Music Cupboard

Yep! The blog is back for 2 weeks of page previews from the new anthology, Mixtape. I like to upload these in order they appear in the book so this first page comes from Sarah Fogg's super cute Poppet comic. If you're interested in asking Poppet a question for her regular zine feature there is information on WTTMW?'s tumblr here.

Thanks
Sammy  

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Music Cupboard by Sarah Fogg - Design and Development

Poppet! Sarah has worked hard this year and created 2 comics for our anthology. Her second story is about Poppet and her fairy friends causing mischief! These are Sarah's character sheets for the comic. Poppet also runs her own regular 'ask poppet' question feature in What's The Time Mrs. Woolf? (quarterly zine created by Sarah and Lily)

This is the last of the design and development posts. We have sent our comic files to the printers so I have the 'playlist' order ready to give you 1 page sneak peaks of everyone's work.

The anthology should be ready in time to take to Bristol Expo and London MCM Expo in May followed by Manchester MCM Expo in July.

Thanks!!

Sammy  

 

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Post Comica Comiket 2013

 

   

 

 

Sarah and I had a great time at comica comiket yesterday. Thanks to everyone who said hello or bought something from the table. I think Furby was having fun like Snoopy trying to be The World Famous Grocery Clerk. It was lovely sharing the table with EdieOP and her cute but secretly scary comics.

Thank you for reading! Now back to making comics! :D

Sammy  

 

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Team Sammy and Sarah at Comiket

Sarah and I booked a last minute little table at Comica Comiket independent comics fair this Saturday. We'll be taking highlights of our most recent solo comics plus our collaborative music zine and Inspired's Eat Me! anthology!!

Thanks and see you there!

Sammy  

 

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Mixtape Cover by Sarah Fogg

We're now able to announce that the anthology we're working on is called Mixtape and the cover has been illustrated by Sarah Fogg. The comics don't have a theme this year so the variety reminds me of a playlist of songs from different genres.

There are more behind the scenes blogs to post this week. It's getting very exciting because we're near to our print deadline. 

Thanks!

Sammy 

Prefer Tumblr? www.inspiredcomics.tumblr.com

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Music Wars by Sammy Borras - Design and Development

 

Music Wars is a new comic staring teenage twins Ted and Tim. In previous stories they have tried their best in food based competitions but this time they will have a go at entering a battle of the bands. Ted has been practising his stylophone solo and Tim is in charge of programming the drum machine. They're keeping their new robot creation a secret.

The characters first appeared in Smoothie Wars which is available to buy as a mini comic but originally ran as a webcomic for free. Food Wars featured in our Eat Me! food themed group anthology last year.

Thanks

Sammy 

Prefer Tumblr? www.inspiredcomics.tumblr.com

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A Ghost Story by Sarah Fogg - Design and Development

Hello! Sarah Fogg sent me some media tests she did for her comic.It looks great and really fits well with the mood of the story. Instead of guessing I asked Sarah to talk through how she got this effect:

I didn't do much development work for this comic as the idea came together very quickly, but I did have to do some media tests. In university I did a longer comic by drawing in water-soluble ink and then spreading it around the page with a paint brush. I thought the floaty effect would be good for a ghost story (the original project was a ghost story too), but I'd long since lost the pen I used, so I did a few doodles of the characters using new pens, on a couple of different kinds of paper. Fortunately for me, but unfortunately for the blog, the first combination of a cheap cartridge pen on bristol board worked fine, so I only did these few little pictures before starting the comic itself.

 I do have at least 1 more design and development blog left for you so keep a eye out this weekend. Next week I'm hoping we can show you the cover submissions and let you know which has been picked by the group. 

Thanks

Sammy 

Prefer Tumblr? www.inspiredcomics.tumblr.com

Prefer Blogger? www.inspiredcomics.blogspot.com

Alex Short Story 2 by Jack Davies - Design and Development

These photos were sent to me from Jack Davies. He is working on a new short story about Alex - who also appeared in our anthology last year! It's always interesting to see the original pencil and ink work for comic pages. Jack's using a light blue pencil which can be erased digitally.

Jack is also planning to release a compilation of full colour stories about Alex - so keep an eye out on his blog. (we'll make sure to let you know here too) 

Thanks!
Sammy

The Melody of Life by Laura McNulty and Sammy Borras - Design and Development

Hello!

Between my posts Inspired have confirmed a table at Manchester MCM Expo 2013! I had a great time there last year so I'm really looking forward to attending again. 

Inspired are working hard on sorting our next anthology ready to be released in May. I'm hoping I can get some interesting comic making posts together over the next week or 2.We should be able to announce the cover (and book title?) shortly too.

The Melody of Life is a 5 page short story written by Laura McNulty and illustrated by myself. I really love that the Inspired anthologies have given me a lot of opportunities to work with a writer on types of stories I would normally avoid because I don't find them easy to tell.

 

Because the comic has a music theme I decided to start the layout using sheet music. Each bar is a different aspect of what music is often compared to. I used the digital thumbnails to explain what I meant to Laura.

