'We Are Open' Event

All going well, the Paper Jam Comics Collective will have goods for sale as part of the We Are Open art and design project in Middlesbrough on Thursday December 17th. This is an ongoing scheme whereby empty shops in the town are handed over to artists and design groups to show off their work.

Running the opening exhibition (where our work will be sold) are friends of the collective Empty Shop, who are at 5 Newport Road (opposite House Of Fraser). The shop opens for business at 10am.

There is a BBC report on the event here.

Tumble and Fall Takeover

The collective is spreading its wings and taking up residency on Dennis J Reinmuller's sublime Tumble and Fall webcomic. Dennis has had to put his work on hiatus while he gets to grips with academia, so rather than shut the site down altogether, he's handed the baton on to other artists.

We've had a month of the wonderful Katie Sekelsky's interpretation of T & F, now it's our turn. Rather than ape what's come before, we've twisted the brief somewhat and combined it with our 24-minute comics, taking the "Tumble and..." part from Dennis and selecting the final word at random. Thanks to Gary Bainbridge for taking the reigns on this project on behalf of the group.

To kick off the festivities, here is Andy Waugh's ultraviolent effort. Enjoy!

Small Press Big Mouth 3

Gary Bainbridge and Andy Waugh of the PJCC can be heard on the latest Small Press Big Mouth podcast. The guys were interviewed briefly during Thought Bubble about their - and fellow stall runner Paul Thompson's - current titles.

You can listen to it here.

SFX Magazine

Awsome friend of the Collective Stacey Whittle has namechecked the group in her Thought Bubble report on the SFX website.

Thanks Stacey!

Thought Bubble 2009 (Part Two)

The Paper Jam Comics Collective are back from the Leeds Thought Bubble convention, having sold lots of comics and chatted to lots of people.

As well as the stall minded by Waugh, Bainbridge and Thompson (which sounds like the worst legal firm ever)...


...there was additional representation on stalls from Jack...


...Ben Clark and Terry Wiley. Add to this the support of non-exhibiting group members Daniel, Lily, Ian Mayor and Oscillating Brow, and it's clear that PJC were out in force.

For a more detailed rundown, please check out the blogs of those above.

Small Press Big Mouth 2

Space Monkey, our new anthology (and the first one made for kids), has been reviewed in the latest installment of the Small Press Big Mouth podcast.

As well as giving us her own thoughts, reviewer Stacey Whittle had her daughter Alice come on and give an eloquent summary of what she liked about the book. Coming from our target audience, this was praise gladly recieved. Thank you ladies!

Being marked out for particular acclaim were strips by PJC members Ben Clark, Oscillating Brow, Paul Thompson, Lily Daniels and Faye Stacey.

You can listen to the podcast for yourself here.

Thought Bubble 2009

The PJC collective will be out in force at the Leeds Thought Bubble convention on Saturday 21st October. Manning the stall and selling their goods will be Andy Waugh, Gary Bainbridge and Paul Thompson, with support/derision from Jack Fallows (who'll be manning his own table) and Mike (who'll be running the Travelling Man table). Collective member Terry Wiley will also have a table somewhere in the area, adding to an already formidable North East contingency.

This will be the convention debut of our newest anthology Space Monkey and will also be a chance for people outside of the North East to pick up copies of our previous titles (providing stocks last). In edition to these, there are exciting individual titles to pick up. Jack and Gary are both launching new works - the first part of Jack's new series The Big Bang and Gary's new tome Grainger Street. Meanwhile, Andy has two new comics - including the TB exclusive Blether - and a painting (or two) to sell. All this, plus the usual titles from the collective and friends.

If you're coming along, please stop by and say "hi" to the guys (or "hello" if you're that way inclined) and show your support. Mexican waves are always encouraged.

SPACE MONKEY Anthology

The Paper Jam Comic Collective are back with another anthology!

