Canny Comic Con - poster number 3

The second poster for the Canny Comic Con is above. Art byCuttlefish Comics, and design by me. It shall be awesome.

Canny Comic Con - poster number 2

The second poster for the Canny Comic Con is below. Art by Cuttlefish Comics, and design by me. Confirmed guests so far:

Bryan Talbot
Nigel Auchterlounie, Alex Collier
Paul Davidson, Simon Donald
Al Ewing, Mary M Talbot

Gary Bainbridge, Mack Chater, Brittany Coxon
Cuttlefish, Jack Fallows, A.J. Garrett
En Gingerboom, Ingi Jensson, Leonie O'Moore
Graham Pearce, Paul Scott, Paul Thompson
Andrew Waugh, Stacey Whittle
Terry Wiley , Lydia Wysocki

Paper Jam Comics Collective
Drink and Draw Social Club
Travelling Man
Forbidden Planet
Readers of the Lost Art

Canny Comic Con - poster number 1

The first poster for the Canny Comic Con is below. Art by Cuttlefish Comics, and design by me. I'm also an exhibiting guest, which is really nice, but look at the others! Not shown on this poster (but watch this space) - Al Ewing of Zombo/Judge Dredd fame! How awesome is that?

Girls from Mars at Thought Bubble

Well, quite a bit has happened in the Hollow Earth HQ since the last preview post. Quotes from printers have been received, discarded, negotiated and re-thought. Seems most printers who are interested in doing the stapling, cutting and collating don't have a price point for black and white.

After extensive discussions on print production standards with the extremely helpful staff at That's Bang On, I've decided that Tales of the Hollow Earth will be going colour from issue 3 onwards.


If the proofs I've spent the last few nights working on are anything to judge by, I'm going to be going to Thought Bubble with my best work ever. If you want to see what that looks like and maybe even obtain a copy, I'll be sharing table 131 with Britt and Cuttlefish Comics. That's where you can find me.

I think it looks amazing and i'm really happy with it. Here's the cover:

The story continues Astrid Moriarty's investigation into the Boltzmann's Eye manifestations and also features Gudrun Black, who first appeared in the four page strip: Lure as part of Daniel Clifford's all ages anthology A4 Adventure Comics. That story will be reprinted as a backup story in the next printing of Tales of the Hollow Earth Issue 1, which will be recoloured to fit the new format.

The back cover features a drawing of Astrid and an Angler Fish, by mister Ian Mayor. It's great.

Anyway, here's a preview page:

See you all at Thought Bubble, yes?

Tales of the Hollow Earth 3: Girls From Mars

Coming Soon. Interior page preview:

Scanning and Pollen: Prints available on Etsy and from Bondgate Gallery

I now have two of my prints from the Cosmology series available to buy on Etsy. Cosmology is an exploration of the symbol system within my comic 'Tales of the Hollow Earth', which will be reprinted and available soon.

LuxPollen is highly dangerous: accidentally created, it proliferates the architecture and design of Novalucia to any receptive environment.

Printed by Bondgate Gallery, they're both 16 inch giclee print onto 240gsm ultra matt paper, with a two inch black mount (so the finished product is 20 inches square), in a limited edition of 24.

SCANNING

 

POLLEN

They're £42 each, mounted but not framed. You can get them framed with non reflective glass from Lynn at Bondgate Gallery for £79 each. Plus postage costs.

Tales of the Hollow Earth : Cosmology

Enquiring minds would like to know what I've been up to.

I'm a pretty crap blogger, and there are quite a few things have happened since October last year. I just haven't wrote about most of them.

I have very good reasons for this, primary amongst these is that I always forget to, but also that I seem to spend a lot of my time helping out with events and the like and neglect my own stuff.

