If you prefer you can download the pdf here.
My unending gratitude to Matt and John Yuan (deputy publishers of 1First Comics) who volunteered way back on issue 1 to proofread (off the back of a plaintive twitter plea) and ending up both being great proofreaders and even better editors - constantly encouraging and giving little notes that never alter the fabric of the story but always help.
Stories this issue:
Notifications, Memories of War, Cold Caller, The Civil War, The Monster, Sign Unseen, Ghosts.
A4 Issue Four Notes!
Gah, two stories with War in the title. So annoying. Hadn't spotted it until now, but there it is. It will be my eternal shame.
There were two things drilled in to me from English lessons in secondary school (which I did rather enjoy, I loved writing, and was told to apply for O-Levels early, so I did, and then I didn't do any work because I was fundamentally lazy - so failed it) anyway, the two things: never use the word got/gotten (I think this was my teachers personal bugbear, with teenagers writing "I got given a book then got a clip round the there and got out of there, before he got me" even I'm uncomfortable seeing the word "got" in anything I write) and never repeat a word if you can help it (obvious "I", "and" and so on are all fine). So two wars. Not good. Am annoyed. (Should point out, this is entirely a quirk of my own making!)
From hereon in there will likely be spoilers!
I had planned on a halloween all horror special - or at least as best as I'm able, but of course, I couldn't quite come up with every single story as a horror, so let's start with the least horror like story:
Notifcations
I suppose this and Ghosts share a very common through line, rejection and knowing the person who rejected you never even thinks of you. For a full exploration of this idea, watch the amazing "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind".
Memories of War
There's a lot going on in the world, and much of it can be traced back so far that you'll never find the beginning point (hello from Northern Ireland!) - and the question is, if everyone lost their memories would those wars still continue. (this story optimistically says we'd all stop, I have a horrible feeling we wouldn't)
Cold Caller
Phew! Lighter fair! Actually there's a different story that uses the same sort of idea (the no-hawkers caveat that many people have at their door) I've been sitting noodling as a short comic for a few years (how many? oh man, it's embarrassing to tell - but let's say I first thought of it pre-pandemic) it would be far too long to do as one of these stories, so this slightly different version of it popped in to my head.
I am pretty proud of that title though, it came late - after I'd written a bunch of the stories and I was thinking "gah, now i need a title" and ping! there it was!
I did want to do stuff that was just a smidge lighter than last issue, because I've been told some of this stuff is DARK. I think of it all in the abstract, words on paper rather than real monsters. But we're haunted by the real and the imaginary, I suppose.
The Civil War
I saw a writer (a good writer; it'll be a good book) talking their new Zombie book and it got me thinking, that zombie stories tend to be the ultimate "yeah of course I was the assehole prepping for the end of the world, and look, I WAS RIGHT" and I thought "what if instead of it being zombies, it's that everyone was just really really nice to each other ... oh... those asseholes wouldn't change..."
The Monster
I'll be honest, andI bet readers can tell, I shoehorned frankenstien in too this (because I wanted monsters, dammit)
Here's my orginal story idea from the apple notes app:
He had fragmented himself, Pumping his entire written and audio corpus through AI Large Language Models, and created an army of bots, one for each of the balkanised social media platforms. And he was finally free. Free to get on with work.
Is it better? it might be.
Sight Unseen
This could be policitical satire, I suppose. In the hands of a better writer. Instead it's simply a piece of fiction.
Ghosts
Gotta be honest, I just loved the shape and sound of the story. I love that it works on a couple of levels. It pretty much came out fully formed, and so short. Honestly this is the joy of these shorts, there's not an ounce of fat on the idea, there's no point trying to extend it, and there's a sort of poetic quality to it. Anyway, might be one of my favs.
Hope you enjoy it, I would love to know what you think - you can fire me off an email to pjholden at gmail dot com if you like!
