It was striking how intimate the comic industry is. Everybody knew everybody. This seemed especially true of the Small Press Expo at the Mercure hotel. If small press comics is a cottage industry it is not made up of isolated dwellings on bleak, wind swept moors but a thriving rural village.

Vicky and I would like to say a big thank you to Nic Wilko, Cy Dethan, Lauren Sharp, Alex Willmore and Martin Conaghan for not only looking after us at our first expo but introducing us to many of the people we met over the weekend.

We walked away with a small horde of reading material: Burke & Hare, Cancertown, Fetishman, Jack Staff, Phonogram… At the rate we’re enjoying it, I’m not sure it will last very long.

Over the weekend I caught a few panels, including Comic Writing for Dummies and Image‘s Creating Creator Owned Projects. Both sessions were informative and funny, the panelists discussing the trials, tribulations and benefits of producing creator owned material.

No matter what stage you’re at in your career, I can’t stress how useful attending such panels are. I firmly believe any creative endeavor is a continuous learning process, that if you think you’ve mastered everything you’re probably not trying hard enough. Right, stepping off my soapbox.

The Comic Book Alliance panel was another highlight for me. Being a newcomer to the industry I expected it to be similar to the WGGB and in many respects it is. Their aim is to promote the comics industry and support the development of it. Of the panels I attended this was probably the most positive and definitely the most forward looking.

Finally, it has probably not escaped your attention, being announced on Insomnia Publications’ The Red Eye blog, that I’ve chosen to resign from my position as a volunteer script editor. It’s been a pleasure working with my fellow creators at Insomnia over the last four months. Thank you all for making me feel very welcome.

So, with everything ticking along nicely, I thought I would point you towards…

Corey Brotherson’s site, where he’s posted an amazing preview of Butterflies and Moths, written by his good self and watercoloured by Jen Gyllblad. I’ve been lucky enough to read the full script, it’s dark, thought provoking stuff, and I can’t wait to see how Jen approaches the later chapters in watercolour.

Cy Dethan has posted a preview of The Ragged Man over on his blog. Neil Van Antwerpen’s artwork, Peter-David Douglass colours and Nic Wilkinson’s lettering look superb, and there’s also a link to an interview on SciFi Pulse radio.

Fascinating video on the possibilities of eye-tracking and tablets via Wired. Same technology could be applied to comics to bring an added depth of interaction.

Trying now to get back on top of all my editing work for Insomnia. Thankfully everyone has been very patient and understanding, and to be honest because the standard of scripts is very high it should not take me long.

Everything else has been on hold with the volume of game writing work recently, so it will be good to get back to my own projects. Work on the feature with Tito is my main priority right now. In the background I’m working up two new comic pitches, alongside work on The Ionmonger’s Daughter and Sun Moon.

A couple of weeks ago, I responded to a script call on Shooting People for, “a simple script, based in the genre of magical realism (e.g. Amelie) that would come in between 5-10 mins.” The director has gotten back to me and it’s good news, they’re interested in making it. Will be meeting up next week to discuss the script and our next steps.

Last year, as the cliché goes, was a real rollercoaster for all aspects of my life but overall the ride was a great one. Hindsight can be both a blessing and a curse, especially for a Cancerian who clings to the past, and I’m not sure weighing up the year as good or bad is positively constructive. As long as I learn from my mistakes and keep pushing the things I did right, I’ll be happy.

This year has been tough for me emotionally, coming to terms with the death of my grandparents, who raised me. I just didn’t have the capacity to deal with it all and my full time job was the area that I choose to cut out. It has given me the space and time to come to terms with their deaths and brought me closer to my parents.

Insomnia Publications signed up two sci-fi graphic novels, first was The Ionmonger’s Daughter, the second Sun Moon. Script work on both is very advanced. Ionmonger’s Daughter is finished. Well, as finished as a script can ever be, as it is bound to change, will be tweaked to work with the final art. Sun Moon is well underway.

Sadly, Larry Watts has had to drop out of working on The Ionmonger’s Daughter. Financial commitments have meant he has had to, and quite rightly, put his family first before the project. So the year begins with the hunt to find not one but two artists.

