The Phoenix! It fliiiiiies!

This weekend saw the launch of the first issue of brand new weekly comic The Phoenix! Which, uh, I may have mentioned already. The above is an early / alternate version of the issue one cover - in the end, we decided that it looked a little too 'apocalyptic' and went for the blue-sky background used on the final cover. I thought I'd post it here, not least so you can see the nice pterodactyls I went to all the trouble of drawing even though I knew perfectly well they'd be covered up by the (admittedly lovely) logo.

Anyway, Saturday was a preposterously lovely day from start to finish, beginning with the fact that I got to stroll up the corner shop and see my work featured on the cover of a well-known national newspaper.

AND have ginger beer, too.

Saturday was also, of course, the day of the launch party itself - a brilliant and hugely fun event held at the super-exciting new Story Museum in Oxford. (Can't wait for that place to open properly, it sounds like they've got such exciting things planned for it). I had a really lovely time and caught up with so many comics-creatin' (and comics-readin') friends old and new, that I couldn't remotely hope to cover it all here. M'colleague Sarah McIntyre posted lots of great photos and a write-up of the day over on her blog, so why not go read that and feel just like you were there? But without cake.

I have stolen this one photo of Sarah's to post here,
not least because it is the one photo taken of me in
like the last 2 or 3 years that I actually quite like.

If you haven't seen a copy of the Phoenix yet, you can read the preview Issue Zero IN FULL and FOR FREE over on the Phoenix website! And then go subscribe. C'mon, you can get five weeks' worth of awesome comics for a tenner. A TENNER. Give it a whirl!

Anyway, huge thanks to everyone who's said nice things already about both Pirates and How To Make (Awesome) Comics - seeing people's drawings and completed HTMAC 'exercises' start to flow into Phoenix HQ is already one of my favourite things about 2012. Not least this collaborative masterwork - script by my marvellous nephew Lex, art by his wastrel father:

That's pretty harsh, Superman.