…london horror comic…

Welcome SFX Readers!

Hello to SFX readers who may be visiting the site for the first time and who caught our full-page colour ad in issue #194 on sale this month (it’s the one with the Dr.Who cover that follows you around the room or something).

Anywhoo. London Horror Comic is a 32 page, print, full colour horror comic. It also happens to be, coincidentally, British. It’s written, published and rocked to sleep each night by me, JP Kamath.

Since the SFX ad cost me my left kidney, the least you can do is wander over and buy issues #1 #2 and #3 of the London Horror Comic using PayPal from our online store. You can buy issues #1, #2 and #3 at a special price of £8 total or buy individual issues separately for £3.50. All prices include p+p and comics come bagged and boarded.

What’s that? No! You want to see a preview of all three issues of the London Horror Comic before you part with your hard earned cash? Well, mosey on over to our preview page where we have selection of choice cuts from each issue to help massage the cash out of your wallet.

What’s that? Still don’t take our word for it? Yeesh. Head on over to the reviews page then. More than enough people have said nice things about the comics including Garth Ennis and comedian Stewart Lee, so rest assured, you’re in good company if you do buy the London Horror Comic.

Anything else? Oh yeah, you can listen to me at 23.00 on the 30th March on BBC Radio 4 where I will be talking about the London Horror Comic.

Thinking on this:

“I had to make up my mind whether I really wanted to continue making films. There was so much negativity you might as well stop. So what do you do? Stay down dead? No. I realised then, you can’t let the system crush your spirit. I really did want to continue making pictures. I’m a director. I’ll make a low-budget picture, After Hours. I’m going to be a pro and start all over again.”

A place for horror fiction

Reports of crimes which leave the reader thinking, “How could somebody to do that to another person?”can be found in news reports daily; one wonders if there is still a place for horror fiction.

The facts reported in the news are graphic and often supplemented with video camera footage from eyewitnesses. What cannot be shown on broadcast news can easily be found in a few minutes scouring the web. Little is left to the imagination.

However, news reports often rely on the spectacle of a crime to carry a shocking story through to the end. The brutality of a crime committed is the fence around which most news stories draw their fence. They venture no further. Writers are confident that detailed descriptions of the act itself are enough to chill the reader.

This is where horror fiction still has a dark corner, away from the light, to grow. It’s main opportunity to chill and terrify lies in being able to connect the dots between where the average person begins to where they can end up committing unimaginable acts.

Origins

Someone recently asked me if I could remember the first comic I ever bought. This was like asking a marathon runner who’s crossed the finish line to recall who was standing next to him at the start line – you know there was somebody there, but beyond the colour of their top, you can’t remember the shape of their beard.

Recollections of covers swirled past in my head. I couldn’t remember.

What was perhaps easier to remember was the enjoyment that reading comics brought me. Reading comics was always a glimpse into the future and a world of possibilities. It was a world you shared with characters, who, while they could fly and perform huge feats of strength, still faced human and everyday problems.

As a kid, I wasn’t drawn to these characters because of what they could do – although it played a part – rather, I felt they were already much like me, but the way in which they solved their struggles on such an epic and colourful canvas made facing my own problems less disconcerting.

The comics I enjoy today still fulfil that basic need.

Looking back and forwards – London Horror Comic #4

Going through my papers I came across what would have been the first page of London Horror Comic #4.

The artwork is by the talented Stephen Molnar who I believe is doing a run on Star Trek.

With issue 4 I had a much bigger story to tell; one that deserved a series in its own right. Let’s see what happens in 2010, eh?

Postcard from Garth Ennis on the London Horror Comic
“Good stuff here from major new
talent John-Paul Kamath – far too good, in fact, Enjoy London
Horror Comic while you can, because I’m going to have him killed.”
- Garth Ennis

After reading that, I reaaaally want to make an issue 4.

Pick up issues 1-3 here

Issue 3 – available to buy NOW!

The FINAL issue of the London Horror Comic is now available to buy from our on-line store for £3.50 (inc P+P) using PayPal where you can also pick up individual copies of issues 1 and 2.

You can also buy all three issues of the London Horror Comic at a special rate of £8.00 (inc P+P).

Comics ship bagged and boarded and in padded envelopes – the padding scrapped off my cell.

Ah, thankyou.

Warren Ellis on Comics

“When done right, comics are a cognitive whetstone, providing two or three or more different but entangled streams of information in a single panel. Processing what you’re being shown, along with what’s being said, along with what you’re being told, in conjunction with the shifting multiple velocities of imaginary time, and the action of the space between panels that Scott McCloud defines as closure… Comics require a little more of your brain than other visual media. They should just hand them out to being to stave off Alzheimer’s.”

Go read here

The proofs arrive for London Horror Comic #3



I spent the weekend inspecting the proofs for London Horror Comic #3 and sent them back to the printers on Tuesday.

Just because this will be the final issue, it doesn’t mean I get to be sentimental about the beautiful colours; I need to keep a keen eye to make sure the book is perfect.

On the inside of the London Horror Comic I credit myself as writer, but I’m also the book’s editor and the two roles are distinct. To self-publish a book you have to fulfil your responsibilities in both roles, which you can sometimes forget to do.

Publishing your own comic book gives you the chance to load up on job titles the same way most people load up on bacon at a hotel breakfast buffet. You can inflate your importance overnight by calling yourself writer/editor or writer/whatever.

The demands of the two jobs are different. As a writer, you look for new and novel ways of telling a compelling story – a kid with a blank canvas and a dozen crayons. As an editor, you have to be able to take a step back from your own work and examine it methodically and coldly.

Do all the stories in the book work? Are they fun? What kind of journey is the reader led on page by page? Is the dialogue clear or could it be made clearer? These are all questions you have to ask yourself as you go through the proofs.

When the proofs arrive on your doorstep, you have to put aside the childlike excitement and get on the surgeon’s gloves - as if you were conducting an autopsy. No one is likely to read your book as closely as you will, so it is important that you give your book the attention it needs as an editor, just as much as you did as a writer when you put the stories together.

Remember that you’re not a “jack-of-all-trades” in name alone and you have a job, possibly many jobs, that you have to perform as professionally as each other to get your book into people’s hands.

And after you’ve read and re-read the proofs, made your comments and sent them off to the printers, remember to pause for breath and remember that you make comics to have fun.

Six page preview of London Horror Comic #3

Download

PDF, 3MB, approx. 1-2 minute download

The final issue will be an oversized 40-page special and will be limited to 500 copies worldwide.
Issue 3 will only be available to buy on-line from July 30 from
http://www.londonhorrorcomic.com/customers.htm where readers can also pick up copies of issues 1 and 2.