Well, blimey! What can we say? On Sunday afternoon, we received an email notifying us that The Girly Comic Book Volume 1 has been shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award for Best Comic/ Graphic Novel.

Nominated and voted on by members of the British Fantasy Society. If you’re a member of the BFS, and helped us to make the shortlist, then thank you so much. It was quite a surprise, as we hadn’t checked the longlist, so didn’t realise we were on that either! Wish us luck for the final vote, which closes on August 1st, and the result will be announced over the weekend of September 18th-20th at the FantasyCon convention in Nottingham. For more information on FantasyCon, check out:
http://www.fantasycon.org.uk

Voting is open to current members of the British Fantasy Society, attendees of FantasyCon 2008 and those who have already registered for FantasyCon 2009. If you’re eligible to vote, we’d really appreciate it if you considered supporting us again. Competition for the award is fierce, so we can do with all the help we can muster!

Our esteemed opposition are:

All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely (DC)
30 Days of Night: Beyond Barrow by Steve Niles/Bill Sienkiewicz (IDW)
Comic Book Tattoo by Rantz Hoseley/Tori Amos/various (Image)
The New Avengers: Illuminati by Brian Bendis/Brian Reed/Jim Cheung (Marvel)
Hellblazer: Fear Machine by Jamie Delano/Richard Piers Rayner/Mark Buckingham/various (Vertigo)
Hellblazer: The Laughing Magician by Andy Diggle/Leonardo Manco/Daniel Zezelj (Vertigo)
Locke & Key by Joe Hill/Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
Buffy Season 8 Vol 3: Wolves At The Gate by Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard/Georges Jeanty (Dark Horse)

Win or lose, it’s great being invited to the party, and being able to say that we’ve been shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award, but just dreaming for a little while. How great would it be to actually win?

Jay and Selina

Factor Fiction will have a stall at the upcoming Birmigham International Comics Show (4-5th Oct) http://www.thecomicsshow.co.uk/

We’ll have new comics in the form of The Girly Comic #18, Violent! #14 plus a few copies of the MCR comic: The Fiend in Five Dimensions!

We were also hoping to launch The Girly Comic Book Vol 1, but printing delays mean we will now be launching that at Thought Bubble in Leeds on 15th Nov http://www.thoughtbubblefestival.com/08home.asp

The Girly Comic Book will be a 280 page hardback edition.

Hope to see lots of you at the events.

luv & jellybabies
Selina & Jay

Sorry about the hiatus in putting up pages for your delectation. The last few months have been taken up with a multitude of other projects, such as organising the Caption small press convention in August, and finalising the proofs for our next books, Shelf Life and The Girly Comic Book 1, as we gave you a sneak peek recently.

But here we are to save the day! See you on a daily (mostly!) basis.

Here’s a sneak peek at what should be the next major release from Factor Fiction – collecting strips from across the first seventeen issues of The Girly Comic in a shelf-friendly perfect bound edition, under a gorgeous Dez Taylor cover. Further down the line will be The Girly Comic Book Volume 2, collected strips from Violent! and Crazycrone: The Lee Kennedy Collection. And tomorrow, the world!

The Girly Comic Book Volume 1 will, all things being equal, debut at the Birmingham International Comics Show this October.

In December 2006, author and friend Craig Hinton died. Discussions were had about putting together a collection of stories in celebration of his life, and after a little while, the two editors (Adrian Middleton and David McIntee) started asking about for a third person to join the editorial team. In the past, I’ve been involved in a few such projects, or fanthologies as they were dubbed, so after some consideration, I came aboard.

Craig was a huge fan of comics, and it must be said, I know quite a few comics bods, so it seemed the obvious role for me to take on designing the book and getting an illustration for each story. Fast forward many months, and we’re almost there. We’re just awaiting final approval from Craig’s family, and we can get this baby out into the world, with all profits being donated to the British Heart Foundation.

Contributors: John Aggs, James Ambuehl, William Andrews, Peter Anghelides, Jon Arnold, Chris Askham, Andy Baker, Allan Bednar, Simon Bucher Jones, Damon Cavalchini, Andrew Cheverton, Peet Clack, Roger Clark, D’Israeli, Jonathon Dalton, Alec Daniels, Vince Danks, Darren Douglas, Stuart A Douglas, Jay Eales, Paul Ebbs, Garen Ewing, Josceline Fenton, Toby Ford, Simon A Forward, Roger Gibson, Brian Gorman, Steve Graeme, Matthew Griffiths, Allan Harvey, Steve Hatcher, Craig Hinton, Laura Howell, Mike Juniper, Tim Keable, Andy Lane, Roger Langridge, Robbie Langton, Andrew K Lawston, Jen Leavesley, Yishan Li, Marvin Mann, David McIntee, Chris McKeon, Ant Mercer, Mark Michalowski, Adrian Middleton, Fiona Moore, Mike Morgan, Jim Mortimore, Bevis Musson, Peter Neville, Lee O’Connor, Daniel O’Mahony, Kate Orman, Caroline Parkinson, Paul Peart-Smith, Stephen Prestwood, Pete Rajski, Graeme Neil Reid, Natalie Sandells, Rachel Simpson Hutchens, Dale Smith, Oli Smith, Rachel Steffan, Alan Stevens, Daniel Tessier, Christer Van, Emma Vieceli, Nick Wallace, Dave Whittam, Terry Wiley, Dave Windett.

More news as and when I have it.

Jay