Please check the following blogs for up to date news.

www.strangestoftimes.blogspot.com

www.momentofadventure.blogspot.com

It became too difficult to maintain this extra blog, and Facebook and twitter .. and maybe Instagram .. ah ... Social Media .. ya gotta love it.

AccentUK gets some great coverage in latest Comic Heroes magazine.

Dave West gets interviewed in the Indie Spotlight section of the latest Comic Heroes magazine, for more details pop over to Strange Times.

Victoriana cancellation.

It’s taken a long time for us to finally accept that we will be cancelling what was to be our last themed anthology, Victoriana.

 

When we started these anthologies it was always with a view to getting the artwork of unknown creators in front of a wider audience. There was never any promise of up front payment or back end royalties deal. The idea being that we would work hard getting the books into as many hands as possible and raise the profile of all involved. We continually improved the quality of the books until, back in 2007, ZOMBIES was accepted by Diamond Distribution. Through them the anthology was shipped to comic stores across the globe.

 

However, sales of Anthologies is always a difficult business and a risk for stores. You never know what the quality of all the stories will be, and you really can’t judge such books by the cover. We did however build a reputation for putting out great anthologies.

 

Speaking to a number of retailers in the USA and UK, we were told that only about 10% of their customers would even consider an anthology title. The books were great though and we had healthy enough numbers to satisfy Diamond’s internal review processes and so we were comfortable that we were honouring our promise.

 

We were getting the work of unknown creators in front of a wider audience, helped by some more established names contributing stories or covers.

 

Over the years though the Diamond order has dropped, book by book.

 

Retailers tell us that they can no longer afford to risk to spend their money on anthologies. They are hard pressed to keep up with the the many crossover events or re-launches of the main two publishers.

 

We’ve sat on Victoriana for a while.

 

Hoping for the market to swing back.

 

For Marvel and DC to slow down with their comic book output, or for them to produce less crossovers.

 

But that has proven not to be the case.

 

Any visit to your local comic store will show you that it appears that about 80% of the comics of the walls are Marvel or DC. Image are producing some great titles and between them and Dark Horse that pretty much takes up most of the rest of the shelves.

 

It’s a shame, but the market is driven by the consumer at the end of the day. The comic shops are between the customer and Diamond and they will naturally take the safest course.

 

We are no longer therefore able to honour the promise we make to contributors. We could print a couple of hundred copies and take them to UK shows (they are too heavy to take overseas really) but that isn’t what we were wanting to do.

 

Also our own publishing model has changed as we have realised that customers like an on going character, either in mini-series or on going stories. We found our energy and finances moving in this direction and now have a number of such characters in regular books.

 

We’d like to apologise to all the creators who contributed work, the work is of course yours and you are free to take it to other anthologies (maybe one based in the USA where it will hit a bigger market). I would send out an email to you all but I’ve been through two crashed PCs since we pulled it all together and have lost all the contact details.

 

Accent UK restock of Orbital Comics.

I popped into Orbital Comics on Saturday and had a nice chat with Camilla,
I'm always impressed by the Independent Comics selection in the store, and it's why we are always keen on having our books on sale there.
I'll be periodically refreshing the stock, but left Camilla with three copies of the WesterNoir trade paperback, and three copies of each of the issues of Stephenson's Robot.

2017 Events

I've just updated the EVENTS schedule for 2017, see top left of this Blog for full list... I say 'full' but there's always the chance that more will be added.

Tales of WesterNoir 3

I've just posted news about the next WesterNoir comic over on Strangestoftimes.blogspot.co.uk.

The first event of the year for us will be next weekend's Comic Con in Copenhagen. What a way to start the year.

Recent news and events ...

Pop over to Colin's Blog and my blog for recent news, reviews and event write ups.

Great Stephenson's Robot reviews...

over at Comicsanonymous2015.wordpress.com.

Two new releases from Accent UK.

It's unusual for Accent UK to release two books within a few weeks of each other but that's what's happened with the releases of Colin's Moments Of Adventure and my Stephenson's Robot - issue 3.

Moments of Adventure collects a number of Colin's out of print stories, previously published in Accent UK anthologies. Each tale has been re-lettered and also coloured by either Matt Soffe or  Aljosa Tomic to wonderful effect.
Launched at this weekend's Granite City Comic Con in Aberdeen this is Colin's first published comic for a few years now...

and will be followed by his remastered (and coloured) Zulu, previously printed in two issues.
The Zulu Graphic Novel will also contain a new strip, created specially for the book.
As is traditional now, I've modified a Lego figure to accompany the Moments of Adventure comic.

Stephenson's Robot Issue 3 continues the story of an alternate history steampunk tale, set predominantly in World War 1...

...which as usual will be accompanied by a Tarot card, this time around it's Beauty, to reflect this issue's back story.
And of course a modified Lego figure for the table at Conventions.

Demon Con 11 and Bolton.

I've just posted a report of our first Convention of the year DemonCon11 over at Strange Times.
Our next Convention will be this Saturday at Bolton, hope to see you there.

A review of Who On Earth Was Thaddeus Mist ?

Paul Birch has just posted a very fair and balanced review of our concept anthology, 'Who On Earth Was Thaddeus Mist ?' over at http://targetmediawebs.wix.com/comic-time.
Thanks Paul.

