Marc Ellerby

My new mini comic that's not about My Face has been sent to the printers (and I hope to god I put the PDF together correctly as I've never done one before aggghhhhh!) and should hopefully be done for The Thing next weekend.

Who is this Chloe Noonan and why should I care?

Well Mr Imaginary Internet Arse Hole, Chloe Noonan is a monster hunter (duh) but it's tough being one when you don't have any powers and you have to bring your friend along with you. She's not even that bothered about saving the world really, as running around gives her a stitch.

It's a tongue in cheek look at fantasy and puts the b-list character in the foreground. It's less about hunting monsters and more about getting the bus.

You might care as it's the next book I'm working on. The mini comic is a taster, produced so I can get to grips with the character and the art. Eventually I want it to be a graphic novel series, but that's a way off yet.

There's a preview under the cut, but more information about it will be released next week along with photographs, maybe.

( THREE PAGE PREVIEW SUCKERS! )

You can now totally buy this from here

The past few weeks have been mental. Like, bat shit mental. I can't actually believe the amount of events I've done recently and it's not even over yet.



If you're around London this Saturday between 1pm and 7pm then please stop by the ICA for the annual Comica event where you'll find the Comiket show, a small press/indy comic fare co-organised by the man at the crossroads himself, Paul Gravett along with London Underground Comics. For more information click here, yeah? I'll be there with the usual stock and I'll be taking some books by Adam Cadwell, Lizz Lunney and We Are Words And Pictures with me.

Last weekend's Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds was an absolutey amazing experience. I'm still a little worse for wear, though I will probably go on record by saying that it's the best convention I've ever been to! It started off badly with a horrible meal at Nando's (that's right, we want our appetizers half way through our main meal, SPOT ON!) and what seemed like an endless walk around Leeds on the Friday night. Come Saturday though, it turned into a different beast. Great sales, great atmosphere, great floor layout and a great sense of community made for an awesome time. Anna was running around with cakes and brownies, I was lively and busy (for a change...)I even had my very first panel, ever! Here's a picture of everyone looking well bored while McKelvie talks (including a fastly falling asleep Gillen with his belly showing...)



At one point I said "all superhero comics are dogshit". Classic. I think I meant to say "MOST superhero comics are dogshit," but didn't. Anyway, I think it went really well, even if the chatter steered towards Marvel a bit too much. SORRY GUYS! I also took part in a manga panel, but I think I did pretty rubbish, so less said about that, eh? Saying that, I really want to do more panels, please!

A big thank you to Tamsin and Lisa and the whole Thought Bubble team. Everyone should come over next year and try and exhibit, seeing as the rest of the UK cons are going through a bit of a shit period, this will hopefully become the one stop for the UK comic community.

What else has been happening? Drawing has been going really slow, I think I've ballsed the deadline up for Popgun 3, but Mark Andrew Smith basically told me to keep working on it as there's a chance at the end of the year I could get in, but I'm not going to rush it. At the moment it kinda feels like I'm drawing my next mini comic, which is alright actually. We'll see how it goes. Other than that Ellerbisms drifts along as always. Next week they go three days a week!

Here's a page from the Image anthology "This Is A Souvenir" that's coming in Jan 2009 that I'm involved in. It's a 14 page story that deals with the ending of a relationship and the parting of two people. The colouring nearly killed me but I'm pleased with how it came out, just hope it prints okay :/ I'm currently rushing through my entry to Popgun 3 (also for Image) I just hope I don't fuck the deadline for it.

Hey so apparently there was an election last night and some dude that I wanted to win actually won? Sweet. In all seriousness, well done to everyone who walked the streets, postively spreading the Obama name and policies. It was really nice to wake up to good news this morning. Though I'm jealous that politics doesn't invoke that much hysteria in England, we all sorta shrug about it, don't we?

Ellerbisms continue at their new site. There's now a Livejournal feed for those who prefer to have all their comics/feeds in one place. Although it's updated twice a week at the moment, come December I'll be going back to three days a week.

If you're in London this weekend then please stop by the Handmade and Bound show at the St Aloysius Social Club, Phoenix Road, London NW1 (nearest tube Euston). It replaces the overpriced and never that good ICA Artist's Book fair that isn't happening this year for some reason. I'll be sharing a table with Polly Vinyl. Should be good, I'm bringing loads of stuff.