The untitled kids-themed anthology mentioned back in September now has a name (Space Monkey, or to give its proper title Space Monkey, featuring: Squids, Bicycles, Cowboys, Skeletons, Bogeys, Dinosaurs, UFOs, Galleons, Loners, Emos, Aliens, Accidents, Bulls, Electricians, Pizza Pirates, Missing Heads, Secret Codes, Astronauts, Cheese, Massive Plants, Toilets, Tortoises and Bob...And That) and a form, being that it looks like what you see up above. The cover image is by Dan Gilmore and the whole thing was painstakingly put together and shaped into loveliness by Paul Thompson.

It works both as a fantastic kids comic (with all the laughs and excitement of our usual work but with none of the rude words) and further proof that Newcastle is a hotbed of comics talent. It is truly the nicest-looking anthology we've put out to date.

Space Monkey is available now from Travelling Man Newcastle and shortly via the site for the modest price of £3. We're in the midst of trying to get an online shop set up, but in the meantime if you want a copy and you don't live nearby drop us an e-mail and we will sort it out.

Check back here for details of an official launch...

Durham Book Festival

The Paper Jam Comics Collective were representin' at Durham Book Festival at the weekend, and there's a write up at Oscillating Brow's blog if you really must know what we got up to.

A massive Cheers me Dears to Leonie O'Moore who arranged our appearances at both Whitley Bay and Durham. Leonie's exhibiting some work at the Lit and Phil in Newcastle from the 2nd November until the 23rd December. You should go along because she's mint. So there.

Whitley Bay WordPlay Festival

Paul Thompson and Oscillating Brow attended the Whitley Bay WordPlay festival on Saturday, which was characterised as a battle for hearts and minds. We won of course, but during the quiet periods, we faffed about with pens and paper. As is our way.

KIDS Anthology

Hello Everyone,

We are putting together our new anthology very soon. The idea is as loose as ever - Kid Friendly. There aren't very strict rules in terms of theme, but for content we need to make sure there are no swear words, no scenes of a violent or explicit nature (to the degree that isn't suitable for kids, - i.e. a spaceman shooting an alien's head off might be okay, but the spaceman proceeding to have full naked sex with the Star Princess afterwards might be a step too far). By the same token, try not to patronise or dumb anything down either, think about what you loved as a kid and bear the themes/content of that stuff in mind when you're creating.

The deadline for submissions will be Thursday 24th September and the finished product will be A4 size (A3 sheets folded in half). It will have a full-colour cover and black and white interiors. Each contributor has two pages to play with, so if you're writing and drawing your own story it can be either one or two pages long, or if you're working with somebody else it can be one to four pages long and so on. We have some space for colour submissions, but not much, so if this is something that would interest you drop me a line ASAP (tmne_smallpress@yahoo.co.uk) and we'll figure something out from there. Please don't create something in full colour until you've dropped me a line as we might not be able to use it!

As for submitting work, you can bring your original artwork (A3 or A4 only) in to the shop or to one of the meetings as long as it's in a folder or plastic sleeve or anything else that will prevent it from getting damaged in somebody's bag. Alternatively you can scan it in and send it as a 300dpi JPEG to the above e-mail address. Be sure to leave a blank border around your pages so that nothing gets cut off during printing and make sure your text is legible, not least of all because children will be reading it, but also because it will shrink if you're working on A3 and it might disappear during printing if your lines are really fine.

The last Comics Evening before the deadline is this coming Thursday 10th September from 6:30pm onwards at Travelling Man Newcastle, and we'll be using the opportunity to share our ideas with the group before the big day, so bring any and all scraps of paper or abstract notions you might have!

See you there.
-Jack

Paper Jams Open for Business!

It seems that this blog can no longer contain the overflowing creativity of our collective, and as a result, a sister blog has been surgically implanted onto the side of it. This blog is called Paper Jams, and you can get to it by clicking on the Gary Bainbridge designed picture to the right >>>

This will serve as a posting ground for all things spewed forth during our meetings, as a kind of visual relief from the written garble that appears here! This will include scribbles, doodles, 24 Minute Comics and anything else that makes it to the page. Go there now and watch it unfold!

