A year ago (at the time of writing, late February 2021) I got off my sickbed after nearly three weeks of the worst flu I can remember and decided that I had had enough of making comic strips about comic strips I made in 1998. I was alive and I was going to put my back into writing and drawing my ‘A’ material. It turned out to be a year where there wasn’t much else to do BUT please oneself. I think the 2020 Steeple stories, Destroy History: NEMS (part 1) and Circus Windows have been some of my favourite comics I’ve made. To cap off this year of intense endeavour, I present a very special final 44-page event: AUTHOR UNKNOWN? I’ve been working on this story since November 2019, it’s been through a lot of revisions to make sure it meant something even taken in isolation. It needed me to make all the comics I did over the last year to give it a bit of weight. There is something for both long-term and newer readers, to the exclusion of no-one. I really hope that you enjoy it.
Archive for April, 2021
“Tibkins” has been chronicled in various places – the Murder She Writes and THAT minis, Giant Days #52, and various other strips. Look, he’s a hedgehog type entity with chicken legs. That’s all you need to know. He bewitches young minds. AN IMPORTANT NOTICE If you want to read the first 22 pages of this story ahead of time (in a convenient, higher resolution PDF), just sign up for my Patreon at the $3 tier. Feel free to unsubscribe again, or drop to a lower tier, if you only want to read the comic. There’s loads of nonsense and bonus comics on there to read before you do – weird Esther and Des strips, process posts, horrendous fake comic projects, sketches galore.
Shelley Winters is an adventuress and author nonpareil. I don’t think I need to explain her at this point. She makes friends everywhere she goes. “Barry” is her agent. He’d probably regret the day he met Shelley (see Giant Days volume 13/issue 52) but for all the money she makes for him.
This was an intricate page to get to grips with. Quite tiring. I had to have a nap afterwards. Shelley’s seen enough weirdness in her life not to find the Victoria’s clientele intimidating, but I think that, rather than a bonus, this is a dangerous blind spot at this point.
You can never be sure which Brian you’re going to get. His erratic diet of strong drink, pills and powders, and complex carbohydrates, makes him a moveable feast. Courtly uncle… or perverted beast man? Or both simultaneously? Tread carefully. Especially during certain lunar cycles. (I think Coal Board might be the name of his band.)
Cool to see Shelley fans in Tredregyn finally getting the chance to meet their hero. Better to wait until the next day than risk an awkward encounter with a worn-out Winters, eh?
Poor, bashful Brian, a man of many sides. Sharp-eyed readers (and Patreon subscribers) may recognise a red-trousered figure from “Cattywampus” in today’s comic. Let’s hope he’s just passing through. Shelley’s sweater is based on a real garment, though I’m not sure where you’d find it…
There are so many Tibkins books that I have irresponsibly thrown into panels without a second’s thought. Here we see “Tibkins On The Road” which may or may not have anything to do with the interminable “beat” novel of a similar name. I’ve been trying to collate them all but some are hard to find. There’s even a Tibkins movie at one point.
Hilary Mantel comes up whenever I explore Shelley’s literary adventures. I picture her as a brawler, very much the Mailer or Hemingway of our times, taking no nonsense from anyone in her pursuit of the life artistic. This is not, I have to say, based on her public persona as experienced through interviews &c. More a twinkle I see in her eye.
Shelley’s agent Barry first appeared in Murder She Writes (get it on Gumroad here), and has popped up on various occasions since. I think Shelley has prepared her own emergency protocol, by the looks of things. It’s high class, it even has an “obi”.