Haven’t written a flash fiction in a while, thought it might be good to get my hand back in!

Paul was an only child. He was also small for age, a little sickly, and blond. None of this, however, was important. What was important was that the was an only child, a lonely only child, but that it had not always been this way.

Because Paul could remember a time when he had had brothers, and a sister. He could remember a time when he had had cousins who came to visit for the summer, and a best friend who lived two doors down. Paul remembered when there had been a school, instead of a quiet, empty building which was called whatever you called a school without children in it. The adults didn’t seem to notice, and if they did then none of them would talk about it. It was as if every other child Paul had ever met was some elaborate imaginary friend, a complex delusion that seemed more real to him than the possibility that there were no other children in the village, and that there never had been.

What convinced Paul more than anything else though, was the forest. Just as all the other the children had disappeared from the village, so the forest seemed to have crept undoubtedly closer. Vast, dark, and teeming with un-quiet and malevolent life, Paul was sure that the forest had somehow swallowed up the intervening fields that had once sat between it and the village, that it had crept somehow closer while no-one was looking. He would go it, sometimes, when the adults were busy doing whatever they did that preoccupied them enough that they could ignore the fact that their children were vanishing. He would creep along its outer edge, where the grass in the fields turned dry and brown and papery, where the gnarled roots of the ancient trees twisted up around each other like snakes grasping for Paul’s ankles. He wondered how trees so impossibly old could have moved, or sprouted here where once there had been only open, grassy fields. He would listen to the strange noises that emanated from within; the popping of branches, the crunch of leaves, the rasping whispers of wind squeezing between the densely backed trunks. He would listen in the hope that there might be an answer in there somewhere, that somewhere in the deep dark bowels of the forest that he dared not penetrate, might be the reason that the children and vanished and that he was so utterly alone.

It was a nondescript day in August when the forest finally answered.

The sun was high overhead, and it was one of the days when Paul found moments in which he could enjoy his isolation and forget for a moment that he was the only child in the village, the only child in his whole world. He was laying on his back in the long grass, a light breeze running low across the ground and turning the tiny patch of field that remained between the forest and the village into a bright green sea. He dreamt of being a pirate on the high seas, but had long since forgotten the faces of the other children that would have crewed his mighty pirate ship. They were nothing but blurs now, thick limbed creatures of his imagination with faces made of formless pink sponge.

He was boarding a French trading ship when he became of the eyes in the forest, the eyes that were watching him. He caught a glimpse of them from the corner of his eye at first, freezing him where he lay. His pirate ship, and his sponge-faced crew, vanished in an instance. Captain Paul the Terrible was once again Paul the boy, and he was at the edge of the forest that took children.

And it was looking at him.

Painfully slowly, Paul stood up. He didn’t turn his back on the forest for a moment, keeping his eyes on the patch of tangled roots a few feet below where the eyes were. The eyes did not waver, and did not blink. They just stared, two silver almond shaped eyes, staring out of the woods. Eventually, Paul lifted his gaze and looked directly into those strange eyes, those eyes that were right there and yet so very far away. Eyes from inside, looking outside, eyes from wherever it was the wood came from. Eyes that were fixed on Paul and did not move.

Paul swallowed, mustering his courage. “Well,” he said, his voice never more that of a lonely, little boy than in that moment, “Are you going to take me too?”

Without an answer, the eyes blinked, and were gone. No arms encircled Paul, no trees moved to grasp at him with their rough, wooden boughs. The earth did not open up, there were no thorny vines whipping out from the darkness to take him. There was nothing at all.

Just a boy, and a forest. A forest that didn’t like sickly, lonely boys. A forest that liked a challenge.

The news broke several days ago now that Insomnia Publications had released all of its creators from their contracts. Everyone received a short, polite email from publisher Crawford Coutts, and thus ended many weeks of speculation, worry, and countless threats of violence. The rumour mill continues to rumble, with accusations being levelled at a number of individuals for their contribution to the publisher’s downfall, and a number of people coming out of the woodwork to commentate on what had happened. As always, people were far wiser after the event.

