Submissions, ahoy!

Issue 2 is coming along brilliantly. A strange thing happened this morning: I checked my email, and there were about 10 submissions in my inbox. Fab! I have a stack of articles to edit now, and will hopefully have Issue 2 ready for print by early next week. That would be fab! Now we just have to get the money to print the second one.

Now, the magazine should be self-sustaining, but isn't yet because it's difficult to coordinate distributors, track down subscribers, and get all the month's cash back in one place before the next issue needs to be printed. Not great! So this month we're going to print fewer issues right away, and try to sell more colour PDFs. Unless, of course, a miracle happens and the bank finally calls me back. Irritating.

Nevertheless, the magazine is looking great. I have an epic interview with The Death of Chapman Baxter as well as a Q & A with Liam Shaolin Wolf + pictures, a column from Chris Samia, an article and a poem by Gemma June Howell, and part 2 of Amphetamine Logic! Also expecting a piece on Black Eyes & Neckties from Graham Isaac and a recap of the London Comic-Con from Kitty Moran and Jen Sheehan! You can also count on regular features like Punk John's politics column, the Teen Movie Experiment, and Totally American Reviews. Excitement!

This month Gemma's covering a poetry and photography exhibition held by Ceri Thomas and Deepa Praveen that took place in Swansea on International Women's Day. Here's a preview of Deepa's gorgeous photos:

Beer in a wine glass.

The sunset from a moving bus. Awesome.

Will be using a couple of other brilliant photos for the b & w printed copies as the loss of colour in these two would be a tragedy, but will still post our set on the website as an extra feature. Good stuff!

Disappointing Lack of Spindles

Have office almost properly set up now. Huzzah! Am surrounded by post-its of things to do, red pens, and extension cords. Weirdly enjoying myself. It's nice to have a proper Headquarters. Still, I figured there would be more gig posters on the walls. Will have to dig them out of the moving-related wreckage later.

Loving life in Grangetown. It's really friendly around here, and the house is awesome. Went to a wedding yesterday and wound up finding a medieval fire escape/modern secret passage. I went upstairs in the castle (where the bathrooms are), and this fire door was magically open. I looked around the corner to see a long, empty corridor full of arrow loops. Was immediately torn between wanting to explore it and thinking "Hey man, I SAW Sleeping Beauty. I'm not going down there!!" Ended up kicking off high heels and running up and down it once I was convinced no one would shut the door on me. It went from one end of the castle to the other -- not only could I see the whole wedding from a window, but I could see into other halls from other windows, and out over the moat from arrow loops and other (now barred) windows. There was even a spiral staircase that lad to other parts of the castle, but taking into consideration it was about 11 pm and the rest of the castle was pitch black, I decided thought I would venture no further. Besides, I've already seen those parts. It was the passage that was exciting!

Here's a picture of the wedding from the passage:



It looks like a ghost, but it's probably just Disco.

Have spent the morning(ish) working on Death of Chapman Baxter interview. They came up to Cardiff last week for an interview in person which was entertaining as much as it was educational. Wound up being a personal shopper for Shaolin Wolf -- he was looking for a pair of white-rimmed Blues Brother sunglasses and we found him some at Rebel Rebel. From there we took a detour to Spillers, where Shaolin Wolf and Honky McCracker browsed albums while I sorted the "sell my magazine" paper work and chatted to a lovely girl there about the recent NOFX show. Spillers, by the way, now stocks The Antagonist, so if you're in Cardiff, you should go and get your copy there.

Here's a picture from my Cardiff adventures with the DOCB:



Have many exciting submissions to go through tonight. Have just recieved the second installment of Amphetamine Logic and I can't wait to read it. Was hoping to bring out hte next issue in about two weeks, but have hit yet another snag with funding. Although the bank people are very nice, they are also apparently very busy, as no one has gotten back to me in more than a week. Will have to call them again later.

Kitty Moran and Jen Sheehan have just gotten back from Comic Con, and it looks like they had a great time! Jen's actually moving to Cardiff in October now, and I'm really excited! She should be here for the next DEAD OF NIGHT, too, so we'll have to set up a photo shoot for her cover soon...!

