Just realized it’s been a month since my last self-indulgent entry/soapboxing here, so thought I’d rattle off something quickly before heading to work.
It’s been a mad 4-week hiatus, one in which (a) the Kickstarter campaign for the Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat graphic novel ended (and successfully — thanks to all who supported!) and the book was finished up, (b) I started fishing for reviews and feedback for my next novel Depth Charging Ice Planet Goth, which’ll be officially published on July 25th, (c) I got author copies of same and read this in a few days, (d) I re-read Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye and Farewell, My Lovely, (e) I manhandled Mark Millar’s Superman: Red Son and re-read the original Kick-Ass, (f) I finished off plotting for our comic book Tales to Admonish #3, and also did the cover art this week (see here), while artist extraordinaire Matt Kyme is currently doing the inside art, (g) I did a mini-comic called Bullet Gal, and (h) I plodded away at my regular day job… teaching English.
But wait, there’s more…
Anyway, it’s been absolute madness, but most of this of the very, very good nature. The Kickstarter campaign, for instance, was a brilliant if exhausting process, which somehow reaffirmed my faith in others and the kind of support people are willing to offer to (often) complete strangers.
The Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat graphic novel ended up therefore being more of a joy to work on than I initially expected, and it was a great learning curve artistically-speaking. A lot of what I’m now doing I guess has as much of its roots in Dada, the collages of Cabaret Voltaire and Terry Gilliam, the cut-up ideology of Brion Gysin and William Burroughs, the noir novel covers of Harry Bennett, and the work of Chris Marker, as it is inspired by comic book artists like Steve Epting, Jim Steranko, Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, David Lloyd and David Aja.
The cover artwork has been altered a wee bit, more for the sake of clarity and being able to read the title. While I did love the super-distressed look (see last month’s cover reveal), I think the rejig, below, is warmer.
The 144-page book will be published at the beginning of August via IF? Commix, and in fact gets an official launch in Melbourne (the city in which the action takes place, albeit in a hardboiled, near-future dystopia) on August 17. I can’t reveal more as yet, but will so as info/confirmation comes to hand.
I actually had the opportunity to waffle on about the background “artistic” ideas for this book in interviews I did with the Australian Comics Journal, at Tony Black’s Pulp Pusher, and with Hyper Geeky.
Meanwhile my fourth novel Depth Charging Ice Planet Goth is soon to also be out and about, and is already up on the various international forms of Amazon — see links to the right-hand side of the page @ Perfect Edge Books. Amazon USA in fact has a 31% discount on pre-orders, while at Amazon UK pre-order saves 25%.
When we got the early author copies (see above right), Cocoa had fun redesigning one of the covers.
The novel has already got some wunderbar feedback from Nicole @ Dork Shelf, OzNoir, The Nameless Horror, Lori @ TNBBC, Cult Den, and A Licence to Quill. Thanks, everyone. Seriously.
Finally, last cab off the rank before I go catch the train @ Midorigaoka, there’s Bullet Gal #1, started and finished this week.
For those who might’ve noticed, this is a character previously seen in Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? (which by the way got a bloody brilliant review at Entropy Mag thanks to Peter Tieryas Liu) and Tales to Admonish #2.
Bullet Gal will be a limited-edition printed mini-comic book (12 pages) sold at less than half the price of production of the mag — just $1.
Something to give back to supporters of our Australia/Japan-based comic book publishers IF? Commix over the past year, plus all the people who have been incredibly supportive of my work in general.
And, hell, why shouldn’t comics again be affordable? 😉
Andrez Bergen / Little Nobody 
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