Some have called “shenanigans” on some of Insomnia’s sales figures. Some have claimed that an email from Burke and Hare creator and ex-Vigil Editor Martin Conaghan, accidentally leaked by Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool, was the catalyst that started the whole, painful process. Nearly every publisher, be they small, indie, or none of the above, seems to have been offered a chance to purchase Insomnia. (I don’t know if I’m glad or not that Monkeys with Machineguns was beneath Insomnia’s notice when it came to this. Some people say they are owed money.) Other people have spotted Insomnia products on sale either online or in shops and are wondering what will happen to the profits, if any, from this.

And, of course, a great many creators are happy and relieved to have their projects back in their own hands, even if that means they must begin the search for a publisher once more. To all of those creators, of which I myself am one, I wish the best of luck.

Personally, I am sad to see Insomnia fail. It was a brave, and noble, experiment. It gave a home to projects that may not have been, and now may not be, published anywhere else. It brought creators together and created a buzz that was real, even if it was fleeting. I hope that in time, as wounds heal and excitement dies down, people think more kindly about Crawford Coutts. Perhaps he was just someone who found himself suddenly out of his depth, who’s creation became bigger than him and his ability to control it, and who ultimately could not feed the monster that he had created. Perhaps he had the very best of intentions, right until the end.

Think about it, wouldn’t you hide from a bunch of angry comic creators?

I will admit, of course, that my reasons for hoping this are not completely altruistic. There are too few British publishers as it stands today, Insomnia’s corpse yet another to fill the already our overflowing industry’s mass-graves-behind-the-chemical-sheds. We need more people who have some sort of curious passion for printing, logistics, marketing, spending hours on the phone to retailers, spending more hours behind a stand at an expo, and then spending even more hours when they get home reading the multitudinous submissions thrust into their hands at the expo when what they really wanted was your money … They are a rare, and beautifully masochistic breed. They put up our with our blown deadlines, our changes of heart. They are the ones who nurse us through our first broken hearts when a bad review arrives. They are the ones who put their money and time and skill into the pursuit of our dreams.

If there is someone out there, right now, thinking of picking up where Insomnia left off, thinking that perhaps they can make it work? I hope they don’t read all of the stuff that is out there right now and decide … “Screw that, it’s too much grief”. Because I know I would.

And yes, of course I know, they are no more full of altruism than me. But we need them. We need them more than they need us.

So, spare a thought for your publisher. As masochistic as they all surely are, they might just appreciate it.

This is blog post asking for your support for a project that I’m involved in. I have written lots of blog posts like this. I’m normally shilling something, a new grahic novel, a new web site, or something else that I’ve created and now I’m hoping that you’ll adore. I normally want your money too, as well as your love.

Today, I’m taking a break from the normal self promotion to try and help out a project that is hugely important to a lot of other people too. The project is “Survival Stories”, and before I rattle on for too long, I’m going to let Peter Forbes pitch the project to you. He does it a lot better than I am about to.

Peter does a great job of navigating some of the thorny issues surrounding Insomnia at the moment. Insomnia made a big splash in the UK independent comics scene over the past two years, giving a lot of new talent a first shot at a publishing deal and giving a lot of more established creators a home for dream projects. Their tables are conventions were buzzing, and they reported great things. It seemed that the industry had a new and powerful player, one that creators were flocking to.

At the 2010 Bristol Comic Con however, things took a turn. There had been rumours circulating for some time amongst the creators that there were problems at Insomnia. There had been team changes, the loss of an investor/shareholder, and strange communications telling everyone “not to worry, and not to listen to the rumours”. Of course, there is no more terrifying pair of words in the English language than “don’t worry”, especially when you don’t know what you were supposed to be worrying about.

News was patchy at best, slowly breaking across news sites, via Twitter, and being emailed amongst creators. MegaComicsNews.com has a good collection of Insomnia Publications news articles that broke.

The end result was a publishing company that had disappeared in a puff a smoke, taking with it the hopes, ambitions, and dreams of a large number of writers and artists. For many, this was their break, their first opportunity to work with a known publisher and to bring their work to a wide audience. This was their weekends, their evenings, their nights. It was time that would have been spent with their families, their friends, and it was a million other tiny sacrifices all made in pursuit of the same dream. They just wanted to make good comics.

