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

Webcomics - The Wastelands and Instant Comics

Hello again, a couple of members are working on webcomics at the moment so I thought I should link you up to them.

The Wastelands 

"This is a personal driven project I'll be doing to keep myself busy and not to rust out now that my university course is finishing. To improve on environments (Which I have such a crush for) and practice colouring. The comic's probably going to be updated weekly, maybe several times a week depending on how busy I am. But feel free to watch my Twitter for updates or subscribe here and on Smackjeeves where it will be posted!" (Petitecreme blog, 2011) 

It's exciting to see more of Gem's comics online to reach a wider audience. You can find more of Gem's work on her Petitecreme art blog.  

Instant Comics 

Instant Comics is actually a collection of short stories instead of a particular series. Theres several stories already online in the archives. I use the webcomic as a way to try different art and story telling styles. I am starting a new story this Friday (27th May) called Moth Eyes, about a recent sleep walking experience I had. 

Thanks for reading 

Sammy 

Bristol SP Expo 2011 - Report! 8D

Hello again! We're back from Bristol Small Press Expo. We had a really great time - thank you very much to anyone who bought comics from out table! Sorry I don't have many pictures, and they're quite low quality. Our table was packed full of exciting new books and extra things, it was really nice.

 

Sorry I didn't manage to update with more books before hand - we were hit by Blogger's updating errors. I zoomed in on Gem's stuff so you can have a good look. We took along The Wastelands books which ave a comic and lots of lovely concept sketches. Luckily I can link you to Gem's online store where you can pick a copy up! We also had a couple of Lily's lovely hand made badges and a couple of different comics and art books.

 

I'll finish the report with this sketch by Sally in one of Sarah's hand made notebooks. 

Special thanks to Sally, Lily, Shaz and Sarah  :)

Thanks for reading! - I'll try to keep on top on reporting on our projects and work throughout the year and hopefully any other events we'll be at!

Sammy

Bristol SP Expo 2011 Sarah's Comics and hand made books

  

Hello again! I took some photos of the stuff Sarah Fogg will be selling on our table at Bristol Small Press Expo this weekend. (sorry about the low camera phone quality)  Patience is a Virtue is a very cute little comic that will be available - you can find out more about the comic and read it on Sarah's blog. Sarah is taking a limited amount of hand bound illustration portfolio booklets and a small selection of hard back and soft back hand stitched notebooks.

Sarah has also printed a great selection of postcards. My camera phone doesn't really do them justice - you can get a better look at them on her blog 

Thanks again - see you at Bristol Small Press Expo!

Sammy

Bristol SP Expo 2011 Sammy's Comics

These are the comics I will be taking to Bristol Expo. Best Day Ever is a printed version of a webcomic that ran weekly this time last year which comes with a bonus comic and two badges. The Giant Rhinos In Space books are spare dummy books I had printed. These comics wont be printed in this format again so they are very limited editions and each book will come with a unique sketch inside! For more information about Giant Rhinos visit my project blog. Alien Rendez-Vous is a parody comic created for my university research project. You can read Alien Rendez-Vous online.

I will have lots of free mini comics to hand to everyone.

If you can't make it to Bristol Expo this weekend, I have an Etsy online shop with my comics and a couple of the Inspired anthologies too

I'll be back throughout this week to tell you more about what exciting extras Inspired members will have on our table this year

Thanks again
Sammy

Bristol SP Expo 2011 Anthologies

Inspired Comics have a table at Bristol Small Press Expo this weekend! We will be sharing our table with Sally Jane Thompson. All the anthologies listed above will be available for £1 each! (Unfortunately we sold the last couple of Blob comics at Midlands MCM Expo earlier in the year)

I'll be back throughout the week to tell you about some of the other books we'll have on the table.

Thanks
Sammy

Hand Stitched Notebooks and Badges

 

Sarah has been hand stitching some tiny A7 sketch books. So far they have versions of my Best Day Ever cover art. (You can read Best Day Ever online here or buy it online here.)  We're going to be selling the new notebooks at Bristol SP Expo and any other events Inspired are at in the next year. (I'll let you know if any new events come up)

I recently ordered more badge designs. Unfortunately only some of the designs made it in time for Midlands MCM Expo, but they're now all ready for the next selling event. The photo on the left are characters from Best Day Ever and the new badges on the right are from Giant Rhinos IN SPACE.

Thanks for reading and hopefully I'll be back with more things to show you between now and Bristol SP Expo.
Sammy