I forgot to say in yesterday's workshop post that afterwards I went along to The Bookshop on East Grinstead High Street and signed their remaining stock of volumes 1 and 2 of The Rainbow Orchid - so that's the place to buy it in EG!

A special thanks to Barry at the Geek Syndicate podcast for a lovely review of volume 2. (Now there's a few volume 2 reviews around I have updated the reviews page).

If you look on the interviews page you will see a brief Q&A I did for an Egmont promo leaflet on my book. And speaking of Egmont - they are currently selling RO at just 4.99 (that's £2 off!).

Elyssa and I went to see Toy Story 3 on Tuesday evening. I absolutely loved it - the quality hasn't diminished once throughout this series.

I've just finished reading Jason's latest book, Werewolves of Montpellier - wonderful, understated and dryly funny as ever. Did you know Jason has a blog?

A. F. Harrold very kindly sent me a copy of his new novel. I haven't had a chance to get reading it yet, but the back cover made me chuckle, so that's a good sign. It's called The Education of Epitome Quirkstandard.

And now, or as soon as I've cleared my current crop of book and t-shirt orders, I'm going to get as much work done as I possibly can before I hit the Edinburgh Festival!

This morning I went along to East Grinstead Library where I held my Adventure Comics Workshop. All the tickets were taken and we had a packed room where magic iPods, Nazi doctors, sombrero-wearing robot dinosaur controllers, jelly blobs, cat and pony girls, god serums, snake and crocodile-headed villains and lots more besides were created!

A huge thanks to everyone who braved the rainy morning to come along, I really appreciate it. And another big thanks to library staff Sue Young, who put in all the effort to get it organised, and Sophie Worthington, who looked after me so well all morning.

Also today, the Forbidden Planet International blog put up a piece about the process I go through to make a page of The Rainbow Orchid - all my secrets revealed! You can have a look at it right here.

Last night, despite the best efforts of the M25, Elyssa and I made it up to Oxford to attend Kate Brown's Spider Moon launch party. Yes, well spotted... The Spider Moon was indeed released at the end of April, but there's no time-limit on having a launch party!

Having missed Caption, this was a nice interim comics fix, and there was a good crowd there (the UK comics scene is full of good people) including Kate Brown (of course!), Paul Duffield, Neill and Di Cameron, Matt Badham, David Fickling, Ben Sharpe and his wife Phill, Andrew Wildman, Emma Viecelli... and quite a few more! I was very happy to have got my copy of The Spider Moon signed by Kate and would urge anyone reading this who hasn't got their own to go and get one - it's a beautiful book - all the DFC Library books are.

above: Kate Brown with her exquisite comic adventure, The Spider Moon, and Neill Cameron with a preview copy of the excellent Mo-Bot High, released in October (he is also hiding the only copy in Oxford of Sarah McIntyre's* Vern and Lettuce).

After trying to fit too much comics conversation into too short a time, Ellie and I went to Bella Italia on George Street for a late dinner, then got back onto the now-clear motorway, and home.

* Sarah McIntyre is holding two of her fabulous Comics Jam Sessions at the Cartoon Museum in London next Thursday (12 August) - see here for more details. And don't forget that I'm doing my own Adventure Comics Workshop at East Grinstead Library on Tuesday (10 August - details here).

If you noticed that I've been a bit quiet on the web over the past week, it's because I've been on a lovely holiday with some lovely friends, leaving the internet, comics, and work at home with my cat - but she didn't know what to do with it all, so everything went into stasis for a few days.

The only downside to this was not being able to make Caption, and I'm really sorry for that, and especially to those who I told I'd be there - in the end it just wasn't possible. The major upside is that my batteries have been largely recharged, and I'm ready to face the rest of volume three and all the upcoming workshops and events that litter the calendar ahead of me.

I've also come back to a clutch of extremely nice reviews for The Rainbow Orchid volume 2, which is just about as lovely as having a fabulous holiday!

Down the Tubes (full review here):

"Ewing continues to bring his growing readership a superb adventure story that leaves you guessing wildly at how that many plot threads will be resolved in the third and final volume..."

Pornokitsch (full review here):

"This is a heart-warming book crafted with painstaking devotion."

Christchurch Kids Blog (full review here):

"I have just discovered my new favourite graphic novel ... If you love old-school adventure stories, with detailed illustrations, quirky characters, narrow escapes and car chases, then you should try The Rainbow Orchid."

Mirabilis (full review here):

"This is a book worth a million dumbly hip, smart-aleck zombie-killer comics. Because the author takes the trouble to make his characters live and breathe, we connect with them and so we care what happens next."

Bear Alley (full review here):

"Like the work of his European influences, Rainbow Orchid is one of those stories that can be enjoyed by children of all ages, the action and humour broad enough for youngsters to enjoy and the plot complex enough for adults."

Sunset Over Slawit (full review here):

"It lives and breathes and stands proud on its own two feet - Garen's book deserves to win every award going for graphic novel artwork and storytelling. Truly, if you don't like The Rainbow Orchid, you don't like life!"

I'm so grateful to have such nice things said about my book, it's a privilege to have such support. And if that wasn't enough, there's a fantastic twenty-minute section on The Rainbow Orchid as part of the latest Small Press Big Mouth podcast (33 minutes in) hosted by Lee Grice and Stacey Whittle (warning: somewhat-more-than-fruity language occasionally present - not for children!). Ginormous thanks to everyone for these reviews - they're a real boost.