From the author interview in FLOOD!, 3rd edition. Interview by Chris Lanier, originally published in The Comics Journal.

I transformed the Forkings sketchbook into four little colour books, called FO, RK, IN, and GS, that are now available for download on the fantastic DIY mini-comics site 8PCX, or “8 pages comics”.

The site will generate a custom, numbered PDF for home printing, and offers different page formats and print options. I recommend the A4, single page printing method, which requires a bit of cutting and folding, but produces little books about the size of the playing cards that inspired the whole thing:

I posted this on the Team Weird Comics tumblr some days ago, but I thought I’d bring it home, so to speak. The Team doesn’t just moan on Twitter about how bad mainstream comics are, we also do it in private email correspondence. Eventually, a voice of some constructive spirit suggested that we actually try and do it better ourselves. And, as some incentive to actually get it done, we should do it as a joint project, each interpreting a spread (or consecutive page pair) from some really shitty superhero comic. Say, Daredevil #275.

And so it was agreed. I hung a sheet of paper on my studio wall and threw some paint and scrap paper on it when I felt frustrated or annoyed with the other unpaid work I do. A couple of moths later, here we are. To be honest, I have no idea how the others (Derik, Warren Craghead, Simon Moreton, and Oliver East) have fared with their pieces, but I’ll link to them here when I find out. They’ll likely be better (but less hateful) than mine. In the meantime, feast your eyes on the sorry piece of shizzle I had to work from:

There I was, pacing a comics class through a modified 24-hour comics exercise (going for 16 pages to allow for other classes during the time frame), and as usual the students didn’t need my help in any way. To keep myself busy, and to prove my point that anything works as inspiration, I started this comic using elements from playing cards. Look, I didn’t say it was my brightest idea, did I?

The above is a beta version, or a proof of (ill) concept. I thought I might colour in some flats, in tune with the original cards, but now that I set the thing up I think it may need another polishing before going into colours. Anyway, it’s only number one in a series, so I have plenty of chance for improvement. Ahem.

Edit: There is now a downloadable, 8-page colour remix called FO up at 8 pages comics. I was in a mood to try out that intriguing little service.

The main interest for me of the comic strip is the infinite possible links between text and image : a system of representation continually confronting , in a kind of alchemy, text and picture. [...] I try to find new reading perspectives. I dismantle a given material to make something else of it.

Jochen Gerner, talking about his remix of Tintin in America

This charcoal & graphite comics is a rollicking, raunchy graphic interpretation of the Kaizer’s Orchestra song of the same name. Barring the first and last pages, which measure 7″ square, all pages are spreads that measure 7×14″
Here are a bunch of snapshots of the originals (pardon my phone’s crummy camera, and my shaky hands):

Pages 1, 22 and back cover illustration: $75 + shipping (mailed flat)
Remaining spreads: $150 + shipping (mailed rolled in a tube)

Mail me to enquire about availability and shipping costs to your country!

Special Comixmas offer: Free international shipping on purchases by people following me on Twitter until 20th December 2012!

Originally part of the Astoria project, Black Sabbath (intro) is a pencil & watercolour comic based on the 20-30 seconds of ambience that precedes the song Black Sabbath.
Barring the first and last pages, which are 7″ square, all pages are spreads that measure 7×14″. It’s meant to be a single, see?

Here are some bad mobile snapshots of the art for sale:

Page 1 & 16: $100 a piece + shipping (mailed flat)
Remaining spreads: $180 a piece + shipping (mailed rolled in a tube)

Mail me to enquire about availability and shipping costs to your country.

Special Comixmas offer: Free international shipping on purchases by people following me on Twitter until 20th December 2012!

I’m very excited to be here, so excited in fact that I got up at 3am this morning, after 5hrs of sleep, to catch my flight. I spent the afternoon walking around the city in a daze of insomnia, trying to keep myself awake long enough that I could beat my sleep pattern back in place.

That may have worked, but in my mind I started taking notes about the British Experience that stood out for me. Kind of like, I don’t know, Xmas ornaments to a heroin addict. I would like to state again, for the record, that I was only influenced by sleep deprivation and caffeine. Ahem.

So here it is, my seven-points list of Notes About Britain so far, filtered through a lack of sleep:
Southpaw traffic
Not sure exactly how many buses I walked out in front of today, because I checked my left-hand side and then HONNK! A bus or taxi driver is shaking his fist at me from the right, mouthing the word “tourist”.
This is a generic one, I suppose, but let’s look at British traffic regulations in the grand scheme of things: it may have started as a matter of opinion, but at this point the Brits are just being stubborn. Pretty much everybody else drive on the right side of the road. Only in Britain have they got it wrong, perhaps as some post-empirical show of defiance.