Small Press Big Mouth + Calendar

So you all know who Stacey Whittle is, right? She's the local writer and small press appreciator who has an impressive number of writing gigs and geeky affiliates under her belt, and is an asset to our own humble collective. Not only does she HAND BAKE cakes every time we have a launch party, but also collects the anthologies and the work of our individual members. This means she's either A) A really swell person, B) Genuinely impressed with the local small press scene or C) both of the above. And let me tell ya, if you want to go home with the car, the home media station and the fabulous assistant I'd get those fingers on the buzzers for C. Anyway, my excuse for this plug is because she gave the Robots anthology a mention on her brand-spanking-new podcast Small Press Big Mouth, go there and have a listen, it's jolly good fun.

Next on the agenda is to post a wee calendar so people know when we're meeting. All Comics Evenings are free and happen at 6:30pm on alternate Thursday nights at the Travelling Man comic shop on Grainger Street in Newcastle. You need to be 18+ to attend and you don't need to be a massive comic fan either. It's very rare that any of that isn't the case, but if it isn't I'll be sure to let you know. Anyway, the events this coming month are:

Thursday 2nd July, Travelling Man @ 6:30pm
Thursday 16th July, Travelling Man @ 6:30pm
Thursday 30th July, Travelling Man @ 6:30pm

Hopefully see you all there!
-Jack

Robots Launch

Might I be the first to suggest a roaring round of applause to all people involved with the Robots... and that launch party last Friday, which was an unfathomable success. We got tons of people down, all of which seemed to have a ruddy good time. The antho was (and IS!) awesome, bands and films were awesome and the cakes were yummy. We'll soon be posting our first ever anthology as a free downloadable PDF from this 'ere site, and we'll also be re-printing the others long passed and setting up little PayPal buttons so people from the far reaches of planet earth can check out our back catalogue. Watch this space!

In other news PJCC member and Squares frontman Daniel Clifford just scored himself a feature on the Shields Gazette website and bigged us up like a true gentleman. You'll also see pictures of the man himself in a fashionable spangly space suit if you check out the new photo slideshow I've posted as a testament to our grand accomplishments... just over there >>>
(photographs by Yvette Bessels and Andy Waugh)

That's all for news, but while I'm here dear reader, why not come down to one of our Comics Evenings and get involved with all of this malarky? They're every two weeks on Thursday nights at the Travelling Man comic shop (on Grainger Street in Newcastle), and begin at 6:30pm. You must be 18 or over, but it's free and there are cakes... Our next event is tomorrow (Thusday 4th June), meaning the next one after that will be Thursday 18th, and so on etc.

See you soon!

Star and Shadow Map

During the promotion of this launch event I've had this question posed to me a lot: "So where's this going on then?" and replied with this: "The fabulous Star and Shadow Cinema, of course!" to which I've had the reply: "Oh yeah, where's that then?" So to remedy this problem here is a map for your convenience:

And for the urban explorer, here's a little step by step on how to get there without a car:
1) Get the Metro to Manors Station
2) When you get out the station take a right
3) You'll pass a pub, a mattress shop, some houses and church among other things. The Star and Shadow is right before you hit Byker Bridge, oppostie the Tanners pub. It's about 5 minutes walk from Manors Station.

Or for music fans... you know where The Cluny is? It's at the top of that steep bank that The Cluny is at the bottom of. So there you are, you can't go wrong.

Happy exploring.

'ROBOTS...AND THAT' Anthology

I spent a few hours downstairs in the shop yesterday (on my day off, mind!) trying to make sense of the reams of paper with our anthology printed on, and although I was mostly unfolding the 750 A3 sheets that the printer decided he would fold but leave the other 750 unfolded, thus making the task of guillotining and stapling twice as long winded, I did manage to assemble about 5 copies. To anyone planning on helping out, your job should be a lot easier now that I've sorted out all that tedious monotony. But for my suffering, behold the spangly thing. It's wonderful.