Of course, the comics still exist. There was no warehouse to burn down, no critical server lost. The problem facing the creators now is that their right to publish the work they have created is still tied, contractually, to the mouldering corpse of Insomnia Publications. In a ditch, somewhere, this decaying figure clutches to its breast sheaths of signed paper that give it, and only it, the right to publish what has been created under its auspice. No publisher will touch any of the material until the contracts are null and void and so, and the creators do not even have the right to self publish the material. The work is lost.

Sadly, this is not the first time a situation like this has occurred and so there are people who sacrifice their days, weekends, nights, and evenings in helping creators who find themselves caught in legal log jams. They’re called the COMIC BOOK ALLIANCE. They have offered their time and support to the surviving Insomnia creators, and they are working diligently right now to try and resolve things amicably. Their work is tireless and ultimately they will not profit from it one iota. They are simply good people, passionate about the same medium that we are passionate about, who want to help creators do what they do best … create. They are offering a chance to creators who will otherwise find themselves knocked back to square one, with anything up to two years of work lost in limbo.

You can help.

Your options are clear. Pre-order Survival Stories to support the creators and support the CBA because you find their plight moving. Pre-order Survival Stories to support the CBA because you might need them some day too. Pre-order Survival Stories because you want 192 pages of bloody good comics from creators who *just might* be the next generation of the UK comics industry. Pre-order Survival Stories so that you can say “I was there.”

Or, let another piece of the UK comics industry die and drag down with the hopes of a lot of good people. If you go for that option, remember that you chose it.

This week, I saw an article on io9 about the glorious bemuzing covers of the horror and science fiction comics of yester-year. I was totally inspired by those covers and, in my normal fool hardy way, tweet out that I wanted to write a short story to go with every single one.

A few people, in their own fool hardy ways, said that I should.

So, welcome to the new POTP feature “Cover Versions”, in which I present short stories/flash fiction inspired by those same 100 covers.

Our first story comes from the first cover …

The hospital corridor was cold. The floor was cold, chilling Terry through his socks, and the walls were cold as he traced his fingertips along them to guide him in the dark. His breath didn’t quite mist in front of him, but there was something icy and chemical tasting in the air that chilled the back of his throat and made his lungs burn. Yes, the hospital was cold. Cold, and dark, and utterly empty.

Except for Terry. And them.

They were difficult to see, even though some of them were enormous. They had a knack for getting behind things, for bending and folding their monstrous shapes so they could be completely obscured by even the smallest or most mundane of objects. A tea trolley, or a table, a lamp, any of them could have harboured one of these impossible creatures. Coats were their favourites, of course, especially white coats like the doctors wore. They could make themselves so completely thin that someone could put on their coat and not even know that they were sharing it with someone, something, else.

But Terry could see them, and they could see Terry.

Terry’s shadow slipped up a wall as he stepped through a patch of moonlight. He could see the outline of his own bare legs, the flapping edges of his surgical gown. Terry hated undercover work. At least the shadow also had his tall, conical hat, and the unmistakable twisted shaft of his wand. Bare legged, shoeless, and bare backside not withstanding, Terry always felt like a wizard when he was wearing his hat.

And a wizard he was, albeit an undercover one.

Reaching an intersection, Terry paused for a moment. The signs overhead made little sense to him. They were covered in long words, jumbles of letters. His father would have known what they meant, but he had vanished long before he had had an opportunity to teach Terry anything as useful as how to read the language of men. Terry wondered what the monsters made of the signs, whether they could read them either. If they could, which one would they follow?

Terry chose the green one, and headed off down the dark corridor. Monsters liked green.

The corridor had a sunny, seaside scene painted on the walls. Crabs the size of men ambled sidewards past children with strange, crude, expressionless faces and blank black eyes. Birds that looked like the letter V lurked, motionless, in a sky ruled by a vast yellow sun. Overhead, the lights had all been removed, leaving only the slowly tarnishing copper connectors and trailing strands of wire. Terry felt like he was creeping underneath the belly of some vast, corrugated slug, its various tendrils and appendages hanging down into his safe, seaside world. He shook is head, tried to purge the image.

That was the problem with being a wizard; sometimes you saw things that weren’t there. On the other hand, sometimes you saw things that really were there, but that were very good at hiding. Sometimes they were so good, it was hard to tell them from the things that really weren’t there at all.