A short film, Not Yet, I wrote with the director, Tito Sacchi, made it into a number of film festivals through the year. More importantly, Tito and I have continued to work together on our feature idea. Our aim this year is to produce a trailer/short film, with which we can attract funding for the film.

Not yet – 30sec Teaser from Tito Sacchi on Vimeo.

Outside of writing, the big news is that Vicky and I are now homeowners together. It is the main reason for the tardiness of blog updates of late. Who would have thought house hunting, buying and moving would be so utterly time consuming and stressful? We’re settled in now, if not unpacked, and have begun decorating. For someone who has lived in the beige world of rental accommodation for years, I’ve finally been released with any colour paint I can imagine. Vicky though, isn’t keen on orange.

As for the year ahead? I’ve spent the last week or so fleshing out the personal projects I would like to work on and the goals I’d like to achieve. There is the continued development of the two graphic novels with Insomnia and the feature with Tito. Additionally, there are two more graphic novels, a second feature film, radio drama and a novel, all of which I would like to explore. All of these projects sit happily in the sci-fi and horror genres, covering areas from archaeology to werewolves and genesis to nuclear war. Not sure yet why werewolves are at the other end of my scale to archaeology, but who knows hey?

Alongside my personal projects, attending conventions and festivals, both comic and film, is one of my main goals this year. I follow a great network of artists, directors, writers and other creators on twitter, but 140 chars. is no substitute for meeting face to face. So, less of being the recluse buried in my work and more of… well, of… not being the recluse buried in my work.

Finding an agent is another. Not sure if that should be a goal itself? It’s something I can’t technically make happen, but I can expand and refine my portfolio, research where and to whom to present it, and do so. If it is good enough and the works catch someone’s interest, who knows. My goal is to try and keep trying.

There are other minor goals, ones which I have direct control over, such as taking a film script editing course, revamping mattgibbs.net, keeping my CV up to date, and, last but not least, posting more blog entries.

There is a lot to do there. Prioritising, scheduling and keeping focus on projects will be important, but hopefully I won’t be too blinkered to miss opportunities while trying to make them.

Anyway, I’ve well and truly rambled on now.

Hope you all have a great year.

Not yet – 30sec Teaser from Tito Sacchi on Vimeo.

I co-wrote Not Yet with director Tito Sacchi, helping him refine his story and producing several different dialogue tracks, internal monologues for Simon, the character portrayed by Michael Gilroy. From the start I was convinced that the piece needed no such explanations, that it would stand up on the visuals alone. In the end we went with just the haunting, original score, composed by Peter Godfrey, and the strong visual storytelling that Tito is so remarkable at.

It was a great project to be involved with. Ben Mourra, the producer, and Tito assembled a fantastic crew, creating an atmosphere that was passionate, yet laid back, and always professional.

Jim Campbell has joined Larry and I working on the Ionmonger’s Daughter. He will be lettering Larry’s artwork in the coming months. Fingers crossed my dialogue won’t be too much of a pain to work with. You can see Jim Campbell’s lettering samples over at ComicSpace.

I’m still happily hacking away at the typeface, taking the nuggets I find and building them into my scripts.

I’ve just begun work on Sun Moon, I’m about halfway through the second chapter and currently discovering, inventing the characters voices and refining their personalities. I already have a very detailed outline to follow but until you begin writing the characters they don’t really come alive. When I’m happy, I’ll no doubt begin altering my plan, as the found voices will subtly change the outline, suggest new scenes and ways of approaching existing ones.

Doing exactly the same with Everything Ends, the feature film script I’m working on with Tito. I’m just about at the midpoint and desperately resisting the temptation to go back and revise, when I should be pushing on to the end. There’s too much of the perfectionist coming out in me, at least for these early stages of script development.

On a different note, Insomnia Publications had a fantastic weekend at BICS, see the BICS and Pieces blog post over at The Red Eye, while Cy Dethan’s The Citadel Of Comics – A Fantasy Convention In Which YOU Are The Hero! is worth any old school adventurer’s time for another perspective.

