75th post: 2 new zines ready

24 copies of the 24 page 24 hour comic diary thing i did in Helsinki. Just musing about myself and coffee and home, mostly. Unthought-through but illustrated.

60 copies of the Mongolian Cartoon Diary, again drawn while travelling and without planning, so you get exactly what the title describes.

Both A6, both free in the post (to the UK) if you email me with an address to post to.

Another blog.

Hi,

I am making most of my book collection available to users of the 'canny little library' (housed in the star & shadow cinema & open from 3 till 6 each Sunday).

I have opened a new blog, purely to list (by pictures) the available books.
There will be posts for each section I have books available in:

Philosophy
Anarchism
History
Politics
Global Struggles
Gender
Environment

Home to Newcastle.

Today I happily got off the ferry from Amsterdam, found myself locked out of the house (of course) and drew a few things.

Tomorrow I hope to pick up 2 packages from the Royal Mail, that I sent to myself and which include the Mongolia comic.

I then hope to print the Mongolia comic (40 copies) and the 24 hour comic from Helsinki (24 copies). I found the town different but the same. Spectrum copyshop has closed down (as has my favourite bargain bookshop and the 'made in newcastle' DIY craft place), but I found the new one, Mailboxes on Clayton st. As these pictures also tell, I spent a happy time re-embracing this city that I love and reading the comics that people have produced since I was gone.

My 24 hour comic result = at best a draw.

Hi,

Including the cover, I managed 23 pages in 24 hours, most of which were spent walking around the streets looking for stuff, and sleeping. So the actual drawing took place in coffee houses and pizza restaurants. I don't know if the results can really be called a comic, it's just reflections and my usual diary, with a couple of self portraits and pictures of Helsinki. I'll print it anyway, I LIKE my diaries, but it's really just an attempt and next year I will try and do a proper plotted thingamajig. As it is, I have a strong idea for a fiction-as-opposed-to-diary comic, which is basically political/historical porn. I hope I will make this happen when I return home, in 10 days.

I will stick a few pictures of the comic-zine here when & if I find a usb slot.
And it is odd to be writing a blog entry from the middle of the Baltic sea, but this Finland to Sweden ferry has an internet terminal. How odd.

Starting a 24 hour comic in Finland!

Hi, I have just realised that i have missed 24 hour comic day, and I wish I'd been with the paper jam crew back in Newcastle. But unless I got a plane up to Lapland I think I've just missed the local Finnish versions of it.

SO - with 2 minutes left of this internet station to declare it, I do declare that I will do my own 24 hour comic, starting from approximately one hour's time (after I've found a hostel and dumped my bag and got out a pad and pens.
I have no idea what it will be like, but it will be from Helsinki, and a day late but with the Newcastle crew in spirit!

love
Mike

Cartoon Diary of Mongolia

Having come, for no great compelling reason, down into Mongolia, I have been writing my travel diary as a comic. I will probably produce this as a small run zine when I get back to the UK.

Here are most of the pages so far, all drawn on the move in the gaps when the minibus broke down / we stopped for lunch / there was 20 minutes with nowt to do. So as usual not professional or planned out, and not even in this case about anything in particular, but definitely fun to draw and fun to share with people (if you start drawing a cartoon, it isn't long before a shadow appears at your shoulder).

I'm in Mongolia for another few days so I'll probably pad it out with a bit more before posting the sketchpad back home (seen in the first picture being read by Travis, again).

Trail Zine

I am currently in Siberia.

Staying in a group of 16 Russians and others on the shores of Lake Baikal, I persuaded everyone to make a collaborative zine - we all contributed a page. Today I printed it today in Ulan Ude, which I'm rather proud of considering how bloody long just the WORD for photocopying is in Russian, let alone the waits at counters. But actually it worked out fine, and I got a lot of love sent back to me through the pages of the zine.

These pictures are of Travis reading my 'beach zine' [to come] which I gave out as an example, and of some of the zines with our blind dog. For some of my pages for the zine, see the anarchist pilgrimage blog.