Suddenly, light illuminated the other end of the corridor. It skated up the wall, a pale disc at the end of a flickering beam. It raced closer and, behind it, Terry could see a shape, a shadow, moving closer. The beam of light spread as it moved closer, and Terry noticed footprints on the dusty floor. Footprints with only three toes, spread apart. Footprints that led straight into the wall, into the seaside scene.

The light hit the wall, and Terry realised that one of the children, one of the black eyed featureless children, was missing. The monsters could make themselves flat. Flat enough to hide inside your coat while you were still in it. Flat enough to be a part of a picture on a wall.

Terry raised his wand, his hand trembling. But it was too late. A strong grip closed around his shoulder, and he realised that the shape behind the light hadn’t been alone.

“Mr Johnson, there you are! We’ve been looking all over for you.”

Terry turned around. He thought perhaps he should recognise the young man in the white coat, but he didn’t. He looked at his quizzically. Was he a wizard too? He didn’t have a hat, or a wand, but he wasn’t looking strangely at Terry either. If there was one thing that a wizard expected, it was to be looked at strangely, especially when wearing his wizarding hat.

The shape behind the light transformed in a very non-magical way into a middle aged woman in a nurse’s uniform. She look flustered.

“I keep telling them to lock these old wards up if they’re not going to use them,” she said. Terry presumed she was talking to the young man in the coat. “They’re like a magnet for the inmates.”

“Yeah, well, at least we found this one in one piece,” the young man replied. “I don’t think I could cope with finding another one like …”

The young man’s voice trailed off. Terry didn’t know much about people, but he knew what it meant when they said something without saying it. It was, in its way, another breed of monster. The story that didn’t need to be spoken to be told.

“Come on then Mr. Johnson,” said the nurse. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

Terry always found it strange when people called him “Mr. Johnson”. It was his father’s name, an adults name. Of course, when the nurse looked at Terry she didn’t see him as he truly was. All she saw was a frail, old man in a backless surgical gown and insufficient warm socks for the time of year. Terry had tried many times to cure the ageing curse that he was afflicted with, but to no avail. One of the curses side effects was an enfeeblement of the mind, so much so that sometimes Terry couldn’t remember who had cursed him in the first place.

That was why he concentrated on the monsters. They were simple.

The nurse took Terry by the hand and began to lead him down the dark corridor. The young man followed, and Terry wished he taken the chance to check the man’s coat properly. There could be anything in there with him. Terry considered for a moment warning them, telling them about the monsters and the crabs and the black eyed no-face child who had been hiding on the wall.

Of course, he didn’t. Every wizard knew what happened if you started telling people the truth. Every wizard knew how man treated the people who could see things that weren’t there.

Terry’s hat toppled from his head. He stopped to pick it back up, but the nurse had already dragged him forward. “Don’t worry about your hat,” she said, her voice scolding. “You can make another one tomorrow.”

Terry looked back. A wizard shouldn’t abandon his hat. Down the corridor, in the dark, Terry watched as his hat slowly crumpled, squashed under the unseen foot of a thing that wasn’t there.

Birds of Geek have released their Bristol Comic Expo Special episode, featuring back to back interviews with Dan Boultwood (yes, Dan Boultwood on his own without Tony Lee) and then, later on, me.

Dan is on absolutely top form, whimsical and somewhat manic but very informative and open.

I’m … me. Same old, same old. Apparently everyone knows the story of me, Amy and the shelf. Yes, I am “The Shelfpest“.

But, if you haven’t heard quite enough from me and you can cope with me digressing into a lot of technology and science stuff in what is supposed to be a comics podcast, click here to listen to Birds of Geek Episode 51.

If you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, skip to about half way through to here the highly quotable “it’s like Watchmen” from Amy Liff. This quote will be on all of our new promotional literature, at least until Alan Moore gets wind of it.

A recent Freedom of Information request has unearthed a sizeable number of domain names owned by the BBC.

Whilst some are territory related, there are a number of interesting ones relating to specific TV series. I’ve never been good an unearthing this kind of back matter, although I’m always intrigued when I do find it. My current favourites are http://www.unit.org.uk, which has some interesting UNIT activity relating to the Chris Ecclestone era Doctor Who, and http://jellyparties.co.uk/, which is the truly terrifying website of Psychoville’s Mr. Jelly.