Seb and James over at Comics Daily interviewed me at the Birmingham Comic Show just passed and have posted my babble for the world to see. Check it out! It's probably my favourite interview about me to date.

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New mini comic for sale!



Sad Girls For Life collects a bunch of odds and ends and some new stips that I've been doing recently. This is a stop gap to remind the UK small press that I do exist. What's in it? Well, longer Polar Opposites, a handful of Ellerbisms that didn't make the Vol 1 print edition, new (but old) strips called Murmurs and Get Over It (never seen anywhere!) my out-takes from the Guest Strip Project, a four year old zombie strip called Morning has Broken and a handful of illustrations.

£3(+25p for postage) - Each book comes signed and with a free postcard.

These won't be in any shop and only avaliable from me on line or at conventions and limited to 70 copies

SOLD OUT! SORRY!

( Some more pics... )

If you need more convincing, then I'll copy and paste what James Hunt over at The Sunday Pages said about it when he picked it up at Low Energy Day on Saturday...

Sad Girls for Life is a brilliant taster for all of Ellerby’s work, and easily the most entertaining comic purchase I made all weekend - and that includes 2 week’s worth of Marvel/DC comics. Ellerby is currently between series following the conclusion of Oni Press’ “Love the Way You Love” for which he was the artist, so now more than ever you need to get to his site and buy some quality mini-comics.

More in the link. Thanks James!

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Low Energy Day great, glad I went in the end (despite it being a billion degrees in there and sales only starting to pick up about 2pm but hey at least I made money, eh?) Thanks to the London Underground Comic guys for another fantastic day.

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Also, Anna took me to see R.E.M on Saturday. Won't go too much into details (loved it) but they played Country Feedback, so now, seriously, I can die happy.

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This Saturday, I'll be attending the Low Energy Day at Camden Market, a small press event that's free to the public and located in an easy to get to place (other events, take note!)



The last one was great and HOPEFULLY I'll have a new mini to sell, though it's looking a bit dodgy at the moment as I'm poor and inkless. But do try and make it down if you can.

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Some may have missed my Tip Jar from the last post because of the Bank Holiday, so I'll just quickly say, if you like Ellerbisms and would like to see it continue at a regular schedule then please donate a little if you can.

Thanks to those who bought something or donated last time. You warmed my sour heart.

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Also, big congratulations to my girlfriend Anna who got promoted last Friday. She'll be joining Europe's biggest bookstore as an assistant manager. Ho.Lee.Shit. She more than deserves it so WELL DONE, YOU HOT, SWEDISH BABE, YOU.

I've returned, mother effs.

Wow, so having no internet fucking SUCKS.

So, moved in. It's nice, we're near the sea and there's no chavs for at least a 20 minute walk (which by Essex standards is pretty good). I haven't done much, really, apart from seeing Broken Social Scene (win!) and go to comic conventions, so I guess it's the later I'll be chatting about today...

Firstly, thank you to everyone who added me from discovering me at Bristol and Camden. I hope you enjoy my constant stream of absolute arse. Bristol was great, I like that show a lot. Camden was great too, a real surprise, but Oli put on a great show and I can't wait for the next one. Here's a video from Camden, I'm in a bunch of times, I'M EVEN SPAZZING DANCING...



What's emerged is how well me and McKelvie work together, though we're calling one another a prick every other minute, it's nice to finally get a chance to work conventions with him and we're kind of like minded? Plus he's SO GAY FOR ME.

Here are a few photos from Bristol, but check Flickr for loads more.










(cor!)

















Also worth checking out is John's flickr. It was great to finally meet John and I hope he comes out to cons more often (PLEASE JOHN!)

Page 45 have said very nice things about Ellerbisms Vol One. Which you can buy from me direct.

Ellerbisms vol one (£2-99, self-published) by Mar Ellerby. If you follow the link you'll find this on-line, but you want one for your coffee table as well, right? To amuse your friends while you fall drunkenly into your prized shrubbery. This is an equally confessional series of diary strips, only much funnier - even the excruciatingly painful trip to the Sexual Health Clinic (your eyes will water, boys). Lots of music and lusting and self-deprecation, Marc is effortlessly charming throughout. You really need to see his refreshingly clear and engaging cartooning as well, but if this helps send you back to that link, so be it.