It is great keeping Sun Moon in the family, so to speak. Working with Larry and Insomnia on The Ionmonger’s Daughter has been a delight. Chatting with people on Twitter, reading people’s blogs, it is obvious everyone who is part of Insomnia is doing work they love, and it shows in the atmosphere and attitude of all involved.

Sun Moon
One ageing, one eternally young, two lovers must overcome the growing gulf, as their differing social classes remain locked in an endless cycle of oppression.

Sun Moon is the story of star and time crossed lovers, set against a backdrop of environmental disaster and segregation.

One of the underclass, Leto is the son of a cryogenic engineer and destined to follow in his father’s footsteps. A member of the ruling elite, Selene is a young and gifted scientist and one of Leto’s cryogenically frozen charges. As the years pass they fall in love, against the conventions of their segregated society and the counsel of their friends and peers.

For Leto their affair is a few brief days grabbed every few years, for Selene it is the passage of weeks, watching him grow from a boy to a man much older than her.

Together they journey aboard a city-like spaceship towards the promise of a new world and a new beginning. They leave behind them an overexploited, polluted and no longer habitable world, which Leto and generations of his class have never known.

They live in a rigid society, where at any given time the vast majority of the ruling elite rest in cryogenic sleep. Awoken every three years to undergo health checks, members of the elite live in luxury before handing over to the next group to be revived. In contrast the underclass are born, live their lives and die maintaining and running the ship. From the cryogenic suites to the hellish cathedrals of the vast engine rooms they toil in an endless endeavour.

Not yet – 30sec Teaser from Tito Sacchi on Vimeo.

I’ve finished a complete draft of the Ionmonger’s Daughter. There is still a long way to go yet, and collaborating with Larry is suggesting new ideas and ways of presenting the story, but I’m pleased with how it is coming together. The draft is now with my editor and a couple of trusted writing friends for their critique.

It has been an interesting journey so far, hopefully one that will do justice to the themes of honour, obsession and war. Finding a way to keep the protagonist in charge of her destiny opposed to becoming just a victim of her circumstances has proved to be the hardest balancing act. It has already taken a lot of planning, plus writing and rewriting to work out how to pull this off.

So, what next? Well, I’m going to step away from the Ionmonger’s Daughter for at least a couple of weeks if not more, apart from collaborating with Larry. In the meantime I’m going to be working on a feature film script with Tito, which was born out of a short film script we had been working on together. A bitter-sweet ghost story, we’ve boiled down all the elements we liked and have mixed them back together with many new ideas and elements to create a new story. In the coming few weeks I’ll be putting these together and writing a first draft. In the background, I’ve also got another graphic novel pitch and horror film script to work on.

And now to plug another Insomnia graphic novel…

Burke And Hare
Writer: Martin Conaghan
Artist: Will Pickering
Letters: Paul McLaren
Cover: Rian Hughes
Foreword: Alan Grant

Over a 12 month period from 1827-1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland, two Irishmen by the names of William Burke and William Hare murdered 16 people and disposed of their bodies to the eminent dissectionist Dr Robert Knox at 10 Surgeon’s Square. Delve into the murky, misquoted history of Scotland’s most notorious serial killers with a research-based graphic novel that unwravels a ghoulish story of medicine, murder and money.

You can pre-order Burke and Hare from Amazon.

Nic has posted up some of Larry’s concept sketches of Victoria and a couple of the page roughs, as well as Larry and I waxing lyrical about the project.

I’m excited how this project is coming together. Larry is great to collaborate with, while the support of Insomnia is helping us create something I hope will be quite special.

There is lots to do yet, but enjoying the journey so far.

Cancertown: An Inconvenient Tooth by Cy Dethan and Stephen Downey, was in great demand. So was Layer Zero: Choices, featuring Erratum, a short sci-fi story written by me and drawn by Des Langford.

Des worked incredibly hard on Erratum, finding the time when he was facing many external trials and tribulations, and I’m very grateful for his dedication.