It’s HARVEYJAMES’ birthday today, and to celebrate we’re blogging about the brand-new A Long Day of Mr. James-Teacher trailer that we just posted uploaded to Vimeo and Youtube (we’re bipartisan with our video sharing). In case you’ve forgotten to buy him a birthday present, we’re certain that heading over to the webstore to pick up a copy of his Chalk Marks title will do the trick!

We’d like to take this opportunity to offer a big thank-you to Cheltenham’s Proud Lion Comics for donating their profits from Nelson to Shelter.

When asked why the shop decided to support the project,  Proud Lion’s Ben answered “Nelson is such a wonderful example of the dazzling array of UK comic creators we have in the UK that it was a bound to be a sure fire hit anyway, but knowing it was helping to support the great work done by Shelter was just the icing on the cake. Brilliant work by everyone involved!”.

If you’re a Cheltenham-area local – or happen to be in town in the future – you can find them at 40 Albion Street (GL52 2RQ). Alternatively, the shop has a website here, and can be found on Facebook here. Tell them we sent you!

Over on his social network accounts, Kenny (Twitter / Facebook) makes his argument for voting for Blank Slate in this year’s Eagle Awards:

“‘I’ve just looked over our list for 2012 and we have an improbable 20 books scheduled. 16 of them by UK creators, 7 for whom it will be their first printed titles. We would appreciate any support for Blank Slate in the Eagle awards that you can give. an award would help us become better known, the better known we are the more cartoonists we can support in getting their work public. We are nominated in a number of categories and vote for us is a vote happily received.”

Punching way above our weight in 2011, 2012 is set to be even greater for readers, with an even bigger and more diverse selection of books. If you enjoyed our work in 2011, head on over to The Eagle Awards site where you can vote for an increasingly stacked list of nominations, including:

Favourite Publisher: Blank Slate
Favourite British Comic (colour): Nelson
Favourite Original Graphic Novel: Nelson
Favourite 2011 single story: Nelson
Favourite cover: Nelson
Favourite Newcomer Artist: Will Morris (of the upcoming The Silver Darlings)
Favourite Artist (pencils): Nick Edwards (check out Nick’s Dinopopolous here)
Favourite Editor: Rob Davis and Woodrow Phoenix (check out Nelson here)
Favoutite Letterer: Woodrow Phoenix (check out Nelson here)

The cat’s out of the bag! Over the last few days, the ultra-talented Dan Berry and Jim Medway have announced they’ll be joining Donya Todd and Warwick Johnson-Cadwell in the Chalk Marks stable in 2012. Head on over to their respective blogs to read all about it:

Dan Berry announces THE SUITCASE

Jim Medway announces PLAYING OUT

Happy new year! 2012′s shaping up to be a good’un.

We’re excited to see that Broken Frontier have selected Blank Slate for nomination three times across two categories in their 2011 reader-voted awards.

Vying for Best Original Graphic Novel are both Nelson and Luchadoras, which go against titles like Habibi and Infinite Kung fu for the gong.

Just as excitingly, we’re nominated in the Best Publisher category against the big four: Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and Image.

Who doesn’t love the underdog? Head on over to the ballot page now to help cause an upset.

This year’s holiday cheer is provided courtesy of our very own Mawil. Fresh from his UK mini-tour with fellow Blank Slater Uli Oesterle, Mawil put together this year’s card, featuring our very own Kenny “the Scottish Santa Claus” Penman and the angelic Iz Rips. The toppling pile of comics goodies in the back may or may not be inspired by our recent misadventures trying to load stock back into the van after Thought Bubble.

Those who can tear their eyes away from Mawil’s art long enough will find the following roster of Blank Slate artists on the back:

The eagle-eyed among you will no-doubt find a couple of surprises. All will be revealed in 2012!

In today’s concluding My Skateboard Week post, My Skateboard Life‘s Ed Syder cracks open his scrapbook to share some of the photos from his skate-obsessed youth in Cornwall. Adorably badass.

That’s me and a kid called Matthew hanging tough by the crappy ramp we all used to drag around our estate. We all drew various skateboard logos on it felt tip pen to make it look even cooler.

That’s me circa 1990.

Here’s me and my dad and younger brother Dan in our back garden in 1991 I think. I wore that H-Street Sal Barbier T-Shirt every day for about 2 years. Note the Airwalk shoes to complete the look.