 

This is the final ink work. I think this is the first comic page I've ever drawn which doesn't feature any figures. It's also very difficult to draw objects like clouds with just line work because they don't really have outlines. I will probably try colouring some of the lines grey to soften the images and make them read clearer.

 

 

This is the only main character in the comic. Laura has told me before that she imagines her stories like watching an anime so I tried to add more 'manga' style elements to the figures.

Thanks
hopefully I'll be back with some more interesting stuff in the week
Sammy

What's The Time Mrs. Woolf? Call For Entries

whatsthetimemrswoolf:

Greetings dearest Woolves! Sarahwoolf here with some news about the zine.

As of this month, we will be publishing What’s the Time, Mrs Woolf? every three months, rather than every two. This is mostly because Lilywoolf and Sarahwoolf (me!) just don’t have time to do our day jobs, our freelance work and a bi-monthly zine, and this has lead to Lilywoolf taking many breaks from the zine and Sarahwoolf doing almost nothing but the zine. We hope that publishing only four issues per year, rather than six, will be more manageable. (Not to mention Sarahwoolf’s poor mother won’t have to print quite so many tracing paper overlays. I love you, Mum!) Hopefully this will also make it easier for all of you to contribute, as there will be more warning for each deadline.

As there will be four zines per year, we’ve also decided to base them on seasons, rather than months. WTTMW will now come out as Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter issues! These loosely correspond to months as follows:

Spring: March, April, May
Summer: June, July, August
Autumn: September, October, November
Winter: December, January, February

Under this new system our next issue will be the Spring issue! We’re setting the deadline at the 1st of May. Remember you can submit anything you like, from illustrations to articles to puzzles and recipes. We already have some lovely work from the defunct March/April issue and we’re looking forward to seeing more!

What's The Time Mrs. Woolf? is a zine created by Sarah and Lily. We sell the issues on the Inspired table at events. The project has an open submissions system so check out their website for contact details!

Thanks
Sammy

78 Stone Wobble Photo Set

We had a great time at Birmingham MCM Expo at the weekend! Thank you to everyone who stopped by to say hello, buy stuff or get their portrait done! The next event we're attending will be Bristol Comics Expo and we hope to have some new comics released at the event so stay tuned here for the development updates over the next month. You can also find our updates over on Tumblr this year.

(Thanks Sarah, Laura and Jack for helping on the table)

Thanks!
Sammy 

PS: I'll leave you with my photography inspiration:

Spring Events 2013!

Hello! Inspired should have tables at these events in the spring! Exciting!! 8D

• Birmingham MCM Expo - 16th - 17th March 2013
• Bristol Comics Expo - 11th - 12th May 2013
• London MCM Expo - 24th - 25th May 2013

Spring Announcement - Birmingham MCM Expo 2013

Hello! I'm pleased to announce that Inspired Comics will have a table at Birmingham MCM Expo at the NEC on 16th-17th March! You'll be able to find us in the Comics Village (probably eating cake).

I've been chatting to the group about their projects this year and hopefully it wont be long till I can announce some of them!

We've not booked any other tables yet but we've got our eye on a couple of events later in the spring. I'll announce them when we've got better confirmation.

I have a Mickey Mouse and Adventure Time MASH UP t-shirt design open for scoring on Threadless. So if you like it and would like to see it printed you need to give it a high score. Thanks! 

Sammy 

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas from Inspired Comics!

All my familys christmas cards this year are illustrations of christmas songs. I can't post them all because I've not sent them all yet. :S

(sorry theres not as many christmasy pictures as last year because I left asking the group so late.)

Thanks
Sammy

Thought Bubble 2012 Photos and Stuff

Hello! Sorry for the delay, I had to wait for the photos and then I was too busy to sit and write this all out. Sarah took some photos of our table using her camera at Thought Bubble this time. But that does mean that I'm in the photos instead of Sarah - Sorry! 

 

Sarah made some new beautiful watercolour postcard designs in time to take to Thought Bubble!

 

This photo is of Issues 2-6 of What's The Time Mrs Woolf? - you can read more about Sarah and Lily's zine on their WTTMW? blog

This is a photo of the Artists trading cards! they were a lot of fun to make! Top row paintings by Sarah, ink drawings on the left by Sammy and bottom right paintings by Shaz. 

 

This is a photo of the music fan zine that Sarah and I made. Then my self published comics  followed by Inspired's latest anthology, Eat Me! 

 

These photos are of Inspired's old anthologies (on the stand). We're actually very low on stock for some of these comics so I've listed them on Etsy encase anyone is interested in grabbing a copy before they become out of print. We wont be printing any more copies in the future. 

The photo also includes Thin Ice by Shaz Jubeen, bunny food stickers and bookmarks by Cat Reda and bookmarks by Gem Sheldrake. 

Sarah also made her own dress! The design is from Josceline Fenton's Hemlock comics. Josceline also won an award over the weekend for emerging talent - congratulations!!

Thanks to everyone who came by the table! and thanks to Sarah, Lily and Shaz for coming to help at the weekend. 

Thanks for reading! 
Sammy