Speaking of which, the photo shoot with Elizabeth went very well. We have an exciting assortment of saucy pictures to choose from. Here's a preview:

Finally! The First Issue!

Climbing the walls in The Headquarters waiting for the Magazine to be delivered. Craziness!!! Woke up at 7 in a panic, afraid I'd missed them. Sleeping in a room that gets sunlight does weird things to a person.

Have phoned the printing company to pay them (sorted!), and asked to make sure they're dropping it off today like they said they would. They're going to check and then call me back. This worries me! I have copies to post to people today and I'm anxious to get some more distributors on board!

In other news, have connected the website to Paypal so people can order copies online. I haven't announced its existence properly yet, but we already have a few orders! Hurrah!

Am looking into opening a business account, but it's up in the air who it's going to be with. Lloyd's called back and the swearing is fine! Hooray! The banker I've been talking to isn't there today, and Abbey hasn't called me back yet, but I'm hoping to get it sorted tomorrow so we have a short at making it to Comic Con in two weeks.

Emailed Comic Con earlier about setting up a booth and having Kitty Moran there to autograph pictures of herself. Looking forward to hearing back.

It's been a whole two minutes and the printers haven't called back yet. I'm so wound up it's crazy. I've been working towards this moment for two months: I want to get going!

Have another photoshoot scheduled for the weekend. This should be fun. This one's going to be Elizabeth, Kitty's friend, in an undisclosed location, wearing god-knows-what. I'm excited!

As for Kitty, she's gotten so much positive feedback from her pictures that she's looking into becoming a professional alternative model. Fantastic! I can't see that not working out for her -- she's smart, driven, and looks amazing in bondage tape. What more do you need?

We went to the market on the river yesterday with Punk John. I'd heard rumours of the greatness of the curry breakfast, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it would work. The Punk was understandably pleased. I wound up with a strawberry crepe. I can't believe that there are crepes available on a weekly basis. I'm hooked.

We met by the "penis bean". As cool as I think all-weather artwork in cities is, I can't help but wonder who thought this was a good idea. I know I'm not the only person who thinks this looks rude:



Off to Swansea tomorrow to see everyone/drop off some magazines. Should also be interviewing Liam Shaolin Wolf from The Death of Chapman Baxter tomorrow. Awesome. They loved my album review (I loved their album!) and I'm glad that for once, something positive I wrote wasn't taken badly. Anyway, I'm excited, because they're really great guys, and the interview will fit nicely into the August issue. Here's a picture from their recent gig at Jubbly's:



Just heard back from the printers, and they're bringing the magazines over at 4 or 4:30. Fab! He said it turned out great, but there are a few things I can do to make it better for next time, but I'm going to try not to worry about that. I know a couple of the pictures didn't turn out all that great (due to lack of high-res), but I still expect it to be awesome.

Off to get envelopes now, then to meet Kitty for coffee. Quest!

Week 1 in G-Town

The Headquarters has moved!

Everything's a mess of boxes here at The Headquarters, but the cats are happy and The Punk has already marked several local gigs in his diary for future reveiws. In spite of recent set-backs, I can tell the move is going to be good for the magazine.

Now, when I say set-backs, I mean only that it's taken so long to get everything sorted and printed! It's been done for two weeks already, and we're only going to get it on Monday. It's already time to crack on with the next one, but to get it out in time, we'll have to be done in about 2 weeks. The craziness!

Have been looking into business accounts and sponsorship this week -- you really have to spend money to make money, eh? -- and am waiting to hear back from a few different people. Kitty Moran reckons we should buy a stall at Comicon and sell t-shirts like there's no tomorrow. I think that's a great idea, but we'd have to get enough cash together to make the t-shirts in the first place. I'm not sure when Comicon is, mind, but if we can make it happen, I'm sure it would be worth it.

In other news, we're really enjoying Cardiff so far. ASDA is terrifying. For a minute, I actually thought I'd gone back to America and forgot about it. I'm not sure if that's a good thing yet. We'll see.