Houdini & Doyle: A Certain Symmetry

Hi everyone,

We are pleased to present a mini-comic about the unlikely friendship and rivalry between Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  This is a kind of proof-of-concept piece for a much larger project we have in the works called Escape! which will elaborate on the same story, themes, and ideas found here.  Although this also stands on its own.  It has been featured on Bleeding Cool, and you can have a gander below (click on each image to enlarge)...

If you'd like to see more pages like this (like... several dozen more) then please consider supporting Water Closet Press on our brand new Patreon page and help us make this comic a reality!

Thanks for reading,
Jordan & Rik

Fun fact: This comic is itself symmetrical....

THE IRREGULARS IS HERE

Good afternoon Ladies, Gentlemen and everything betwixt,

After a monumental wait due to a shipping error we finally have The Irregulars! For those that don't know Irregulars is our huge anthology book featuring a huge number of creators of huge talent! Just how huge and how talented you ask? Here are the contributors:

Tony La Vella, Rafael Desquitado Jr., Pete Taylor, Lisa Harrison and Matt Watson, Petri Hanninen, Robert Levebvre and Kierston Vendekraats, Chris Redfern and Darren Mullen, Sarah Rowles, Nick Soucek, Matt Duncan, Biz Stringer-Horne, Paul Bradford, Chris Mole and Brendan Purchase and Ben Wilsonham, Mike Pasquale, Dave Evans, Luke Halsall and Gavin Pollock and Andrew Scaife, Jamie Lewis, Alfie Gallagher, Marco Brunello, James Story, Pyrink and of course Richard Worth and Jordan Collver.

The Book itself comes in at a wow-hopping 130+ pages and needless to say we're  proud as any parents could be of this baby. With a mixture of black and white comics, colour comics, prose, poems, tabletop games and a foreward by none other than Master Stuart Gould of UKcomics, we don't mind saying that its a good looking little chap. Head over to the Emporium to pick up your copy.

For those of you that haven't read Ladies & Gentlemen yet, you need not fear; not only can you read the first issue entirely for free over on the Ladies and Gentlemen tab (at the top of the page) or if you're feeling saucy, you want to pick up the first two issues head over to the Emporium Tab. But failing even that, the book itself is full of stand alone adventures and a jumping on point in for new readers

This is just the cover, it's as pretty on the inside and after all that's what's really important.

In other sadder news, Ladies & Gentlemen will be taking a short hiatus. But belay your cries and fears, the Water Closet Press is a strong as ever an we will continue to create comics till our last days. The hiatus is a tactical decision on our part. We are currently working on a graphic novel that will have a lot of the same themes and ideas as L&G but will be much larger in scope. Cutting awayL&G is our way of getting the best out of both projects. We didn't want to split our time between the two in such a way as to thematically bankrupt the larger book or to draw attention and effort  away from the Gentry, who have been very good to us.  Having said that, this is by no means the end of the Gentry but merely a temporary departure. We have much more in store for them.  Furthermore, with the success of The Irregulars at conventions we have been talking about putting together another anthology in the hopes that more people with get to play around in our universe and we can keep the adventures of the team going in a smaller format. 

Other than that, stay tuned for more stories coming your way. We've been talking about sci-fi a lot lately.... Just sayin'.

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 

ISSUE 2 PREVIEW - LIONS AND RATKIN AND WERE-HYENAS, OH MY!

I don't know about you, but I like to spend a while looking at the interiors of a comic before I buy it. You can never trust those fancy covers. Well we've concocted a virtual flip-through of Curse of the Were-Hyena Part 2 to give you that luxury.  Click on the image to open it on a separate page for an up close look-see...

 

...And to think we left out some of the best bits!

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 
 

NORTHERN SEQUENTAL ART COMPETITION 2012

Hey ho Ladies and Gentlemen,

As issue 2 is away to the printer and you're hungering for some Water Closet goodness, why not check out our entry over at the Thought Bubble 2012 page, all the entries can be found here.

http://thoughtbubblefestival.com/events/northern-sequential-art-competition/

There are loads of entries in our category so it's going to be tight no matter what but all the entries will be on display up in Leeds City Museum for the duration of the festival.

Head on over to the Thought Bubble page to check out our entry "Something New Everyday."
Or, just take a pa-rouse below (click on the image to magnify).

England Prevails
Rik

** UPDATE **

Well the results are in and unfortunately we didn't win the competition.  But congratulations to David Parkinson for his charming comic, "Believe in Yourself".

