Tuesday, March 31, 2009

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

Friday, March 27, 2009

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!

Thursday, March 19, 2009

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!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

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!

Monday, March 9, 2009

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

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

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