The Fall of Dagon’Rah 4 by Arthur Goodman originally appeared in The Girly Comic #1.

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

Just wanted to let you know what’s happening with The Girly Comic. After eight years of editing and publishing Girly I need to take a break to recharge. I am not happy with my own performance as an editor and need time to refine my editorial vision. In 2009 I will be concentrating on marketing the webcomic and Girly Book, instead of producing new issues of the comic.

This means I am closing down submissions, in order to allow me to have a clean slate when I start working on new issues again (probably in late 2009/early 2010).

Factor Fiction will still have stalls at The Thing in London in Feb, the Bristol Expo in May and BICS in October.

Jay will be continuing with Violent! as usual, and we are both still active members of the Caption Committee.

We also forsee a great year for The Girly webcomic, including a new ongoing strip by Terry Wiley.

Thanks for all your support,

Selina

So, we’re launching The Girly Comic Book Vol 1 tomorrow at the Thought Bubble convention in Leeds.

Hope to see lots of you there. The convention is being held at Saviles Hall opposite the Royal Amouries. For more info see http://www.thoughtbubblefestival.com/

I’ve just done a short interview with BBC Radio Leeds about The Girly Comic Book, which those in the area will be able to hear as part of their news bulletins.

We’ll also be at Comiket in London next weekend (Sat 22nd November), so if you can’t make it to Thought Bubble hopefully we’ll see you at Comiket instead. Comiket is being held at the ICA, for more info see http://www.ica.org.uk/Comica%20Comiket+18413.twl

We’re really looking forward to finding out what you all think of the book!

–
luv & jellybabies
Selina

P.S. There will be free jellybabies at our table…

The Girly Comic Book 1 (280p, hardback) is now available to buy from our shop:

UK: £15 plus £3 p&p.

By cheque: http://factorfictionpress.co.uk/shop.html#uk

By PayPal: http://www.factorfictionpress.co.uk/shop.html#ukpaypal

USA: £15 plus £8 p&p (airmail): http://www.factorfictionpress.co.uk/shopusa.html

Or you can get it for a special launch price at the Leeds Thought Bubble Festival on the 15th November, where you will be able to get it signed by a number of the creators, including by Mike Carey who wrote the Introduction.