Works-in-progress-interrupted

I have a proper job starting this week so I'm gonna lose a lot of my time and, I suspect, creativity.

But there are lots of really cool things to contribute to that are coming up so, message to self, don't forget to draw!

1. 'Robots ... and that', it's all explained on the Paper Jam Collective blog about what size and stuff to do it of, and the deadline is ... 30TH APRIL!

If you haven't contributed anything yet to this lovely compendium of Newcastle scribblers, this time you have no excuse, anyone can draw a robot. I intend to pull out one of the little robots I used to draw as a boy in the eighties (up in the exhibition) and formulate some kind of plot around it.

2. London Zine Symposium, it was SO busy and exciting last year, but I can't go cos I've gotta be in Wales the day after and the trains are off. If you can go, I'll give you some free zines to give out! 3RD MAY! Trust me it's life-affirming and fantastic and my all-time favourite day of 2008. I was going to do a zine reviewing Newcastle zine and small-press culture for it, but now...

3. DIY Aye! Star and Shadow Cinema, Newcastle, 15th - 16th May.
There'll be loads going on but the thing I'm doing is a collective, participatory, manual zine (no photocopying allowed!) suitable for adults and kids alike. A chance to experiment with all the different ways it is possible to make repeated images (stencils, stamps, fill-in-the-blank strips) and I'm gonna get all the nicest materials and tools I can find, from lovely paper to crinkly scissors to, ooh I don't know, babies' feet and ink-sneezes.

I'm then going to use this group experiment to draw a 'How to make a manual zine' spread, which I'll submit to the following anthology.

I'll also do a similar session at the Newcastle Community Green Festival (7-8th June) - in fact I'm coordinating the kids area so get in touch if you could offer a workshop or like painting childrens' faces (actually, if anyone thinks painting faces is fun I can tell you NO! NO! it's the most tedious and draining activity in the world, never do it). GREEN FESTIVAL CANCELLED!

(oo, I'm also doing a 'drawing-in-the-woodland' session for the Ruperts Wood Big Picnic in Redesdale, on 26th May, and way into the future I'll be doing something for the Big Draw in October).

5. This Will Explain Everything

An open call to comic artists and illustrators.

The Edinburgh-based Forest Publishing is putting together a graphic novel anthology and we are looking for work from artists who combine words and images in various ways.

This anthology is an imaginary encyclopedia: a compendium of knowledge that is true, half-true, false, absurd or very confusing. A reader will come away from this book intrigued, amazed, mystified, puzzled, perplexed, bewildered, bemused and befuddled but not necessarily informed.

Your entry should explain something. It can be a piece of disinformation, speculation or thorough nonsense. It could be about how a tractor works, what heart burn really is, an explanation of long-distance running or zen. Facts are fine but, for this project, they are not the ultimate point. We're looking for unique points of view on a wide-range of objects and ideas.

Technical specs:

You can submit multipage strips, spreads or single-page images in colour or black and white. The format of the book will be 245mm x 168mm (portrait) with a bleed of 3mm past the edge of the page on all sides. If your image needs to reach the edge of the page, don't put anything important in the bleed zone where it will get chopped off. If you intend to do a spread, please keep important things away from the centre of the image as there will be a deep gutter. (These specs aside, if you already have finished work in a different format, we might be able to fit it in anyway.)

Submissions should be emailed as low resolution jpegs (make sure that any text is readable, though) to thiswillexplain@gmail.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Write 'Submission' in the subject line. Alternatively, you can send us a good quality photocopy by regular mail. The address is: Magda Boreysza at Forest Publishing, 3 Bristo Place, Edinburgh EH1 1EY, United Kingdom. If your piece is selected we will ask you to send a high quality image file.

Deadline: 30 AUGUST!

Exhibition and Battleships launch event!

I have an exhibition starting at the Star & Shadow Cinema this Saturday.

It consists of pencil drawings done as a young and seemingly violent-minded boy. They take up 78 metres of paper-roll and I like to think they are a kind of pre-digital animation (you turn the page to see what happens next).

Well it's not really an arty-farty exhibition so we're launching it not with wine and quaffing but with battenburg cake and fizzy pop (If only I still had a soda-stream!)

The launch event is:

BATTLESHIPS AT TWO O'CLOCK

Starting prompt at 2pm on Saturday 7th March, we'll have a group game of battleships where everyone takes a turn to blow up a square on the grid. Last fleet floating wins.

http://www.starandshadow.org.uk/on/event/79

List of zines and similar things

I keep adding to this each time I remember something else I did, or took part in.
An asterix next to a title means there's still copies left. Everything but Wor Diary is free.

