3 days to go...

That's right, Mo-Bot High BOOK ONE is out in paperback in just 3 days for all your conveniently portable and affordable schoolgirls-fighting-each-other-with-giant-robots needs! Pre-order now if you just can't wait!

ALSO on August 1st: I will be with m'colleagues Gary Northfield (Teenytinysaurs, Gary's Garden) and Adam Murphy (Corpse Talk) and our buddies from The Phoenix at the amazing Camp Bestival, setting up for three solid days of awesome comics workshops in a tent, surrounded by dinosaurs, comedians, jousting knights and legendary hip-hop superstars.

August 1st is going to be a FUN DAY.

Pirates of Pangaea FINALE! And MORE!

Couple of EXCITING UPDATES!

First off, the current issue of The Phoenix marks the senses-shattering SEASON FINALE of Pirates of Pangaea: Escape From Razorbeak Mountain. Do they, in fact, Escape From Razorbeak Mountain? Pick up this issue or you'll NEVER KNOW!

Here is the cover (sans title etc):

And here is an interview Dan and I did with fine comics website The Beat, talking about the finale:
http://comicsbeat.com/the-phoenix-presents-neill-cameron-and-daniel-hartwell-on-the-pirates-of-pangaea/

AND here are some nice words from the marvellous Forbidden Planet blog about the issue:
http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2013/the-phoenix-weekender-11/

Any concerned fans of Piratey Dinosaury shenanigans need not worry: we'll be back soon with our next story arc, Racers of Riverbed Run, which may actually be the Piratiest Dinosauriest Shenanigansiest one yet.

HEY ALSO Lauren Bennett of Random House publicity just tweeted a couple of photos that made me jump up and down with excitement:

DFC Library Paperback Editions! Which will be available in bookshops across the land this August 1st, I believe. They look fantastic - I love those comics and I'm really looking forward this chance to bring them to a whole new audience. COMMENCE EXCITEMENT!

Upcoming Awesomeness, plus A Brief Explanation of Invisibility

Hello! I'm doing a couple of workshops and stuff next week, and Lo Here Are The Details:

Tues 25th October: Luton Central Library - How To Make (Awesome) Comics Workshops - sessions at 10:30am and 2:00pm! Details here!

Friday 28th October: Haverfordwest Library, 10:30am - one-hour illustrated talk and live interactive drawing shenanigans!

If you're in the area, or know anyone with kids who might fancy diverting them for an hour or two with robots and monsters and kung-fu zebras and such, do let them know! I will of course be selling and signing copies of Mo-Bot High at all events!

Other than THAT - look, I know I've been nigh-invisible in terms of blogging and tweeting and facebooking and g+ing and such lately - god, I'm exhausted just listing it all. This invisibility has extended to going along to comics conventions and events etc. What can I say, it's always the case as a freelancer that when one is the busiest, that's when one can kind of disappear from the face of the earth a bit. Just last week I was really sorry to miss the launch party in London for the Etherington Bros' Baggage, the brand new release from the DFC Library that looks absolutely fantastic and is just about the most exciting and positive thing one could hope for in British comics. Anyway, m'colleague Sarah McIntyre went and wrote a great report of the night on her blog, so go read that!

Essentially, I'm just flat-out, nose-to-the-wacom on all manner of exciting, awesome, fantastically superlicious stuff for The Phoenix, and between that and, y'know, parenting, that's pretty much all 28 hours in the day accounted for. But hey, it's not long now till January 7, 2012, when you'll get to see all the fruits of this uncommunicative busy-ness for yourself!

Till then:

PS Not really "till then". I will totally be blogging between now and then.

Uh, hopefully.

Amusing Tales and Scribbles and Such: the DFB Storyblog!

I've recently joined in blogging over at the DFB Storyblog, where lots of David Fickling books' fine writers and illustrators (and me) are sharing tall tales, amusing anecdotes, and whatever other assorted nonsense takes our fancy. The general theme to start with was 'coincidences and misunderstandings and what have you', to tie in with the recent launch of Andrew Norris' I Don't Believe It, Archie!

I joined in with a nerve-shredding tale of terror which, as well as being senses-shatteringly exciting, features such eye-poppingly gorgeous artwork as the following:

Intriguing, no?

Read the full story here! I'll be contributing fairly regularly to the blog, so brace yourselves for further tales from the foothills of the mountains of madness.

Do go and have a read, there's tons of fun stuff on there already, with posts from my fellow DFC Library peeps Dave Shelton (Good Dog, Bad Dog) and Sarah McIntyre (Vern & Lettuce) as well as such luminaries as Candy Gourlay and Tony Mitton. Enjoy!

