Marc Ellerby

Okay, okay, so you can now buy a bunch of my minis on-line...



Ellerbisms £3 (includes P+P)

Speed Trail £2 (includes P+P)

The Venal Muse
£4.50 (includes P+P)
Preview
28 pages
B/W (with a colour card cover)
Self-printed.

Polar Opposites
£3 (includes P+P)
Preview
28 pages
B/W (with a colour card cover)
Self-printed.

Marc Ellerby Button Set
£3 (includes P+P)

For international postage prices please send an email to me at marclrb (at) gmail (dot) com BEFORE purchasing.

Please head over the the store to buy a copy (and maybe some other bits and pieces?)

Scroll down for Journaly stuff!

Hey,

I've been quiet, I know, but I just moved in with my girlfriend so it's been a bit hectic the last...well...month.

I'm making this a quick one as I'm on "borrowed" wireless, but I'll be at the Bristol Expo this weekend sharing a table with Jamie McKelvie, Kieron Gillen and John Cei Douglas. I'm bringing everything with me, including Love The Way You Love Vol 1 - the trade collection of the first three issues and a brand new postcard/bookmark thing. Exciting times!

Richard at the Forbidden Planet blog has reviewed all of my mini comics here, so take a look. There's a complaint about the shortness of Ellerbisms that I never thought much about until recently. Hmmm.

Also, IRON MAN WAS AMAZING.

I can't get used to using a Swedish keyboard. This is nuts!

Ellerbisms Vol 1 for sale (collects the first 36 strips)

Oh and what's that over at Ellerbisms.com? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I don't like the drawing here, so I tried to compensate by adding dots.
Ellerbisms Vol 1 on sale now.

And holy shit, RIVAL SCHOOLS ARE BACK and playing London. I'm so there! (even if they were never that great live...shaddup!)

Ellerbisms return! It'll be a bit sporadic as I'm moving but hopefully I can get this run complete and then work on more up to date ones for ellerbisms.com. Hey did you know that the Ellerbisms collection is now for sale for £3 and includes loads of strips not seen before? Well hot dang, go to the store already, FOOL!


Also I'm going to be exhibiting at the No Barcodes event at the London Underground Comics Stall at Camden Market on the 31st of May. I'm pretty excited about it, actually.

Love The Way You Love Side B
Due out in August from Oni Press.
You can pre-order from here (though obviously the cover's wrong on there...)

Here's the back cover too.



Saw Blonde Redhead last night. Pretty good, Holy Fuck were supporting and they blew my FACE OFF.

I am pleased to inform you that the art and tones for Love The Way You Love #6 is now complete. I'm extremely pleased with how it turned out and failing any mishaps should be in stores in June. That's it. Done. THE. END.

I can only apologise to the fans who might be reading this who have had to wait so long for it to come out. As you might know I suffered from an extreme case of R.S.I in around October/November last year which caused a complete halt in my drawing. The problem actually wasn't in my wrist but was due to a muscle build up in my neck which then caused the rest of my arm to...well...not work. Major thanks to Toby my physio who ironed out my problems and there's still some irritation there but I can work through it.

Today also saw the new episode of Panel Borders go up here which is a podcast about the UK comic scene. This particular episode talks with some of the exhibitors at the UK Web & Mini Comix Thing that was held in March. I'm not in it, but Oliver, the guest host, interviewed Anna, my girlfriend about her experience at the con. And not me. Really. Hilarity ensued at the time. Adam's on there too. For all of 5 seconds.

Now, fair game, I was in the loo at the time when they started and I think Anna makes some great points regarding the outsider interest of comics, however I do have a bit of a problem with the part where he calls Anna my "booth babe" which I do think is a bit condescending and degrading for her. She's a major part in helping me put my minis together and her time and effort means much more to me than just some girl who brings in punters at my stall. Would Liz Greenfield's boyfriend Rob be classed as "table totty" or be implied that his sex brings in punters? No of course not, it's only because Anna's a girl and that's why she's a booth babe. Truth be told she was sat on the floor when she was at my table because there were no seats! Plus the majority of my customers are usually girls.

Also, if she didn't help me out I probably wouldn't have been able to keep drawing LTWYL and put 250 minis together. It's probably meant to come across in a tongue in cheek way, but I just needed to get out there that she's a vital part of me being able to do this.

Anyway, the podcast talks about the difference between the UK Web & Mini Thing and the "rival" event being held on the same day in Camden, The what would appear to be The Second Coming Of Christ Underground Comic Stall. The background here is, the Thing put up their table prices and the guys behind the Camden stall (which has been running for about 6 months I think?) invited people who were not happy with the Thing to come and sit at their stall which was going to run anyway because it runs every Saturday. Sides were drawn up, etc.

For me personally, the UK Thing was a huge success and I certainly don't think I would of taken £180 from exhibiting on the Camden stall. Yeah the Thing hall was freezing cold, charging people for entry was really shit, the organiser didn't introduce himself only when he was shouting from the stairs and the price of the table for one day was the same for the whole weekend at Bristol (who haven't raised their prices in 9 years) but the irony is I had a better con than I did at Thought Bubble where, the table was cheaper, the hospitality was amazing, the room was warm but I made a loss. Swings and roundabouts, kids,.

