Star of Bethlehem

This is our 3rd festive picture by Sarah Fogg. This is the Princess and a robotic Priestess from the world Sarah created for her short story in our newest anthology Science Fiction Octuple Feature.

Sorry its not Sarah's fault this picture is being posted so late today. I was supposed to get this online much earlier but I forgot because I was still sorting the last couple of Christmas cards. Sorry!  I hope you're all more organised than I am this year. XD

Hope you have a great Christmas! - from all of us at Inspired Comics

Thanks
Sammy

Blob!

Happy Christmas! I've drawn my character from the first anthology we created with Hi8tus way back in 2007/2008. Recently we found a bunch of copies of Blob! and I've just listed them in our online shop.

Online shop is now here. 

Hopefully there will be more drawings, but if not Inspired hope you have a great Christmas and new year! 

Thanks for still reading

Sammy 

Happy Z-mas!

Hi everyone! Sorry the blog has been quiet since Thought Bubble. But there will be a couple of pictures I can share with you over the Christmas season starting with this great zombie picture by Harry Griffin-hayes. I guess even Santa wont be able to hide from the zombies.

The other news I have - Jack Davies is working on a comic for Dead Roots and you can find out more about it by clicking here. 

Thanks! I'll be back with more festive pictures soon :D

Sammy 

Post Thought Bubble 2011

We had a great time at Thought Bubble this year. Thank you very much to anyone who bought a copy of Science Fiction Octuple Feature or anything else from our table. I forgot to take any photos so I've doodled up a diagram. People in the drawing are Sammy, Sarah, Lily and Shaz. 

Book covers that are not our anthologies are The Wastelands by Gem Sheldrake, Best Day Ever by Sammy Borras and What's The Time Mrs. Wolf? created by Sarah and Lily with a cover by Jennifer Denty. 

If you couldn't make it to the event our anthologies are available though our Big Cartel site. 

We're starting to make plans for next year already, so hopefully this blog is going to stay active with personal projects and new development work. 

Thanks again!

Sammy 

Cleaner Sky

This is our final preview page from the new anthology Science Fiction Octuple Feature by Gemma Sheldrake. The rest of the short story features a great alien/monster character design that I really like. Gem has been hard at work recently updating her The Wastelands webcomic. Unfortunately she wont be at Thought Bubble in person this year but we will have a limited amount of copies of a printed version of The Wastelands on our table.

You will be able to find us this weekend on table 75 in the Saviles Hall at Thought Bubble this year. That's in the far right aisle as you enter the hall. Click here for the floor plan. 

The table will have all our anthologies that are currently in stock and a great variety of comics, post cards, stickers, badges, handmade sketch books by individual members of the group. 

See you there!

Sammy 

Alex's Escape

This page is the first from Alex's Escape written by Jacob Boniface and illustrated by Jack Davies. The artwork is really bold, there are some interesting panel layouts all though the short story. Jack has posted some great step by step process posts over on his own blog spot. You can find them through the links below. 

How to do comics - Part 1

How to do comics - Part 2

How to do comics - Part 3

How to do comics - Part 4

How to do comics - Part 5

I also have some more events news and information.

We won't have an official selling table at Comica Comiket this year. Shazia might be around with the Pittville Press students (who I'm sure will have some great stuff anyway and will be worth finding). And Lily should be around doing some stuff with the London Print Studios Comics Collective - I'm not sure exactly what but it will probably be worth trying to find out what they're up to :)

Sorry that's kind of vague but we will definitely going up to Thought Bubble near the end of the month with a table and everything. :)

Thanks for reading
Sammy

Understanding

Today's preview is from Understanding by Shaz Jubeen. You can find more of her comics and illustration on her blog over here and tumblr over there. It's been a while since Shaz was able to contribute to the anthologies so I was really excited to see her comic this year. 

I've posted some copies of Science Fiction Octuple Feature to Orbital Comics in London. The comics have probably not arrived yet but hopefully you'll see them in the shop soon. 

It's getting close to Thought Bubble so I'll be uploading more frequent previews and let you know about any new extras people might be bringing along to our table. 

