Taking Five

Busy, busy old week I've had of it so far...and it's only Thursday night.

Last weekend and most of this week's evenings were spent fretting and working away on Lesley-Anne's manuscript and PDF files for the "Medieval Medecine" Book. It occurred to me at the weekend that we only had 3 weeks to order a sample copy, wait for it to arrive, check it over, order a bulk order, and wait for that to come...all before the 26th of March. Cutting it very very fine, and after some rapid-fire emails to and fro, we finally agreed to go for the final order tonight without seeing the sample first. It's a case of cross fingers, cross legs and hope the printers (and the Royal Mail) do their bit. Lulu's delivery options have had us rather bewildered, with new options I've never seen before and prices far in excess of anything I've ever paid. But the hard work has all been done, to my (and Lesley's) satisfaction, so all we need do now is...wait.

A trip to Borders last night didn't locate my slightly late royalty cheque from Head Office, but I did notice that "Maranatha" had sold out - again - and we seem to have shifted most of the "Mandrakes" too (2 left on shelves, from 5 or 6 copies delivered). I spent most of Saturday shredding "Maranatha" and have now submitted the 9th revision of the text...with luck it'll be the last, too. Every time I picked up a copy of the book lately and read a paragraph, another glitch jumped out me and made me cringe. So I decided to eliminate all those little problems, some of which definitely have been caused by very late cuts to the text, others by rushed revisions that I didn't have time to proofread properly. Some few, no doubt, have remained simply because having read the entire thing several dozen times over, the eye and the mind tend to skip certain portions of text. I'm a bit peeved at myself for having released books out there with those tiny (but irritating) glitches. But the new edition will put paid to all those annoyances soon. It leaves me, however, with five print copies of the old flawed edition which I'm now rather unsure what to do with.

Last week, flush from the "Last Gas Pump" review, I threw together another little video trailer for that project, which now joins the "Maranatha" clip at the bottom of this very page. I recorded the cruddy slide guitar work completely live and unrehearsed - having aimed at a "retarded Ry Cooder" kind of sound. I think I nailed the first half of that, at least.

As a result of all of the above (as well as my little-mentioned, but still time- and energy-consuming day job), I am now officially Taking Five in the company of some flat cider and a Velvet Underground DVD.

Cheers.

Onwards and...well, Onwards

Fenriswulf continues to gather momentum (and he's a big lad, so beware. Swallowed Odin back in the day, so he did).

Soon to be released is the new, 1-volume edition of my graphic novel "The Black Flag". Originally published in four issues in 2005 by Brigid's Hearth Press, I had always wanted to collect the four parts of the cycle into a single volume edition, and now that wish is about to come true. A dark, satirical and pretty brutal piece, it's a work I've never quite managed to let go of, which is possibly ameasure of quite how much the characters and the story meant to me. In any case, I'm very glad to have the means now to get the "Flag" out there in an accessible form, and as polished as it can be without me spending six months working on a "director's cut" ultimate edition - unfortunately I had to cut a lot of the concept sketches and storyboards from the art gallery section to keep the page count within Lulu's limits for a saddle-stitched book. But it will keep.

In other, more radical, news, Fenriswulf is also just about to branch out into non-fiction. I'm currently taking a break from working on "Medieval Medicine" by the Cure-Craft Carline, an informative textbook on the working method of medieval doctors, herbalists, and healers. The curative powers of many plants and substances are described at length, as are the legends attached to them and all in all it was a perfect opener for the FW non-fiction catalogue. Release date for this manual will be the end of March, '09, to coincide with a public talk by the Carline herself.

Finally, I managed to secure a review of the first issue of "Last Gas Pump on the Left" over at Horrornews.net. Even though there's not much 'horror' in it, I was still happy to win a favourable and fair write-up.

It's always a nice feeling to see someone else's views on your work. Makes it feel somehow more "legitimate".

Sold Out

The title refers to Borders' stock of "Maranatha", by the way. Not my artistic principles or integrity (I'm sure I have some, somewhere...)

Yes, that little fact took me quite by surprise last night, as I managed to catch their sales manager just before he left the store (harrassed and rushed, as always, yet still with time to be corteous and helpful). Lucky I also happened to have a couple of copies on my person as well. I'm to deposit an invoice for monies due as soon as I can, most likely this weekend.

"Mandrake" is also out on the shelves too, possibly with a couple of sales notched up already, as I noted a few missing. As such, a new bulk order is on its way. I don't want to flood Borders out with product, so a few copies will be getting plugged at the Dundee Contemporary Arts centre, also. When I have the time.