So, to cut a long story short some of those things are enumerated below:

1. failed to produce a comic at the Martin Newman organised 24 Hour Comics Day. But I stayed awake and it all worked out for the best.
2. finished Tales of the Hollow Earth : Entomology, and debuted it at ThoughtBubble. It's allright I think. Getting better.
3. curated (with Britt and Martin) an exhibition at Made in Newcastle based on the comic I edited for the Paper Jam Comics Collective anthology 'History...and that'. I was very proud of this and think it went really well.
4. helped out at the International Mini Comics Day a bit, but had decided by this point to look after myself for a change and work on my exhibition. Zine King Mike D and Comics Marathon Master Martin Newman were doing a bloody excellent job making this a great family day in the really excellent surroundings of the Star and Shadow Cinema.

The exhibition, though is what I'm now blogging about.

Here's the promo image:

So what is this here 'Tales of the Hollow Earth : Cosmology' exhibition at the wonderful Made In Newcastle on Grainger Street all about then?

To attempt to answer that question I have written the following blurb.

Tales of the Hollow Earth : Cosmology

Ten pictures by Paul Thompson

ONE : Games

The best board games are those whose depth of complexity and strategy comes from a very small number of easily understood elements and rules.

Chess is considered to be a very deep game – it has six types of piece and, including the rules for their movement, winning conditions and a couple of exceptions, about a dozen rules. Our greatest computers can match our greatest human players.

Go has only one type of piece, and despite or because of this simplicity is so deep that computers still cannot match the best players.

Given a tiny number of rules of engagement, then where does the conflict come from?

TWO : Physics

Why is there something and not nothing, and what is it all made out of?

All matter is made out of molecules and molecules are made out of atoms, are made out of electrons, are made out of elementary particles. These are far too numerous and untidy for anyone to believe that they’re the final word.

But even if physicists successfully pair it down further, where does my motivation come from?

THREE : Stories

Various theories of elements have existed – most commonly four or five, being variations on the theme of: Water, Air, Fire and Earth, occasionally subdividing one, or adding another such as spirit or void.

Unlike the elements of quantum physics, these elements are often associated with properties we would recognise in our daily lives (Hot, Fluid, etc.) both as physical phenomena and componants of a personality/emotional states. These kinds of ideas/metaphors are used as component parts in the system of Tarot.

The twenty two cards of the Major Arcana could represent a single story, which would not be unfamiliar to viewers of the Star Wars Trilogy. Or the Matrix: The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, ending with The Sun, Judgement and a return to The World.

FOUR : Comics

Show people two dots and a line and they will see a face. Show them two pictures next to each other and they will begin to construct a story. Now you understand comics.

I write a comic called Tales of the Hollow Earth. The stories in this comic are inspired by science and the tendency to see meaning where there may not necessarily be any.

But what would the subatomic, elemental particles of a fictional word look like? The quanta of Middle Earth is probably very different to the quanta of the universe of Victor Frankenstein, The Justice League of America, Doctor Benway or Calvin and Hobbes.

FIVE: Finding Meaning where it may not Be?

So this exhibition represents early attempts at mapping the fundamental principles on which the universe of my Tales of the Hollow Earth is built. Where does the conflict come from, in that world, where does the meaning and aesthetics come from.

By early attempts, I mean to say that these pictures, which I hope you like on some level, are experiments with these ideas, and not expected to be successful. Recurring themes, some obvious, some not, run through the series. Some of them were deliberate, some I spotted afterwards, and some are entirely your own.

SIX:  Why is there Something and not Nothing?

I’m thankful to Made in Newcastle for the opportunity to have a deadline to work to, without which none of this would likely ever to have became a real, nailed to the wall exhibition.

Why you should care about this personal cosmology isn’t for me to say, I’m afraid and I’m not going to argue strongly that you should at this stage - it's an experiment and a work in progress for me. That said, I hope it works for you on some level.

Thanks for taking the time to look though, please let me know if you got anything out of it. I hope that this meandering was useful to you on some level.

Let me know:

Twitter:           @paulxthompson
Email:              paulxthompson@gmail.com

I’m also working on a board game.