With issue 76 of The Phoenix released into the wild, so is part two of The Secret of the Samurai. In this episode things get all detectivey as Julius follows up the clues, edging ever closer - he hopes - to the whereabouts of the lost Yamada samurai armour.

I returned here to a location that appeared in The Rainbow Orchid, the breakfast room of Sir Alfred's home and headquarters.

Back then, in the early days of the story, I hadn't really mapped out the room which is something I now quite often do, so this time I sketched up a plan on a page of the script. Even if I have a good idea of how a room looks in my head, it still helps with consistency when you're changing the direction of view, so I find putting it down on paper enormously useful.

You can see a related post on planning interior locations here.

A couple of other links for you - here's an interview with me at The Beat about the new Julius Chancer adventure. And if you want to get hold of the first episode of Samurai, then it is now available as a back issue from The Phoenix online shop.

By the way, following on from last week's Tintin tribute - do you recognise which comic this little fellow, who sits on the sideboard in the breakfast room scene above, appears in?