Tag Archives: raven’s gate

Raven’s Gate, Reprinted!

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Some snaps of the lovely reprint of the Power of Five: Raven’s Gate Graphic Novel that Walker Books put out a while ago.

Raven's Gate Graphic Novel second printing from Walker BooksIt’s slightly bigger than the last edition, and the page stock is a bit weightier this time around so it’s slightly thicker, too. Nices!Raven's Gate Graphic Novel second printing from Walker Books The book opened up to reveal Richard Cole’s hellhound-gunning Peugeot 106 in all its glory. Also, some other things.Raven's Gate Graphic Novel second printing from Walker Books

Raven's Gate Graphic Novel second printing from Walker Books
I’m sure I mentioned at some point in the past that there were 170 pages to this sucker, didn’t I?
Raven's Gate Graphic Novel second printing from Walker Books

Raven's Gate Graphic Novel second printing from Walker Books

Raven's Gate Graphic Novel second printing from Walker Books Raven's Gate Graphic Novel second printing from Walker Books

Raven's Gate Graphic Novel second printing from Walker Books
There’s some nice spot varnish on the front and back cover too. You don’t get that with an e-book, y’know.
Raven's Gate Graphic Novel second printing from Walker Books

I’m really pleased with this edition. The design was by David McDougall at Walker and features Walker’s graphic novel imprint’s branding, which the last edition missed out on because it was published before the imprint even existed! The other books in the series have different colours in their design so they look really good on a shelf too. You can get it from Amazon (UK), or Walker Books’ own webshop here.

Super What’s Next

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So after the huge book that was Raven’s Gate, yer favourite Graphic Novel adaptation of a supernatural Young Adult book (which has even managed to get into the ‘Teen’ section of Waterstones bookshops all over the country, how about that? Not ghettoised in a comic shop, not even ghettoised in the Graphic Novels section of the proper bookshop, but in a section that real human beings peruse!)
The next big project I’m working on is, tidily enough, its sequel. Book Two of the Power of Five series, Evil Star by Anthony Horowitz. I’ll be the sole artist on this 171 page Graphic Novel adaptation of the original novel.

Once it’s published, this will be the thickest slab of a book comprised of my scribbles alone that’s been released so far. I’ve been working on it for a while and I’m hoping to have the pencils for the whole book finished in April or so. I’d like to lob up odd pages and frames as I go, but I’ll see how it goes with the getting the art done…

Talking of which, I’d better get back to it…

Oh, and there’s a massive collaborative community artwork here, the result of James Harvey‘s ‘Choose a Cat, Draw a Girl’ 2010, with art from me and err, everybody else on the interweb. All of ’em!

Excellent. Release the Ravens.

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August the 2nd finally sees the release of the Raven’s Gate Graphic Novel from Walker Books, in British bookshops, some two-and-a-bit years after I first put pencil to paper for it. A long time after Dom first started work on it, and even longer than when Tony first adapted the script! (Case in point: have a look at this old previewof Dom’s work on the book from March 2008!) Anyway, I digress. It’s here and thanks to Dom’s lovely painterly skills the cover looks like this:

Raven's Gate Graphic Novel cover

Chuffin’ nice, eh? It’s got 170 story pages wrapped in lovely design by Patrick Insole at Walker Books and a beautiful cover with spot embossed gloss inks.

It’s available to buy from Walker, Amazon UK (complete with a nifty preview of the first few pages!) and Amazon US, as well as proper, real-life bookshops that normal, unassuming people shop in. (And let’s not forget that getting long-form comics into that kind of environment is a real achievement.)

Thinking about it, given the supernatural nature of this title, we might even see a bit of cross-over from the Twilight crowd and those ‘Dark Fiction’ shelves that groan with vampire novels in the bookshops… We shall see!

Attack on Page Mountain

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I really should get around to bleating about the next book with m’scribbles in that’s going to be on the shelves. I’m not entirely sure how to attach the required level of fanfare to announcing something as high-flyin’ as this, but let’s just say it’s a Graphic Novel adaptation of author Anthony Horowitz‘ novel Raven’s Gate.

It’s going to be published by one of the most well-established publishers of kids and young adult books in the UK: Walker Books.

I shared the artwork duties with not only one of the best comic artists in the country, but one of my bessie mates, Dom Reardon. You might know Dom from the singular Cabalistics Inc. (And soon, ‘The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael and the Dead Left in His Wake’) in 2000AD. (But what you might not know is that he’s an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, auteur games designer and capoeirista, no less!)

Raven's Gate art pile

This intimidating edifice here is the stack of all the inked original artwork (minus the first 39 pages, Dom’s got those!) You might have noticed (and if you did notice then I think you seriously need more excitement in your life) there have been some points when this blog’s been a bit quiet over the last year plus. Well, here’s the culprit.
Oh, and the first page on the top there is me having the pleasure of inking some of Dom’s pencils..! Mmm.

The text was adapted by Tony Lee, and the fact the (eventual) book’s coming out from Walker means that it’s actually going to bother your local bookshop. You know, where they sell proper books with just words in to normal people. Heavens! The thing’s going to be splashed across booksellers catalogues, the back pages of Anthony’s other series of novels, Alex Rider the schoolboy spy (There was even an Alex Rider feature film called Stormbreaker a few years ago with a stellar cast, y’know) and a few other places besides, so this is pretty serious business.

I’m just about to go back and do a few edits to the art, so I’ll go into some more detail later on…