I was in London briefly overnight on Thursday for the opening of the That's Novel: Comics Off The Page gallery exhibition. Go see it at the London Print Studio on Harrow Road. Pages from Psychiatric Tales are on display along with a ton of other cartoonists' good work. Paul Gravett writes about the event here. Look closely at the photo in his article and you'll see me in the middle of the pic. That tall guy wearing glasses.

There is a staggeringly good review of Psychiatric Tales on the Page 45 shop website. I didn't know I'd garnered comic book of the month there.

More Uncle Bob

Four panels from Uncle Bob and the Martian Invasion.

Uncle Bob And The Frankenstein Monster

Latest chapter of Uncle Bob Adventures. I'm now around half way through the book which will be out from Blank Slate next year. Feel free to point out any errors. Thank you.

A Little Update, With Dream.

Been very busy putting the finishing touches to the US version of Psychiatric Tales (out from Bloomsbury in February). This edition will have a new introduction and a different cover. I found this work to be very hard going. I've had to retype all the text, so that the lettering is now on a separate photoshop layer from the artwork. This will make it easier to make any further changes without having to alter the artwork beneath. In future I'll be doing all my comic book work this way. I wish I'd done it that way from the beginning. You live and learn.

I've also been working on the Uncle Bob Adventures book (out from Blank Slate next year). A collection of stories featuring the 150 year old Bob and his fantastic life. Currently I'm near the end of the Uncle Bob And The Frankenstein Monster chapter.



In a recent dream, I found myself in a old spit and sawdust tavern. Dark and crowded. A Spanish man sat at one table playing poker with two gypsy women. They were using oversized cards. On the floorboards near the Spaniard's feet was a luger pistol. A forth hand was being dealt to a place at the table where there was an empty stool. I was told, or somehow just knew, that the Spaniard believed that Death himself was sitting on the apparently empty stool. Death was his personal protector, he said to a woman nearby. At one point, during the evening, I realised that I was sitting at a table adjoining the card players, and that the empty stool was at my back. I moved away, fearing death's grip on my shoulder.

The US Edition of Psychiatric Tales

News. The US edition of Psychiatric Tales is prominantly displayed on page 34 of the new Bloomsbury's Winter catalogue. Here's what the US version of the cover looks like.



Also, two interviews with me are now online. One is at Avoid The Future, and the other is at Frontier Psychiatrist.

A Summery of Recent Events

It's been a very good year, so far. Perhaps my best ever. Psychiatric Tales was finally published after years of effort. All hail the internet for getting me to the attention of publishers. It's now out in the UK from the small but perfectly formed UK publishing house, Blank Slate, and will be published by the giganto-sized publishing house, Bloomsbury, in the US early next year.

The book is selling well. It's certainly attracting a lot of attention. I was interviewed for the Big Issue back in Feb (far better than selling the Big Issue). Did a live radio interview on a Scottish arts show. Was invited to take part in the Graphic Medicine conference at the University of London. This latter event looked at the ways that the comic strip format could be used in the study and delivery of health care. Which sounds dry, but it was a very enjoyable event.

Last week I was in Oxford as a guest of Caption (Oxford's annual comic's convention). In three weeks (Monday 23rd of August) I'll be doing a talk at the Laydeez Do Comics meeting at the Rag Factory in Brick Lane, London. The day before that I'll be attending the Comica Comiket Independent Comic Fayre, at the Pump House Gallery, Battersea Park, London.

Oh yes, Psychiatric Tales was also Graphic Novel of the month in the Observer, and this week will be reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement. So it's all rumbling along very well. It's amazing how quickly I've started taking all this for granted.

Also this year I've started putting on the internet chapters of the latest book I've been working on, called: Science Stories. These chapters have whipped up a storm of controversy, as they've tackled such divisive subjects as the MMR Vaccine Scandal, Homeopathy, and NASA's supposed Moon Landing hoax. The comments I've received about these strips have been mostly positive, but I have had my fair share of hate mail. So it goes. Here's a typical example from Anon.

"It is morons like you that cause even lower level idiots to attempt to think with bad information. I am so glad I don't know you or your friends."

This stuff doesn't bother me though. It's to be expected.

On the negative side, despite all this success, I'm still very poor. Although now years in the past, the consequences of being ill and having to leave the nursing course I was doing, are still with me. I ran up huge debts at that time (I was in such despair that I didn't care what happened). So the little money I do make is usually sucked up in charges by the vampire bank, leaving me feebly dry.

This will of course change in time. I presume that Psychiatric Tales and the books I'm working on now will generate money at some point in the future. But I'm not there yet. Which is why donations are still gratefully received. Thanks all.

Darryl at Caption

As I may have said previously, in my day job I do care work with the elderly. It's agency work, which means I get sent all over the place to cover, when nursing or residential homes are short staffed. Summer is good to me, because it's the holiday season, and this means I'm getting plenty of shifts (days and nights). However, this also means that I've not had much time to do any comic book work recently (none actually). I'm tired from the long shifts and just want to flop down when I get home from work. This will change soon though, as I launch myself back into the four-colour world.

This weekend I'll be a Caption in Oxford. Where I'll be interviewed by the delightful Sarah McIntyre.

And now as promised ages ago, here are the main references I used to write the Moon Hoax strip.

Wikipedia. Moon landing conspiracy theories.

Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog. Fox TV and the Apollo Moon Hoax.

Nasa Science. The Great Moon Hoax.

The Guardian. Those hoax myths debunked.

FOX GOES TO THE MOON, BUT NASA NEVER DID. THE NO-MOONIES CULT STRIKES By Michael Shermer.

Moon Base Clavius. Photo Analysis Page.

NASA. Where No Flag Has Gone Before: Political and Technical Aspects of Placing a Flag on the Moon.

MythBusters Episode 104: NASA Moon Landing. 2008 Season. NASA Moon Landing.

The Moon Hoax

Today is the 41st anniversary of the first moon landing. So I completed this strip just in time. Feel free to point out any errors and I'll correct them over the next couple of days. References will be in the next entry.

This strip is but one chapter in my book Science Tales, out now from Myriad Editions.