Thanks again

Sammy

London Print Studio Workshops

I've mentioned before that Lily from Inspired comics collective is also involved in The London Print Studio comics stuff this year. They have recently announced the dates for their free comics workshops. It all sounds really cool so I'm just linking you up :)

Thanks

Sammy

Prisoner 63

This week's preview is from Prisoner 63 written by Luke Bayliss and illustrated by Harry Griffin-Hayes. If you'd like to see more of Harry's comics and cartoons you can find more on his blog. Don't forget that you can read this comic in full in the new anthology 'Science Fiction Octuple Feature' which is available to buy online now :)

There will be more previews and distribution announcements over the next couple of weeks :) 

Thanks

Sammy

Science Fiction Octuple Feature is now available online!

Online Shop!

We've just added our new anthology to the online shop. A couple of us met up today and had a great time. We've also dropped off some anthologies at Nostalgia & Comics in Birmingham. Thought Bubble is the first event we will be taking the comics to in November. 

I'll be back on Wednesday with more preview pages! :)

Sammy 

Space Bunnies!

This week's preview is by Catherine Reda. You can find more great stuff by her over on deviantART page and in a couple of our anthologies. I hope you really enjoy the big variety of stories and styles in this sci-fi anthology. :) 

I'm hoping in about a weeks time the new anthology will be available to buy though our online shop and I will start dropping some copies off at comic shops. - I'll keep you updated :) 

Thanks again!

Sammy

Comics have arrived!

Hey everyone, exciting news! Our printed anthology came in the post this week. They look great! I'm really looking forward to taking them to comic shops and events. I'll let you know when they will be available and where from. We'll definitely be taking them to Thought Bubble this November :) (if I can get a good photo I will post it)

I drew some fanart of characters from the comics in the anthology this weekend and it was a lot of fun drawing everyones characters - hopefully I got the colouring roughly correct. Right to left characters are owned by Sarah Fogg, Lily-rose Beardshaw, Laura McNulty (writer), Sammy Borras, Luke Bayliss (writer), Harry Griffin-Hayes, Cat Reda, Shaz Jubeen, Jacob Boniface (writer), Jack Davies and Gemma Sheldrake.

And a massive thank you to all the contributors :)

Thanks again to everyone who has been supporting this blog
There will be more previews and news over the next couple of weeks
Sammy

Jacked In

This weeks preview is from Jacked In, a comic written by Laura McNulty and illustrated by Sammy Borras (that's me). We work together a lot and I always have fun making things with friends. Laura has been busy studying Japanese at university but I'm sure we'll find the time to make comics together again sometime in the future. Recently I have been creating lot of short story comics for the web and other group projects. I'm very excited about the launch of Ink+Paper this autumn, a thick comic/magazine organised by David O'Connell.

I mentioned last week that Lily was working on some projects but I wasn't sure how much I could tell you, but since last week they have been announced so I will fill you in. The LondonPrintStudio are running a comics course and Lily is one of 6 interns to get a place. I'm looking forward to following Lily's work and their group projects on their Comics Collective blog.

Lily is also working with Sarah on a zine for women. I'm hoping that it will be available to buy from our table at Thought Bubble, but I will make sure to let you know when it is officially released and how you can get hold of a copy.

I'll be back with more previews and news next week and hopefully some photos of our comic in print! it gets more and more exciting every week :)

Thanks again!
Sammy

Planet Rabbit & extra covers

This an absolutely lovely preview page from the second comic in the anthology, Planet Rabbit by Lily-rose Beardshaw. I know Lily is working on some other projects at the moment but they've not been published online yet so I don't know if I'm allowed to ruin the surprise. I will keep an eye out for an announcement and let you know but the best place to keep up to date with Lily's projects will be on her blog. You can also find this great un-submitted cover design which contains characters from different stories in the anthology drawn in Lily's style. 

I am very pleased that the four other covers that were left over will be featured in the inside of the comic and  they will be in  full colour! Covers by Sarah Fogg, Jack Davies and Gemma Sheldrake.

Thanks again
Sammy

A Thousand Empty Heavens & Cover

We've finalised the anthology line up and everything is nearly all ready to be printed. I'm getting very excited now. Over the next 2 months I'm going to post a 1 page preview from each comic and let you know what exciting things we're all up to ready for Thought Bubble in November.

I'm featuring the comics in order they appear in the book. This is a little preview of A Thousand Empty Heavens by Sarah Fogg. There is always excellent stuff posted on her blog regularly so make sure you're following her. 