Now Open for Trading!

With my new bank account finally set up today, I decided to act upon previous promises to release some Fenriswulf merchandise to the general public. The store is now open, over at cafepress.com. Currently we have a couple of designs - ol' growly chops himself (as I now refer to our wolfish mascot) on a dark t-shirt, and the "Last Gas Pump" front cover artwork which also features the tagline as a backprint. More designs will go up in due course, featuring characters and art from Fenriswulf publications, and other designs which will be in the same vein as our printed works.

Let's face it, it was always going to be only a short step from "Let's publish our own books and comics" to "Let's print our own T-shirts, mugs, mousemats and boxer shorts". I've used cafepress in the past and was always happy with the quality of their work, so I ordered a couple of shirts up for myself. Because one can never have enough T-shirts. At the last count, I think I own about 90 or so. There'll be more to come.

Pump'd Up

Wednesday night finally saw me deposit the stack of half a dozen copies of 'Mandrake' in Borders. Still have a few things to discuss with the sales manager, like pricing and 'Maranatha' royalties but the book is finally out in the public eye, albeit a month later than planned. It's a good feeling, to see your hard work out there in the real world, and one I doubt I'll ever get tired of.

Also out now is the aforementioned 'Last Gas Pump' comic book horror/schlock parody of 1970s drive-in movies. Printed in glorious technicolour yet - my first colour product from lulu and one which I'm very impressed with. The oversized US comic format is very appealing, and one I'll definitely be returning to for future comic projects. No ISBNs or even ISSNs this time, so the first issue of 'LGPotL' will only be available via this site, or at lulu.com. I'm also planning merchandise, initially in the form of T-shirts via DIY clothing store cafepress.com, featuring artwork and imagery from our works to date. In any case, the Fenriswulf catalogue looks ready to expand greatly within the months to come.

More Things In the Pipeline

A number of creative things have been happening lately with me, on and off the periphery of Fenriswulf.

Recently went through "Maranatha" with a scalpel, trimming out the few remaining textual inconsistencies and superfluous lines, mostly in the penultimate chapter which received less proofreading than the rest of the book. Tiny, tiny edits (certainly nothing remotely requiring a change of ISBN) but big glaring oversights to me. Have also had some fine feedback from friends on the work. Lulu finally got my bulk order of "Mandrake" in transit, and I'll be visiting Borders with them as soon as they arrive (as well as to claim "Maranatha" monies.)

Right after New Year, I went into jobseeking mode to pick up any loose illustration jobs going over at Deviantart.com, where I have an account. As it happened, I got one. The work is cheesecake pin-up cartoons, something I'm not exactly a stranger to, and has been great fun so far. Contributing to client projects is something I always feel the need to keep at, as too much time spent working to one's own specifications can lead to easy stagnation and lazy habits. Knowing that someone else will be judging the work, and providing payment for it, is an incentive almost as powerful as a firecracker up the Aswan.

Further to this, I've been encouraged to pick up my sometime comic exploitation spoof series "Last Gas Pump on the Left". It'll need a bit of tweaking for print I think, but is definitely on the cards.

Also in the pipeline is a work of medieval medicine, by "Mandrake" contributor Lesley-Anne Brewster. We're currently sourcing royalty-free contemporary illustrations for this, and this project is also looking good to go pretty soon. As it stands, Fenriswulf's catalogue is looking to increase considerably in the months to come.

Happy New Year...

...and Happy Third Birthday, "Maranatha".

It was exactly three years ago to the day that I watched a TV documentary on the Spear of Destiny, which inspired Fenriswulf's first release, "Maranatha". The first draft was completed in four months flat, but further editing and revision took another two years.

All that time later, and now we're looking ahead to our next releases. Comics or graphic novels, most likely - more details as and when they become finalised. That's the fun thing about being an editor, and having so much material to draw upon - there's always something exciting in the pipeline.

I received my receipt from the British Library as well last week, 6 months after I'd sent them a copy of the first impression of "Maranatha". It took a while but at least I was glad to know that it hadn't been lost in the works somewhere.

In the meantime, I seem to have lined up an online review of "Maranatha" with horrornews.net. Perhaps not the most obvious place to seek a book review of this kind as it's not exactly a genre piece, but I felt there was enough dark and disturbing imagery in the story to more than justify it. Besides, the folks at horrornews have been very helpful and responsive so far. Certainly moreso than most I have approached in recent months.

So here's to 2009!