Sixteen pages of full-colour comics extolling the virtues of ‘getting away from it all’, featuring new comics by Tom Smith, Octavia Raitt, David O’Connell, James Downing, John Cei Douglas, Kayla Marie Hillier, Phil Spence, Rob Cureton, Tom Humberstone and Anne Holiday.

The issue also features a double page spread by illustrator Marc Ellerby written by Meryl Trussler, as well as the final part of Adam Cadwell’s The King of Things and the Shrunken Giant Penny.

Satiate your wanderlust and pick up Paper Science 7 online now. This is likely to be the last issue for a little while, so get stuck into the preview below.

Also available, the Paper Science collection; issues 4-7 for just £8.

We’ve got a sale on! For the next fortnight (until December 12th) all copies of Paper Science come with free postage, including the Paper Science collection (issues 4, 5 and 6 plus the forthcoming issue 7).

We’ve also got an offer on for Paper Science 5, the music issue. You can pick up five copies for £10, including postage. They’re the perfect stocking fillers for friends, family, and friends of the family.

Once we’ve recovered from the whirlwind sale we’ll be appearing at the Barbican Christmas Market on December 17th. Come and say hello!

(P.S. Mike should be back with more WAW+P Radio soon; he nabbed a bunch of interviews around Thought Bubble)

Contributors include Sean Azzopardi, Kristyna Baczynski, Adam Cadwell, Francesca Cassavetti, Paul Duffield, Kyle Fox, James Howard & Kirsten Wyle, Anne Holiday & Tom Humberstone, Joe List and Thorsten Sideb0ard.

It’s full colour, 16 pages, and is available for £3 at our store.

You can also pick up issues 3, 4 and 5, and get a subscription that includes issues 4-6 plus January’s forthcoming Paper Science 7.

Retailers can order a bundle of 20 copies of any single issue at a 50% discount. Just select the ‘Retailer Bundle’ when placing your order.

It’s super-exciting. WAW+P came to life just in time for Thought Bubble back in 2008, the convention’s second year, and it’s become the centre around which every year in comics spins – for us at least.

Thought Bubble takes place in November, running between the 14th and 20th, ending with a two-day convention held at Saviles Hall and the Royal Armouries.

Our talks include:

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Self-Publishing: 11:00 – 11:50, Alea Cinema Room

A panel talk and Q&A with the shining stars of the UK indie comics scene. Come along and get the low-down on publishing your own comics from those who know best – some of the UK’s finest indie comic creators with guests Steve Tanner, Katie Green, Dr Geoff Banyard, Hugh ‘Shug’ Raine, and Hexjibber.

Paper/Science: 12:10 – 13:00, Alea Cinema Room

A panel talk on the process of printing comics or displaying them online for all to see. Once you’ve had your idea, what’s the next step? Analogue or digital? Paper or Photoshop? Which printers give the best results? Come along to find out from guests Joe List, Philippa Rice, Tom Humberstone, and Kristyna Baczynski.

Comic Economics: 14:30 – 15:20, Alea Cinema Room

A discussion on marketing and funding indie comics – including how to generate the capital to turn your ideas into realities, and the best way to market them once you have. Coming up with a brilliant story is the first step; let our speakers help you finish the journey. Featuring contributions from Howard Hardiman, Emma Vieceli, Ellen Lindner, and John Allison.

An awesome mix of Paper Science alumni, friends of WAW+P and some people we’ve merely admired from afar.

It’s going to be ace!

The exhibitors include: Adam Cadwell, John Cei Douglas, Julia Scheele, Jamie Mckelvie, Francesca Cassavetti, Marc Ellerby, Kristyna Baczynski, Tom Humberstone and Sean Azzopardi.

My workspace, sadly, is nothing to write home about, let alone blog over. Due to “unforeseen circumstances” I’ve had to move back home recently, but lets not get into into that for the moment, lets instead concentrate on post-it notes and pens!

Ahh, my main tools. We’ll get to the pens in a second, but here’s what I keep in my utility belt…

a) a big ol’ green sheet of circle holes. These have been a godsend, I use them all the time for my word balloons. I suck at drawing circles, it starts off okay but just after half way, gah it falls apart. I picked this tool up in Toronto, but you can get them in any perfectly good enough art store.

b) a rag! not the most glamorous of tools, but this helps keep tricksy pens in line.

c) regular ol’ Daler Rowney bristol board. I actually prefer the Winsor Newton stuff but it’s just too expensive *shakes fist*

d) a metal ruler! I stayed with Cadwell last weekend and he was using some plastic rubbish so I marched him out on Friday to go ruler shopping. I couldn’t believe it, what is this, junior school?!

