Melbourne next week, Onna Bugeisha, Magpie, Bullet Gal, the Little Nobody Machine gig, art, & interviews

This Monday, I’m heading home to Melbourne for a couple of weeks, mostly to see family and mates.

But I’ll also be there to launch the novel Black Sails, Disco Inferno, have a meeting with Comicoz and artists working on our upcoming joint-project Magpie zine, and to do the Little Nobody DJ/soundsystem thingy one final time at Machine club.

Funnily enough, I’ll also get to meet for the first time people with whom I’ve been doing a swag of projects: Nat Karmichael from Comicoz (Oi Oi Oi!), Frantz Kantor (Magpie; he also did the Black Sails cover), and Graeme Jackson (Crash Soirée).

In case you’re wondering what they will be all about, here’s a teaser banner:

The magazine is a collaborative project shared between Comicoz and IF? Commix, with #1 due out later this year in Australia.

Charlie Atlas by Dan Watts

We’ve got on board a horde of talented local collaborators — including Dan Watts (of Bipp and Trax Intergalactic Realestate fame) and Marie Mour (lettering) joining me on a Heropa-based group called The Fenders.

Onna by Gareth Colliton

We’ll also be serializing my 2013 novel Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?, we’re rejigging Magpie, Crash Soirée and the new Bullet Gal will make their debuts, and there’ll be other features like the Onna Bugeisha strip I’m doing with Gareth Colliton (Tales to Admonish).

Otherwise, look out for work by Cristian Roux, Ken Best, and others to be confirmed.

Music-wise, I get to play @ Machine at My Aeon in Brunswick on Saturday August 27.

I’ll be supporting Mexican techno deity Luis Flores plus super-cool locals Andrew Till, Lateral, Kiti, Sundelin and Dave Mummery; full details are here.

I’ll additionally be getting to giveaway copies of my new Little Nobody 2 x 12″ vinyl release This is Tokio, thanks to My Own Jupiter.

In other news, I already mentioned my 7th novel Bullet Gal will be published via Roundfire Books in the UK on November 25.

Pre-order is now available from The Book Depository, with 10% discount & free international postage; it’s US$11.73 — which is considerably less than half the price of a pack of cigarettes in Melbourne these days.

Meanwhile, the Kindle version of Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?, which is in fact the standalone sequel to Bullet Gal and essential to explain out the creative sandbox in which all the Magpie characters play, is just 99¢ till the end of August at Amazon USA, Amazon UK, and Amazon Australia.

This week I got interviewed by Nevada McPherson @ Graphic Policy — mostly about Bullet Gal, but also Black Sails, Disco Inferno and ‪‎comics‬, ‪noir‬ & ‪sci-fi‬ in general.

The Blow-In by Dan Watts

I also just did a long interview with Mike Phillips @ Sequart Research & Literacy Organization about the novels (esp. Bullet Gal), comic books, and sequential influences/loves — think Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Tarpé Mills, Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, Emma Ríos, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Katsuhiro Otomo, Kazuo Umezu, 2000 AD, Batman, Criminal, Tank Girl, etc — and the new Magpie anthology zine we’re putting together…

Thanks, mates; this kind of support is always appreciated.

Anyway — more news when I get back from Oz!