2016 - Convention dates.

The dates for the 2016 Convention schedule have been added to the blog, on the right -->
Great to include some new venues in with the favourites from last year.

WesterNoir Issue 1 is now available through Comixology.

I've updated the Accent UK website to reflect this fact by including the logo at the bottom right hand corner of the WesterNoir #1 image.

As we put more up there I'll do the same for the other issues, and comics.
If you'd like to pop over and order a copy then here are the links for UK and US.

WesterNoir issue 5 review.

Jeremy Briggs has posted his review for Issue 5 up over at DownTheTubes.net and is enjoying how things are moving along.
Both this and the latest issue, Issue 6, will be available at this year's Thought Bubble (this weekend) along with a limited number of sketch packs of what we call 'The First Season', which includesv WesterNoir issues 1 to 4 and Tales of WesterNoir issue1.
We hope to see you there and chat about Josiah Black and his world.

The Troll gets a great spotlight...

over on Broken Frontier, it's great that Martin's wonderful little comic is receiving the focus that it deserves.

Martin Flink's The Troll gets reviewed by Page45.

Stephen Holland has posted a great review of The Troll over at www.page45.com.

Our last MCM event of the year reviewed.

I've just posted my report on the London MCM event over on Strangestoftimes.blogspot.co.uk.

MCM London.

These weekend, well actually Friday as well, Accent UK will be at the MCM event in London's Excel, Royal Victoria Doc.
We've had a great time at previous events and met a lot of new people along with those returning to the stall for the next issue of WesterNoir or Stephenson's Robot. The good news is that WesterNoir issue 6 will be available for the first time as I'll be receiving copies on Wednesday from our printer Stuart Gould.

I've seen the proof copy and it looks great.

We will also have a limited number of sketches from the series co-creator, co-writer and artist Gary Crutchley that will be free with the WesterNoir issues 1-4 plus Tales of WesterNoir #1 multi-packs.

Vampire Free Style in Previews.

I don't often plug the work of others on the Accent UK blog, or my own, as I come across so many good comics and I know that I'd miss someone out and offend them.
But there's always the exception to every rule.
Jenika Ioffreda is one of the hardest working comic creators working in the UK, and one of life's genuinely good people.
Great news then that he collected Vampire Free Style is in this month's PREVIEWS catalogue from Diamond Distribution, which is what comic stores use to order comics for their store.
Now, just because it's in there doesn't mean that your local comic store is bound to order a batch. Sadly comic stores cannot afford to spend much on comics that aren't part of the latest Marvel crossover event or DC reboot, so if you want to get a copy then you'll need to make sure that your local comic store is aware of the fact, and orders a few copies in.
Here's Jenika's flier for reference, which quotes the Diamond code, to make it as easy as possible for you...

You'll thank me for pointing it out to you once you've read it...

Illuminating Blackpool.

Yesterday we spent a strange day at Blackpool's first Comic Con.

Set in the impressive Winter Gardens, it meant an early start and despite the rain, a fallen tree and the one way system in Blackpool's city centre, we did manage to get to the venue, with our stock, in plenty of time.

The challenge though was once inside, where exactly was our table ?
In our experience first events are always a bit of a mess when it comes to the logistics and this one proved no exception. Scott and I wandered around the main hall looking for our table whilst Colin queued for passes and Event programme.
Turns out there was no programme but by the time Colin returned with the passes, I'd located our table...

...it was on the upper balcony.
Which brought the usual concerns about the people down below being unaware that we were even there. A few hand made notices stuck to the handrails on the bottom of the stairs was the best that could be done really.
We're past masters at setting up the table with our books these days and had done so within 10 minutes or so, which left time for me and Colin to have a wander and see what the event had to offer people.
Lots, is the short answer. The event sprawled across floors, down corridors into Galley themed rooms...

and into more corridors and little side rooms, all of which provided potential customers with the chance to buy anything from themed cup cakes to wrestling merchandise via signatures of minor actors from Star Wars (mainly).
And it left us even more worried that people could wander around all day and never actually know we were there, let alone find us.
The things in our favour however were that the organisers had put all the comic people upstairs (and it was great to bump into Mike Garley again) and the fact that there were a reported 8000 tickets sold.

I think it took about an hour after the doors had opened before we saw the first people make it up to the balcony and about another hour before we sold our first comic.
We didn't have a good feeling about this being one of our better Cons.
But then at around 2pm it started getting pretty busy. We started to get interested customers, having good chats with them and started selling a good number of comics.

The venue certainly consumed the number of people who managed to buy tickets and also seemed to have scope to expand. It's a very large venue with plenty of side rooms, and the actually space that was being used wasn't being used to its full potential.
We had a good day all told. Met a lot of nice people, chatted to them about our books and about comics and the comics industry in general, got some nice feedback and sold a good number of books.

And Judge Anderson bought a copy of Strange Times - Book 1...

...which isn't something I ever thought I'd say.
I think we'd go back if they decide to hold another event, Whilst there were some criticisms I get the feeling that the majority of people enjoyed themselves and we certainly met enough new customers to make it worthwhile. The danger is that it'll become a 2 day event which increases our costs significantly. Time, and maybe the Minions, will tell.