Leonieblog

My book has been turned down by Image comics and by Fantagraphics. Oh well, what do they know about comics anyway?
Comics International sent me a big ol' pile of comics to review. It includes a series of comics aimed at educating young gay men about safe sex which features the charming characters johnny and lube. I also got a copy of that semiotic cohesion ( Shanes selling it over at smallzone ), and I'll do a proper review for CI, but I just want to say I wish they'd do a comic just about the shark overlords because those bits are genius! A shark that shoots smaller sharks from its gills! Why isn't that a comic?
Thanks to Hank for his nice comments about my weird panda painting too, that cheered me up after my morning of rejection from big comic companies. What a nice stalker Nulsh has!
It's been a busy week. Sams wedding disproved my long held belief that weddings were boring. Here he is on stage with his band at the reception:

His whole family were up singing, it was a great party! Hurrican Remo got dressed up for the occasion too:

And insisted on watching some wrestling:

Super Parka has a scary rapey dance, but Xtream Tiger is pretty cool. Obviously he's no Hurrican Remo.
On Sunday we had a seminar at Phoenix with Flavio Ruiz Van Hoof. Four hours of fighty stuff! We did some light sparring type stuff at the end of the first hour and as we kept swapping partners I ended up with Flavio at one point. He kept yelling at me to kick him, but I was scared to a bit because I'm sure he could rip my leg off if he wanted to. But he's a nice guy and the seminar was good fun.
I also made some eyebrows for Pilchard :

Bet you wish you'd thought of that, eh Curtis?
We went to Jesmond Dene because Andy has never been, even though he's lived here for 6 years or so.

Seems they have a giant bug infestation too.
Then we went to the pub, where I introduced Wookie to the wonders of cider:

Posted by Leonie at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And I thought the slugs were bad, now we have giant ladybirds to contend with. Damn you, global warming.

Have sent out promo stuff, just waiting to hear back. It cost a lot. I need a job. I have no money for important things like cakes and ice cream. Have made a start on next issue of monstrum, also started writing a novel. Lets see which gets finished first.
Andys new outfit. I'm not sure, but I think this is what he is wearing to Sams wedding at the weekend.

Posted by Leonie at 04:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

It hasn't all been trips to the cinema and all you can eat chinese buffets this weekend. No, I have also been working and I have finally managed to make my graphic novel in to a PDF, ready to be sent out to publishers. I have also designed little promo booklets to go with the discs, to encourage them to actually look at it.
Below is the front (on the right) and back page (on the left). Under that is the interior spread. The big white gaps are for the text (which will explain how amazingly brilliant my book is) and the booklets will be A5 size, matte.

Posted by Leonie at 07:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Saw 'Monster House' yesterday. It's brilliant! It's like a great 80's kids movie but with CGI. Schrab and Harmon have outdone themselves with this baby,and I can see why Zemeckis and Spielberg jumped on it. (interestingly, a search on ask for monster house brought up Goonies posters)
Speaking of the 80's and Zemeckis, there was also a trailer for tranformers. Why Zemeckis, why did you let Michael Bay take it away from you???? It looks awful!! Some of you may not know this, but I love gen 1 transformers. Really, really love, as in: still have some of the toys, comics, curtains, pillowcase....So I'll go see it, probably more than once, at the cinema, but I doubt I'll enjoy it. For a start it probably won't have the rockin 80's soundtrack that the animated film had. Or the hilarious screechy voiced antics of Starscream that the tv show had. Or the political intrigue and power struggles that the comic had.
There was also a trailer for Spiderman 3, which looks amazing! I also loved the story arc with his black suit (especially with Venom, that was one of favourite spidey storylines), so I can't wait to see this. Linking it back to Transformers, in the early Marvel UK comics, spidey appeared in the transformers comics in his black costume. There's some trivia for you. Marvel would do anything to sell a comic, I mean, really, spiderman and transformers is just a weird team up.
Someone posted a great picture on my shark stuff pool over on flickr. The discovery channel building got all dressed up for shark week,check it out, I'm applying to the council for planning permission first thing tomorrow morning.

