I also stood behind a table, with my banners behind me and my books in front, caricaturing passers by and endeavouring to flog them books, at a new record of 24 days worth of comic cons and book festivals. With, as you'll see below, some success. These included a book festival in Pontypridd and comic cons in Torquay, Exeter, Bristol, Swansea, Barry, Macclesfield, Coventry, Bedford, London, The Lakes, Wrexham, Tetbury, Cardiff, and Gloucester.
As recorded in an earlier blog, I've sold a record number of my graphic novels this year, with Richard The Third shifting two print runs worth, a satisfying 855 copies, thanks largely to my discovering I could sell them to kids in the schools I visit, as well as at live events. They sell some, but not many, online. My other books all sold better than the previous year.
In the picture you can see the characters from the graphic novels I have begun but not finished. This was, I hasten to add, a deliberate move so that my agent Emily (at United Agents) can try and get me taken up my a big publisher. This led to a couple of very promising meetings in the year, and a couple of bits of tryout work on other projects, one of which didn't go ahead, and one of which I'm waiting to hear about. The unfinished projects themselves - Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Twlefth Thing, and King Lear - amount to a book's worth of product in total, and I'm hoping maybe one of them might be finished and come out as a self-published book at the very least in 2025.
The Scottish Falsetto Socks had their quietest year since they were created, with only 12 shows performed in the whole year and hardly any videos. However the shows they did perform included the brand new Post Office Scandal The Musical, which was a hit from the start in February and which got itself banned by Bedford Fringe in the summer; and a performance of Superheroes to possibly their biggest audience ever, a full hall of around 500 people at WorldCon in Glasgow in August.
Heather had a year of writing and researching, which included Madame Marzela coming out. I produced a few non-graphic novel books (Who Notes and Sweet Smell Of Sockcess) that did slightly well but no great shakes, and a couple of repackagings (Space Elain and Joseph & Ruth) which sell quite well at live events.
Very sadly it was a year with too many deaths in. Heather's Dad Dennis died in December, at the grand age of 93, after a decline with Parkinsons that had been quite a struggle for Audrey and him for the last five years.
And Alan Seaman died in March. I spoke at Alan's funeral. He is our longest lasting friend to have left us so prematurely, and it was shocking and sad to lose someone of our own age so young.
We also lost Phil Baber, the most talented and underrated cartoonist of all the people I worked with in my comic publishing days, and Janey Godley, the loveliest and most supportive comedian you ever could meet.
And there you have it. My blog has made some small note of anything else of worth that happened, but I don't feel there was very much. No big travels, no Edinburgh, no Venice. Ok, I went to Saudi Arabia for two days work, but I don't think that makes me Michael Palin. I'm happy with the work I produced, I'd love it to be making me more money than it is doing, but we're getting on fine, and we have many many reasons to remember to count our blessings. Here's to a 2025 to beat all previous 2025s, see you back here next year, if we're lucky.
Kev F Dec 31 2024
My previous years' Comic Strip Reviews:
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