So. This is: DFC presents – The Phoenix. It will be very much the same familiar style and presentation of comic as before: a weekly aimed at a similar audience of 8 – 12 yrs (though as we saw last time, anyone and everyone should enjoy something inside!) It aims to launch First Quarter 2012.

DFC (David Fickling Comics) is its own company now, with its own new sparkly office. Once again we have The Lovely Ben Sharpe and The Wonderful Will Fickling at the helm. David himself is not directly involved this time. It is no longer a part of Random House and has its own funding. We had the rug ripped out from under us last time, and rest assured it will not happen again.

As a further note: The DFC Library is also a separate entity and, like The Phoenix, sits independantly. Perhaps we can consider them cousins or siblings…? ^_^

No holding page on the internets as of yet, the old DFC page redirects to David Fickling Books… but I’m sure we’ll get one soon, and will link here when we do! Any more info as and when anyone can confirm. I will post it. I’m sure I don’t need to explain how much The DFC meant to a lot of people… I *PROMISE* The Phoenix will rock you all once again!

For now, GET EXCITED FOR THE PHOENIX! And spread the word!

Please give all your support to this comic!

We raffled off a large print of one of the original DFC covers of The Spider Moon, and also of course we had the auction… I was VERY happy with the result! We raised a lot of cash for Mind and also, in a rather cool twist, the winning bidders turned out to be the lovely folk at The Story Museum, which is about 10mins walk from our flat! If you live nearby you should keep an eye on this place. It certainly looks awesome. Oh, I love Oxford so much :D

Lots of my most favourite people were able to come along, so it was just such a cheery event! In a total surprise, some friends from Devon drove all the way up for the evening. It was super-awesome as I’ve not seen those guys for such a long time. My editor for The Spider Moon (a.k.a. Lovely Ben) was able to come as well, which was super-awesome too!

Here’s some pics that Paul took under the cut…

Setting up! I love how Blackwell framed the images. The Bekka-sitting-on-the-moon cover was the raffled image. It went to a lovely family home :D

Books!

All the DFC Library books together! It was great seeing them like this. Please do look out for Vern & Lettuce by Sarah, Mo-Bot High by Neill, and Monkey Nuts by Bob & Lorenzo out later this year! They’ll make great Christmas presents, won’t they? Eh? Eh? *nudge*

Crowd! (Including Philip Pullman! He’s just this guy, you know? somebody I admire a huge amount, so I was totally overwhelmed to meet him. We spoke about a few things, including my boots. I hope that I did not make a fool of myself.)

We had sketchbooks and drawing materials out on the tables! They were well-used! (Would like to point out here that David Fickling was making bowties cool long before Doctor Who ;p)

Paul is probably making a masterpiece! ;D Or could he be drawing a certain shining knight…? ;D

Also! Please do check out my friend Lisa’s collection of photographs from the event. She’s very talented! :D

The rest of the weekend was spent with friends playing video games and MtG and watching silly things on YouTube and eating nice things and talking about comics and books and films and basically everything we all love. Couldn’t be better! :D

Here’s the pieces we’ll be auctioning off at the (very, very late…) launch party for The Spider Moon:

I felt like making a new outfit for Kal (but doesn’t it make him look older! O_O;) Actually, that particular illustration is an adapted version of the third cover I was hoping to do for The DFC, for when Part Three of TSM started its run. All in all I’m glad I finally got to do that picture one way or another, as I was kinda fond of it.

They’ll go as a pair: linework on A4 Bristol board and a coloured print of each, starting at £5. So the winning bidder will get 4 items total. The proceeds will go to Mind, which is a charity I support anyway, but I want to give it an extra boost. That is… if anyone wants the pieces ;3; Of course I’m terrified that nobody will bid and we’ll all just stand there and then go home…

…someone will buy these for £5, won’t they? Right? (Right…?)

Private commission for a client ^_^ This was really fun to do, though rather challenging, as the client requested a scene from a dream that she had had the night before, and we both tried hard to re-capture it on paper :D Everything in the image was as carefully represented as possible. She was happy, so, I’m happy! I really missed doing illustration. It always shocks me how different it is to comics (in my opinion).

In other news, The Spider Moon has been nominated for The Northern Graphic Novel Award 2010 *^_^* I am totally shocked and thrilled *^^* Though I can’t find anything about the award yet online, the results will be given at Thought Bubble this October. Typically, I can’t make it to TB this year ;3; I don’t know who else has been nominated, either O_O; IT IS A MYSTERY!

EDIT: The other nominated titles are: MeZolith, The Wizard of Oz, Sliverfin, Good Dog Bad Dog and Beasts of Burden. I heard my hopes fizzle away down the drain when I learned of the other nominees XD Congratulations to these people! :D