Sometimes, when I’ve got a war comic on the hop, I’ll create a file for reference and drop ref in to it, using clip studio’s 3d tools I’ll download a 3d model (using sketchfab.com) I’ll bring it in to clip studio and render it out as a couple of useful angles and then I’ll use that as the basis for the pencilling (I’ll copy and paste the ref gun into the page and make it a pencil layer and ink over it)
IT’S A CHEAT!
Hey ho, decided to come back and mull over patreon. I think I can think of a way to make it work – Monday will be a look back, I’ll find something old and post it up – usually the lineart, sometimes the pencils. This will be for level one patreons.
Friday will be more interesting, I think. Friday will be “The Week So far” – I’ll drop bits and pieces of what I’ve been working on. This will be for higher level patreons.
My plan is to set two patreon levels – $2 and $5 (and maybe $10 for you billionaires out there, determined to spend all your money supporting artists)
This new way of using Patreon will start in September – that’s when the tiers change. (and there will be tears)
Before then I’ll start to build the muscle memory/habit of shoving interesting things up here maybe with a Friday update – available to every level of Patreon, so you can see what you’re getting.
Look, thanks for sticking with me, if that’s what you’ve done (and apologies if you just haven’t been paying attention and the whole thing has happened without you realising)
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make Patreon afford to pay me to make comics, so instead I’m gonna use it as a little window into my work-life here.
(Clearly, I’m not in a position to have to ponder the ethical questions of what would I do if substack offered me $100k to do a comics newsletter, but until patreon do the same thing, I think I’ll be very happy to make a nice even $100 per month off here…)
This is the entire black and white art from the Judge Dredd story three kings by Kenneth Neimand… you may have missed it.
I designed the robots to look like the rock ’em sock ’em robot, a point missed by a number of common taters who suggested they just didn’t look very interesting (a fair point, next time I’ll be less subtle about it)
Struggled with the inking on this, and ended up starting with pen and paper and almost immediately went all digital. Sometimes it’s a struggle.
Gosh, I’m amazed some people have stuck around. I guess you’ve probably forgotten this is even a thing, patreon slowly leaching money out of your account and over to here, where I’ve rudely not posted anything for some time.
I guess the big problem is having things to post, but, you know what… if you can keep a secret, what I think I’ll start doing is posting work that I’m in the middle of here. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PUT ANY OF THIS OUT IN TO THE WILD! Cheers
It’s all gonna be here for you. This is from an idea that a writer pal and I were bouncing around. It wen’t nowhere (pandemic took over).
Maybe it’ll be resurrected at some later date. Who knows. Any way. Get ready for weekly updates…
My youngest son has introduced me to Junji Ito how does a magnificent line in existential dread and horror, so I’ve been playing with that with a view to seeing what I can do in short one page form. I’ve written ideas for two other things done, but here’s the only one I’ve fully written, drawn and lettered. Hope you like!
Was asked by Gav Thorpe to do some illos for some rpg characters he was playing with on a Dredd game. Here’s one!
We’ve decided to stop (well, this is more on me than John). Monster Macs has been fun, but much more work than the folklore stories and a bought of illness (I’ve IBS which will flare up occasionally but has recently stolen over a week from me) means we’re (ok, I am) getting much more behind that I would have wanted.
By way of apology, I’ve uploaded a pdf the folklore thursday stories.
We’ll still be looking for a home for monster macs, and, hopefully a publisher interested in investing for us to work on it.
For now, I just want to say thank you.
If you download the file, and cancel your patreon you should save yourself a little bit of cash.
Hopefully you’ll continue to enjoy whatever work John and I put out, you can see me on twitter.
“At last we reveal ourselves to the jedi…”
Here we go, finally we see our bigfoot! Hope it’s been worth the wait!
Hope your xmas was safe & peaceful to, and my gosh I think we deserve a calm and peaceful 2021 (it’s not starting out like it, but fingers crossed, right?)
