Since the laughable Bristol Comics Expo, the month has been almost deathly quiet. I don't know if it's the June doldrums or just that I haven't seen anything going on. yes; there's been lots exciting news in and around the world of comics (if you like that kind of thing), but for me it's been a period of heel-kicking and ponder.
Borderline Press took on a Commercial Manager in the form of my old friend Christian and he has, I hate to admit it, been great at doing the jobs I hate doing and he's been cutting costs; but this has been at the detriment of Verity Fair...
Terry Wiley's collected edition was originally supposed to be out for May, but production problems (at our, then, printer) put it back a month. Chris came on board, immediately looked at the costs of printing VF and said, 'Hold your horses.' The upshot is that Verity Fair should arrive in shops for July. I'm hoping it will be for the LFCC at Earl's Court or at the latest ICE in Birmingham. Spoko #1 will arrive at the same time, as will a bunch of promo posters - top quality posters - we'll be giving away to shops and people who buy our products.
After that we have another (publishing) lull, while I get Santa Claus versus the Nazis and Seth & Ghost away for a late September delivery. I also hope to have Robotz, but that depends on Jo's schedule. She's got June and July set aside to work on the book and it'll all be down to me to get the thing finished and to a printer for an October release. These three books are the backbone of Borderline Press's Christmas Onslaught (and the least said about that before Midsummer's day the better!). Plus we have Nathan Castle's Seamonster, a collection of Agata Bara's stories and two other projects; both by women, one from Scotland (via the USA) and the other - another - from Scandinavia. As I lost a couple of projects, the least said about those, also the better.
Oh and there's Spoko #2, which at the moment has stories from Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany and, hopefully, the UK. That should be out in November (if I can assemble it all, get a cover, and get it finished by September).
It's the Leicester Comic Con next weekend; we're hoping this is considerably better than Bristol (but, to be fair, you could hold a convention in a rotting crab's arse and it would be better than Bristol), then a summer of travelling around, meeting people and generally getting all of you people to see how great we are!
There is a change in the personnel for one convention, however. Because of a family engagement, I can no longer attend The Lakes in October. So Christian, along with Ben Dickson, Gavin Mitchell, Terry Wiley and a few others will be at the Borderline Press table in the Clock Tower. I will be taking Borderline Press to the brand new Leamington Spa Con, which is on the Saturday of the Lakes weekend (the family wedding isn't until the Sunday). I have high expectations for this new convention, because Dan Mallier - one half of the team behind it - is full of confidence and Lisa, his partner, seems to be approaching it from the direction a proper (non-comic) Convention organiser might. I expect it will impress many people and could well be the start of a much needed Midlands convention (now that Caption is moving and the MCMs at Birmingham aren't really about comics fans).
The other news involves my intention to get the website working more for us. Initially we had intended to have a rolling load of all manner of stuff, but, you know, running a comics publishing company - even part time - consumes so much time and energy that sitting down and thinking of frivolous and interesting nonsense to keep the web pages moving suddenly becomes much harder than the original idea seemed.
And that's about it; very much a month in limbo, waiting for things to start moving. However, you need to watch this space; things are always just close to the surface with anything I do...
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