Anthology Update & Thought Bubble 2013

Welcome to 2014 everybody!

Long time no see.  It's been a whirlwind over at Water Closet headquarters!  Last time we saw you we had just gone to print with our mighty anthology and were about to head off to Thought Bubble.  We got the chance to meet some of our fine contributors while we were there and give them some copies of the book, still warm from the printing machine. They were only delivered (by hand!) to us that morning by the omnipotent Stuart Gould, and nothing compares to that feeling when we first opened the first box and laid eyes on the beauts.  It was a treat to share that with many of you, and get such positive feedback from passers by.

Sitting directly to our left was Adam & Hillary Steel, the fine folks from Darkmook Paper Miniatures.  Adam was kind enough to do a Gentrified version of his insanely fun tabletop combat game for the back of the book (pictured below sans Were-Hyenas, of which there are 4).  For those of you awaiting the board on which to play, hold on to your butts because it will soon be available right here for free download.  You can print it out, cut out your paper figurines and have a ball. 



Get out of my kitchen!

Weren't at Thought Bubble, you say? Where can you get your hands on a copy of The Irregulars, you ask?  Well, despite selling well at the convention, we still had too many books to be able to transport them back to Bristol, so at the moment our stock is in the capable hands of the Travelling Man comic shop in Leeds.  From there they will be distributed to the other Travelling Man shops (Manchester, Newcastle, York) and back down to us.  Once that happens we will finally be able to ship out copies to all the very patient individuals who lent us their talents for the book, and to those interested in buying online.

So watch this space and we'll let you know when we have our books back and ready to go!  In the meantime, go read some comics and them make some comcis.  I leave you with a comission I did of a battle damaged Gent...

Peace,

Jordan 

"Irregulars" - The Ladies & Gentlemen Anthology

The Water Closet Press is very pleased to announce that our very first anthology has been finished and sent off to press.  Featuring the work of some 28 contributors and 20-something stories, it's coming in at a whopping 136 pages.

We will be launching the book at this year's Thought Bubble in under a fortnight's time. Pop by our table and pick one up, then walk around the convention in hunt of signatures from all other contributors in attendance. Collect five, meet us at the after party and we'll get you a pint. Probably.

The Irregulars be also available at any subsequent conventions that we attend (TBA), online through UKcomics, and on the shelves of select comic book retailers (TBA).

See you in the funny books folks.

Love,
Rik and Jordan

MCM London 2013

Good day to you all!

Just a quick update to let you all know what's going on in the Water Closet. We attended MCM London last month and it was our most successful convention to date. In fact at the moment we don't own any issues of Ladies and Gentlemen issue 1. WE SOLD OUT!!! Whilst this is obviously fantastic news for us it does mean that issue one is only available to read on the blog. But dry those tears, we will be getting our fourth run of the book done in time for our next convention.

Happy as clams. Photo courtesy of Paulus Van of Manic Mosh Magazine.

Which reminds me, at our next convention we will also be launching our anthology book. We've had a bunch of great submissions already and there is still time to enter with prose stories and art work. We also have a bunch of scripts waiting to be picked up so if you like making comics, whether it will be your first or your millionth book, get in touch with us. The final deadline for artwork is OCTOBER 1ST so there is still plenty of time to join the Water Closet Press.

Also whilst I've got you, why not check out this interview we did for the 20 Minute Longbox Podcast. We talk about Ladies & Gentlemen and our adaptation of (part of) Michael Chabon's "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" which can be found under the Weird Planet tab at the top of this page.  It's a great show and Stephen is a friend of ours so why not check it out.

That's all for now. At least all I can remember. See you in the funny pages.

Rik

WATER CLOSET TV

At the Thought Bubble convention a few months ago (which you don't know anything about because we never did get around to posting a report on it), Richard and I were caught on camera by SciPulse for a brief interview about Ladies & Gentlemen...

Now I remember why I choose to draw comics, safely behind my bristol board.  Having said that, the misspelling of my surname in the video may not be a coincidence.

While we're at it (and now that I've figured out how to embed a video), we might as well dig this one up for you.  It was made by our friend Jo Howell and was shortlisted for the Impact Yorkshire! contest after a showing at the Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds, May 2012.

Thanks for watching, reader!

Signing off,
Jordan

LONDON MCM FANS

For all those who stopped by our table and picked up a card or a comic: Thank you, thank you, and welcome to our blog!

Be sure to click on the "Ladies & Gentlemen" tab at the top of the page to read the entire Curse of the Were-Hyena Part 1 for free. Want to find out what happens next?  Go to our "Emporium" page and we'll send you a copy of Part 2.  Already have Part 2 but want a paper copy of Part 1 to complete the set?  Go to the Emporium!

If you enjoyed the comic we'd love to know what you think. Pop on over to our facebook page and give us your thoughts (and your thumbs).

We'll try to get up some pictures (I think we only took about 2) and a report of how the convention went shortly, but until then, thanks for making our first MCM a big success!  See you at Thought Bubble.

