The wait is almost over! As of today, Nick Abadzis’ highly-anticipated Hugo Tate  collection is now available to pre-order on the Blank Slate webstore. And that’s not all: the first 100 pre-orders will receive an extra-special edition of the book, complete with a Hergé-inspired bookplate signed by the Eisner Award-winning Abadzis himself.

Limited to just 150, the only other place you’ll be able to buy one of these is at London’s Gosh!, where the book will be launching with a party and signing on the 12th of May. Get them while they’re hot!

For those of you who missed out on voting for the bookplate design on the official Hugo Tate Facebook page, be sure to head on over there now for more news, fun stuff updates from behind the scenes, and history from the comic’s six-year run in Deadline magazine. What are you waiting for?

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We’re excited to announce that we’ve teamed up with our friends at London’s mighty Gosh! Comics to throw a launch party for Nick Abadzis’ long-awaited Hugo Tate collection! Taking place on Saturday 12th May between 7-9PM, be sure to come share a drink with Eisner award-winner Nick Abadzis (flying in from Brooklyn especially!), who will be signing copies of books for readers.

From the Gosh! website:

Hugo Tate began in the late ‘80s Deadline magazine, a ship captained by 2000AD’sBrett Ewins and Steve Dillon that was not only the birthplace of Tank Girl but also ran reprints of excellent indie comics from the USA like Love & Rockets and Evan Dorkin’s Milk & Cheese. “It’s hard to explain in a couple of sentences what Hugo Tate is about exactly,” says Abadzis, “But he was a stick-man who, as he acquired experiences during the run of the strip, slowly evolved into a more figurative character. It’s the sort of visual metaphor that could only work in comics.”

Click on the text to read their whole announcement of the event. Also available at the launch will be the ultra-limited bookplate edition of the book, which, outside of the Blank Slate webstore, will be the only place readers will be able to get their hands on one. Currently, Hugo fans are voting on said Hergé-inspired bookplate design over on Nick’s official Facebook Page for the book. Be sure to cast your vote today! We’ll see you on the 12th.

It’s been a big news day for our very own HARVEYJAMES so far. Head on over to the Inkstuds site to hear Robin McConnell chat with James about his Chalk Marks title A Long Day of Mr James-Teacher. The perfect primer on James’ work, the interview features talk about the comic, the trip to Korea that informed the book, his background in animation, the influence of Shintaro Kago, his dance skills and his current work. Also on the podcast, James well and truly blows the lid off his new full-length graphic novel project with Blank Slate: Zygote. Get excited about the upcoming book on the freshly-launched Zygote mini-site, here.

Also generating some noise following McConnell’s mention of it is James’ in-depth look at what he believes is the murderous subtext behind the entirety of Daniel Clowes’ career: It Is Only A Matter Of Time Before We Find Out Where Dan Clowes Hid The Bodies.

From HARVEYJAMES’ blog:

I think the most prevalent theme in his comics has been entirely overlooked, and it stares me in the face every time I see his stuff- that Dan Clowes wants to kill a lot of people, and has possibly already killed.  Let’s examine the evidence!

Clowes seems to position himself as the only right-thinking character on earth. Right from the early issues of Eightball, the rest of humanity are alternately described as maggots, ants, or vermin.

The earth is sick with humanity. There’s too many people. He equates them with lice.

The cure?

A machine gun!

For more, go check out the entire article on James’ blog today. Not before grabbing a copy of A Long Day of James-Teacher and sharing the good word of Zygote with all your Facebook & Twitter pals though. No sir.

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.