Here is the cover to volume two of The Rainbow Orchid, out on July 5th 2010.

There is a competition over at The Book Zone (For Boys) to win a copy of volume one - pop over and see what you have to do to win. The deadline for entries is Monday 29 March 2010.

I'll also take this opportunity to mention a few of this year's events, which are starting to fill up the calendar. I'll be at the Bristol International Comic Expo, the Hay Festival, Caption, and the Edinburgh International Book Festival. There will be more to come - keep an eye on the events page.

Nathaniel - he can't help it most of the time, being the fall guy, but actually he comes up with some pretty smart ideas too. I am sorry for what I do to you in volume two, Nat! Here is a watercolour sketch I did of him a couple of years ago.

Edit: I almost forgot to mention that there's a little interview with me over at the Book Zone (For Boys), as part of their graphic novel month.

A lot of people really seem to like Evelyn Crow. Just be careful, she really is no good - it'll all end in tears, I promise you. Here's a quick wash sketch I did of her.

This is a rather dark iPhone photo of what a little of The Rainbow Orchid volume III looks like right now. Hope I'm not giving too much away!

And here is a marvellous and slightly confused review of volume one, complete with suggested ending. Thanks Class 7B!

Here is a visual list of books I've recently devoured. Most of them are now part of various piles around the place as I seem to have run out of bookshelf space.

Happy birthday to the Forbidden Planet International blog, which this week turned five years old.

There's no doubt it is one of the best British comics blogs, with no particular bias or prejudice against any kind of comic while exuding an upbeat view of the industry and its creators. And despite being the tool of a retail and mail order shop, you'd hardly know it, as it's not continually (or ever, really) pushing its merchandise or hurling screaming animated advertisements at you while you're trying to read (and it so easily could). It's all about the content, and the content consists of quality writing on a diverse range of subjects, genres and media.

On a personal note, FPI have been very supportive of The Rainbow Orchid and, in fact, if you look at the blog's contributors, I'm privileged with generosity from all. Joe Gordon, captain of the ship, has regularly featured RO news and tidbits; Richard Bruton positively reviewed volume one; Matthew Badham conducted something of a 'master' interview, while Pádraig Ó Méalóid did a spot-on book-focussed interview; and Wim Lockefeer made my day with the following comment on his own blog, The Ephemerist:

"As a Belgian, and therefore assuming that I have anything to say in things ligne claire (which I don't), I think this is one of the best comics to step in Tintin's footsteps, along with Dirk Stallaert's Nino and Peter Van Dongen's Rampokan..."

I've been waiting for ages to quote that somewhere! One contributor who we don't see so often (hopefully it's the success of Blank Slate Books that has kept him away), but whose rare posts are always insightful, is Kenny Penman, and I'll leave you with the Forbidden Planet International advert he commissioned from me in 2007 (click it to see a larger version).

You can see the FPI birthday post here. Thanks for all the great reading, Joe and team. Here's to the next five...

About a year ago David O'Connell mentioned that he was going to draw a scene in Tozo that needed a lot of people, and asked for anyone who wanted to appear in it to let him know. I volunteered Julius Chancer and Lily Lawrence from The Rainbow Orchid, and now you can see the wonderful result - click here to see it in its full glory. What a lot of work - but well worth it. Who else do you recognise?

I also wanted to remind you that Dave Shelton's Good Dog, Bad Dog is out next week from David Fickling Books. It's the first of three DFC Library books to be released, with more to follow later in the year. You can even buy it through my shop if you want, and you can read a preview here.

And finally, a little mention of a superb comic I just read, A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi. It's an autobiographical tale that focuses on the author's journey from manga fan to manga professional, coming of age in the 1950s golden era of Japanese comics. It's one of those books where I just had to keep reading 'one more chapter' - and ended up reading several late into the night. Highly recommended, especially if you make comics or love manga.

At the end of last week volume two of The Rainbow Orchid went off to production. The official release date is July 5th, though I'm hoping to have some advance copies at Bristol in May.

Now I'm working on volume three, which is all new work at last! Volume one was completed (sans colouring) by 2004, and all but the last 14 pages of volume two were done by the end of 2007. Volume three will see print in early 2011. Here's a little taster of some of the stuff from volume two...

Here are some brisk drawings I did in April 2009 for certain people in the book trade, so I thought I'd remove the dedications and post them here as a quick blog post.

Here's a post about two really good things and one really bad thing.

First the really good things. Comic creator Kate Brown has been awarded the graphic novel grant from the Arts Foundation Fellowship. This is the first time graphic novels have been included by the Fellowship (the other arts this year being cinematography, puppetry, textile art and jewellery design) and Kate is a very deserving recipient. Anyone opening up the first issue of The DFC would have seen her stunning work on Spider Moon and would have immediately understood why this new weekly comic was going to be so different and wonderful. If you missed it, her strip is being collected by David Fickling Books and will be available in April.

The second great thing is the impending publication by Blank Slate Books of Darryl Cunningham's Psychiatric Tales, compounded by the marvellous fact that Bloomsbury will be publishing it in the States. As I was reading parts of this book on Darryl's blog I remember thinking 'crikey, this could do really well', and I think it's going to. I've always thought that about Darryl's work - ever since reading his Uncle Bob adventures in Alchemist, and especially when reading his more recent Super Sam tales on the Forbidden Planet blog - I loved that so much that I sent it to Ben and David at The DFC and said they should be publishing him.

Both these stories are excellent news for British comics, and I'm really pleased to see two such talented writing-drawing comic creators get wider exposure for their work.

The bad part of this post is the news that legendary French comic creator Jacques Martin died in Switzwerland yesterday (21 January). He wasn't very widely known in the UK, (as far as I'm aware, only two of his Alix books were translated into English in the early seventies) but was a titan of Franco-Belgian comics, having worked as an assistant to Hergé and then going on to have his own work published in Tintin Magazine. While Alix was his biggest success, I was more drawn to the Lefranc books, though my lack of any recognisable French meant I had to make do with a very rudimentary comprehension of the stories - though that was good enough for me as the best I could get. I don't know if any of Martin's works are within the sights of Cinebook, but it would be wonderful if a wider acceptance of bande dessinée beyond Tintin and Asterix opened the door to that opportunity.