Digital Books are ready!
11 months ago
– Tue, Apr 29, 2025 at 04:09:48 AM
Yay! The digital books are ready -- look out for a link arriving in your inbox later today.
I'll send out the first book in wave one, and all the extras and additional digital rewards level-by-level. So you should all have everything digital from the first campaign by tomorrow at the latest.
Print wise, I'm still adjusting things to look perfect in print. It's been a fiddly and frustrating process - but it should only be another week or so till the presses start rolling. I'll keep you updated on that as it happens. Apologies for the wait; I'm as eager to get this in your hands as you are.
I'll also be at the Excel on May 24th for MCM London - doing a panel on 'Independent Authors' - if anyone wants to catch up with me there.
I also had the next Chrome Roses installment approved by kickstarter, which you can find here. That'll be running after all the books and rewards from this campaign have been fulfilled.
This was the very first panel I drew for Chrome Roses, capturing all the energy and excitement I was aiming for. I've read the book a lot lately, checking and proofing, and it's truly ended up fulfilling that promise. It's everything I'd hoped it would be - I just need to draw faster!! Something I've been working hard on.
Look out for those digital links later today.
Cheers
Monty
An exciting 2025!
about 1 year ago
– Wed, Jan 01, 2025 at 11:00:08 AM
Happy New Year! Hope you had a great Christmas.
December was a busy time for me getting the Chrome Roses art ready, and then welcoming my mum and sister for the holiday. That all went well, which was a relief as only a few weeks earlier it looked like the whole thing was off as mum was too ill. But she was determined to come and it ended up being a wonderful, poignant Christmas celebration.
Comics-wise there’s lots of exciting stuff happening in 2025:
On Monday the first thing I’ll do is get in touch with my printer to tie down dates for delivery of Chrome Roses Book One. Once I’ve thrashed that out I’ll update you later this month with the details.
Titan are releasing a collection of the entire Death Sentence series! You can preorder that here if you like, or from any book or comic shop. It’s out May 20th with two brilliant new covers from Martin Simmonds, new intros by me and a special guest, a new article at the back about designing the characters and comics, and various updates to art and a few extra bonus items.
Amazon have it listed as a hardback, but it’s not. It’s a complete edition of 526 pages with two covers to choose from. The more colourful one is the Direct Market version you can get from a comic shop.
I had to read the whole Death Sentence narrative many times in checking Titan’s proof of the book and a number of things struck me.
1) It made me laugh a lot!
2) It reads really well as one consistent story - a real page-turner.
3) The characters capture all the glorious excitement and madness of the mid-nineties right through to the pandemic. A very different time to now.
4) It was freakishly accurate about the future. The plot is well researched, but I thought at the time I was exaggerating nightmarish events for dramatic effect. Looking back, it’s genuinely unsettling how bad things got about eight years later with the lockdown, pandemic, riots, and the double standards and rise to power of Boris Johnson and co.
If you’ve never read Death Sentence you’re in luck, It won a comic of the decade award, gaining hundreds of positive reviews ( “A masterwork” Popmatters, “Brilliantly original” Newsarama, “ A dazzling, wit-ridden debut” Page Forty Five). It’s 526 pages of sex, drugs and rock n roll about a warring artist, singer, and media icon afflicted by a virus which kills them in six months but gives them superpowers. The style and tone of it was ahead of it’s time – often copied, never bettered – an essential read for comic fans and students of the genre.
Thirdly, there’s something else I’ve been preparing but I’ll save that for later in the year, after Chrome Roses is printed.
More news from me soon.
Have a great January.
All the best
Monty