2009 December, page from Bothy Zine in the Bothy Notes Newsletter

2009 Zines contributed & displayed in Sunderland Winter Garden's Collected Fragments Exhibition.

2009 December Pythagoras Zine 60 copies, A6, 8 sides stapled.*

2009 December Christmas Zine 100 copies, A6 24 sides stapled.*

2009 November Wor Diary 2010, 365 copies, ringbound, A5.*

2009 October 'It Happened at the Star & Shadow' Story Zine, 30 copies, collaborative, A5 folded.

2009 Roman Philosophers Zine 1, A6 stapled, including a page from a book on Rome.

2009 September Bothy Zine 300 copies, square shape, stapled, chunky.*

2009 September Space Monkey, collaborative child-friendly comic by the Paper Jam Collective, A4 stapled, colour cover.*

2009 August Newcastle Zine Review 1 50 copies, A5 folded.

2009 August Comic-drawing Workshops at Redesfest, Northumberland

2009 March Manual Zine, 18 copies, as part of DIY Aye Event. A6 in origami envelope.
http://diyayefest.wordpress.com/

2009 March George zine, 300 copies, A5 stapled, colour cover.

2009 March Shed zine, 150 copies, A4 folded.*

2009 March Abraham zine, 150 copies, unorthodox long shape, stapled.

2009 March Fantastical Beastes / Topsell Zine, 150 copies, A5 stapled.*

2009 February Kino Bamboozler, A6 fold-out to A4, 150 copies.
During 'Don't DIY Alone' festival in Edinburgh diyedinburgh.blogspot.com/

2009 January Zine from my childhood, 250 copies, A5 stapled.
Cheaply (badly) copied - but with original artwork in each one!

2009 January Article on Wor Diary in Interface Journal www.interfacejournal.net/

2009 Review of Jane Eyre: the Graphic Novel, for Bronte Studies.



2008 November, Wor Diary 2009 (collaborative) 600 copies, ringbound.*

2008 Autumn, contribution to '24 Minutes ... and that' anthology.
One of a series by the lovely 'paper jam' guys.

2008 July Examzine, 250 copies, A5 fold-out to A3.*

2008 April The Secret History, 1000 copies, A5 stapled.*
Produced for Projectile Film Festival.

2008 March Spring zine, 150 copies, A5 stapled.
Produced in a hurry for the Pigeon parlour art squat in Heaton. Last few given out at Newcastle Community Green Festival.

2008 February Sex zine (with contributions) 250 copies, A5 stapled.
All gone except some faulty ones I should mend one day.

2007 November Wor Diary 2008 (collaborative), 500 copies, A5 ringbound.

2007 October Gig zine, 250 copies.

2007 July Phd Thesis, finally done, using 'ephemera' like zines as source for tracing ideological debate.

2007 Zine Trail, with Chez, A6 loose pages dotted around the city, 50 copies.

Summer 2006? Comic about Red & Sam's wedding. A4 stapled, 3 copies!

April 2006? Anarchism in a Provincial City, A5 stapled, 50 copies.
To support academic talk on zines & activist dialogue at Alternative Futures and Popular Protest conference, Manchester Metropolitan University.

2006 A Story About a Rat, A6 stapled, 50 copies.

October - December 2005 Comic strips in Arthurs Hill Time Exchange Newsletter.

Summer 2005? A Zine about love, A6 stapled with photograph cover, 50 copies.
As part of Participatory Zine Workshops at Bookville (we miss you Bookville!)

Summer 2005? Workshops on pre-digital animation (characters, storyboards, flickbooks, fantascopes, zoetropes etc..) with Laura Maragoudaki (digital animation) Queens Hall Hexham.

2004
'Hello 2008', A6 zine to record some of the leapday actions done by Ross McGuigan and friends in Newcastle.

May 2004? What if the Tide were Rising? Environmental zine for kids, produced for Newcastle Community Green Festival. A5 stapled, 50 copies.

January 2004? Dilemmas of an Activist Academic, A4 folded, 50 copies.
For Investigaccio conference of social movements, Barcelona.

2003? I Don't Care What Anyone Else Says, I Think EF! is Ace!, A5 folded, 50 copies.
2000-2001 EF! Action Update (shared editing), 13 editions, A4 folded, 300 copies each.

1999-2005 Think Globally Act Locally Various contributions and shared editing, A5 folded, 150 copies each. Occasional comic strips and illustrations.

new zines and works-in-progress for spring

I have a boxload of zines on its way from footprint in leeds, which will soon be out and about in town. They are:

George zine - a comic-diary about the cat who used to live here. An inspiration to us all!

Abraham zine - full name too rude to print. Done in one evening sat in bed (and it shows).

Shed zine - just a double-sided A4-er, comic-zine about a mysterious shed. A true story.

Fantastical Beastes - cut-n-pasted via the internet from the amazing Mr.Topsell, a true genius and brilliant 16th century cartoonist. We need his magic back in our life.



Works in progress:

Fenham zine - ruminations about my neighbourhood, and what was here before.

State zine - something I dip into now and then and probably won't produce for at least a year.

Ingatestonia - one I forgot to finish from 2006-7, about my experiences in Essex.

Umming and ahhing about a blog

I like zines, not blogs. Textures of paper, thumb-prints and creases. mmm, and the smell of coffee and ink soaked thru the pages...

But I'll try out having a blog for a bit, and it'll be a home for me to put new zines, comics & workshops. It may even encourage me to draw some things more carefully - 'worthy' to go on the web.

Hello if you're reading this, you can always send me a postcard or a zine to swap to:

Mike
42 Curtis Road
Fenham
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE4 9BH