Here's what's coming

We have 4 new books lined up and so far they are going to stick to our, hoped for, model of a mixture of new, young, UK talent and translated cartoonists.

First up we will have Oliver's second Trains are...Mint book called 'Proper go well high', yeah I know, what the hell does that mean? Oli assures me it is some Manchester speak so all you coolies out there will know and the rest of us will have to wait to find out. He's approaching the home stretch on it, just before he retreats to some self-enlightenment trip to India (could there be a Trains book in there?). We talked paper today, the paper looks like it will be a little less white than in the first book - but we are going to go with the 'feel' test to decide which is best, seemed as good a way as any. If it's in the can before Oli's sojurn we should have it in print sometime in October we hope. It will be the first Trains book to have all new narrative content in it that hasn't appeared in comic form. Put it on your Christmas gift list now. Here's a sneak peek at the probably massively significant page 100.

We've pretty much completed the translation of our second Mawil book. In Germany it was called 'Meister Lampe' but here it will be called ' Sparky O'Hare - Master Electrician', as the German title is a pun on Bunnies and lights that just has no equivelant in English. We're hoping to start lettering next week and in about 6 to 8 weeks time a number of the translated strips will be appearing on the Forbidden Planet International blog and website. There are about 80 cartoons in total and essentially they are mostly one page gag cartoons about an electrician Bunny and the chaos that swirls around his every move. We hope they will build an online following on the FPI sites as we think they are charming, super-cute and very funny. Watch out for them. It's a little book in terms of its physical size so to try and keep a feeling of high production values that we are very much trying for with our books, we are probably going to pack it with a die-cut newly designed bookmark by Mawil - we hope people will think it's worth the extra effort. We are also working on the idea of packing it in a point of sale (POS) counter display box which Mawil is again going to design. Not every shop will want 10 copies of course, but for those who do we think the counter display might really help it to sell. We think if you see it, pick it up and read a few cartoons you are going to just say "damn the recession" buy one and spend the rest of the day smiling. Look for it to be released around the same time as 'Proper'.

We're going to be doing the award winning book 'Slaapkoppen' by Belgian artist Randall C. The book title means 'Sleepy Heads' and it's a multilayered exploration of dreams and reality. It's an amazingly beautifully drawn book and has won two major awards on the continent in the last 12 months. Most recently it won the best debut comic award at the highly prestigious Stripdagen Haarlem comix festival. Here's a short description from Randall's website "Suppose you are dreaming that you are falling asleep. And then you dream. That you are falling asleep and then yet again you are dreaming. This ad infinitum fantasy is the basis of ‘Slaapkoppen’, Randall Casaer’s debut comix. ‘Slaapkoppen’ is a highly original and funny juggling comix game of clouds and words, dream and reality, poetry and humour, philosophy and absurdity. With the compliments of Carlos Castaneda, Patricia Garfield and Lewis Carroll, Randall C. takes his readers on a dazzling adventure in a dreamed landscape." Check out Randall's website and you can see a good number of the original pages, of course still in their native Flemish. We've only just finalised the deal on this one, and we are very excitied to be doing it. Randall will be entirely re-lettering the book for its English debut so we may not get this one out this year. Keep your fingers crossed though, we think it will find a lot of eager readers, here's a look at the final page - beautiful is it not?

The fourth book is just a promise really - I don't yet have a date for it and we are allowing it to develop at its own pace. It will be by Stuart Kolakovic who some of you will already know. Paul Gravett has said Stuart is the future of british comics and I think once you see his work you will be astonished. Stuart is not only a remarkably talented artist but he's also a scholar of comics and after spending a day with him last week talking comics and looking through his work I think people are going to be totally blown away when they see his first books. The book will be based on eastern european folk tales and fairy stories and I think the outline for the book is a story which will touch people deeply. If you have a romantic soul this is going to be a book for you. Here's a look at a much earlier piece of Stu's - from his mini comic 'The Gosling'.

We are genuinely thrilled to have a book coming from Stu, along with Oliver's 'Trains' we think we've made a great start in finding some brilliant and unique british talent. Hopefully it will just be the start of many more uncoverings.