Victoriana will be our last themed anthology for a while...

I announced this on the ''Accent UK Comics'' Facebook Group a few days ago...

'Sadly, I need to announce, I guess due to the current economic climate (which is hitting comic retailers as it is everybody else), we have been experiencing ever decreasing orders for our anthologies.
The idea of the anthologies was always to get the work of contributors as far and wide as possible, but with falling orders from stores this commitment isn't really being honoured, and so we've decided to stop publishing themed anthologies for a while.
Not an easy decision as we really enjoy pulling them together and selling them at Cons but a decision we've had to make.
So, Victoriana which is in the works, will be the last for a while which means that Vikings won't be published I'm afraid. Apologies to those with stories already in production.
This does not effect any of our other books in production, it just means that we'll be focussing more on the one shots and mini-series for a while ... and of course Thaddeus Mist which is looking jaw droppingly good'.

This move is not something that we've wanted to take, but is a reflection on the tough times we are all facing and also the success of events such as DC's 52. You just need to walk into stores around the country to see shelves packed with titles from 52, wander in a week later and you'll see that a lot of them have sold. This leaves shops with little cash to spend on books that will sit on the shelves a little longer. All understandable.
As mentioned in the Facebook posting, we will continue with the many one shots and mini-series in production, as well as the awesome Who On Earth Was Thaddeus Mist ?, with the focus on getting more readership which will then hopefully result in more interest in our other books, including anthologies.
Also, as mentioned in the KAPOW!! posting, these books do sell very well at Cons and we get plenty of customers, who have bought one before, coming up to us to buy more. We just need the retailers to stock them, if they don't then the non-convention-going-population won't see them. Hopefully smaller, cheaper, books will be more attractive and will continue to see healthy numbers through Diamond.
We are getting good interest in digital versions of our books through LUSH Comics, but as with printed copies, the percentage of cover price that actually gets back to us is not that high, and whilst this is a growing outlet for our books, it certainly is nowhere near encouraging us to replace paper with digital comics as a viable step to take.

My Maker and I.

There has been a fair bit of activity of late concerning one of our future publications, titled My Maker & I. Written by regular Accent UK anthology contributor, Owen Johnson.



The Concept :-
'In a land where imagination can take physical form, one faithless preacher man walks alone. After a woman from the stars crash-lands in his path, these two most impossible of companions journey together through a perilous landscape in order to confront The Administrator – a mysterious and powerful figure who they believe responsible for society’s collapse. Through Neverland Mall and into The Library At World’s End, The Pilgrim and Eve – along with Toto the Gecko from Mars – travel to discover what rot lies at the heart of their planet. It is there that they will discover what they truly believe in'.



The art:-

As you can see from the above image it's going to be a full colour book, with art from the very talented Dan Duncan brought to even greater life through the colouring efforts of Matt Soffe. Andy Bloor has stepped in to do the lettering, which leaves myself to do a very easy job as Editor, as it's all coming together better than I could have hoped. This is gonna be one hell of a book :o)

A Preview of the book has been posted exclusively over on the Tales From The Parent's Basement website, so pop over have a look and leave a comment. We're very interested in your views.

There's also a Facebook Group that you are welcome to join and keep up to date with progress. We're also looking to use this to show of some of the processes behind to book, have some competitions and more as we get closer to the launch date.

Other news:-

I'm still waiting on a few ZOMBIES 2 contributions, please send me an update if you haven't already done so. If I've not heard from you by the end of this week then I may have to cut your contribution from the book. If I'm already aware of your progress then by all means send me an update please as we are compiling running order, page balance etc and will need to leave space etc.

The digital version of Whatever Happened To The World's Fastest Man? is getting closer, I hope to have an update on this in the next week or two that'll mean people can download the comic onto their iPad. I know I will be :o)