Comics, Hills, and Big - REALLY BIG - Pencils

Here is some very exciting news to come back from holiday to: it looks like the next batch of DFC Library titles have been officially announced! They are, from L-R:

• Super Animal Adventure Squad - a hilarious and hugely enjoyable strip by one of my very favourite cartoonists, James Turner,
• Baggage by The Etherington Brothers- your guess is as good as mine, as excitingly this one is ALL NEW, but based on Bob & Lorenzo's previous form, and the sneak tidbits I've gleaned about it here and there it promises to be pretty mind-boggling, and:
  
• The Boss by the marvellous John Aggs and the similarly marvellous (it's genetics, see) Patrice Aggs - one of the great early strips in the DFC, a fantastic mystery crimebusting school story - great mix of old-school British comics feel with something fresh and modern, I'm really happy to see this one being collected.

So yes, hooray for that! And hey, other news: it seems that the aforementioned Bob & Lorenzo Etherington's first DFC Library title, Monkey Nuts, has completely sold out of its first print run! Enormous congratulations, chaps, it's fantastic news and a salutary lesson in what is possible when hard work and indefatigible enthusiasm meet sheer mind-boggling, jaw-dropping talent. GOOD THINGS that's what.

And hey, quick: go buy Mo-bot High WHILE STOCKS LAST.

Did I mention I'd been on holiday? Look, proof:

Me, awed by the majesty of nature.



Me and the boy, awed by a REALLY BIG PENCIL.

That last one is, in fact, the BIGGEST PENCIL IN THE WORLD, as seen at Cumberland Pencil Museum. Yes, really. That is a place that exists. And we went there. Come on, I'm a comics artist - you think I can see a sign that says 'Pencil Museum' and not go in? Well I cannot.

Right, that's enough of that. More - and possibly, if I don't talk myself out of it again first, a Bit Of An Announcement, tomorrow!

K9 Santa

Here is today's entry in SantaSketchFest 2010!

A companion piece, if you will, to this one.

I genuinely can't remember who I drew this one for! Maybe it was me, maybe I just wanted to draw K9 Santa? Look, it's been a long December and I'm very confused. Um, if you would like a K9 Santa card, raise your hand?

Only two more Santas to go! And then... I can finally rest.

Full set on Flickr | Santas 2009 | Santas 2008 | Buy prints

Hey, while I'm here: check out this list of Comics Alliance's 15 favourites from this years SantaSketchFest!

Also: just look at this rather marvellous animated Christmas Card from David Fickling Books, featuring amongst other delights the Jamie Smart-illustrated sight of kids sledding on copies of Mo-Bot High and its DFC Library friends!



A timely message there. This year, give the greatest gift of all.

COMICS.

GIANT MO-BOT PARTY

That's right, we are having GIANT MO-BOT PARTY! Or "book launch" as it is rather more prosaically known.

The Where: Blackwells Bookshop, Broad St, Oxford
The When: Friday 3rd December, 7:00-9:30pm
The What: FUN TIMES!

There'll be lots of mobot-ty art on display, nibbles and drinks and chat with lovely comicsy people, some awesome cardboard Mobot-building shenanigans to join in with, and a raffle with a pretty exciting prize, which I shall blog more about later!

The event is open to all, but Blackwells will need to know how many are coming, so if you'd like to come along just drop me a line to neill (at) neillcameron.com and I can make sure you're on the guest list.

EDIT: Oxford residents can just pop into Blackwells children's department and ask for tickets there. Simple!

Do come along. Fun times!

MCM sketches!

Unfinished sketch of.. oh guess what, it's a girl with a mecha combatsuit.

Here are some doodles from this weekend's MCM Expo! Yes, there were occasional moments when it was slow enough to doodle. Here are some people who stopped by our table and stood still long enough to be sketched!

From left to right: a girl cosplaying as Starscream (awesome), the always-lovely Karen Rubins (not cosplaying, just naturally stylish), and someone else who seemed very nice but whose name I failed to catch.

I took along a bunch of these 'how to draw a mo-bot' sheets to give to kids:

Anyway, I guess I left them unattended at the table, and came back to find THIS:

I don't care what it says, that looks like the handiwork of noted cartoonist and identity thief Sarah McIntyre to me. Check out some more of Sarah's amazing sketches from the event over on her blog!

Sarah also drew the following lovely sketch of DFC Library pals Asha from Mo-Bot High and Lettuce from, duh, Vern & Lettuce.

Dawwwww!

I'm off down to Exeter tomorrow to do a couple of talks and workshops as part of the EXEtreme Imagination children's literature festival. One is a public talk, 5pm at Exeter Centreal Library - if you're interested, you can find out more and get tickets here!

Do come along, Exeterians! It will be lots of fun.

Hey, I've started to see a few reviews coming out for Mo-Bot High in the last few days. So far they've all been overwhelmingly positive, most of all this fantastic one over on Book Zone for Boys. I shall just quote one relevant passage here:

"In Mo-Bot High Neill Cameron has delivered a modern comic book that has strong appeal to both boys and girls and he should be commended for this - I hope we see much more from this series in the future, but that will only happen if fans of this method of storytelling go out and buy copies of the various DFC Library releases."

