Shakespeare Omnibus edition now on Amazon, only £14.99

Thanks to D2D, which has become my new print-on-demand go-to, displacing Lulu in my affections, you can now get my Shakespeare Omnibus edition, containing all 3 of my original graphic novels in one 380 page book, on Amazon again. And it only costs £14.99!

The Lulu version was on Amazon once, then it fell foul of their "low content" filter nonsense and disappeared. So the only way of getting it was via Lulu, where it costs you £17.99 plus postage. Now all's right with the world.

I haven't received my first proof copy of the books yet, so let's see if it looks as good as all the rest. But fingers crossed, hoping it does, once more D2D has worked in my favour. Let's see how long we can keep this going.

My Books And Where To Find Them...

Richard  The Third Paperback • signed	Findlay  Macbeth Paperback • signed	Prince of  Denmark Street Paperback • signed	Midsummer Night's  Dream Team Paperback • signed
Shakespeare Omnibus Paperback • signed	Comic Tales From The Bible Paperback • signed	Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories Paperback • signed	Space Elain Paperback • signed
Book Of Esther	Who Notes	Sweet Smell Of Sockcess	Attack Of The Sausages
My 1975 Diary Calendar	Colouring Books Paperback • signed	Scottish Falsetto Socks Annual	Tales Of Nambygate

Colouring Books: Doctors Who, Hollywood Legends, Punk, Cult TV, Eurovision Vol 1, Eurovision Vol 2, Eurovision Best Of British & Irish, 1960s Pop, 1970s Pop, 1980s Pop,  1990s Pop, 2020s Pop, Bowie, Scottish Pop, Royalty, Rom Coms  

Romeo, Romeo, where had we got to with Romeo?

It may not look much to you, but this picture (above) marks a significant step forward with my books. We're moving again, creatively. 

After a busy time with schools, and the only really productive thing on my desk this year being the colouring of Richard The Third (did it take as long as drawing the book itself? It felt like it), this week I got back to the writing, and eventually drawing, of Romeo And Juliet.

It was over a year ago that, buoyed up by my new agent Emily, I started working on new graphic novel material in the same vein as my Richard The Third. I began by taking another stab at Midsummer Night's Dream, a fresh look at King Lear, and my twisted version of Twelfth Night, aka Twelfth Thing. And, following a meeting with one (rather big) publisher who showed some interest in my Shakespeares and suggested I tackle this most popular play, I began a version of Romeo And Juliet.

Because they were thinking of printing books in just one spot colour, I drew up the first 27 pages of my Romeo with red only colour, looking for all the world like the strips I used to do in the Viz lookalike comics thirty years ago. I had completed these pages by the end of May last year (so my worksheet tells me).

Feedback in June told me they weren't so keen on Romeo & Juliet, but would like me to try redrawing the others in a slightly different style. So I redrew Midsummers and recoloured it and tweaked and recoloured a bit of Twelfth Night. This led to some sample art tryouts on different books, with another publisher, which was followed in October by another art tryout, the verdict on which I'm still waiting to hear. So I've had meetings with three significant publishers, which is great. But none of this has furthered my Shakespearian ambitions very much. So...

I started colouring the pages of Romeo and Juliet in the Autumn. I did this to show the potential publishers at the Lakes Comic Festival Rights Market. Of course nothing came of those meetings so all my Shakespeare works in progress have lain dormant for six months or more. 

Now with the success of Richard The Third as a self-published book - 1000 copies sold last year, 450 already sold this year - I'm looking to putting Romeo and Juliet out under my own steam. I'll need to discuss this with Molly and Emily (Emily is on maternity leave, Molly is standing in for her right now, and at time of writing will be at the Bologna Book Fair) but hopefully this won't stand in the way of me finding a trad publisher.

Romeo and Juliet Kickstart anyone? Watch this space. When I left we had 27 pages written and drawn. I've only drafted a tiny bit more, but we've already met Nurse and Juliet, had the Queen Mab speech, and I'm about to do the Romeo and Juliet Meet Cute. Wish me luck.

My Books And Where To Find Them...

Richard  The Third Paperback • signed	Findlay  Macbeth Paperback • signed	Prince of  Denmark Street Paperback • signed	Midsummer Night's  Dream Team Paperback • signed
Shakespeare Omnibus Paperback • signed	Comic Tales From The Bible Paperback • signed	Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories Paperback • signed	Space Elain Paperback • signed
Book Of Esther	Who Notes	Sweet Smell Of Sockcess	Attack Of The Sausages
My 1975 Diary Calendar	Colouring Books Paperback • signed	Scottish Falsetto Socks Annual	Tales Of Nambygate

Colouring Books: Doctors Who, Hollywood Legends, Punk, Cult TV, Eurovision Vol 1, Eurovision Vol 2, Eurovision Best Of British & Irish, 1960s Pop, 1970s Pop, 1980s Pop,  1990s Pop, 2020s Pop, Bowie, Scottish Pop, Royalty, Rom Coms  

Know your enemy: this is an AI image

 Know your enemy: this is an AI image.

I know the technology to make this image has been stolen without permission from actual working artists and I apologise for participating in its production. But I cannot turn my back on the existence of this technology and researching where it is now at is something I felt I had to do.

The result is both impressive, amusing, and worrying. Impressive for obvious reasons - look at it, it made a drawing better than I, a professional artist, can do in that style, and in under 60 seconds; amusing - look at the mis spelled words and how it has reinterpreted my drawings of faces as different things, in one case turning a full figure into a barbers pole; and worrying - a non-artist can make a comic book this way, and they are doing, and it’s only just the start.

We should fight for some kind of compensation based on our past published work, and we should move forward with our artwork, proving that we creators can do stuff machines cannot do.

But machines can do this and we cannot be King Cnut and pretend we can stop people utilising it to do so.

 This is what you get if you ask it to draw Studio Ghibli style. As is this...

And here's what's happen when you give it a photo and ask it to draw it in the style of Neal Adams...

My Books And Where To Find Them...

Richard  The Third Paperback • signed	Findlay  Macbeth Paperback • signed	Prince of  Denmark Street Paperback • signed	Midsummer Night's  Dream Team Paperback • signed
Shakespeare Omnibus Paperback • signed	Comic Tales From The Bible Paperback • signed	Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories Paperback • signed	Space Elain Paperback • signed
Book Of Esther	Who Notes	Sweet Smell Of Sockcess	Attack Of The Sausages
My 1975 Diary Calendar	Colouring Books Paperback • signed	Scottish Falsetto Socks Annual	Tales Of Nambygate

Colouring Books: Doctors Who, Hollywood Legends, Punk, Cult TV, Eurovision Vol 1, Eurovision Vol 2, Eurovision Best Of British & Irish, 1960s Pop, 1970s Pop, 1980s Pop,  1990s Pop, 2020s Pop, Bowie, Scottish Pop, Royalty, Rom Coms