Most of the sites don’t look like they have taken a lot of time to set up, although I suspect the awful state of Mr. Jelly’s is the work of many hours for an ingenious designer. Perhaps I should make an FOI request myself as to how much time these sites take, and how many other people have found them before now?

Last year the Bristol Comic Expo played host to a round table discussion between the twin publishing mights of Monkeys with Machineguns and Orang Utan comics, the crew from Geek Syndicate, and some hardcore comic fans, all masterfully hosted and chaired by the erudite genius Scott Grandison. The result became Comic Book Outsiders Episode 46.

This year, the round table took a more formal … form, and found itself on the official schedule for the Small Press Expo in the Mercure Hotel.

Click here to listen to the Comic Book Outsiders Panel

With another year behind all of us, Peter Rogers, Ian Sharman, and myself all took to the floor to talk about our experiences as both publishers and creators, how we got started in the industry, and where we think we are going next. The differing approaches taken by our respective publishing houses/studios hopefully made for an interesting and thought provoking panel.

If not, you will get to hear me

1. Stretch a one beat joke about a table cloth way beyond its sell by date
2. Somehow pull off a callback to a previous joke at the end of the panel
3. Accuse Ian Sharman of “Saying no, but meaning yes”
4. Accuse Peter Rogers of looking like Lynne Faulds Wood
5. Accuse Peter Rogers of being Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote

The topic of digital comics also features heavily, and I do my best to deliver an impassioned plea on behalf of those who like to share comics. I’ll have to listen back to see if I got my point across or not.

The audio recording of my Bristol Comic Expo panel, “Signs and Portents“, is now available from the Sidekick Cast website, iTunes, and anywhere where good podcasts can be found.

Before I write anything about this panel, I want to send out a huge thanks to both the boys from Sidekick Cast and to everyone who turned up to make the panel a success. We had some great questions, an incredible game of Secrets and Lies, and the whole process was made significantly less nerve racking and markedly more awesome by having a room full of friendly faces.

Gushing over.

If you missed the panel, other than a potted history of The Dark and MWM, some shameless plugging (including a new personal best for me), and some light hearted ribbing of a certain missing monkey, you probably missed me talking about codes, fiction, stories inside stories, fringe science, how thinly read I really am, and trying to answer some questions from people who had clearly thought about them beforehand. The swines. (Barry Nugent, I’m looking at you).

We had a lot of positive feedback about the panel throughout the show, so if you did miss it and would like to catch up, download the “Signs and Portents” podcast today.

If you’ve been around the UK indie comics scene, you should have heard of Valia Kapadai.

She’s from Athens, she’s slightly crazy (in the good way), and Rich McAuliffe and I have been fighting over her months. Brilliantly talented and producing a unique style of artwork, I’ve been lucky enough to work with Valia on the upcoming Insomnia “Survial” anthology and to get some behind the scenes peeks at her artwork for Rich’s “Snow”, also coming from Insomnia. She writes too, and she probably bakes. There’s probably nothing she can’t do.

So, why the outpouring of apprecation for this magician of the pens? Well, Valia has collected together the various short comic strips that she has worked on with a range of writers and collected them into a short run anthology called “Twisted Visions”. Featuring Kostas A, Rich McAuliffe, Panos Panagiotopoulos, Sissy Pantelis, and myself, it’s 104 pages of some of the most original and exciting artwork you’re going to see anywhere. If you were one of the people who signed up to our “Valia Kapadai will kill you“ Facebook group, it is also your first chance to see the story “Hypergraphia” and to start plotting your revenge against me. Don’t blame Valia, the world needs her more than it does me.

According to Valia’s blog, there will only be 30 personalised copies, so make sure you search her out and pick one up. If you do miss out on Twisted Visions, try to pick up one of Valia’s other books, they are all definitely worth your time and investment.

For anyone wondering what the mysterious “merchandise” that I’ve been alluding to on Twitter is, it’s badges. 100 lovely, 25mm badges, lovingly made by my new best friends at Badge Planet.

If you want to get hold of one, you need to track me down with your copy of The Dark for signing or perhaps try asking one of “The Darkettes”.

Yes, I have Darkettes.

I don’t think you can get too excited about the Bristol Comic Con, can you?