‘This is Tokio’ LP, new novel, ‘Small Change’, magpies, Little Nobody, and a certain Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat

December’s always been my favourite month.

I mean, here we have my birthday, New Year and Christmas (religious bone or complete lack of one) rolled up together. December used to also involve summer holidays (in Melbourne), which I loved, but I’ve swapped ’em for winter ones here in Tokyo, which are great for snuggling up with a good book or graphic novel.

So, bring it all on, December!

Not to bag out November in any way, tho’.

We celebrated Cocoa‘s tenth birthday, I got 45,000 words done on novel #6, pre-released a new comic book in the U.S. via Project-Nerd (based on my first novel Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat), and I was incredibly fortunate to collaborate with legendary Australian artist Frantz Kantor on another ongoing comic series we’re calling Magpie (for Comicoz‘s Oi Oi Oi! zine in Australia).

3D Man, art by Frantz Kantor (‘Magpie’)

In November, Comicoz additionally put out a comic anthology fundraiser for the beyondblue foundation. Titled Australia!, I was able to work with another amazing artist, Chris Wahl, on a three-page piece therein.

Art by Chris Wahl, words by me.

I also just released a double-vinyl Little Nobody LP called This is Tokio through Nicolas Lutz‘s My Own Jupiter imprint.Basically, it’s a collection of my fiddlings with electronic muzak over the past 14 years — and from the track titles you can see where I plundered some of my book monikers.

If curious, you can check out samples of the tracks here. This baby’s being distributed by Energy Flash Distribution Japan.

So, a busy month. Day-job doesn’t count.

But in ten days I get to launch novel #5, Small Change — which is actually out early through Book Depository, the nice people who have free postage to anywhere on the planet.

Just 3 weeks before the drop-zone (Dec. 11th), Amazon told me it was already #1 new release in… wait for it… “Lawyers & Criminals Humor”.

Okay.

Last week, the suave-o people @ Crime Fiction Lover included Small Change in their list of crime books to look out for:

“With his off-beat pulp style featured in both comics and novels,” they wrote, “here Andrez Bergen leads us into the bizarre world of Roy Scherer, a P.I. whose eyes are more focused on the weird phantasms of the occult than Chandler’s mean streets. Helped by nerdy assistant Suzie Miller, Scherer combats criminals for whom a standard Smith and Wesson load will do little harm. Only the silver-plated variety of bullet will damage these people!”

Ta, mates.

Meanwhile, I got to got to waffle on a bit about the new novel, Matt Fraction, David Aja, Tom Waits, Hawkeye, Buffy, Kolchak: the Night Stalker, The Twilight Zone, The Rockford Files, Matt Kyme, IF? Commix, Tales to Admonish, Adam Rose, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Liam Jose, Pulp Ink 2 and Roy & Suzie — all thanks to Dan Wright, who’s always been incredibly supportive, just plain rocks, and allowed me full slather to wax excessive on his blog.

Otherwise?

On January 1st, 2016 — a year and one day after I first nutted out the concept — I’ll be releasing Trista & Holt #11 via IF? Commix.

The people at Graphic Policy kindly spotlighted that issue here.

And stay tuned for the U.S. redux version of the series, which will be announced shortly through Project-Nerd Publishing.

In the meantime? Go enjoy December — best month of the year!