Narc Magazine

Look at us, we're in May's Narc. magazine! The north east's best and free-est local music and culture magazine. And we're in it! Look!

Robots... And That on That Facebook

Hiya,
Have gotten round to spamming every poor bastard on my Facebook that I think might want to come along to the launch. Why don't you do the same? By my calculations, if we all invite 10 people, then some people will attend! Think about it...

Here's some links:
for the Paper Jam Comics Group
and
for the launch event.

Now, I'm no good at this normally, so those links probably haven't worked. Just getting my excuses in first.

Seeya,
Skippa

LAUNCH EVENT

Right then,

The launch event for the 5th Paper Jam Comics Collective anthology Robots... And That will be hosted at the fabulous Star & Shadow Cinema in Newcastle, and festivities will commence at 7:30pm. Watch this space for updates on a possible all-day faire too. It will cost the general public £3 if they're a member of the cinema, or an extra £1 membership fee if not. There will be live music, films on show, comic stalls, cakes, sweets and of course the fabled item for everyone's enjoyment. The date to put into your calendar is: 29th May. Tell everyone you know, we're a little further afield this time, so good promo will be essential! But rest assured, this will be our best anthology, and indeed best launch event yet.

That's how for now.

-Jack

Antho Submissions

So far we've had FOUR submissions for Robots... And That, courtesy of Kwan Li, Regan Von Doom & Gavin Wins! (of The Stillwells), Martin Newman and Dennis Reinmueller (who produced the marvelous strip below). It's good to see new contributors, and it sounds like there are some amazing works in progress, so keep on truckin'.

Fairs Fayre

Andy Waugh of PJC and Melanchomic fame, organised a stall for the collective for Sunday's Fairs Fayre at The Cumberland Arms. Myself and Gary Bainbridge of PJC and Nightbus fame came along to lend a hand and we had lots of lovely stuff on offer. Go to Andy's blog (linked above) for the full run down. Here's some picture of me and Gary looking like idiots. Oh, and the stall.

-Jack

Ian Mayor vs. Comic Racks

Long-standing member of the Paper Jam Comics Collective Ian Mayor, recently appeared as a guest host on the fine podcast Comic Racks, which you can listen to here. What's more, he gave us two, count them, two shout-outs. So welcome in, Comic Racks listeners!

WARNING: There are some sweary bits!

Maker Faire II

And here are the long-awaited photos, just to prove I wasn't fibbing:

This was our fine stall, which I'm sure you'll agree is rather swish (if you ignore my idiot self).

The BBC were building some kind of weather robot and wanted a "weather cock" for the top, so I drew this image which Andy Payne of Hexray made into the 3D cut-out, which was then mounted onto the robot itself. Andy's wife took these photos, so thank you Hexray!

Maker Faire

Today myself, Gary, Andy and Alex all manned a stall at the Centre for Life's Maker Fair. The event was organized by the centre itself and Craft magazine, and there were some unbelievable things going on - mechanical horses, engined powered skate-boards, an 8ft walking, talking, singing robot and a tweet-powered bubble machine to name a few. In amongst that there were a few humble stalls such as ours, where we had tons of pens, paper and arty materials ready for the general public to come and make comics. Coinciding with this we chewed everyone's ear off about this lovely collective, and had the following documents on the table:



This was a double-sided A4 sheet folded in half to make a 'booklet' -feel free to print one off!



These were our comic templates for people to fill in the blanks (the one on the top right is the fine work of Andy Waugh), and of course we had plain paper for the more adventurous types. We'll be back there tomorrow, and I intend to take photos of the stall and scan in a few of the strips people drew and contributed to our "gallery" for your enjoyment, so watch out for post number two!

Watchmen

PJC gave Watchmen: 1.823/5

After the rather pointless film, I thought this might perk up those of us who left the cinema feeling... unfulfilled. Or, y'know, maybe it won't. I don't know where this video came from, but Mike showed me it at work on Sunday, and I have returned to listen to the "turn into a car" bit over and over.



