I will be on Radio 4's Making History programme on Tuesday October 26th at 3pm helping with a question on the 'famous march to Kandahar', and don't forget you can listen to it on the internet from the 26th October with the BBC's Listen Again feature.

In the meantime, I will be at the London Comic Festival on Saturday 23rd October, and there should be a special 'festival' edition of Fusion 4 with the latest episode of The Rainbow Orchid inside.

I have completed episode 6 of The Rainbow Orchid which will be appearing in Fusion 4 from Engine Comics at the end of October - release date should be the 'Winterfest' in London (23rd).

A book I've been meaning to get hold of for the last 4 years has finally come my way thanks to the massive online jumble-sale that is ebay. 'Rudyard Kipling and Sir Henry Rider Haggard on Screen, Stage, Radio and Television' by Philip Leibfried is a wonderfully researched tome of incredible detail, and very worthwhile. It took me a while to get round to reading the acknowledgements at the front, but was pretty surprised to see my name listed. When Philip was researching the book I do remember a couple of emails back and forth regarding film versions of Haggard's 'She', and in particular a search for the elusive Alice Delysia who played Ayesha in the 1916 version, but it certainly wasn't enough to deserve a credit (as pleased as I am!). What a jolly nice thing to do though.

I am a particular fan of 'The Man Who Would Be King' based on Kipling's short story, and just think it one of the best adventure films made. And I still retain my interest in filmed versions of 'She'. At the moment I'm rather intrigued by the throne used in the 1935 RKO version starring Helen Gahagan, I was convinced it must have been designed by the wonderful Kay Nielsen by the look of it, but the IMDB reveals it was Alex Hall. Even the massive statues in the main hall of the set have a look of Nielsen, being very reminiscent of his concept sketches for Disney's Fantasia. The whole set is really something to behold (they re-used the huge gates from 'King Kong'), and echoes another great lost world film of the 1930's, 'Lost Horizon'.

Fool Britannia Small Press Comic of the Year 2003
UK National Comic Awards finalist 2004 (nominee for Best Independent Comic and Best New Talent).

Part one of The Rainbow Orchid comes in a 40 (black and white) page A4 format with colour cover. It debuted at the London Comics Festival on November 1st 2003 where it sold many copies and was generously praised, with just as many selling at the Bristol Comic Festival in 2004 (now sold out).

I know, it's terribly silly, but it's been in my head for days and I had to evict it onto paper...

Jacques Shoerac

The big thing at the moment is being in a play (Stoppard's 'Rough Crossing') which will end next weekend (17th) and will clear some time at last. I'm kind of enjoying it, it's just taken up too much time.

Next is work - loads on, including many illustrations (deadlines this week and early August) and a website. The illustration work especially takes up many many hours.

Rainbow Orchid: I'm still scripting episode 6 (or episode one of part two). I've found it tough going because it kicks off a new section of the story, I don't want to lose the momentum that built up at the end of part one, and I'm feeling a bit of added pressure due to part one doing so well. There's a lot of research to do along the way, too. Then there's always the balance of trying to be entertaining but not at the expense of telling a story, and not just telling the story without being entertaining. I do actually enjoy this challenge, and one day I'll get better at it. Sometimes dialogue streams out and I know it's right, while other times a particular speech balloon will be rewritten again and again until I feel it's got the right flow, weight, meaning and character, going back to it on various days. I don't think I'm a natural at this as it feels like hard work.

Two other Orchid related items... I now have just 14 copies left of part one. When I'm down to 10 I will put a 'sold out' sign in the shop and sell the rest on ebay. Part one will not be reprinted until all three are collected together, though I still won't rule out a web appearance at some point. I've had a rethink on the collected edition of part two. I was being optimistic about its publication date being somewhere within a few weeks after Christmas. Disappointing, but best to say it now.

My brother and I went to Greenwich to one of the last events of the Comica festival, a discussion by Paul Gravett and Benoit Peeters concerning the medium of comics and how, or if, it is taken seriously (or not).

It was lovely to get into the cool of the National Maritime Museum's lecture theatre and to be greeted by Paul Gravett who, recognising me from Bristol, introduced me to Benoit Peeters. The first book I bought about Tintin, which introduced me to the man behind the comic (Herge), was Peeters' 'Tintin and the World of Herge', so it was a bit of thrill to meet him.

The discussion was based around a series of slides that charted something of a history of comic strips from Hogarth and Topfler, through McCay and Frank King, up to Eisner, Spiegelman and Ware. Both Paul and Benoit are hugely knowledgeable and interesting with their views, and we really could have done with another hour of this. In fact the slides had to be cut short due to time. The last half hour was taken up by the showing (premiere, indeed) of Peeters' first 'Comix' documentary, this one focusing on Art Speigelman and his 'In the Shadow of No Towers' strip. It was very good indeed, and I hope to see more. After that, Benoit stayed to answer some questions... there were only 10 or 12 of us making up the audience, and three questions were asked, one about Herge and Tchang, one about new creators turning back to early comics for inspiration (me), and one about America becoming more accepting of comics as a medium. It was definitely worth the trip.

After that we met up with some friends and walked into Greenwich park - I took three photos from the Observatory, and put them together (see below). In the evening we had dinner and stayed to watch the football before heading back to East Grinstead.

Sweeping from left to right includes St Paul's Cathedral, the 'Gherkin' tower, Canary Wharf tower, Greenwich power station and the Millennium Dome. The National Maritime Museum sits in the foreground.

Just doing an irregular Google search on "The Rainbow Orchid" (6 pages now)...

Amazingly, my first ever website (well, the comics bit of it), which was on AOL, is preserved in pixels, and also includes Rainbow Orchid stuff. I can't get into it now, so it's up there until they wipe the server space, I suppose! Meanwhile, this is apparently a photograph of a real rainbow orchid! (Is it?) Also revealed - (probably) how Rainbow Orchid got invited into the comics exhibition happening now at West Hampstead Library. Thanks 'Dirty Frank'! And tinyjo has syndicated my blog... cheers to you, tinyjo.

Here it is... the plot outline, in some detail, for book two of The Rainbow Orchid, as well as most of the notes for the script of episode 6. Ready to start scripting now.

Does anyone know where I can get hold of a model/kit for a Breguet 280T, a French eight-passenger aircraft from the 1920s? It's the one that appears at the end of book one. If not a model, then at least some reference pictures. I think I've exhausted the internet of its four images.

For my birthday I got...

Drawn & Quarterly no.4 (for the Hergé strip biography by Bocquet, Fromental and Stanislas), Where Eagles Dare (DVD), a towel, the soundtrack to 'Lost in Translation' (it doesn't have 'What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding', though I do have that elsewhere, but still...), the Franz Ferdinand album, a box of fudge, a lovely big bean 'bag' to sit on (I've been plotting out part two of Rainbow Orchid on it), and a banjo! I've spent the morning playing 'You are my sunshine' and 'Man of constant sorrow'. And one more to look forward to from my brother. Very nice, thank you!