It's a bit of a warm-up for the one I'll be doing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Mon 23 August - which sold out within 12 hours of tickets gong on sale!
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They will be following Egmont's lead and publishing the story in three volumes: vol 1 at the end of September 2010, vol 2 in January 2011, and volume 3 in May 2011 (about the same time as the Egmont edition hits the shops, fingers crossed).
On September 26th I will be appearing at a comics festival in the Netherlands for the launch - I believe this is De Stripdagen in Houten. It'll be a somewhat hectic weekend as I'm at the Bath Children's Literature Festival the evening before! (So, fingers crossed again...)
I'm delighted to be working with Silvio Van Der Loo and his team at Silvester Strips, and I understand that I'm lucky enough to have one of their best translators, Mat Schifferstein, working on the books. A huge thanks to Oliver Munson, my agent at Blake Friedmann, for making this deal happen.
You can read the press release here.
Top row (l-r): Joel Meadows' new Tripwire magazine (no.54) is out now and it's absolutely packed full of great reading - visit the website to learn more and you can order a copy there too. This issue also includes a short interview with me; the latest Cinebook release from Leo is Betelgeuse vol 3: The Other - I think this is a fantastic series and I snap these up as soon as they're released, though this is the last in the current saga; NBM's latest Dungeon release is Twilight vol 3: The New Centurions - one of my favourite series (as I mentioned in Forbidden Planet International's recent Bastille Day piece).
Second row (l-r): Mw by Osamu Tezuka - I'm only a little way into this 582-page manga but am pretty gripped already; Fantagraphics recently translated Tardi's stunning and harrowing It Was the War of the Trenches; Alex Milway's new book, part-comic, part-prose, Operation Robot Storm - chock-full of Yetis!
Third row (l-r): Black Blizzard by Yoshihiro Tatsumi - I bought this after reading the author's autobiographical A Drifting Life, this is an early work and fairly crude by today's standards, but still an excellent (if unsurprising) read; Darryl Cunningham's brilliant Psychiatric Tales - highly original, wonderfully drawn, educational (though not at all preachy) - a very readeable and important comic - I think everyone should get themselves a copy (and it's published by the marvellous Blank Slate Books); Wilson by Daniel Clowes - bought after seeing Clowes and Chris Ware at the Brighton Corn Exchange a few weeks ago, a darkly enjoyable read if a little monotone - good though!
At the beginning of the week my Rainbow Orchid shop was updated with the newly released volume 2 and a few other goodies, and I was hit (pleasantly) by a bucket-load of orders in a very short space of time. Thanks so much for those - a lovely response. About half have now been posted and the rest of the current crop will get packaged up over the weekend. I decided to scan in a few of the sketches I've done so far...
Richard Bruton wrote up a lovely review of The Rainbow Orchid volume 2 for the Forbidden Planet International blog (I should say another lovely review, here's his piece on volume 1), and there have also been really nice mentions by long-time supporter Jez Higgins and also over at Robot 6 on Comic Book Resources.
This week the Bath Festival of Children's Literature programme went out, and amongst all the many fantastic events is a panel on comics (Graphic Novels: The New Revolution) where I'm lucky to be appearing alongside two amazing names in comics - Dave McKean and Robin Etherington. It's on Saturday 25th September from 6-7pm at the Guildhall, and is accompanied by this fabulous description:
"A very special and exclusive event celebrating the best artists and authors at work today in the genius world of graphic novels and comics. Dave McKean is an award-winning artist whose distinctive illustrations have graced several children's books including The Savage by David Almond and The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman. Garen Ewing's Rainbow Orchid series represents cinematic artwork and classic storytelling at its very best and Robin Etherington is one half of a brotherly duo that has contributed Monkey Nuts to the DFC Library and to the Transformers and Star Wars comics. If you like comics... you'll love this event!"
I work in the genius world of graphic novels! I like it!
At a more local level, I will be doing an Adventure Comics Workshop at East Grinstead Library on Tuesday 10th August from 10-11.30am. It's a free event but with limited numbers, so you'll need a ticket (available from the library). I'll be rustling up some promotional stuff for that next week, so more details to come!
Lastly, I want to remind you to pop over to the Super Comics Adventure Squad blog, the home of all the marvellous comic creators who were - and are - involved with The DFC. Despite the last issue appearing well over a year ago, everyone is still as busy as ever. Apart from the recent releases of the first wave of DFC Library books, and news of sightings of advance copies of the second wave, many creators are still working on all kinds of exciting projects - have you seen Emma Vieceli's Dragon Heir, Patrice Aggs' Midnite Owl, or the Etheringtons' Lore of the Things? See, it's worth keeping an eye on!
To end off, I just thought I should mark the occasion as I'm currently writing the last few pages of script for The Rainbow Orchid volume 3 (it'll be finished in time to watch the world cup final on Sunday), bits of which have been floating around my head for the best part of 14 years. I wonder how my readers will react when I reveal the fact that Julius and Evelyn are brother and sister, and Sir Alfred is their father? Only joking! Right - back to the genius world of graphic novels!
Thanks very much for the generous comments that have already come my way about volume 2. And to top off such niceness, go and see this fabulous Julius Chancer drawing by Etherington brother, Lorenzo - lovely! (check out more marvellous fan art here - and I'm always delighted to receive new additions!)
Click on the image below to download the PDF, then print it out.
The Rainbow Orchid volume 2 is out on Monday - 5th July 2010. Order from Amazon here.
Click on the image below to download the PDF, then print it out.
The Rainbow Orchid volume 2 is out on Monday - 5th July 2010. Pre-order from Amazon here.
You can also read a new interview with me over at Sketch Maven.