Enjoy,
-Jack

Robots ...And That (submissions outline)

The collective are planning their fifth comics anthology, set to be released in May, and we want everyone to get involved! As we are growing day by day, we thought it might be useful to have a submission outline on the blog for people to have a look at from the comfort of their own homes. Gary Bainbridge took the liberty of putting this into words for us:

OUR THEME:

Robots... And That
Think Science-fiction, science, fiction, science versus fiction, robots, androids, cyborgs, the final frontier, the impossible made possible, nanotechnology, contradictions of the laws of physics, The Time Machine, holograms, Battlestar Galactica, Back to the Future, space travel, time travel, Flash Gordon, Buck Rodgers, Brave New World, Space, Star prefixes, Nineteen Eighty Four, Logan’s Run, aliens, humans, other, artificial intelligence, artificial stupidity, the living dead, Tron, cryogenics, Ghost in the Shell, The Tempest, alternative timelines, parallel universes, Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey, future technologies, yellow writing in space, faster than light, obscenely complicated techno-babble followed up with a simple metaphor to explain it, telepathy, discovery, utopias, dystopias, the human condition, the alien condition, or just really tenuously feature something that vaguely resembles any of the above in a completely different kind of story.

GUIDELINES, RULES AND ADVICE:



We’re going to be having a new format for the anthology this time around, so listen up. Work on A4, but draw a horizontal line 2 ½ inches (63mm) from the bottom of the page, and imagine that line is where the page ends. So, you’ll be working in a 210x234mm rectangle. Leave a 10mm margin so none of your lovely drawings get cropped in the printing!


The rule of thumb is Two-Pages-Per-Head, which means if you're working alone, you have 1-2 pages to work with. If you're collaborating with one other person, you have 1-4 pages to work with, another two and you have 1-6, you get the idea!

Please let us know as soon as possible how many pages you will be submitting, so we can get a total page count.

When you’re done, either a bring your originals (in a plastic wallet or folder) down to a Comics Evening, hand it over to Jack or Mike during shop hours, or if you're equipped with some fancy technology, scan it in yourself, save it as a 300dpi PDF file and e-mail it to tmne_smallpress@yahoo.co.uk

If you are handing an original over, ensure that you work in black ink on white paper, and that all text is clear and readable, even if it’s reduced to half size. No one has the time to sort this out for you!

Make sure you include any information about yourself that you want people to know - i.e. the title of your strip, your name, website etc. You can do this either on the comic itself or write it down on a piece of paper and include it with your submission/e-mail it.

We're planning a colour cover this time, who draws it (if not all of us!) will be decided at the meetings, so bring down any and all ideas you might have and share them with the group!

DEADLINE:

Thursday 30th April 2009 (there will be a launch event in May, with bands, sweets, comics and tons of other genres of fun)

Good Luck

-PJC

You Will Have To Wait Launch

I've been promising this for a while, so here it is. Some images from the launch night, the poster, and Mark Pembrey's beautiful spoken word piece from the evening > Clicky. Photos were taken by Siobhan Richardson and Yvette Bessels. No photos of the masses of sweets and cakes unfortunately, but they were there, promise! When we get more copies of the anthology printed up they'll be for sale from this blog, so watch this space...

Enter... Stranger.

Grettings all.

This should hopefully be the hub of the bi-weekly Comics Evening hosted at Newcastle's Travelling Man store. From it's beginnings 2+ years ago we've created 4 anthology comics, drawn God knows how many 24 minute comics, discussed all that's right and wrong with comics these days, and consumed more Amaretto and discounted Greggs sticky buns than is strictly recommended.

We've released the past two anthology comics at popular gigs also under the '...And That' banner where like-minded people have gathered to listen to music, eat cakes and do comics too. So this blog hopes to document these and any other kind of activities the gang get up to.

Yeah, this is neatly summarised over in the introduction but... you need a first post, yeah?
Skippa