This was taken on Christmas Day in 1990 or maybe 1991 outside our house. That’s me and my brother showing off our new boards that our Dad would’ve spent the whole of Christmas day morning setting up for us, no doubt whilst we both said things like “Hurry up Dad, what’s taking you so long?” and praying for the ground to dry up so we could go and skate. Dan is holding a SMA Natas Kaupus mini and I’ve got a H-Street Matt Hensley King Size which was enormous like a boat. Those things weighed a tonne and I’m amazed we ever got them off the ground.

But get them off the ground they did, as seen in My Skateboard Life, available from the webstore (and better comic retailers) right now. Head on over to the book’s official page here on the site for more glorious art from the book and more info. Thanks to Ed for lovingly hijacking the blogwaves for the week. You should absolutely check out Ed’s My Skateboard Life blog for more four-wheel glory.

This week, to celebrate the release of Ed Syder’s My Skateboard Life, Ed’s been busy writing a series of guest blogposts. With music playing a big part of the book, today, he shares the soundtrack with readers via Spotify. Listen to the playlist here: My Skateboard Life on Spotify. Take it away, Ed!

A Tribe Called Quest ‘Can I Kick It?’ / De La Soul ‘Me, Myself & I’ / Public Enemy ‘Fight The Power’

I had a C90 cassette which was called something like ‘Ed’s Rap Tape’ with all of this stuff on. These twins Paul and Steven in my class had a tiny ramp in their garage which we’d go and cram into for a while and they had all of this sort of stuff blasting out. I ran into Paul a few years later when we had all started to drink and hang out with girls. He said something like “What the hell are you doing here?” like I’d arrived from out of blue, suddenly into his circle of friends again. Funny the things you remember.

Prince ‘Starfish And Coffee’

I used to write the lyrics to Prince songs in biro on this girl Alison’s tights during Maths lessons, all innocent stuff, but looking back it’s another example of me using my talent for bubble writing to further my cause.

Madonna ‘True Blue’

I remember Dan (the guy that listens to Madonna in the book) standing up for pure pop long before the whole ‘guilty pleasures’ crap became a lifestyle choice. This other guy, Mike only had one LP which was something by the Pet Shop Boys, I thought nothing of it. Having your own money and being able to make consumer choices of any kind were a few years off at this point. I can remember sitting outside my house working out how long it would take me to save up my 50p a week pocket money to buy a new set of skateboard wheels. *wipes tear from eye*.

The Doors ‘People Are Strange’

I really liked The Lost Boys film, but who didn’t?

INXS ‘New Sensation’ / Red Hot Chili Peppers ‘Backwoods’

INXS had a Vision ‘Psycho Stick’ skateboard on their album cover and had skateboarding in one of their videos. We’d catch glimpses of this sort of thing on TV more and more often as our secret ‘lifestyle’ grew in popularity. I was originally going to do a comic all about a 1987 skate contest that the RHCP’s played at. I think it was called ‘The Vision Skate Escape’ and it was held in an arena with flashing lights etc. I had hopes that the comic was going to be just like Roy Of The Rovers but I soon lost interest.

Operation Ivy ‘Bad Town’ / Descendents ‘Silly Girl’ / Jackson 5 ‘I Want You Back’ / War ‘Low Rider’ / McRad ‘Weakness’ / fIREHOSE ‘Hear Me’ / Dinosaur Jr ‘The Wagon’

These are all great songs from old skateboard videos. Music from what seemed another universe, songs you’d hum to yourself as you flew down the street every saturday morning. I still trust Thrasher Magazine’s music section implicitly and it’s a great way to hear new stuff.

Jimi Hendrix ‘Angel’ / Salt ‘N’ Pepa ‘Push It’

I asked my mum for a Hendrix cassette for Christmas. I just knew I’d like it, even though I’d never even heard anything by him before. He just looked really cool. My brother Dan got ‘A Salt With A Deadly Pepa’ the same year, so as we shared a room we played the hell out of that tape as well.

They Might Be Giants ‘Birdhouse In Your Soul’

You know that awkward first conversation with a girl when you attempt to find something in common? Well this song was that thing, and before things like ‘Grunge’ or ‘Goth’ had put us all in our separate groups, liking this song meant that you were ‘alternative’ or at least a little quirky and more importantly someone you NEEDED to have in your life.

Nirvana ‘Lithium’

Nicky Lewis (we always remember our school friends full names, don’t we?) played me ‘Nevermind’ at school and it was just like when I saw that Skull & Snake’ skateboard in a bike shop. There was something else, something ‘other’ that I just had to find out about.

What did you think? How does that match up to the soundtrack of your youth? Get in touch with us via Twitter or Facebook to share your own Spotify  playlists. My Skateboard Life is currently available from the Blank Slate webstore – grab one while it’s hot!

