Been a while since the last strip, huh? There are a bunch of reasons for that, several of which I’d actually written strips about — and then this strip happened, which kind of goes a way to explaining why none of those other strips made it up.

At the very least, it might help explain certain things from this comic…

At the risk of sounding slightly less than super intelligent and smart and handsome in the brain department, this is an actual conversation that occurred between me and my brain, almost verbatim. I wish I had a follow-up sentence that details the hilarious yet very sane thought process that led to this situation, and which absolves me of any perceived dim-wittedness, but alas, there is just this emoticon of a cat (.=^w^=)

First comic of 2014 y’all, woooo, celebrate, yaaay, hoorah!

Sooo… been a while, huh? First off, to everyone who enjoyed reading, sorry for the extended absence! It wasn’t my intention for this break to last so long, but… well, the short story is that I’ve only recently been able to put my time and effort into drawing these kinds of comics again.

The slightly longer story is that for the majority of this year I’ve been much more emotionally and creatively drained than usual, and all the energy I could have put into making new comics had to be poured into various other things instead. On top of that, a scheduling conflict caused several project pipelines to barrel off course, and that snowball effect kept me much busier than I’d anticipated. It’s been a rough year, basically, when it’s come to making things for myself. But now I’m back in the old saddle, ready to make new things, and it feels good. Or, it feels better? Either way.

I have been considering starting a Patreon, to make doing these strips regularly more viable, though I don’t know if that’s something people’d be interested in?

It would certainly help with the site maintenance, whew, I just spent way too long upgrading and re-coding this whole dang thing! (So, uh… if you notice anything that looks particularly broken, let me know!)

In the meantime though, there’s always The Book — or if you’re in want of original art prints, canvases, phone cases & skins, apparel (and mugs, rugs and even clocks now?!) then head on over to my Society6 store!

My lovely fiancée is coming to England for the holidays! I was planning on getting super buff before her arrival, but… man, it’s just so hard to do a sit-up ever when half of it basically involves lying down, and you realise that is just so much easier…

I’m back! And I bring with me a really dumb comic!

A comic which would have been up sooner, but recently my computer went ass-over-butt and, to cut a long story off completely, I’m now stuck using a terribly slow and incredibly weak laptop until my main gets fixed. It is like trying to operate a belligerent nightmare. Also it doesn’t run Photoshop.

Enough of me whinging though, and on to more festive news — because that’s legal now!

The second issue of the Captain Manchester comic was released last week, and came out looking rather swanky! You can order your copy here, with all proceeds going to Forever Manchester. (I think one of my favourite things about this issue is that it essentially makes it canon that, yes, Captain Manchester writes his own friend-fiction!)

You can also purchase the first issue on their site, which I believe there are still a few signed copies of left as well!

And if you’re after a bigger book with even more stuff-wot-I-drew inside, then look no further than As You’re Up: the Firts Etidion (also on Amazon UK) — the first printed collection of these ‘ere comics!

If by “finishing touches” you mean “actually the whole thing” then yes — you should hire me!

Just a reminder: you can still get issue 1 of the Captain Manchester comic here, and As You’re Up Book 1: the Firts Etidion on Amazon and Amazon UK! You should get both, and then have them battle to the death (as I am curious to know which would win in a duel, and do not own the new Pokemon game).

Happy Hallowe’en everybody! Remember: stay safe, don’t trust ghosts, and please don’t summon supergiant stars to your home in order to impress your friends.

This wasn’t the strip I was aiming to put up today, but I didn’t have time to finish the proper one because I’ve been working my arse off to get issue 2 of the Captain Manchester comic finished in time for print! Issue 1 is currently available here (now shipping internationally too!) and hey, if you like the idea of owning my silly drawings in bound-paper form then the first collection of As You’re Up comics is still available on Amazon and Amazon UK!

Fun fact: while I am apparently more than happy to make myself the butt (quite literally in this case??) of jokes about having bad hygiene, I actually had to trawl through the entire archives to find someone who could be enough of an asshat in the first panel because everyone I know in real life is too nice.

(Actually, that’s not true; I know plenty of people who’d gladly start a conversation with that first panel’s dialogue, but it’d never be said in the way which would warrant the following panel’s reaction.)

Anyway, this comic was late because there was sneezing, and then I spent a whole goddamned hour trying to think of a title. In the end I couldn’t, hence the one that was.

More like Nancy Drew-Wop, am I right? Am I? Honestly I have no idea. I have a very limited knowledge of either of those things, as all the historical inaccuracies in this comic will probably suggest.

Took a while to update this one, as it’s been a pretty hectic week all over for me — most notably, issue #1 of the Captain Manchester comic, which I illustrated, was finally released! The book features two short stories written by Sam “Smudge” Jones, a bunch of pictures by yours truly, and chronicles the exploits of Captain Manchester (who you may be familiar with if you live around these parts). All the proceeds from the book go to the Forever Manchester charity foundation, and you can nab it here!

There was a launch event for the book’s release on Wednesday too, which was a lot of fun, and it was exciting to see such a positive response. I also got to meet a heap of cool people there as well, including Giles and Mick, the awesome creative duo behind FAC:ABC (a project they’ve also released as a book, and which I heartily recommend purchasing if you’re able! I’ve a copy of it in front of me right now, and it is a thing of beauty).

So it’s been a good week. Hectic, certainly, but I think I prefer it that way; I do seem to perform at optimal proficiency on 4–5 hours’ sleep.

Then again there does also seem to be a lot more singing, so… I’m not sure my judgement is all too sound on that matter.

The secret project I’ve been working on has finally been revealed!

I’ve recently been working with Smudge Jones of Tunafish Media, in conjunction with Forever Manchester, to create the Captain Manchester comic in order to raise money and awareness for the charity!

The comic itself — presented in a kind of hybrid comic book/short story format — still seems to be largely under wraps for now, but I should be able to post more details after its issue 1 launch next week, on the 9th October! I really think (and hope) people are going to enjoy it.

If you live in Manchester, you may already be aware of the real-life Captain Manchester who’s been going around the city for the past month or so, performing selfless acts and inspiring good will in others, and I have to say that his devotion to the role makes me all the gladder to have been involved in this project so far!

(And while the comic won’t be released until next week, you can still get the first print collection of my comics on Amazon for 30% off in the meantime!)