After many different anthology title ideas we chose 'Science Fiction Octuple Feature' which was suggested by Lily-rose Beardshaw. The cover that won the voting we did was my own design, but I've decided to add little previews from the 8 comics on the back because I think they're all great. I really wanted to use all the submissions we had for covers, but I'm pleased the others will all be printed in full colour within the anthology. 

Because the image was re-sized for the internet I've added a larger version of the previews. Contributors are Sarah Fogg, Lily-rose Beardshaw, Laura McNulty (writer), Sammy Borras, Cat Reda, Luke Bayliss (writer), Harry Griffin-Hayes, Shaz Jubeen, Jacob Boniface (writer), Jack Davies and Gemma Sheldrake. So weekly I'll be blogging a preview page. 

Thanks for reading

Sammy

Twitter and Misc News

We joined Twitter this week - just in time for autumn. Now that the summer is over we're just putting the finishing touches on the anthology so that it's ready for Thought Bubble. So the Twitter Feed should be a great place to get info as we build up to that.

If you're a big Twitter fan already you can find some of us already tweeting away ..
@InspiredComics, @JackDaviesArt, @SarahKFogg, @GemSheldrake and @SammyBorras

And remember we have a Facebook fan page too!

This is another beautiful cover submission Sarah drew. I'm sure you all love her robots already - and the comic she has drawn for this year's anthology has so much depth, its really amazing.

Collecting together everyone's comics has been a lot of fun and I'm excited that I'll be able to blog about all the comics over the next month or so. But while you wait for all that, Jack has done some interesting blog posts about each stage of his comic creation process.

The other news I have is that my work is going to be in a Self-Portrait Show in Orbital Comics Shop in London starting next week. The group of comics creators listed is great, I'm really excited. You can find the event information here.

Thanks again!
Sammy

Sci-Fi Anthology - More of Sarah's Character Sheets

I have more covers for you this week, this time by Sarah Fogg. I love Sarahs robot designs from this summer. I'm not sure if Sarah's Nambots will feature in her inspired comic but you should definitely have a look at them in this blog post. 

Looks like there's going to be some great world building in these comics, with some big contrasts.

Thanks again
Sammy

Sci-Fi Anthology - Covers and Characters

This is another fantastic cover submission by Gemma Sheldrake. It's going to be very difficult this year to choose which cover to vote for. There are more covers waiting to be featured. I'm excited today because I've received the first set of final comic pages from Gem and they're looking awesome.

This is my cover submission. I'm a big fan of having a slice of life theme as the base for something with fantasy or science fiction twists.

All the comics I have submitted in Inspired anthologies are a collaboration with writer Laura McNulty. These are the character sheets for our sci-fi comic. We've known each other since I can ever remember so making comics together is a lot of fun. (and I'm sure Starbucks love the amount of coffee and paninis we needed this year to have time to develop the comic together.) 

Thanks again for reading - there will be plenty more updates to follow

Sammy 

Sci-Fi Anthology - Lily's Design Work

    

These great sketches are by Lily-rose Beardshaw. The Sci-Fi anthology we're working on can include stream punk - which is great because we can include a comic Lily made while studying bande dessinee in Brussels last year. 

I'll be back later in the week with more character sheets and cover designs. 

Thanks again,

Sammy

Sci-Fi Anthology - Jack's proposed cover design and preview

Hi again, these great images are by Jack Davies. For all our anthologies we have had an open submission system for the cover design and then have a vote within the group for a winner. Its great now that we have an active blog we have somewhere to showcase the brilliant designs regardless of whether they make it onto the cover of this years comic.

Just a quick update with some other projects we're working on. Gemma Sheldrake is offering a wide variety of commissions from her website - including gorgeous environment illustrations and full comics pages. For more details click here. 

Sarah Fogg has a great little gallery on flickr of sketches from her journal entries. I love this one from when Inspired Comics had a table at Bristol Small Press Expo this year. There was a stall selling the cutest hats! 

Encase you didn't already spot it - I've set up a Big Cartel online shop for Inspired Comics anthologies and all the comics listed are £1 each! We have recently sold out of the Pick&Mix1 anthology, so thank you very much to all the people who bought one over the years. 