Storefronts saying “to let” aren’t toilets
Minor thing, I agree. Since early morning, my tired mind has been disconnecting the dots. I heard Amsterdam airport, Schiphol, as “scribble” (though I blame that on the Dutch language), and an intercom call out for a flight to Hanover turned into “Hangover”. That was probably a Freudian Slip on my part.
Anyway, I was walking around some smaller Leeds streets, where the façades were littered with realtor signs announcing available office space, and I just kept misreading them as “TOiLET”, and I had to jot it down. Wouldn’t want to actually make the mistake at some point.
Interestingly, one sign, in the forest of identical ones added, “a unique opportunity!”. Made me think of the dialogue from Life of Brian: “You’re all different!” “Uh, I’m not.”

Clas Ohlson, wtf?
Okay, so perhaps Sweden had some pretty good franchises that spread out across the globe. IKEA. H&M. Volvo, too, I guess. But Clas Ohlson, a Swedish chain of discount hardware stores was probably the last I’d expected to see abroad. What is next, a Stippes grill at Tiananmen Square?!

Not having to go to department stores
This is particular to me: for the past years, all of my travels have been with my girlfriend (now ex), and somehow I would spend inordinate amounts of time in fancy-ass malls while she cooed over shiny things. At one point today I looked up and saw the Marks & Spencer logo on a building and thought, “Yippie ki-yay, I’m never setting my foot in that fucking place of death!”
Okay, that had nothing specifically to do with Britain, just thought I’d share, and bond a bit with you all.

The Royal Armouries had so many spears&shit they just decorated the walls with them
In my “Keep walking, die on your feet, don’t sleep” project, I zigzagged across the centre of Leeds to the area where the Thought Bubble comics fair is held, the Royal Armouries. AFAIK at this point, it’s not in the actual armouries, but they have given name to the overall surroundings, I think.
I was struck by the dominating building itself, especially the glass tower jutting out from the main building, and the ornaments lining the spiral staircase:

But hang on, are those…?!

Yep, all the patterns and arrangements are really made of medieval military equipment. Because screw you, we had a warehouse filled with that stuff. Which I respect a great deal more than their original purpose, mind.

Vinegar chips
I learned, even before I first went here ages ago, to add “Hold the vinegar!” when ordering chips (or “fries” for the Yanks reading along). Then one time I forgot, and I realised how good the acidic taste goes with the salt to outweigh the deep-fry fats. It is literally the best, no: The only way to eat chips. Fries. Whatever.
Actually, tell you what, Britons, keep driving ass-backwards, as long as you spread your vinegary web of influence across the globe. All is forgiven.

Children wearing school uniforms & they’re not even cosplaying
From a Scandinavian middle-class background, that’s just utterly alien. I mean, when I was a kid we only knew that culture from TV and movies, but watching pre-teens going home from school in grey knitted sweaters that look like 1940s throwbacks… I think, if this is a deliberate move from school boards to prevent the youth from ever seeing manga schoolgirl cosplay as something attractive, they’re doing a good job. Except the boys may dress up in skirts instead, that’s not unheard of.

Oh yes, one thing: I’ve been improvising these first installments to test what I can do with the form, but starting tomorrow I’ll be using the word prompts I asked for you guys’ input on some time ago. Consider this the end of the intro, or overture…

As you have probably noticed, I’m trying to work grafitti/street tags into both layouts and contents. That and city spaces, but let’s stay with the grafitti for a second. It is a form that is completely foreign to me; I was never a tagger, or part of the whole hip hop/street culture. Since I started teaching comics, however, I’ve had one or two students in each class who almost manically filled sketchbook after sketchbook with elaborate signatures and aliases.

I’ve come to appreciate the form and penmanship required to do these pieces, that sometimes remind me of Quranic calligraphy (which, because of language barriers, I don’t understand either, and therefore am equally fascinated by). The funny thing is, some of these students find it very hard to separate the form from the literal meaning of the words. They simply cannot translate those letters into other forms that don’t carry verbal meaning. I have still to find some way to handle this in my teaching, but now I’m trying to practice what I preach.

These early, awkward attempts to ape “street” calligraphy are mostly done from photo references that I have collected the last couple of years (among those a very thorough documentation of a Finnish bar toilet that was covered from floor to, and including, ceiling in layer upon layer of tags) so if anybody recognises their handiwork on these pages, remember what they say about plagiarism and flattery… Besides, I’m still learning.

Another thing: I’ve always hated when somebody tries to mimick a culture they don’t understand or belong to, usually getting the whole thing ass-backwards. Lego pillaging Maori culture to make their Bionicle line, springs to mind; or Lichtenstein’s comics swipes. But here I am, doing the same. Maybe it’s a midlife crisis. Apologies in advance!