Signing off,
Jordan 
 

KEEP CALM AND BUY A POSTER

Water Closet is pleased to present you these new poster designs to accompany the release of Issue 2.  There's one for him, for her, and for everyone in between!  They will be available at this weekend's London MCM Expo and Thought Bubble in November.  If you can't make it to either, we'll keep you "posted" as to when you can order your very own copy straight from the world wide web.  We hope you enjoy them... British and so on and so forth.

 

Available in size A4 and limited stock of A3.

Thought Bubble, or "Our First Convention and What we Learned."

Day One: The day of optimism and uncertainty

Richard Worth and Jordan Collver losing their convention virginity.

Well, here it is our Thought Bubble blog post. In summary, it was one hell of an event. We were stationed over in The Royal Armouries (my former employers) on a table with the lovely Biz Horne. Our comics couldn't have clashed more. Ours is a classic comic affair promoting Victorian action adventure and moustaches, whilst Biz is trying to raise awareness of the very real and serious issue that can arise in forced marriages. Recipe for a comedy sitcom you say? Well yes. I think both team WaterCloset and Team FML had a good time and we got to get some exposure at our first ever con. Also Biz brought biscuits. My hero!

The lady Biz and myself on day one.

Business went well, with a few friends coming to pick up their donation prizes and a few strangers buying the odd issue. We gave a couple of statements into the odd dictophone too! The vibe at Though tbubble is always great so although we weren't selling massively we were still very excited to be there. What happened next though was... intense. We hit the after party festivities around half eight having already had a celebratory curry and excited at the thought of being able to mingle with other creators. And that we certainly did. We ran into our omni-present, energetic, flip-flopped printer Stuart Gould of UKomics, and I finally got to meet the devilishly suave Simon Moreton of Smoo Comics who is in fact our very first publisher. We appeared in a Newspaper called The Sorry Entertainer, you should check it out! I also briefly chatted to Kieron Gillen on his way to the DJ booth. I've met Keiron before; I was drunk then too, and looked like this...

Travelling Man birthday celebration costume.

For those of you who haven't read Phonogram Singles Club, that's me dressed as Seth Bingo, Gillen's douchebag DJ. Bumping into a creator dressed as one of his characters is a bit like standing at the front row of a gig in the band's t-shirt. It makes you look a bit crazy. Anyways, Kieron was very nice and dissapeared to go drop a dancefloor bomb. That left us to chat with Cameron Stewart. He was on the next table to us and at the party gave us some valuable tips on how to get our names out there. He also said that the comic "looks good" which will be going on issue two's cover. He's also Canadian, much like Jordan. They bonded.

Cameron Stewart, Eisner Winning well of advice to newbies and sayer of the word "Eh?"

Whilst I'm talking about the afterparty its worth mentioning a number of things. Namely that the Jeramiah Weed Co. table giving away free cups of delicious sour mash and ginger ale helped to get the party started. A number of bizarre events followed. My good friend Nick Robinson (not the news guy) had to take his shoes of too dance as his shoes were hurting him. He's 6'7''.

This is what his shoes look like: Preposterous...

Here's what his shoes look like next to Jordans head:

Princess Leia, but not.

The free drinks, which incidentally was only supposed to be one per guest, turned into several and resulted in me coaxing Jordan into dancing his weird marionette dance as I drunkenly chatted to strangers about any and everything. Photographic evidence can be found over on my facebook page but, unlike the fine beverages of sir Jeramiah Weed, aren't fit for public consumption. Needless to say, much of Team Water Closet ended up looking a bit like this...

Sexy.

Anyway we met some lovely creator-folk who you can find on twitter, @kenkills @lolapoodlegirl and @ailishoctigan are amongst them.

Day two: The day of mist and hangovers

Day two: Hungover... enter: My recovery hat.

The start of day two hurt alot. We'd lost a lot of pep, mostly due to lack of sleep, our new bestfriend Cameron Stewart was missing, and I'd given up trying to look presentable. But on the plus side day two was the day of strangers. Footflow was a bit slower, giving the chance for other creators to wander around in a similar haze, on the look out for something good to pick up. This meant we got to meet a lot of peple and spread our name a bit. Kieron Gillen even came back and bought an issue. Nice guy. Unfortunately Biz jumps ship slightly early meaning we had no biscuit based support, but on the upside when Cameron did arrive he flicked our buddy the bird which was hilarious. We managed to make it through the festival alive which is bonus. We made friends and got to show some strangers the book. We also got a few tips and tricks from the veterans which helped immensely. We're now on the lookout for more cons to hit up and shops that want to shelf our book.

Thought Bubble was my first ever convention a few years ago back when it was starting out. Now being on the other side of the table there makes me feel immensely proud -- its unlike any other convention. Everybody has a good time and whether you're there as a creator or not, there is always a very welcoming feeling. Fingers crossed we'll be there again next year . We've learned that despite the hard work we've already put into creating the comic, we've still got a lot of hard work to do. We've learned that getting hammered mid con isn't always a great idea, and that you should always take a closer look before buying a drink for a guy you only think is Tony Harris (when it really isn't). And most importantly we've learned that other creators are in the same boat as you (or were at some point) and are largely nice people who still love comics and want to check you (and your comics) out.

Coming soon will be news on how to purchase online and a few pages from the comic for y'all to fix your eyeballs on.

Good day to you, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Rik