Myself and Stu.Art, more commonly known as “Monkeys with Machineguns”, are booked to exhibit at this year’s Bristol Comic Expo.

This year we are exhibiting with a twist however, as all our hard work on The Magpye for Markosia has left us without a brand new issue of our eponymous horror anthology to debut at the show. With the release of the latest MWM being somewhat of a Bristol tradition, at least for Stu and I, were left somewhat stumped this year as to what exactly to do …

Thankfully, the answer is obvious. We would just write and draw a new issue of Monkeys with Machineguns at the Bristol Comic Expo!

Any of you who have attended one of my signings will be familiar with the setup – woefully unable to cede the limelight to artists and jealous of the constant requests they receive for sketches and shows and signings, I have gotten into the habit of writing flash fiction & short stories at shows, often based on random words, phrases, objects etc. thrown at me (figuratively) by whoever is around. It’s a sort of “Whose Line is it Anyway”, but with horror fiction.

So, this year, visitors to the Small Press Expo will be cordially invited to challenge the creativity of the Monkeys with Machineguns team with some random objects, places, people, and points in time from which to create a short story. Once I’ve written the short, Stu will be providing a sketch illustration or two and, after we’ve scanned the result to go into the new book, you will be able to buy the original artwork.

By the end of the day we are hoping to have enough content to complete the upload to our POD publisher of all the stories and artwork, resulting in a brand new issue of Monkeys with Machineguns on sale at the end of the show.

So, if you have ever wondered exactly how we make Monkeys with Machineguns … this is your chance to find out. Or watch us crash and burn horribly, which will probably be equally entertaining.

How to Find Yourself some MWM Goodness

For those who don’t know, the expo this year is a special one off version of the event that will be spread across two venues. The “Bristol International Comic Expo”, which will be held exclusively in the Ramada Plaza hotel this year, and the the “Small Press Expo”, which will be held in the Mercure Hotel. If you have been to the Bristol Expo before then you may well know the Ramada as the hotel that has hosted many of the talks and panels for previous shows, as well as being where most of the comic book fraternity do their socialising after the event.

The Monkeys with Machineguns table will be the Mercure, hopefully with a loud crowd around it and limited screaming from Stu and myself.

Please note that the Small Press Expo is a one day event only. Stu and I will be lurking around in the Ramada based Expo on Sunday, but don’t expect us to write and draw anything unless you come with gifts. Or cash.

Originally published in Monkeys with Machineguns #2, “Why Snow Should Not Be Red” is being re-published as an eBook in honour of the shutdown of the UK in the great snow of February 2009!

Don your snow shoes, you’re in for a chilly one …