The story of the birth of Clemency Slaughter (an artist’s tale)

Nimue and I attended the Weekend at the Asylum last year in Lincoln. One of the best steampunk events i have ever been a guest at! One of the high points was meeting a splendid bloke by the name of Jonathan Green (he was at a table near ours) Being new to the English steampunk scene, I was not yet aware of exactly who this was i was chatting so very casually with. ( Likewise Robert Rankin..but that’s another story. As well i didn’t know who he was at the time or I would have been far less articulate!) Right…back to our story. Talked with the esteemed Mr Green, showed him some of the art and generally schmoozed. The second time i visited his table (He was very approachable and flawlessly polite. All the things a gentleman of letters should be!) I looked down at the books stacked before him and realised that this was a widely published and prolific writer. Before leaving I purchased from him the first three books in Pax Britannia: The Ulysses Quicksilver Series. I had a feeling that this would be a portentous meeting (and so, as it turned out, it was)

After we recovered from the weekend, I began reading Pax Britannia. Dead. Freaking. Brilliant. (Don’t take my word for it, google it. Read a few reviews) I started stalking Mr Green (in a gentlemanly and plutonic sort of way, naturally) He is everywhere and he has done everything. (and very, very well indeed) I contacted him and praised Pax Britannia, and asked if he might be interested in working on something together. As it happened, he was! He pitched two projects to me within the hour, and I picked, what would later become Clemency Slaughter. Within a day…it was written! (and unsurprisingly, sinister, stylish and deucedly clever) I provided some drawings, a sample illustration and a finished cover. We then (OK. Jon really. He is better with the words and knows more publishers on this side of the pond) started sending queries off to large, posh publishers. The replies came back, that though THEY ( the editors) loved it, they were pretty sure that YOU would not be ready for such a book, as it does not fit tidily into a pre established category. At last, Jon contacted Ian Whates at NewCon Press. Ian was very interested and wanted to see the book published (Still does!) but had not done a graphic novel style book before, and the book would have to be run through Kickstarter, with Newcon to publish at successful completion of the Kickstarter campaign.

Here, now, we get to the good part. This campaign is taking place…at this very moment! There are lots of incentives (including signed copies of Hopeless, Maine and Pax Britannia. The chance to attend a posh London book launch, original art from me, and cunning skullish jewellery (Based on one of the designs i did for the art from the book)

You can be a part of this! Pre order the book, and help unleash Clemency Slaughter on an unsuspecting world! Art for the project is in my gallery, and the kickstart campaign can be found here (Including wonderful footage of Jon in a creepy London cemetery)http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1412864360/clemency-slaughter-and-the-legacy-of-death

Hope to see you at the launch or hear from you soon!
Love and dark unnamed things,
Tom

Walter Sickert and the Fabulous Chocolate Chips

Tom first encountered Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys at the Steampunk World Fair in New Jersey, 2010. It’s possible you haven’t heard them (you need to fix this, if it is so). Punky, folky, a dash of klezmer (which may not be spelled like that, spellcheck has no idea) lively, anarchic, dark, playful, very good at getting inside your head and staying there. In short, it was love at first listen and we think they rock.
Walter is, just considering him without the lovely Broken Toys for a moment, a one man explosion of creative energy. We assume he doesn’t sleep, or that he’s got a twin, or a clone, or a wind up cog based version of himself that enables him to get it all done. He’s doing a comic, he’s doing arty things with Amanda Palmer, he’s everywhere right now (have you checked under your bed recently?) and one of the places where he is, startlingly, is the Chocolate Chips and Rocket Ships project.
We were quite surprised.
Walter is a late joiner to this glorious project, we found out this week from Edrie Edrie (one of the aforementioned lovely Broken Toys and player of sinister accordion music). We are, not to put too fine a point on it, bloody excited by this development.
What on earth is Walter Sickert going to do when he sets out to illustrate children’s poem for John O’Marra? We don’t know. We very much want to know. We think you ought to know.
If you aren’t backing the project already, there is still time, and we need you. Please go to Kickstarter http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/427948257/chocolate-chips-and-rocket-ships?ref=email , and pile in. Amazing things are going to happen here. If you want to know more, you can find it on http://www.ChocolateChipsAndRocketShips.com

Chocolate chips and rocket ships

This is a press releasey sort of thing, so not quite the usual tone! However, when Tom’s arts go up for this project, we’ll add them here too so that you can share in the joy.