So yeah, give it a listen. Mike Rouse Dean makes some good points (as always) plus it's always good to keep up to date with what the UK scene is up to. I'm intrigued about the Camden stall and want to try out my stuff there...if they'll have me, that is.

But yeah, Love The Way You Love = DONE.

The Sans Pareil have added 4 tracks to download to their last.fm page. They used to be called Pariah and I used to live with a couple of them, so maybe give them a listen, add them to your clinical/disposable friends lists?

Sans Pareil are too folky to be punk but too punky to be folk. Or something. Here's a widget, with a play button!

The Sans Pareil – The Droning

Hello internet.

Love The Way #6. Nearly there. Nearly. Fucking. There.

One scene of the book asked for flashbacks from Issue 1 and I thought this would be a great chance to take another shot at those pages, but keep the same layout. So here's a little side by side comparison today, it's actually horrible to look back at that first volume but I'm pleased with the recent stuff. It's sad to be leaving the series, but glad that the best comics I've done is in this volume. The book deserves nothing less.

So, here's the side by side comparisons.





Also I'm moving in with my girlfriend in a couple of weeks. Hello maturity.

So yeah I really liked last night's opener of Dr Who. Catherine Tate certainly wasn't as annoying as I thought she would be and the main plot with the Apidozies (or whatever) was a lot more interesting than that hospital on the moon with the Jodoon (or however you spell it...) episode of last season and I think the Dr/Donna dynamic will be a nice pleasant change from what's come before (Love story, one way love story) That surprise at the end though. O. M. G. OOOOOOOOOOO. MMMMMMMMM. GGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!



On a completely different note, last night I also watched Into The Wild, which is a film based on the book based on this guy Christopher McCandless who, after graduation, ups and leaves to find more to life, to see if you don't actually need people or the 20th Century to be happy, so he goes on a journey to Alaska. It actually shocked me how good this film was, despite a moments in the middle where it was hammering the idea into your head that family's can do rubbish things to one another and that we don't need jobs or money (he gave the last remaining $24000 of his college fund to Oxfam America before making his trip) to make us happy. Towards the end when he comes across Ron an old guy who has no family or perhaps friends to speak of, the film became so much more important to me. Hal Holbrook was wonderful as the old man, who had found a friend in Chris, even asking to adopt him as Ron's the last of his family. Watching this fragile man live again was a joy to watch, but then Chris leaves him for his Alaska dream and that in a moment he's gone back to being alone again. That exact moment, where Chris exits the car and Ron is left there, tear running down his cheek, just felt like such a punch to the gut. The next scenes make for equally depressing viewing, though not at all in a bad way. Close to death, Chris writes in a book he has open on his table, "Happiness is only real when shared." I dunno, I couldn't stop my emotions getting the better of me at that point. That short line has stayed with me, I didn't really know what to expect when we sat to watch it, but I didn't expect to still be getting obsessed about it a day later. Strangely enough, it's directed by Sean Penn, and I kind of hate that guy.



Comic wise, I've been "accidentally" reading a shit load of comics about lesbians at the moment. Wet Moon 3 by Ross Campbell, Between The Sheets by Erica Sakurazawa and Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki. The later actually making me realise how much more I have to learn regarding sequential illustration and narrative and I haven't felt like that about a comic for a long time. A stunning piece of graphic fiction, though short, never felt empty and it's the inviting narration of Skim that keeps the reader interested. She's a great character, the diary that makes up the narration of the book never feels forced and feels like it's written by a confused 16 year old girl who goes to an all girls school where she hates most of the people there. There's a line in the book that goes "Things that make me sad...Love. Things that make me happy...Love?" that made me text Anna at stupid o'clock in the morning telling her she must read (borrow) it. There's a preview here but you can google the rest.

And when I say "accidentally read", I don't mean I tripped over them and started reading them, it's just that the last 3 comics have all had lesbian characters or perhaps an aspect of female attraction in them and I wasn't expecting that to happen though I really enjoyed them. It's really nice to see well thought out and believable gay characters being written in comics (even if with Wet Moon and Skim, it's perhaps more to do with the main characters experimenting and being a bit lost in their own head and finding solace in another person who just happens to be female and the gay aspect is not really a huge part of the overall themes of Skim to be honest). Perhaps with Between The Sheets, it's different because it's a piece about obsession rather than love and the pacing suffers from bad Manga dialogue/wonky translation in places. Anyway, what's particularly nice about Wet Moon is the fact that they're gay and they act normal. There's no "Hey look we're gay and we're in a comic OMG" aspect to it, the characters could be kissing or even talking to a member of the opposite sex for all we know. Whereas in the Marvel book, Young Avengers or whatever it is, the two male gay characters can't even say I love you and have to resort to this. Wow, because THAT'S how people in love talk, gay or not. Sheeeeeeesh.

And finally, kidcrash are making some of the best post hardcore I've heard since At The Drive In. Their album was maybe a little too scene for my liking (what the fuck, it was still really good!) but the stuff on their Myspace at the moment is a lot better though it's mainly from vinyl editions which is useless for a record playerless bastard like me. Anyway, here's a video filmed in black and white, cause you know...b/w keeps it real, brah.

Hello. I got a Twitter which seems to be another thing for me to press F5 every 5 seconds...



Also, my friend Lizz has a new T-Shirt for sale on Threadless. So check that shit out!

Also read the interview with her and then buy her comics yeeeeeaaaaaaaah.