"Oh man!
"What?"
"I've well done this Sudoku wrong! Now I've gotta tear it out so no one sees it and thinks I'm a giant prick."

"I just don't "get" Art, y'know."
"Oh, there's not much to "get" really. Just associate different things with certain aspects. Apart from this... This is shit."

I also got a nice mention and some artwork featured in the latest issue of Imagine FX a Sci-Fi & Fantasy arts magazine, which were covering comics for an issue (the pretty much should've renamed it "The Iron Man and Jamie McKelvie issue" but whatever) Here's some pichars from there (click to enlarge, innit) thanks to Kieron Gillen for setting that up.









Also, Phil Bond just favourited an Ellerbism on flickr (OMG!) Simon Bisley growled at Anna at Bristol (ew...) sigh, I love comics sometimes. Time for an egg sandwich. OM!

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 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.

I'll be attending Thought Bubble in Leeds this weekend but more importantly the comic con on the Saturday at Leeds Town Hall. I'll be there sharing a table with Adam Cadwell and we should be next to Liz Greenfield who'll have copies of her journal comic mini so I can't wait to snag a copy of that. We'll be like a Journal Comic Army!

I'm also bringing my girlfriend who's terrified, I think, at the prospect of meeting a shit load of comic people (or...geeks) at once. She just about puts up with me, let alone a TOWN HALL of people.

Anyway, I went to my friend Tom's Halloween party on Saturday and it was okay, we all expected more people to come. I didn't dress up as I'm unsociable like that, however I did find some 3D glasses and attempted to pass that off as me being Dr Who but no one believed me and had a big ol' moan throughout the night about it. Anyway, here are some photos Matt took...



( mooooooore )

Con report!

So Birmingham was a really successful show. To put it in context, I made more money than I did at San Diego. I also sold out of Love The Way You Love Volume 1, the Belle & Sebastian Graphic Novel and my own mini, Venal Muse. I actually sold more Polar Opposites and Venal Muse than I did of all LTWYL put together.

I also met a bunch of awesome small press types. Finally met Adam Cadwell and his pal Andrew Tunney who were both awesome to hang with and made my first British con experience sorta easier? I think everyone I met is now going to Leeds' Thought Bubble show so I need to get that sorted. Also finally got to hang with McKelvie and Gillen. Marvel should totally go for mine and Gillen's reboot of the Spiderman series where Uncle Ben has a heart attack when he catches Spiderman fucking Aunt May due to Mysterio making Spidey think that Aunt May is in fact his Dolphin lover...

In bad news, my hand fell apart on the Saturday. While drawing a splash page of LTWYL 6, I felt all my knuckles and joints pop and tighten and I tried to work through the pain but it kept happening. Then my wrist went and I was back in my bandage support, looking like a proper cunt. So I couldn't even draw. I'm not sure if it was just a lapse as it feels slightly better now, but either way I'll pop to the pharmacy for a stronger does of deep heat and a new support. If it doesn't hint at getting better by the end of the week, back to the docs with me.

In geeky news, I met Andi Watson and I was very shy and slightly in awe. He was very sweet and I hope I didn't come across as too much of a weirdo as it sort of took me 5 attempts to go up to him...*sigh*

Off to Birmingham in a few hours for the Comiccon. I'm sorta looking forward to it, sorta filling me with fear. I've had MAJOR problems with Fed Ex this week when the mother of all parcels that contained the infamous LTWYL 3 (the issue from DECEMBER that never arrived) has been darting back and forth, getting lost and not turning up when it should be. I doubt I'll have it time as I leave at 12 and it's 10.15 now...we'll see though. That issue is CURSED. I guess it's put me in a weird mood regarding the show.
Holy shit, it turned up! I'll be there with volumes 1-5 of LTWYL and the first look at the trade!

Anyway, how's the wrist? Getting there. Still can't really feel my little finger at times and deep heat's a bit manky but it's a hell of a lot better than what it was. I haven't drawn for a week or two and that's a bit shit, but I guess that's what I have to do.

Oh and In Rainbows? Yeah...that's kinda special isn't it?