A VICTORIAN NOIR

Howdy all, it's that time of the month again, here comes your latest Ladies and Gentlemen Short. This one is entitled "A Victorian Noir" and features guest artist Mike Pasquale, whom the eagle eyed amongst you may remember from this post. To give you a little idea of what this story is about, it started as an exercise for myself. I wanted to be able to write a story without dialogue and, luckily, having a mute character came in handy tremendously for this. I also wanted to play around with time and tell a non-linear story. I'm still unsure as to whether or not I pulled it off (let me know what you think guys) but one thing is for certain, Mike really made the characters his own and gave us an alternative of what The Gentry looks like. The Gent in a wife-beater and jacket ready to kick arse down in panel four is my favourite. So here at last "A Victorian Noir". Enjoy.

(As ever simply click on the images to enlarge)

fin.

Comic Strips

Hey chaps, just a quick update. after fiddling about with the blog it's now easier than ever to find all of the post with comic strips on. Simply click on the label at the bottom of this post labelled #Comic Strip. That should collate all our single page stories and non-Ladies and Gentlemen material. If it's just The Gentry you're after, simply click the #Ladies and Gentle label. Simples.

From the Vaults of The Water Closet

Hey there guys, whilst the wait for issue two is coming to a close ( release date October 7th) and there are a few Ladies and Gentlemen short stories on there way we found this in the dusty vaults of the Water Closet, a small story written by Rik for a now defunct project called Eden Through the Barbwire. The Brief was that the story itself could be about anything so long as it related to the title of the project. Alas the project fell through, but The WCP can now proudly present to you "The Big Push" one of the first stories ever written by Rik featuring the artwork of the brilliant Mr Harold Cupec (which you can see in a hugely blown up size by clicking and zooming on each image) whose work can be seen here. so without further adieu, enjoy.

[CLICK on the image to ZOOM]

"Ladies Night"

Much like the characters themselves, this Lady featurette is a companion to The Gent’s, picking up where the other left off. He's not The Gentleman without his Lady, and she'd finish his sentences... if he ever started any. I can only hope to one day achieve such a beautiful knife-to-the-back-of-an-assailant's-neck relationship with my new darling lady wife.

Now that the artwork phase of Ladies & Gentlemen Issue 2 is officially underway, this will be the last of the character shorts for the time being. But don't worry -- we'll still be updating the blog with news and will drip feed you with weekly page doses of Issue 1 (for those of who you who still have yet to get your own copy)!

Enjoy!
-J.C.

"Ever The Gent"

In exactly 4 days time I will be a wedman, and tonight is my bachelor party.  Accordingly, it’s a Gentleman featurette this week, in a dynamic episode I imagine will be much like this evening’s proceedings. Minus the sexual harassment, ideally. Now, witness our heavyweight hero enforcing the Gentleman’s Code of Conduct on the murky streets of Londontown…

(click on the image to enlarge)

"A Hex on Both Your Houses"

Well, it's that time again: Teaser Tuesday... hey there's 10 minutes to spare until Wednesday, it still counts. This week features The Amazing Hex Vincente in another Ladies & Gentlemen featurette. Stay tuned for more fan art, and the release of The Gent's short feature next time.  Enjoy, fine readers.

(click on the image to enlarge)

Sleight of Hand....

 Hey guys, welcome back to teaser Tuesday. This week we have the first ever Ladies and Gentlemen Story (before we even called it that) and what is essentially the creation of Hex as an older version of himself.  For those of you who visited us at Thought Bubble you may have already seen it. It was originally published in an anthology call The Sorry Entertainer by Simon Moreton , a fellow small press creator and wearer of a fantastic beard. The paper was pretty successful and we even got a couple of mentions in some shining reviews. Check them out here

http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2011/the-sorry-entertainer/

http://thingsinpanels.co.uk/

http://highlowcomics.blogspot.com/2011/09/small-press-anthologies-three-2-candy.html

Now enough shameless self promotion. Here's the story. The concept for the story is a playing card so its meant to be read in rotation. I've post it twice, once right ways up and the other wrong ways down so you dont have to strain your neck trying to read the second half. Sorry bout that guys. But here at the Water Closet we love physical comics, trust us it really works if you're holding a real copy.

Click on the image and ZOOM in to view in FULL SIZE!

And here it is upside down so you can read the second half:

Stay tuned because next weeks One page story is another Hex one. See you in the funny books.

Rik

"A Moth to The Flame"

Why hello folks. Here it is, the moment you've all been waiting for but just didn't know it: The very first of 5 (or so) Ladies & Gentlement character featurettes that will be exclusively appearing right here every fortnight! We hope they will whet your appetites in the interim while we're hard at work on Issue 2. And of course, if you like what you see be sure to pop over to our fantastical Emporium page and get your very own copy of Issue 1.



Signing off,
Jordan   

Happy St. Valentine's Day, Ladies and Gentlemen

So there it is guys our valentines gift to you lot, hope you guys had a nice day. Next week Jordan and I will begin the thumbnails of issue 2. It's our favourite part of comics creation because it when we get a chance to be truely collaborative. Jordan also said he was excited about the script which means I must be doing something right. 

See you in the funny pages.