Phantom Lung and the Garden of Dead Liars

Okay, so yesterday I got a new book greenlit at Markosia. Here's the outline:

When a series of inexplicable, yet somehow connected, murders are committed by people with no conceivable connection to their victims, a retired Russian spymaster appears with an incredible story. The one successful product of Russian remote viewing experimentation has finally resurfaced, and has embarked on a murderous crusade against anyone connected with the programme, his delusions painting him as an otherworldly adventurer in pursuit of a dastardly villain.

Phantom Lung and the Garden of Dead Liars is a dual-reality fantasy in five parts. A delusional, obsessive conspiracy theorist uses Cold War-era remote viewing techniques to move his consciousness from body to body at will, his victims determined by distorted half-memories and an overwhelming paranoia. Wherever Phantom Lung travels, he leaves borrowed, stolen and murdered bodies in his wake.

Phantom Lung is coming...

Don't hold your breath.

Writer: Cy Dethan
Art: Simon Wyatt
Letters: Nic Wilkinson

I've been hoping to work on a book with Unbelievable's Si Wyatt for ages. Si's got a powerful style with a real sense of wild magic to it, so this is looking to be one weird ride. Here are a few of his concept sketches.






I'll be updating here and over on my main site as things progress, so watch this space for more details.

Resumption of Services

Back from an extraordinarily relaxing week off. I really should do that more often. Maybe I could organise some sort of replacment bus service equivalent for the blog...

So, updates:

Well, for one thing, an interview I did with PM Buchan for the Scream Magazine website went live last week. This was particularly cool for me as a big-time horror fan, and actually featured the single best question I've ever been asken in an interview. If you fancy a read, feel free.

I've been asked to pitch in a story for Martin Conaghan's Overload anthology, so I've been kicking some thoughts around with my Focal Point collaborator, Aaron Moran. Aaron's style, as I've previously noted, is totally unlike anything else I've seen, so it ought to be a fun project.

I'm within pissing distance of a completed first draft of Henry Flint's Broadcast art book. This book has been screwing my head completely around on a regular basis, so I'm really psyched to see how it looks when the text and images are combined.

For the last month or so, I've been standing on the sidelines of a really interesting Twitter experiment, and now I've been given a chance to get my hands dirty on it myself. Artist and actor, Stewart Moore, has been writing a multiple-reality comic, scripting one panel/page at a time, then releasing it onto Twitter to be interpreted by any artists prepared to take a run at it. The various strips are then collated on a website, forming a story told in parallel by dozens of contributors, each with their own individual take on it. I've been invited to take on the sixth sequence of this experiment, and if the results so far are anything to go by, it ought to be quite an adventure. More soon on this.

In non-Cy news, Ryan Dodd's surreal slice-of-life comic, Hippy Jonny, is scheduled for release on July the 31st by Tabella Publishing. I saw a preview of this a while back and it's always cool to see new talent getting coverage from the likes of Forbidden Planet. Ryan has set up a website for the book, and previews and pre-orders are available now.

...and I'm gone again.

Green Streets: Slaughterman's Creed Characters Invade Canterbury

Well, I think we can call that a success!

The Slaughterman's Creed signing at Whatever Comics in Canterbury kicked off at noon on Saturday, and I was absolutely blown away by the reception we got. The local media had been plugging the event for weeks and Manny Armario, store owner and friend of mine since 1990, had been spreading the word to all his customers. The weather was with us and the whole thing was a blast.

The first thing to strike me as we approached the shop to set up was local actress Karol Steele, who had gone to enormous trouble to portray the book's most twisted villain, Mr. Green. Karol is incredibly talented and utterly fearless, spending the whole day outside the shop alerting the public to the event and drawing people in. I can't even begin to explain how great it was to have her involved in this.


Manny himself put on a profoundly convincing turn as Big Lenny Addison, coming fully tooled-up and ready to rumble. Alongside the signing, Manny ran a raffle in support of the charity, Refuge, with a piece of original Mr. Green art from Stephen Downey and Vicky Stonebridge as a prize.

Nic and I met a lot of people, including several old friends from our time at university in Canterbury. As I've mentioned before, visiting Canterbury always feels like coming home to me, but chatting with old karate and gamer friends was worth the trip in itself. Artist Aaron Moran showed up with a portfolio of art to show to Harry Markos. I first met Aaron at the Fall of the Wolfmen signing a while back and can honestly say his style is unlike anything else I've ever seen. He can do some really impressive things, and I'm looking forward to making what I hope will be the first of many Moran-related announcements pretty soon.

The gig was very well organised and attended, the atmosphere and book sales were fantastic and I'm already looking forward to an opportunity to do it all again.