A few days off over Christmas and it's time to start thinking about the new year. But let's have a little look back over 2013 first ...

The year was very good for The Rainbow Orchid, seeing two new translations - a French language collection from Belgian publisher BD Must, and a German language edition from Salleck Publishing - and in November the book was made available in a digital edition through Sequential for iPad. The Complete Rainbow Orchid was shortlisted for a British Comic Award and - much to my surprise - ended up winning in its category, The Young People's Comic Award.

A new Julius Chancer story, The Secret of the Samurai, was serialised in four episodes in The Phoenix (and Metaphrog very kindly cited it as one of their best of the year over at the Forbidden Planet blog).

At the start of the year I didn't have many events planned, but the second half quickly booked up, with Stripped at the Edinburgh Festival, Nerd Fest, the Lakes Comic Art Festival, and Comic Action in Germany.

So what about 2014? I can already mention two events - the big one will see me at Angouleme in France at the end of January, and then I'll be at DemonCon in Maidstone in the middle of February. There will be more to come, so keep an eye on the events page. I'll also be doing more school events this year (but I tend not to list those).

There will be new Julius Chancer too. My plan is to start the new book and put the first few pages on the website. I'd like to do another short for The Phoenix (if they'll have me), but let's wait and see. And then I'd like to continue and get the next book well on its way and completed in early 2015. That's the plan anyway ... sometimes things change!

I hope you had a lovely Christmas break - and here's to a happy and prosperous 2014 for all of us!

My lovely Christmas pressies (socks and underpants not included).