A long time ago, back when dinosaurs and Jesus were knocking about together and neither of us were quite so decrepit as we are today, Jim Boswell and I worked on a little four-page, grey-scale comic strip called Intergalactic Bank Robbing Teenage Space Aliens On The Run. It was a fun little mad-cap science fiction story, not the heartfelt think-piece you might be imagining from the title. It appeared in issue 12 of FutureQuake and led directly to us doing Project Luna: 1947 together.

Well, it’s getting reprinted soon, which means Jim has been busy changing grey-scale to full colour. It looks really good. See…

It’ll be reprinted in the forthcoming British Showcase Anthology which is being put together by Adam Cheal and published by Markosia on October 1st.

I do feel like a bit of a fraud, I am not British, after all. But Jim is, and he organised it, so I get to sneak into the book like a corpulent, blood-bloated tick hiding in a fold of neck flab.

Since getting laid off from the shipyard in mid May I have done just about bugger all of anything. This must change. So, time to kick into gear and push on with some projects that have been malingering in the edgelands for too long.

While I’ve been dawdling things have been chugging along nicely.

The Crowley book is out in the wild. The signed limited edition sold out in under 24 hours. The regular edition is still readily available.

Project Luna: 1947 is out there in trade paperback. Still a few hardcovers knocking about too.

Get It Down & Other Weird Stories, which collects fourteen of my short stories (ten previously published in magazines like Nature, Supernatural Tales and Innsmouth Magazine, along with four stories seeing the light of day for the first time) will be released towards the end of August.

But it’s time to get a move on with the new stuff.

The as-yet-unnamed WWII/horror graphic novel is ticking along nicely. Chris Askham’s pages are always a treat to see and Bram Meehan’s lettering is consistently top-notch. We’re close to a third of the way through it. Here, have a low-res sneak-peek…

I’ve got a few short stories out there, just need to keep them in circulation until, hopefully, an editor likes the looks of one.

There are a few other comic projects to get off the ground too, along with a couple that got off the ground only to then develop bad knees and rickets before collapsing face first into the dirt. Time to kick them back into life. Or kick them to death and have done with it. Better than having them hanging around in limbo.

Not long now until Thought Bubble in Leeds. Roll on November. I’ll be singing at the Markosia table on both days. Times to be announced.

And it’s off to London the following weekend for what promises to be an exciting event involving my old pal and Crowley artist extraordinaire Roy H Stewart. As Roy said to me recently, “Turns out the occult is a very friendly place.” I’ll post details here once it’s all announced.

Right then. Onwards.

I’ll just put the kettle on first.

I was lucky enough to get my mitts on this yesterday. Lovely piece of work by Richard T. Cole.

AC was know to hold curry parties where he would cook up a pot of his speciality – glacier curry, the recipe perfected during his mountaineering expeditions. It’s reported that during his final days at Netherwood one of his favourite meals to take in his room was a plate of sardines sprinkled with curry powder. That’s why I asked Roy H Stewart to show a tin on the sideboard.

One of his final requests was that his friends gather together to share a curry on the anniversary of his death. On the 1st of December 1948 Lady Frieda Harris, Gerald Yorke and twelve others did just that.

Aleister Crowley: Wandering The Waste

Here’s a little preview of the opening nine pages, to belatedly mark the official launch.

I’m happy to report that the signed bookplate edition from Weiser Antiquarian Books sold out in a little over 24 hours. See the end of this post for details of where you can grab a copy of the standard edition.

Aleister Crowley: Wandering The Waste. 144 pages. You can grab a copy…

Direct from the author, signed and dedicated upon request
Direct from the publisher
amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
The Atlantis Bookshop in London (included with each copy is a postcard signed by Martin Hayes)
Sub City on Dublin’s Exchequer Street have signed copies

Available digitally at…

Comixology
Kindle store US – UK
iTunes

Finally, it’s out there.

Diamond Comic Distributors refused to distribute it so getting it onto shelves hasn’t been easy. The book is currently available in physical form from these outlets…

A limited bookplate edition is available from Weiser Antiquarian Books. Limited to 111 copies, bookplates signed by the author Martin Hayes, the artist RH Stewart, and Crowley biographer Richard Kaczynski, who kindly provided the foreword. **8th June Update: The Weiser special edition has sold out.**

Also available…

Direct from the publisher
Direct from the author, signed and dedicated upon request
From the US printer via amazon.com
From the UK printer via amazon.co.uk
The Atlantis Bookshop in London (included with each copy is a postcard signed by the author)

Available digitally at…

Comixology
Kindle store US – UK
iTunes

Where Webb’s River meets the sea. Odd.

I am told that Project Luna: 1947 is listed in the May issue of Previews.

The Diamond order code is MAY13 0753. If you were to bring that number to your friendly neighbourhood comic retailer she could order you a copy. We should all do that. Yeah! Lets! The 88 page + bonus material pulp science-fiction trade paperback will breach earth orbit on July 1st.

It’s still available for pre-order on amazon.co.uk

There’s an interview with me and Jim Boswell on the Markosia website. Click here to open the pdf.

Further lunchtime wanderings through the derelict factory lands.

The Project Luna: 1947 trade paperback won’t be released until July 1st but I hear that the publisher still has a few copies of the very limited LSCC hardcover edition in stock at their fortified storage bunker.

Jim Boswell and I are really happy with how this edition came out – it’s a thing of beauty. Jim’s artwork looks truly superb. The crappy jpeg below doesn’t do it justice.

Usual price is £15 + p&p. But Markosia have just begun a week-long special offer of £13 with free UK p&p.

Full colour. 96 pages including bonus material: sketches, script pages and things of that ilk.

Project Luna: 1947  will almost certainly never be available as a hardcover again.

The ideological fiction of capitalism is dead in Europe. Capitalism is a fiction if capital that is placed at risk for a return cannot be lost.

Charles Hugh Smith writing on Dangerous Minds.

The Syracuse Herald
March 5th 1915

Link.