I'll definitely be back in a week with more previews and updates - I have more exciting things to share already.
Thanks again!
Sammy

Sci-Fi Anthology - Sarah's Character Sheets

Hi, I'm back this week with some more design work. These beautiful and delicate robot designs are by Sarah Fogg. I've seen more of her designs so far and its got really great world building already. Sarah's work always has a lot of detail that makes her stories very convincing. You can read another great sci-fi story by Sarah in the Pick & Mix 2 anthology. 

Sarah and I had a great time at the Birmingham Zine Festival at the weekend. Sorry I don't have any photos. It's really nice to be back in the area and get involved again after the end of university. 

I really love how diverse our group is with styles. Hopefully I'll be back soon to show you more stuff for the anthology or news about other projects our members are involved in. 

Thanks for reading

Sammy

Birmingham Zine Festival

Inspired were too late to book a table at the Birmingham Zine Festival this saturday, its already full of amazing zine/comics people. But luckily they have a communal table. This means there is limited space per person, so unfortunately I can't take all our anthologies to sell, but I will be taking a couple of copies of Best Day Ever with its new cover and free sticker set! 

See you there!

Sammy

Sci-Fi Anthology - Gem's Character Sheets

We've been making anthologies as a collective for around 3 years and its really nice to finally have a regularly updating blog so I thought I'd tease you with some design work for the anthology over the summer. So much work goes into creating any kind of comic there's always a load of great design and development work that often doesn't get seen at all. 

So far I've seen a couple of character sheets and ideas from other peoples comics. I'll start by sharing this great character sheet by Gemma Sheldrake. Hopefully there will be a bunch of great sketches and things I can show you over the summer. 

Thanks for following us! 

Sammy

Comic Shops and Online Shop

I've dropped off a couple of copies of Pick & Mix volumes 1 and 2 at Nostalgia & Comics in Birmingham. All our anthologies are also avaliable from Proud Lion in Cheltenham.



If you can't make it to the shops I've listed or the comic events we go to you can buy some of the anthologies from my Etsy Shop.

Thanks again
Sammy

Thought Bubble 2011 and other announcements

illustration by Jack Davies, from the Distorted Anthology

I'm very pleased to announce that Inspired Comics will have a table at Thought Bubble 2011. The event will take place on the 19th-20th November in Leeds. You'll be able to find us in the Saviles Hall. We should have a bunch of new stuff to take to the event by November. We're starting to prepare a Sci-fi anthology and I'm hoping I can show you design work over the next couple of months. I'm very excited by what I have seen so far. 

Jack Davies has returned to the group, I'm looking forward to seeing more comics from him in the next year. You can read the Bostin Heroes comics Jack illustrated online here and see a bunch of great stuff on his blog. 

Thanks

Sammy

Petitecreme Online Shop [EDIT]

(Edited to update broken html information)
Gem's online shop is closed while she moves house. We'll let you know when its back online.

While you're waiting remember to check The Wastelands webcomic updates!

I'm sure I'll be back with more lovely stuff soon :)
Thanks again
Sammy

Degree Show

Five current members of Inspired are students at the University of Gloucestershire. Gem, Lily, Sarah and Sammy will be graduating this year and our Degree Show is on at the moment. You can find out more about the show on the University website.

Sorry about the low photo quality, I took the photos on my phone. 

Thanks for reading the blog

Sammy 

Our friends and comics in London this weekend

You're probably already aware that MCM Expo and The Alternative Press Fair are both happening in London this weekend. Inspired do not have a table at either event but some of our work should be floating around in a couple of places. 

London MCM Expo 

These are the thumbnails are the anthology covers to look out for which contain writing by Laura McNulty and my artwork. You should definitely try and find these tables because they all have other really great comics and magazines available too. 

Leek & Sushi's Manga Show by Itch Publishing

Six compiled by Ushio

Nami compiled by Non-repro

Sally Thompson is another table worth finding, we shared a table at Bristol Small Press Expo a couple of weekends ago. She'll have many pretty comics and extras. 

The Alternative Press Fair

Around half the current members of Inspired Comics are students at the University of Gloucestershire. Our illustration course has a table at events under the title Pittville Press. A couple of our class mates are taking a few bits of our work down. I've probably featured all the books that you might find quite recently, so just check the last couple of posts for more information.

Sorry, I personally can't make it down to London. I hope you all have a great time. YAY COMICS!
Sammy