for our brothers across the channel...

for freedom of speech... for all those that have died in france... for all those that take up a pen or a pencil and stand up to bullies... for those that support and defend political cartoonist and satirists...

the secret origin of octobriana

working on a few things right now, including the origin of 'octobriana' ! i hope to have more news soon. here's a taster... octobriana enjoying her first ever coca-cola! (if you've never hear of the russian devil-woman before... just try googling her!)

putin out!

so, vladimir putin finally got his copy of 'the new amazons' preview special and as you can tell he's thrilled to find he's the lead supervillain in it!

check out new review...

just spotted a new review of my new comic

"The New Amazons"... See what they had to say at: http://www.awkwardgeeks.com/comic-review-new-amazons/

THE NEW AMAZONS on sale at last!

'the new amazons' preview special is on sale at last... just to your right! as with all the stuff on sale here it's really easy to buy it with the paypal buttons. don't worry if you are not on paypal as it gives you the options to use your credit/debit card when you click on it. postage is included in the prices... so just click on the button for where you live... (are you in the UK?.... are you in europe?.... are you outside europe?.... it's as simple as that!)

who is... octobriana?

if you've never heard of octobriana (star of up-coming project 'the new amazons' - due out in the next ten days or so!) writer john short has put together the following article on her...

..."Who is Octobriana? In 1971 a large format, hardback book was published in Britain, West Germany, the United States and possibly other countries. OCTOBRIANA AND THE RUSSIAN UNDERGROUND by Czech writer, Petr Sadecky told the story of an secret society behind the Iron Curtain that believed in free love and free speech. This group, the P.P.P., created the comic strip adventures of an anti-authority, communist superwoman called Octobriana (named for the 1917 October revolution.) You might say she was the superheroine equivalent of Pussy Riot. Sadecky explains how, if these underground comics creators had been caught they would have been sent to forced labour camps in Siberia! It's a great story... And almost certainly isn't true. Although Sadecky's book was believed in Britain and the US for decades, it was soon discredited in West Germany. The Czech originators of the comic strip material that Sadecky had used in his book took him to court over using their work without permission or payment and apparently won the case. West Germany's STERN magazine blew the whole story wide open in late 1971. It seems the original strips of a character called AMAZONA by Boluslav Konecny and Zdenek Burian (and maybe others?) were taken and altered by Sadecky to create the supposed underground Russian comic strips. Sadecky had replaced Amazona's orange triangle tattoo with a red star on her forehead to change her into a communist superhero (and effectively creating a new character.) It's thought Sadecky passed away in the early 1990s, but we would love to hear from anyone with more information. Sadecky greatest legacy is that he claimed the character of Octobriana stood for communist ideals and so therefore shouldn't owned by one person... that she should belong to everyone. This effectively makes Octobriana a public domain character... copyright free. This has allowed lots of different comics creators over the years to use the character and give her their own spin. Most famously Bryan Talbot used her in his epic THE ADVENTURES OF LUTHER ARKWRIGHT, but she has also appeared in 2000AD and dozens of other places over the years. Writer Stuart Taylor and myself used her in the OCTOBRIANA mini-series from Revolution Comics (which won an award for Best New British Comic back in 1997.) I obviously have a thing about public domain characters, having used Robin Hood (in LOXLEY) and comics books' original masked hero, the Clock (in THE CLOCK STRIKES!) in the last few years. So it should be no surprise to anyone to find that I have returned to the Russian She-Devil yet again! Inspired by her status as a female hero who represents her country, I thought she should have a team of similar icons around her... So the New Amazons were born! John A. Short 2013 johnashort@hotmail.com" ...so now we all know!

here's some art not by me!

here's some art not by me. we had some help on the designs of the characters for the forthcoming 'New Amazons' project. artist susan fenn did some work on the series... here's one of her improv sketches that lead to the creation of the finnish superheroine character - arctic.

the new amazons preview special is coming!

the new amazons preview special which features an exclusive comic strip adventure for the world's most powerful super-heroines should see publication in the next month (or less!) here's a preview of the preview...

coming soon...

the next project i'm working on is 'the new amazons'. it's written by john short (writer of 'savage: jungle princess' and 'spliffy the stoner chick') and drawn by me. we hope to have a preview special out in about two months time. it features the return of cult comic character... octobriana!

next! the new amazons!

we hope to have issue 4 of 'savage: jungle princess' out in about a week. it's the end of our first story-line and then we'll be taking a break from death island. what will writer john short and i do next? we're thinking of doing this... 'the new amazons'! featuring cult comic character octobriana and a whole team of international super-amazons. get ready to kick evil's booty!