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Making the final arrangements now before heading off to the Bristol Comic Expo tomorrow.  A quick round-up of Angry Candy-related items available over the weekend includes:

West: The Last Bounty
By Andrew Cheverton & Tim Keable.

New Mexico, 1887. On the trail of an outlaw gang, West’s latest quest culminates in the remote town of Meguila, where every man’s greed and motivation dictates the day. There, one phase of his life will end as another begins, and various fates set in motion events that will place Jerusalem West on a path to destiny he may find himself unable to avoid.

The Last Bounty is also available to buy now from the Angry Candy store, and will be the final West issue we publish as a small press comic - West will be switching to book publication in the near future, and we’ll give out more details nearer the time.

Also out this weekend is Accent UK ’s yearly anthology - this time it’s Robots.  This features the four-page strip AutoLolita, beautifully drawn by Jenika Ioffreda, as well as a fabulous illustration from Tim Keable.

And, a late addition, the newest issue of Violent! will be on sale, and this sees the first print publication of Into Endless Arms, a story I drew for Douglas Noble.

As always, we look forward to meeting up with some of you there, and if you’ve never spoken to us before, please come up to the table and say Hi.  You’ll probably make our day.

Today sees the final page of Into Endless Arms posted by those lovely types over at Factor Fiction, meaning that the story is now available in its entirety.  Looking back at it now (it was drawn over nine months ago), I can see all the bits I’d change (much of it) and appreciate the bits that seem to work (the bowler hats and the fence on page 1).  But artists always dislike looking back at old work, and it was great fun to draw - my especial thanks to Douglas for asking me.

Should you, by some calamitous misfortune not of your making, have missed the strip, then it can be read in all its six page glory starting from here.

The new Factor Fiction webcomics site has begun posting the first pages of Into Endless Arms, a story that I illustrated from a script written by the peerless Douglas Noble. The first of the six pages went up yesterday and the story runs until Thursday the 3rd.

Into Endless Arms was originally drawn as a Strip For Me circus-themed issue, and it appears online as part of Factor Fiction’s Violent! imprint. It’s not especially violent, but it is sad, and a little creepy. And, best of all, there are no clowns in it.

This weekend sees the official launch of Factor Fiction’s webcomic enterprise, which features the archiving of previously-printed comics from The Girly Comic and Violent!, as well as all-new ongoing content.

The two stories that Justine Shaw and I contributed to The Girly Comic were There Was A Divorce and Remembrance, and they can both be read for free by following the links provided. (Because the archives are on a spool-type page clicky, it’s worth mentioning that they run for 4 and 3 pages respectively, otherwise you won’t be immediately aware that they’ve finished, until the next strip starts.)

I have illustrated a story for Douglas Noble called Into Endless Arms, which was to have appeared in the print incarnation of Violent! and/or Douglas’s own Strip For Me comic; when this appears in one form or the other, I’ll be sure to post.

Bovey later, in retrospect, regretted his decision to avoid the precinct, trying to shave a few precious minutes from his schedule, a decision that cost him time in the long run, yet introduced to him the man the media had since dubbed a terrorist, but whom Bovey knew as Milo Anacrusis, and had liked.

Today is my last contribution to Elephant Words. It is called Only The Anacrusis and can be read here. It is based on David Baillie ’s picture below.

Way back in 2001, a free PDF-download magazine devoted to comics launched itself onto the internet, the brainchild of ex-Comics International writer Phil Hall, who now writes, along with some ex-Borderline contributors, for Comics Village.  I was asked to contribute a regular column, and allowed free rein to babble on about whatever comics-related nonsense was pissing me off that month. Thus appeared The Blank Page, featuring one of the first Emperor’s New Clothes reviews of Frank Miller’s execrable DK2, as well as a satirical attack on the first Spider-Man movie, and a dismissal of Marvel’s ’Nuff Said month and other ridiculous aspects of the industry. I had a terrific time. Occasionally I even found positive things to say. Once or twice.

Further to that, I ended up contributing dozen of reviews and interviewing such (at the time) unsung luminaries as Justine Shaw, Troy Little and Damon Hurd, as well as barefacedly blagging myself an interview with Matt Wagner that went wonky somewhere along the line but ended up as a perfectly serviceable feature on Grendel with new and exclusive comments from Wagner.

Any road up, there is now a website where selected issues of Borderline can be downloaded, though the entire 20 issue run will eventually be available. (I’m not in issue 1, although I hear it’s perfectly good.) Hubris and Old Boy Network aside, it is the best magazine on the world of international comics ever published, and it’s still free. You could do worse.

I’ve just learned while surfing the internet that Dave Stevens, creator of The Rocketeer and peerless ‘Good Girl’ artist, died yesterday of leukemia at the age of 52, which is no age at all.

Beyond crediting Dave Stevens with the type of comic that they don’t seem to make any more, there’s little I can think of to say. Mark Evanier has an obituary/tribute here.

One moment he had been walking the junkyard, just like he did every evening at about this time, and the next he was flat out on his back, dirt in his hair, and the whole of his face went from screaming pain to complete numbness in about two seconds. His name was Jeth, and as soon as he could find his feet he was going to upend that motherfucker who’d floored him.

A complete change of pace for me at Elephant Words this week; I’m stepping on Josh’s toes and have contributed a Fight Scene, but with extra silliness - it’s available to read here. This is for those lovely people (you know who you are) who cried at Growing Melancholia and There Is Nothing Here To See But Me, And I am Gone Away, and especially for everybody who stopped talking to me after Ancient Soil, Darkened Blood. Is there room for one more link? I think there must be - the picture below that inspired all of this week’s stories was contributed by Xander.