics Assemble.

Emma Munday - First Impressions

When my daughter Jemma was about 5 and I was reading her a bed time story, probably a Roald Dahl book, I thought to myself. 

"Wouldn't it be cool if I wrote her a book myself."

And so, every year I picked up Emma Munday's first story and added a bit. And changed the bit that I'd already written.

The trouble is that most of my free time was spent writing comic book stories or colouring in pages of artwork for comic books I'd written.

The years passed.

This year I am determined to finish it and commissioned Ian Ashcroft to do me a wraparound cover image.

I'm very happy with the result.

Yes, it's a science fiction story.

Yes, although it took me years to write Book 1 I have the next 3 books already planned in my head.

The next step is to get my go-to designer Andy Bloor to work out the title fonts etc.

Oh, and for me to finish the book of course.

And my editor, my daughter Jemma (and no, I didn't hold this up until she was old enough to edit the book I wrote for her... I really don't plan that far ahead) will then make it better 😆

It never rains but it pours.

An interesting start to the year, not in a good way.

When I got back from my Mum's after XMas I was confronted with a damp patch on the ceiling in the dining room.

The dining room that Jemma and I had decorated only last year.

The position of the leak pointed at the loo in the bathroom above.

Turns out that my cistern had fractured due to the cold weather,, it happens apparently.

To make matters even worse the previous owner of the house had boxed the cistern in, so to replace it would require breaking the tiles.

The plumber was pretty good though and took all of this in his stride.

It's amazing seeing someone work who knows what he's doing and has all the right tools. 

It took him all morning, he had to pop out and get some wood at one point in order to put the new tiles in to replace the ones he had had to destroy. The only bit of good news was that we found some spare tiles under the bath.

Yep.

Not a great start to the year.

An unexpected expense.

But great to have the bathroom back and working again.

I just need to let everything dry out thoroughly now and then I'll paint the ceiling downstairs.

The 42nd Post.

Not sure what to say this year really. 

It's been tough one.

After losing my younger sister at the end of 2024, I helped my Mum through her chemo treatment for Breast Cancer this year but after getting through that (and it was really tough) my Dad died. We were with him in the hospital when he passed, which was very difficult but important as I believe he knew we were with him at the end.

Everything else kind of falls into insignificance.

The comics that have been a mainstay in my life, and helped get me through a number of things in the past, have helped again.

Having something creative to focus on has been really important.

The day job is all well and good, keeping me to a regular schedule of waking, working and sleeping but it's not where my passion lies. Writing comics, seeing the magic artists create from my words, chatting with other creators and readers... it all helps more than a lot of people will probably believe. 

I'm focussing more on WesterNoir at the moment and have even written issue 1, plus a few bits from the WesterNoir Tales, as a novella. My daughter Jemma, co-creator of Cassidy McRae, is currently editing it. It has been a much more difficult experience than writing comic scripts but I quite enjoyed the challenge. I'm not sure I'm ready for the feedback though, but I'll take it positively. Jemma has edited a lot of my work now and it's always the better for it.

I'm also working on something new with Joseph Parangue, the artist on the first Cassidy McRae story plus a few other things here and there (SCAR and a WesterNoir Tale being things that you will have seen). I'm keeping it a little quiet at the moment but I'm sure I'll let it slip out over a pint or two at the end of a convention day.

Kia Wordsmith is picking up again after Ian Ashcroft's absence, due to his amazing work with Pat Mills on Hellbreaker - Fire in the Blood. It's been a while since I've focussed on Kia so this week (before heading back to the day job) I'm going to endeavour to flesh out most of the script, at a high level at least. Kia is central to all of my stories  set in the 'Westiverse' (as we call it) and links Stephenson's Robot to WesterNoir, so I want to do her justice.

Well, all the best to everyone in 2026. 

There's a lot going on on the world stage that we have no control over, all we can do is be respectful of others that we meet in our day to day life and hope that the powers that be don't make a mess of doing the same.