Christmas Wrap

A number of things have come to fruition in the last few weeks so this is a bit of a Christmas wrap up.

• I have a new strip up at Talesofthe.com; a creepy retelling of The Little Matchstick Girl. I've used a very different drawing style and I think it's the first comic on he web that I've written, drawn and lettered myself so let me know what you think. This is part of Tales of The Season, which features Christmas Comic from Kevin 'Gio' Logue, Andrew Croskery, Mal Coney and Wayne Simmons so make sure to check them all out.

• All being well, I have some comic work lined up for early next year, starting with a one-shot for The League of Volunteers from Atomic Diner, a pulp adventure team book set in 1940s Ireland. This will be a spin off from the regular series, written by Robert Curley, which is launching now with art from Barry Keegan. Issue 1 of the regular series is limited to 500 copies, so if you want to get in at the beginning, you can order it from the Atomic Diner site here. 

• Cancertown will be returning to the Playstation Network early in the new year as a digital comic. If you can't wait until then, Cy Dethan's Indifference Engine reunites most of the Cancertown team, adding in penciller Rob Carey and was just released digitally on the PSP this week. It gets a featured mention on the Playstation Blog and already gathered great reviews. I can't wait to read it myself. 

• I've been listed as the number 21 NI's 'Reasons to be Cheerful' in this months AU mag (previously know as 'Alternative Ulster'). It was a nice little write up and there's even a little crop of the Cancertown opening splash page in there. Copies of AU mag are free and widely distributed all over Ireland, or you can view the whole magazine online right here. I'm on page 49, but here's a screen grab of the article. Many thanks to Reggie Chamberlain King for the write up. 

I have some other comic news, and I've just started my first video game work, but I'll talk about that when I have more to show but it certainly looks to be a busy start to the new year. 

An Engaging Story

For those who haven't already heard, myself and Aimee got engaged this past weekend which has made me extremely happy. I won't bore you with every detail of the proposal, but there is some artwork involved and Aimee has encouraged me to show a little of it off and it needs a little background summary. Who am I to argue with my future wife?

Aimee has always thought of Rome as her favourite place, and the Trevi Fountain as the most romantic spot in the world (it may have something to do with a Bon Jovi video), so under the pretense of a Christmas present from my mum, that she had supposedly won and passed on to us, I organised a weekend away to coincide with our 4 year anniversary. You may think it doesn't sound plausible that Aimee would believe such a coincidence, but the fake email addresses, phone calls and the fact that it was Aimee who picked the dates (I knew she'd pick our anniversary) and other little things kept it a surprise.

I drew the story of 'The Monkey and the Penguin' who fall in love and turned in into a little children's-style story book (Aimee is obsessed with penguins and calls me her Monkey. Please try not to throw up) and gave it to Aimee to unwrap at the Trevi Fountain. It starts off as a fairly inconspicuous children's story and gets more personal as the book goes on, so I'll just show off a few of the first pages here.

The last spread had the Monkey at the Trevi fountain handing out a box to Aimee as the reader. The box had a flap held down with a bit of ribbon that acted as the box lid and opened up to reveal the diamond ring. I took from the ring from the book, got down on one knee and well the rest is a bit of a blur, but I said everything I wanted to and asked Aimee to marry me.

And Aimee said 'Yes'.

The Beginning...