Posted by Leonie at 01:26 PM | Permalink

There have been a lot less slugs about lately. Either they were embarrassed by their appearance on this blog or the hedgehog that was spotted in our garden has a taste for slug meat.
Went to Royal quays, hadn't been before but ended up going twice this week to say goodbye and hello to Andys mum as she was going on a cruise from the nearby dock. Also got to meet Matts dad (or papa bear as we've been calling him), having visited my own parents recently it seems to be the time of year for catching up with family.
Anyway, Royal quays is a weird place. It's a big retail place filled with discount stuff. But theres lots of odd things. Like rabbit village ( a random petting corner, although according to the sign the rabbits don't like you entering rabbit village, so I guess maybe you are just meant to look at them). This was a super fluffy rabbit, which we deduced was lord of rabbit village because he had his own little hutch cordoned off from the others. Either that or he was particularly bitey.

There is also a lot of old fashioned cars around, for no discernable reason.

And these poor seals were locked in, and the owner hadn't opened a window for them. It's summer for gods sake! They'll die in there!

There is also a clock with a big rotating head on it, which scared Andy a little bit.
But I did get an amazingly yummy ice cream, chocolate seville sundae. I wish I had one now.

I also got a new t-shirt for training in which looks like something from a comic book. Because if you're going to do martial arts you should dress like a super hero. At least that's what I think.
I've also done a logo for Bugpowder, as I'm sure you've noticed they have different logos up all the time. You'll be able to spot mine, it has fish on it.

Posted by Leonie at 07:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

With the increased number of great white sightings around the UK, it seems that maybe they are in these waters after all. And about time too. If I can't afford to travel to exotic locations to see a nice big toothy shark then it's up to them to come see me. I have also discovered that tuna mayo is a very good way to attract sharks and it isn't as stinky as chum:

I will present my findings to the oceanographic society at a later date.
I wish I was at Caption this weekend, boo hoo. I'm missing out on a fuzzy felt workshop. I love fuzzy felt.
Instead I'm at home (which has become the hottest nightclub for slugs)

trying to salvage what I can of my graphic novel off my idiot computer, praying I don't have to re-scan the entire thing, because that will take months. I need to send a pdf version off to publishers and also to converse, who probably want to see how I've used their product (the main character wears a pair). I noticed in a little shoe shop in Bray, when I was visiting Ireland, that Scott Morse has done a limited edition pair. Unfortunately I didn't have 60 euros, but I did manage a sly photo.

I love Scotts work, and I'd love to see him do more stuff for DC and Marvel too. His Electra was very cool.
Speaking of DC, I saw Superman Returns the other day. I have to say, Marvels movie intro is way better than DCs.
I thought it was okay, apart from the kid, that whole storyline was awful. My favourite bit was the opening credits, with the John Williams theme tune and the original style font, that was worth going to the cinema for!
I also saw pirates of the caribbean, which I would rate highly simply because there is a good sea monster in it and lots of fish-people things which I enjoyed. As it had a higher sea boggly rating than most movies, it made it good by my reckoning. However, I have happily sat through Jaws the revenge more than once so my opinion probably doesn't count for much.

Posted by Leonie at 01:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

After a lovely trip to Ireland, I'm back and ready to get started on my next comic - issue 3 of Monstrum!!!

I had a great time in my home town of Greystones (flickr set here), where I caught up with my family and my pal Aileen.

Sheriff and Emma gave me a toy squid and a toy shark before I left, so I took them with me and did a little photo story (even on holiday, I can't help it). Flickr set here.
Looks like I'll be missing out on caption this weekend, boo! I love caption, it's one of the most fun conventions in the world because it's more like hanging out in the pub with your mates than attending a convention. And hanging out in the pub is one of my favourite hobbies.

Posted by Leonie at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)