Chocolate Chips & Rocket Ships is a gorgeous collection of illustrated poetry, aimed at children, but if you’re the kind of adult who likes cute things with lovely arts, you may be going to want a copy too. To fund creating a book with such lavish art, the creator is going the kickstarter route, launching 4^th June.

Artists involved come from at least 12 countries. The list will extend, but already signed up are…  Shawn McManus, Tim Probert, David Wenzel, Wylie Elise Beckert, Adam Hunter Peck, Nicole Allin, Caitlin Heimerl, Yoshi Yoshitani, Starr Hardridge, Courtney Martin, Ole Tillman, Lia Marcoux, Cory Godbey, Phil McAndrew, Michael Lauritano, Matthew Meyer,  Kristin Abbott, Mizna Wada, Kai Carpenter, Sean Dove, Mike Maihack, Gabriel Martinez Meave, S. Britt, Nicole Gustafsson, Victo Ngai,  Mark Lee,  Aaron Meshon, Tom Brown, Simon Berndt, Piotr Antkowiak,  Sam Gilbey,  Caterina Baldi, Lev Kaplan, Francesca D’ottavi, Mike Biegel,  Dongyun Lee,  Rob Rey,  Jason Mowry,  Mitch Frey,  Darrin Brenner,  Tomislav Tomic’,  Julia Griffin,  Yao Xiao,  Wes Freed,  Alexandra Fischer,  Flavia Zorrilla Drago, Dariusz Adryan,  Tim Durning, Becca Scholes, Wendy Wright, John Mavroudis, Mary Sievert,  Takahisa Hashimoto, William Keops Ibanez,  Andy Hood,  Sam St. Leger,  Bonnie Branson

Book Designer: Kurt Hathaway (Cartoon Balloons) – has been doing amazing layouts.

Videographer: Dani Be – created a wonderful introductory video for Kickstarter.
Chocolate Chips & Rocket ships is primarily pre-selling the book through Kickstarter, to get the ball rolling for further production.  There are additional rewards for higher donations, like autographed copies, your name listed in the book itself for special thanks, or your name worked into a poem for a large donation. $25 for the book, $50 for an autographed book, $100 for your name printed in the book as special thanks, etc. Some big crazy ones for 5 and 10 thousand dollar contributions too, it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Starting on Monday June 11, we post one poem and picture every day for the next 100 days, both on Kickstarter http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/427948257/chocolate-chips-and-rocket-ships?ref=email , and on www.ChocolateChipsAndRocketShips.com

The Unlikely Truth About British Waterways - by anonymous

Reblogged from Autumn Barlow:

I’m contributing anonymously here, being one of the ‘harassed boaters’ Autumn mentioned in a recent post. What I’m going to share are a list of things that I believe to be true about what British Waterways does and how it works.

British waterways sells boat licenses to people who own boats. If you have a boat on a canal or river in the UK, it is a legal requirement to have a boat license.

Read more… 982 more words

New webcomic home

Hopeless Maine has moved, so if you’ve been following the webcomic, please do bookmark the new site – www.hopelessmaine.com

As the books come out, they will be for sale as Hopeless Maine Part x all the way through, so it makes more sense to have a url that connects a bit with this. Plus we needed to find a new host for the site, so the timing leant itself to really going for an epic upheaval.

We’ve built this one ourselves, and we are not techies, so please be patient with any bumps and clunks.

Steampunk World’s Fair poster with text

Thought i’d conclude the series of posts i started here and continued here with the finished poster just so you have some idea of the amazingness that the Steampunk World’s fair will be this year. If you can attend, this is not an event to be missed!

Work in progress (Poster art for Steampunk World’s Fair) complete

In my previous post i showed the pencil and early toned stages of this illustration and raved (with utmost sincerity) about last year’s Steampunk World’s Fair. Here is another intermediary step (top) and the finished art.

The top image shows most of the values worked out and the sky set in. The final image has the opaque top layer with the anabaric power and glows and the flame on the gas lit hand of glory.

I urge you to follow the link above and take a look at the stunning list of performers, musicians and artists on the guest list for SPWF 2011. This is not an event to be missed!