END OF AN ERA...

You'll notice over the next couple of days that this website looks a little crappy. That's because this is no longer linked to TONYLEE.CO.UK - if you link direct to that don't worry in the next day or so the link will automatically jump to the new site. If blogspot/mrtonylee is your link, you need to alter it accordingly.

Thanks. See you on the new blog...

A week of Tony Lee...

Yes, kiddies, this approaching week is a smorgasborg of Tony Lee goodness, and I felt it only fair that you all know and of course spend your hard earned pennies on me, all me! Mu ha ha ha ha!!!!

Wednesday is the main day - in the US, the first part of my 6 part Doctor Who 45th Anniversary ten Doctors extravaganza 'Doctor Who: The Forgotten' hits the stores from IDW, with art of course by the incredible Pia 'Eisner Winner' Guerra - and let's be honest here, this is probably the closest I'll ever get to an Eisner, so let's pimp that for all it's worth - and it's her first ongoing gig since Y The Last Man so of course I'm totally twitching and nervously worried and all that. Reviewers and fans seem to like it though, so fingers crossed.

(I know this is one of those comics that 'isn't available in the UK' due to Panini / IDW licensing things, but I also know that many UK comic shops will have it on the Thursday, including Orbital in London...)

For those of you who of course need your fix of Tony goodness and live outside the US, in particular the UK? Fear not! For you too shall have a dose of Tony Lee goodness in the form of the extra-sized ten-page first issue of Stalag #666, my Sci Fi 'Great Escape' story with Jon Davis-Hunt, appearing in Wednesday's 2000ad prog 1600! That's right, my first ever 2000ad work, and it'll be there for you to read for the next fifteen weeks!

And that's not all - because on Friday there's a double helping of Tony Lee and Dan Boultwood goodness - of course we have the weekly serialized, never-seen-before pages of The Gloom at www.chemsetcomics.com, but our 16 part serial, The Prince Of Baghdad will start in Random House / David Fickline Books weekly children's comic The DFC...

So rejoice, my bretheren! No matter where you go this week, enjoy my creative brainspurts! For you! From me!

Tony in Marvel again...

Remember a while back I said I would be in Marvel's Spider Man Family #9, out in June? And then I said I wasn't?

So apparently I was in this month's Spider Man Family #9, due to a late minute switcharoo. So, with nobody knowing, no solicits mentioning me and the stores not having a clue, it's up to me to tell the world. :-)

So yes, go buy Spider Man Family #9. Out this week. From Marvel.

Don't FORGET... in August '08

So I've just been pointed to Comics Continuum, where they have the August Solicits for IDW Publishing up... Including this little gem.

DOCTOR WHO: THE FORGOTTEN #1

Written by Tony Lee, art by Pia Guerra, cover by Nick Roche.

Stranded in a strange Museum that's dedicated to him -- and with no TARDIS in sight, The Doctor and Martha must make sense of their surroundings, hindered by one small fact -- The Doctor has lost his memories of every one of his previous incarnations! With items relevant to each Doctor in their possession, The Doctor must try to use them to regain his memories before it's too late, starting with his earliest incarnation's memories, involving Susan, Barbara and Ian....

32 pages, $3.99.

Off for a bit...

So tomorrow I head off to New York for the lead up to the New York Comic Con. I'm a guest on stage at the Comic Book Club Live show on Tuesday, seeing a Mets game from the press box on Wednesday and partying from Thursday onwards. Did I say partying? I meant working. Very hard.

And in fact, I am. I'm signing at the Markosia Booth as well as Imperium Comics, I'm doing a panel or two and I'm writing every day I'm over there. Partly for my weekly column, He's Only A Writer, but also as part of (wifi and schedule permitting) a daily convention diary on what I'm up to, hopefully with photos.

To read this however, you'll need to go to my Livejournal page, as that's where the day to day blog part is. Enjoy.

Me? I'll be back in a week. Twitching and probably weeping in a corner...

More 'Doctor Who: The Forgotten' news...

The Forbidden Planet Blog has some more news on the upcoming Doctor Who: The Forgotten as well as the cover image to #1, courtesy of that rascally Chris Ryall...