Pen loving time…

1) bog-standard Staedtler eraser. Watch these, you should try and keep them clean or they’ll smudge your artwork.

2) a mechanical pencil with HB lead.

3 + 4) aha, now here come my inking trick. I have two Pentel brush pens, one with an ink cartridge in and another that has had one recently removed. Why do I do this? Getting ink consistency with Pentels, can be tricky, they love to chug ink out, mainly because they’re using cartridges. So taking out the cartridge gives you more control over how much ink is flowing through the pen. The thing with the brush pens is that they retain their ink for so long, I can go a few days without having to put a new cartridge in. I use the drier pen, with less ink, for finer details and the inkier pen for stronger lines and filling in. If the dry pen is running out completely, just swap the cartridge over from the other pen.

5) microns! Swoon, I love these, they’re impossible to get in England, so I import them via Ebay. They’re cheap, disposable and good for minor details, and facial lines. I use a 1 and a 2 nib. Pro-tip: get a bulk load of them because they don’t last long.

6) faber pitt pens. Which are a zillion times more easier to get hold of over here and handy for lettering. I mainly use the S and F sizes, the F to strengthen parts of dialogue.

I start my writing process by pretty much just writing dialogue down, often without instruction as to who is saying what. This probably sounds crazy, but with shorter stories like this I have a very clear idea as to who the few characters are and the setting. It’s quite an organic scripting process, with parts of the script leading one way, just to experiment with the flow of the piece and generate alternative ideas.

Not many people know this but my Paper Science entry was actually based on when I saw Slint perform at the first ATP vs The Fans and they were disappointingly terrible. Here’s a shocking video montage of the massive gaps between songs.

After scripting, I’ll thumbnail the comic a few times, often changing scenes, or cutting bits for space. They’re incompressible to anyone but me, I’m afraid.

Next up is the actual drawing. Hooray!

I drew this comic on A3 bristol board, like the majority of my comics. However I usually like to draw at about 150% the printed size, although for Paper Science that would mean drawing A2 and that just sounds intimidating and mental.

Along the way I’ll often do little sketches in the margin if a panel isn’t working out right, or just to figure out where people are standing.

It probably took me all day to draw it and another 2-3 days to colour. I’m kind of a slow-ass when it comes to colouring.

I hope that was insightful, I am now going to gorge myself on Oreos. ILOVEYOUBYE.

Paper Science 5 is available to buy online or at comic stores throughout the UK, including OK Comics, Gosh Comics and Orbital Comics.

I wanted to try a new technique for this comic, so I did a few experiments with drawing and collage.

What I went for in the end was drawing everything first, scanning it, then cutting round all the drawings in different coloured cards and papers.

The last thing to do was put everything together on Photoshop with some added embellishments.

Paper Science 5 is available to buy online or at comic stores throughout the UK, including OK Comics, Gosh Comics and Orbital Comics.

First up, applications are open for londonprintstudio‘s second internship in comics…

Do you enjoy telling tall tales or scribbling stories? Do you love reading graphic novels, comics or picture books? Then look no further…
londonprintstudio is offering five carefully chosen 21-25 year olds the chance to:
 
-Run comic workshops for 16-20 year olds.
-Receive mentoring from top professional comic artists, anthology makers, screenwriters, print makers, comic publishers and art educators.
-Develop your own artistic comic projects with supervision from mentors and feedback from your fellow interns..
-Be introduced to the London comic scene, attend events, give presentations, network and meet publishers, editors and creators in the comic industry.
-Take part in editing, planning and creating work for a comic anthology publication and a comic exhibition at londonprintstudio.

Application deadline is September 5th, so best get your skates on. Full details are here.

In other news, House of Illustration are hoping to establish a comics library to help with their work at New Horizon Youth Centre, a day centre working with young people who are vulnerable, homeless or at risk. We’re donating copies of Paper Science and you can help too by sending books to

Comic Book Donation,
Mark Cruise,
New Horizon Youth Centre, 
68 Chalton Street,
London,
NW1 1JR

Stay up to date with the teams by heading to www.londonprintstudio.org.uk and www.houseofillustration.org.uk/

Yep, this is the bombsite that is my desk and the place where most of the paper science #5 centrefold was created.

Although, I think I did the pencils over breakfast at the Clock Cafe in Leeds (or is it called ls6 now?) cos I was feeling flush. The fake skull is called Derek.

Paper Science 5 is available to buy online or at comic stores throughout the UK, including OK Comics, Gosh Comics andOrbital Comics .

You can listen to the full episode below. For full show notes and playlist details, visit the London Fields Radio Mixcloud page.

(click here to download WAW+P Radio Episode #10)