He's absolutely right, you know. So please, go buy them!

Identity Theft in the Valley of the Ninjas

Comics creator Neill Cameron, seen here looking uncharacteristically cheerful.

Hey wait, that's not me! That is Sarah McIntyre stealing my identity - or "cosplaying" as she would have you believe - at London's MCM Expo this weekend just gone. I had a fabulous time, and managed to TOTALLY SELL OUT of Mo-Bot High! Again! Lots of books sold to lots of lovely people, many of whom were dressed as ninjas and / or zombies. Look, here are some satisfied customers!

(World's youngest Ramona Flowers cosplayer? Photos stolen from Sarah's excellent multi-part write-up of the event, but that's okay because stealing photos is not as bad as stealing someone's identity)

I was drawing personalised custom mo-bots in each book I sold, as a fun thing. Off the top of my head I remember drawing: a ninja-bot, a spider-man-bot, a zombie-bot, SEVERAL pirate-bots, a steampunk-bot, a chimp-bot, a monkey-bot, a panda-bot, a big buzzing bee-bot, a giant-jar-of-peanut-butter-bot, a skinny-jeans-wearing-hipster-bot, a cheese-bot, a cosplayer-bot, two bunny-bots, a cross-dressing-bot, and a one-of-those-blue-dudes-with-the-spears-from-Avatar-bot.

Wow, that list sounds like the text for a children's book I would totally read to Logan.

I fully intend to continue this schtick at future events, because it was a lot of fun and gave me all sorts of things to draw that I have never drawn before, which is always nice, so if you're coming to Thought Bubble in two weeks get thinking now about what kind of giant robot you might want!

It was really nice to spend the weekend hanging out with my DFC Library compadres, with Sarah on one side with Vern & Lettuce, and the marvelous Bob & Lorenzo Etherington on the other with Monkey Nuts. We even did a stage show, where we all wittered on a bit about comics being awesome and stuff and then delved into the main business of the day - a rematch bout of the live drawing battle extravaganza that is SHEEP VS ROBOT!!!

Challenge ON.

The whole thing was a lot of fun, with Bob MC-ing up a storm and bounding around with his mic taking suggestions for Sheep and Robot weapons and accessories from the crowd like an awesome indy comics version of Jerry Springer. There weren't many people in the audience when we started, so I was just happily drawing away and when I looked up the whole place was packed. People are drawn to Sheep fighting Robots! Based on the Cheer-o-Meter Combat System (tm, patent pending) I think it's safe to say Vern totally trounced my angel-winged monkey-tailed long-haired mo-bot in the resulting battle. That makes it a thrilling 1-1 draw in this season's SHEEP VS ROBOT league table so far! Surely some kind of a tiebreaker is required to settle this brutal vendetta once and for all.

Just across the way from my table was the marvelous Garen Ewing, and just next to Sarah was her Fleece Station studiomate Gary Northfield, both of them wonderful comics creators and thoroughly marvelous guys to spend time with, so it was a really nice weekend - felt like our little corner of the comics village.

I tried not to buy much stuff, as frankly I didn't want to carry anything home after the hellish experience of trying to get 30 hardback books across London on the tube on the way in, but I managed to come home with a few choice items, to wit:

A signed, freshly-minted copy of the simply gorgeous Signal by Eagle-Award-Winning Comics Artist Paul Duffield! Who is lovely.

The fantastic new newspaper-format comic collection Bad Dog by the aforementioned (lovely) Gary Northfield.

A gorgeous Kani print by Warwick Johnson Cadwell, an artist whose work I'm rapidly falling hopelessly in love with after picking up his Kani minicomic at BICS. And who, again, is lovely.

An original sketch of Captain Britain (yay!) by Gary Erskine, an artist I've been a huge fan of since I was about 13 and who was kind enough to draw this for my brother James after hearing what big fans we both were of his fantastic Marvel UK series Knights of Pendragon in our youth. And who, it turns out, you'll never guess what, is totally lovely.

I realise how monstrously I overuse the word 'lovely' when talking about comics creators, but I can't help it. A funnier, smarter, kinder, more passionate and generally delightful group of people you couldn't hope to meet.

I mean, the ones I know, anyway. I don't know about the rest of 'em. You hear some funny stories.

Thanks to everyone who bought a book, everyone who was lovely, and especially to Emma Vieceli and her fellow Expo organisers for making it such an enjoyable, successful and smoothly-run event. And while I'm at it, to the Expo helper volunteers like the marvelous Rory, who pitched in and looked after my table while I had to go draw fighting monkey robots and stuff. Thanks, Rory!