"Stranded in a strange Museum that’s dedicated to him; and with no TARDIS in sight, The Doctor and Martha must make sense of their surroundings, hindered by one small fact - The Doctor has lost his memories of every one of his previous incarnations! With items relevant to each Doctor in their possession, The Doctor must try to use them to regain his memories before it’s too late, starting with his earliest incarnation’s memories, involving Susan, Barbara and Ian. This all-new series written by Tony Lee (Starship Troopers) features artist Pia Guerra in her first monthly comic since Y The Last Man!"

And to kill the question quickly. No, he hasn't lost his 'Tenth Doctor' memories - so no, he's not technically an amnesiac like he was in the Eight Doctors novel...

Oh. And here's the cover, by the excellent Nick Roche...

Comic Book Club, 15/4...

Here's a heads up. It's finally been properly announced, so I can talk about it now, even though I've known about it and mentioned it here and there for a while.

I'm going to be one of the guests at Comic Book Club, at The Peoples Improv Theater, 154 West 29th Street (2nd Floor), New York, NY on Tuesday 15th April between 8pm and 9pm.

Now, I've never been there before but I've been told there's quite a crowd and it's a good gig to get, the audience is kind and the shows are fun, so I'm looking forwards to it, almost as much as I am on meeting my 'couchmate', Robbi Rodriguez, the artist extraordinaire of Oni Press titles Maintenance and Tek Jansen. Now, I'm a massive fan of Robbi's art but even though I admire his work, I've never spoken to him before, so it's going to be a fun evening. And I'm incredibly honoured, especially as previous guests here have included Brian Bendis, Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, Joe Quesada, Peter David, Klaus Janson, Bill Willingham...

So, if you're around in New York the Tuesday before the comic con, come along and see me on stage. And I'm sure that after that there will be drinking. In a bar. Or something. I don't know. What usually happens after these, guys?

EDIT - And I've just been told that Christos Gage is the other guest.

I can finally announce it...

Got the email from Pia today, saying she mentioned it while at the LA Y The Last Man wrap party last night.

So here's my massive news...

Pia Guerra will be the artist of Doctor Who: The Forgotten, out around June from IDW.

There. Do you know how long I've had to sit on this?

End Of An Era...

I've just lettered the last page of Hope Falls #5, and in doing so have finished an important chunk in my life.

Hope Falls was once ...Of Vengeance, and was one of the first ideas I ever discussed with my mother, shortly before she passed away. At the time it was a western, and I just couldn't get it right.

After her death, I shelved it as it was incredibly personal to me - the subplot involving Helen (Then called Jessie)'s mother dying of a terminal illness was just too close, too raw to me at this point. But a year or so later, deciding that dammit, I would honour my mothers memory with this, I re-examined the concept.

And since then it's been a long and winding road, with a lot of people helping on the way. First off is Craig Andrews, housemate and friend extraordinaire who, while I battled with making this bloody western work just looked at me and said 'make it more Twin Peaks than Deadwood.' And with those words, we moved our Angel into the 21st Century. And of course I have to thank Helen Gane herself, one time housemate in the House of Geek who allowed me to write her into a comic where she was a man hating harridan of vengeance. Insert obvious punchline here.

But this would never have even hit scripting stage if it wasn't for two others - Rantz Hoseley and Lee 'Budgie' Barnett. In 2005/06 Rantz was the original artist for ...Of Vengeance, and he was more than just an art monkey, his ideas shaped many of the scenes - the death of Treadwell in issue #3 is very much touched with his fingerprints, and I was crushed when his commitments meant that he had to drop from the project. One day, Rantz. One day. And of course Budgie Barnett was my voice of reason, perched on my shoulder and shaking his head, tutting and reigning me back when my dialogue got a little too, well, out there. Without even realising he was one, he became one of the best editors I have ever worked with, and it's due to Lee and his saintly patience that this story became so compelling, so tight.

But then disaster struck and Rantz was pulled from the project by a prior commitment, and I felt broken. I really felt that this was a great story, but suddenly I was back at square one. Luckily for me, I have some of the greatest and coolest friends in the industry, and pretty much a week after I thought 'sod it, I'm going to write it as a novel', I found myself having a conversation with one time The Gloom conspirator, Two Drunk Guys In A Bar Productions partner and good friend Dan Boultwood, who offered to draw the book for me.

