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!

"Mandrake" Finally Manifests

Been nothing much to post lately, due mainly to working on getting "A Surfeit of Mandrake" polished, uploaded and printed. Problems with PDF creation at my end stopped me from producing the required hi-quality 100MB file, until I downloaded OpenOffice and used it's rather handy instant PDF creator function. Which is all very good, as I've now completely ditched MS Word in favour of the free solution.

The first proof arrived today and the pencil artwork really looks good in the interior. The cover art from Frang also looks sharp and fine, however a flaw in the printing has rendered the copy useless, by throwing a regular greyed out area across the verso throughout the entire copy. This is the first actual printing flaw I've seen from Lulu.com and I'm hoping it will be the last. It has been reported, and despite the time of year I'm feeling less than charitable as I had promised my contributors I'd have copies fully ISBN'd and in the shops before the end of the year. Already a couple of weeks behind schedule thanks to the PDF problems, and this is really the last thing we need. I hope the matter is resolved quickly and satisfactorily, as my next order will be a bulk order for Borders and elsewhere (including the contributors themselves).

"A Surfeit of Mandrake": The Latest

Been having a lot of fun putting together the new Fenriswulf publication, "A Surfeit of Mandrake". The title comes from a strange comic-strip submitted by Frang McHardy, featuring a gruesome humanoid plant-like being who recruits the narrator as his messiah, in what may or may not be a self-induced hallucination. I completed the story in prose, and the Mandrake character intrigued me enough to put him on the back cover as well. Short stories, poetry, little comic strips and artwork proliferate and far from being the random-access hodge-podge that I had originally feared it would become, there are actually several similar threads running through a lot of the works. Kit Marlowe the playwright turns up not only in an old and half-forgotten little play of mine, but also in one of Lesley-Anne's short stories. Celtic and Scottish references abound through all of our work. Dark quirkiness sniggers at every corner, as do some pretty brilliant and beautifully-depicted personalities.

It'll also be interesting to see how Lulu's outsourced printers handle the grayscale tone of a lot of the artwork. Frang and I have a tendency to work in pencil, so fingers are decidedly crossed on that score. I'm expecting to have to re-jig the tones on some of this following the first preview copy, but not too much, I hope. I really don't want to have to take anything out, although I have a few emergency pieces standing by to fill in any gaps that may possibly arise as a result.

Currently the basic .doc file for "Mandrake" is sitting at 150 MB, and that's without the 8-page comic strip "Godz Almighty" (a soap opera of ordinary Old Norse folk). Being drawn on big shiny art boards makes it a beggar to scan, but I reckon the results will be worth it (assuming the printed copies can do justice to our delicate biro pen work). It also happens to feature our old friend the Fenriswulf, he whose dark slobbery chops adorn this very page, and inspired the whole publishing venture in the first place - so the inclusion of this piece really was a no-brainer.

We're still most definitely on for a release of "Mandrake" before Christmas. So it's been a fairly eventful few months for the old wolf. Just keep watching this space!