This week on the Blank Slate blog we’re pop shuviting straight into another theme week–this time in honour of the brand-new My Skateboard Life by Ed Syder.  To celebrate the book’s hot-off-the-press release we’ve let Ed take over the blog for a series of posts on the sport that defined his adolescence. Today’s subject: Ed’s top 5 skateboard graphics.

Powell Peralta, Mike McGill by V. Courtlandt Johnson (1984)

Image: LA Taco

Seeing this classic deck graphic in Clive Mitchell’s Cycles in Truro circa 1987 was pretty life-changing to say the least. Like the first time you hear Rock and Roll, it’s a moment when the world literally opens up to you and things previously hidden are suddenly brought sharply into focus. Or something. Just like every other little boy, I’d been devouring anything with monsters, vampires or skeletons on it from an early age. But this image brought all of these together and married it to an emerging subculture that I couldn’t resist. VCJ’s graphics for Powell are simply untouchable, no one draws a skull quite as perfect as he does. It’s really as simple as that.

Blind, Mark Gonzales – ‘Colored People’ by Mark Gonzales (1989)

Image: Skateboardgraphics.com

I had this graphic on a T-Shirt which I wore for at least 15 years until it fell apart in the washing machine. Carefree images like this made the slick skate graphics of the mid eighties suddenly seem out of date and stale. I’m not going to bore you with any talk about how amazing a human The Gonz is, everyone already knows it. I could’ve easily chosen any of his other boards, but this one has a special blood stained, threadbare place in my heart.

Mike Vallely – ‘Snake’ by Marc McKee (1991)

Image: Skateboardgraphics.com

Between 1991 and 1994, McKee was just KILLING it. If you’re an illustrator then you need to look this guy up. Just unbelievably good. I’ve chosen this one as I can remember drawing and painting this snake on a million school text books, in the margins of exam papers, you name it. I was the “flaming building guy” at school for a while, achieving a tiny taste of fame amongst my peers simply by copying this graphic and passing it off as my own work. It’s funny how little has changed in the last twenty years.

Santa Cruz, Jeff Grosso – ‘Demon’ by Jim Phillips (1987)

Image: Disposable

I mean this is really silly, I love everything that Jim Phillips has done. So amazingly talented. But I’ll choose this one for the sake of having a top 5. This kid that lived up the street from me had this board and I’d drool over it sat outside my house for ages, instead of actually skating. I’ve stared at his work for at least a million hours and his stuff just pops out of the page (or screen). I love the colours (dude) and that mixture of bright neons with super sharp blacks is pretty much all I care about.

Blind, Danny Way – ‘O.C. Bladerunners’ by Marc McKee (1990)

Image: Skateboardgraphics.com

I really loved this one and had a skate magazine with it in which I’d leave open on that page next to whatever schoolwork I was supposed to be doing. The characters are the skate team’s riders (including Jason ‘My Name Is Earl’ Lee), and I remember a big (probably self-created) mystery around who was who in the graphic, which was endlessly debated in skate shops back then.
Ed’s long-awaited memoir of misspent youth is currently thrashing its way into comic shops across the UK now and is also available (with international shipping) via our online store. Grab one today! For more on skate graphics Ed highly recommends picking up any book by Sean Cliver or heading over to  Marc McKee’s archive of skateboard graphics. Come back Wednesday for My Skateboard Life: The Original Soundtrack.

To all those attending the Thought Bubble convention this weekend, you can find the Blank Slate team at tables 109 and 124 in Saviles Hall (look ahead and to your left when you enter). As well as playing home to Mawil and Uli Oesterle all weekend, the table will be alive with Nelson activity as over half of the book’s 54 creators participate in signing spots with us. Editor Woodrow Phoenix will be with us all day, and the man whose idea launched the project, Rob Davis, will be popping over throughout the day too.

Saturday:

10:30: Sean Phillips & Pete Doree
12:00: Kate Brown
12:30: Dave Shelton
13:00: Will Morris
13:30: Dave Taylor & Alice Duke
14:00: Kate Charlesworth
14:30: D’Israeli & Jeremy Day
15:00: Ade Salmon
15:30: Simone Lia & JAKe
16:00: Suzy Varty
16:30 Sarah McIntyre

Sunday:

10:00: Roger Langridge
10:30: WJC
11:00: Ellen Lindner
11:30: Tom Humberstone
12:00: Jonathan Edwards
12:30: Katie Green
13:00: Kristyna Baczynski
13:30: HARVEYJAMES
14:00: Gary Northfield
15:00: Dan McDaid

See you there!