A few people have asked me where they can re-read MORDAWWA, the epic “Erin Winters as Queen of Hell and The Boy as a horse” one-shot. I took it off the site once it was published in a book - given the postal constraints of this time of year, you might be best off getting it digitally at Comixology.

No reviews this year, I’m doing comics all through Christmas and new year, but here’s my list

1 EMILY’S D+EVOLUTION - Esperanza Spalding
2 GOLDEN SINGS THAT HAVE BEEN SUNG - Ryley Walker
3 WILDFLOWER - The Avalanches
4 BLACKSTAR - David Bowie
5 IN THE MAGIC HOUR - Aoife O'Donovan
6 WE ARE KING - King
7 HEART LIKE A LEVEE - Hiss Golden Messenger
8 COMMONTIME - Field Music
9 DOUBLE BIND - Trust Punks
10 DELUXE - Omni
11 WILD STAB - The I Don’t Cares
12 HERON OBLIVION - Heron Oblivion
13 VARMINTS - Anna Meredith
14 TENEMENT EP - Tenement
15 THE RARITY OF EXPERIENCE - Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel band
16 CRAB DAY - Cate Le Bon
17 MODERN COUNTRY - William Tyler
18 HERE - Teenage Fanclub
19 TONIGHT’S MUSIC - The Moles
20 INTRODUCING KARL BLAU - Karl Blau

21 LOOP THE LOOP - Bullion
22 CASE LANG VIERS - Case Lang Viers
23 PATCH THE SKY - Bob Mould
24 NEW VIEW - Eleanor Friedberger
25 IN GLENDALE - Tim Heidecker
26 MALIBU - Anderson .Paak
27 MOSEY - Daniel Romano
28 THE WINK - Tim Presley
29 SLUGGER - Sad13
30 ANIMAL RACES - Cool Ghouls

31 EMOTION SIDE B - Carly Rae jepsen
32 SECRETLY SUSAN - Sui Zhen
33 THE END OF COMEDY - Drugdealer
34 FLOTUS - Lambchop
35 YOUNG IN ALL THE WRONG WAYS - Sara Watkins
36 READY EP - Sex On Toast
37 BLUE RIDER SONGS - Scott Hirsch
38 BLOOD BITCH - Jenny Hval
39 FOREVERLAND - The Divine Comedy
40 PAGING MR PROUST - Jayhawks

If you want to buy something from my UK shop, you have until midday GMT Thursday December 15th, as I will be closing the office for two weeks for my Christmas/New Year break. If you want a copy of my Bobbins book, or a personalised book, or if you’re in the UK and you want Bad Machinery 6, this week is your last chance. My holiday shipping deadlines for international orders (ie, outside the UK) have now passed.

Topatoco (in the USA) are still shipping all my books and other bits in the meantime. Here are their holiday deadlines.

The sixth Bad Machinery book - The Case Of The Unwelcome Visitor, is now available at Topatoco. I get all the money if you buy it that way. (If you’re in the UK, I’ll have copies at the start of December, so hold on a couple of weeks). It’s available in softcover and hardcover versions, and there are combo packs (books 1-3 and books 4-6) available too.

A BRIEF COMMENTARY

The Case Of The Unwelcome Visitor was a tough story to work on at the time. Everyone seemed to have loved the preceding case, which meant that I rushed into this one a little, when it wasn’t quite cooked. It was also a time when my art was going through some changes of approach. 

So for this new version, I resolved the structural story issues that had bugged me for years, fixed every suspect-looking drawing, and added about twenty new comic pages. I couldn’t be more pleased with how it’s turned out. In addition, the back of the book features frankly generous extracts from Tackleford legend Mr Gravy’s self-aggrandising and puffed-up autobiography, with brief remarks thereupon from Charlotte Grote. 

With all the Bad Machinery books, I’ve treated the webcomic as a first draft and the book as a finished version. The lesser tales online often make (I think) much more diverting books with the addition of what had eluded me a few years before. This book has worked out to be one of my favourites - I hope you enjoy it.

GET IT FROM TOPATOCO!

I’ve made a fine (also, fancy) book collecting all my Bobbins.horse strips from 2016 (72 of them!) along with some chapter commentary and an introductory essay. I made 500 for the Thought Bubble Festival, and 200 have already gone to good homes, so if you want one, this is your chance. 

It won’t be available from Topatoco and I won’t add it to Comixology until this run is exhausted.

If you want to mop up all my recent minis and save some cash, it’s available in a combo pack with Expecting To Fly and Mordawwa too. There are only 100 Expecting To Flys left so this offer is somewhat limited.

That’s it! I hope you’re able to grab one if you want one!