Now people don't realise what a massive sacrifice this was for Dan - it almost cost him his relationship, because he'd effectively agreed to do another 110 odd pages for free. A back end comic like this only makes money on the Trades, on the Movie options, and there was a chance that this could totally collapse. And after all, we'd only ever done one five parter before, The Gloom - and that had been cancelled on issue #2. It was a massive sacrifice and a gamble to even consider this. But Dan had faith and enthusiasm for the project, and if I speak honestly, he had even more than I did at this point. I'll owe Dan forever for standing back to back with me when the armies attacked. But even with Dan standing beside me, it was two publishers that brought me back to the project. Firstly, Larry Young, he of AiT/PlanetLar discussed ...Of Vengeance with me while we were discussing Dodge & Twist, and he made the one suggestion that kicked life back into the tale.

'Why don't you call it Hope Falls?' He asked. And in a second the story changed, and the story lived. The second publisher was Harry Markos, who, while I was discussing this asked 'why haven't you sent this to me?'

I'll be honest, after Midnight Kiss was cancelled on #4, I felt that Markosia probably would shun any new idea from me, especially one that was a tad 'controversial'. After all, we had rape, Angels killing people, terminal illness - it's not exactly a fun time Disney show here. But Harry was adamant and we sent him the concepts and the scripts. And within a day Harry not only greenlit the series, but gave us a personal guarantee that no matter what happened, all five issues would run. And run they have, each one on time, and each one better than the previous one.

Of course there is one more person to thank, without whom the covers would be blank and dull - and that's Szymon Kudranski. Szymon is one of the most underrated and incredible artists out there, and every single issue has been better than the last one. I can't wait to see what he does for the collected edition!

And so. The final issue is done. All that's left is to pre press it with the wonderful and talented Thomas Mauer who has had to deal with my half assed attempts at sorting the pages every month without complaining. Thomas really is the unknown hero of the book, and probably deserves more praise that he gets.

Of course, this is done, and immediately I'm on to new things. Dan and I are already hard at work on a weekly serial called The Prince Of Baghdad which we'll hopefully be able to announce properly soon - and I've got several other balls in the air.

But I'll miss Hope Falls, more than I did The Gloom, or Midnight Kiss. This was one of the most personal things I ever wrote, and I hope you enjoyed it.

Reviewers, Podcasters - keep an eye on this blog - because later in the week I'll be giving you an option to read all five issues in PDF format, before issue #4 even comes out...

Less than a week to go...

My new column starts this coming week, on MONDAY 14TH JANUARY at Comics Bulletin - the soon-to-be (as it goes live this weekend I believe) new home of Silver Bullet Comic Books. In it I go right back to basics, almost right back to the It's Only A Comic days.

Why the column name change? Well kiddies, I'm flying solo again - with Dan now working like a bastard we decided back in October that he had too much on his plate without more free stuff, so the Two Drunk Guys column run is now ended, but fear not - he'll still pop his head around the door from time to time, and his appearances will be limited yet legendary.

Bookmark the link, tell all your friends -

Daddy's home.

Back on the circuit...

And as soon as I think I have some time spare, along comes something new. Or in this case, old.

I'm lecturing again.

I'll be talking at The Secret Chiefs, upstairs at the Devereux public house (20 Devereux Court, off Essex Street, London WC2) from 8.30pm on Wednesday 6th of February. This is quite a wierd one for me, as this is a spin off from the venue that, over seventeen years ago got me into a lot of esoteric type things, and it is one of the few places I have never actually lectured / spoken at in almost two decades.

Funny enough, they asked me to come and do a talk after I went to watch Debbie Gallagher's talk last year, the first time I'd even been back there in seven years.

So, if you want to see me doing something from my past life, if you want to see me talking about a tradition often overlooked and assimilated by most Pagan societies and something that is as far removed from comics as you can possibly get...

Wednesday 6th February – Tony Lee
"The Bard: Creating Gods For Fun And Profit!"

A magical practitioner for over two decades, Tony has been involved in all aspects of the magical pantheon, from Wicca to Discordia, Druidry to Psychic Questing. The co-creator of "Burnt Offerings" magazine in the 90's, Tony now writes comics, which is about the same level, really…

Michael Moorcock has said of Tony that he is "one of the best story-tellers working in comics today."

Come and learn the secrets of the true Bard. No written tests required...

The Secret Chiefs meet fortnightly on Wednesday evenings upstairs at the Devereux public house (20 Devereux Court, off Essex Street, London WC2). Nearest tube is Temple. Meet from 7.30pm and the talk starts at 8.30pm. Admission is £2 (£1 concs). All are welcome.