“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead

Wednesday, January 11th is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. To participate, we formed the Comic Creators for Freedom– a group of over 100 comic book creators who volunteered our artistic talents to raise money and awareness for this cause. You may not know it, but there are currently 27 million enslaved people worldwide- more than double the number of enslaved Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children every year are sold into slavery, most of it sexual. The US Department of Justice estimates 16,000 victims of human trafficking are brought into the United States every year. Unlike slavery in the past, what is happening today is happening in secret. It won’t end until awareness is raised, and people like you and me take a stand.

So here’s what we did: each creator contributed an original drawing of one of our own female characters, and combined them into a single wallpaper image! The wallpaper features characters from all over the web, including Girls with Slingshots, The Dreamland Chronicles, Kukuburi, Earthsong Saga, Looking for Group, Love and Capes, The Dreamer, and tons more! Donate today to download this unique, once-in-a-lifetime wallpaper.

The Donations Drive will last for two weeks, from Monday January 9th – 20th. All proceeds will be split evenly between Love 146 and Gracehaven House- two organizations working on rehabilitation of victims and prevention of this crime.

To learn more about the CCA visit www.comiccreatorsforfreedom. To learn more about the problem, visit http://love146.org/slavery. (Note: contains adult themes and actual accounts of sex slavery.)

This year the event is split over two halls and you’ll find us in the Royal Armouries Hall. So feel free to pop by for a chat or to pick up your very own copy of Fera.

In other news, I’d like to apologise for the recent intermitent comic updates. As some of you may already know, I’m currently organising myself for the end of this month when my contract at my day job comes to an end along with my lease on my home. Which means that I’m going to be moving house again soon.

In the meantime I’ll do my best to get whatever updates I can completed and posted, but I don’t expect to get back to a steady schedule until after 30th November. Please bear with me for now.

Thanks, and hopefully I’ll see some of you this weekend.

Davy

Manchester was great fun, as were the other events that we’ve been to this year so thank you to everyone who came out and stopped by the table. And hopefully we’ll see some of you in London in October or Leeds in November. Photos from our events so far can be found on the Fera fan page on Facebook.

Issue 3 will be returning to a weekly schedule, most likely updating every Monday barring anything unexpected and I’ve been working on a page buffer so that even then it shouldn’t affect updates to any real extent. And starting from 1st October I’m going to be posting my warm-up sketches as incentives on the Top Web Comics voting portal, so feel free to vote for Fera daily and encourage your friends to check the comic out.

For those interested I will be taking commissions as of this moment, so if you would like any artwork etc. created email me your request and we can discuss it. At present I’m going to limit commissions to a queue of no more than 4 at any one time. In all circumstances I’ll respond to requests but please understand that depending on demands on my time there may be a short wait. All commissions will be 100% digital, if you would like a print, feel free to ask but the price may need to be adjusted due to shipping and printing costs.

Below are some example pricing based on what I offer at events:

angelKat Sketch ……………………………………………………. £ 2.00
Digital Sketch (Portrait or Full Body) …………………………….. £10.00
A4 Portrait (inked) …………………………………………………. £20.00
A4 Full Body (inked) ………………………………………………. £25.00
Full comic page (to the specs of a regular Fera page) …..……. £40.00 (discounted to £30 per page when commissioned in bulk i.e. batches of 10 pages)
A4 Character Reference Sheet  ………………………………….. £30.00
(full colour, full body – Front/Back/Side/3x portraits)

Extras;
+ colour ……………………………………………… £ 2.00
+ background ……………………………………….. £ 2.00
+ 2nd character …………………………………….. £ 5.00

I also do written word commissions such as articles, reviews, scripts, etc. due to the nature of these projects, you’ll need to note/email me with the details before I can offer an estimated price.

Tickets are either £8 (early entry) or £5 (standard adult) and £3 (standard child). To view the currently announced guests and events (such as the promo of the new Space Marines game etc.) take a look at the MCM Expo website.

So feel free to come and say hello, get a sketch or a signed copy of issue #1 and/or #2. We’ll be at table A8 in the Comic Village, rubbing shoulders with some great artists and some of our good friends such as Donna Evans, Helen Trifourki, Alice De Ste Croix (Destiny Blue), Dr Geoff Banyard (Fetish Man), Matt Dyson (Moo & Keo) and George Beedham (Jambo)… and many more!

As always we look forward to seeing you there!

T III

So… without further ado, here’s the schedule for the next couple of weeks, and hopefully we’ll see you guys at London Film and Comic Con this weekend!

• Friday 8th July 2011 ……………………………. Guest Art: Hiro Odan of Udon Noodles
• Monday 11th July 2011 …………………………… Guest Art:Michelle van Zandt of Ginpu
• Friday 15th July 2011 …………………………… Guest Art: Louise Ho aka Naniiebim
• Monday 18th July 2011 …………………………… Guest Art: Rachelle Fryatt aka Brenna Raven
• Monday 25th July 2011 …………………………… Fera: issue#3 – “The Green Lizard” begins.

And don’t forget to come and see us at London Film and Comic Con in Earl’s Court from Friday 8th July to Sunday 10th July… AND… at Manchester MCM Expo on the 30th July!!

The final page of Fera: issue #2 will be posted online on 27th June and I thought now might be a good time to have a short 2 week break before Issue #3 starts updating on the site. During this time I’d really love
to display work by any artists who would care to supply guest art OR guest pages that will be showcased over the fortnight.

If you’re interested, please let me know . If you’re not interested or unable to produce anything for this, thank you for your time- please feel free to pass on this email to anyone that you think may wish to.

Here’s the details that you may need to know (if the info isn’t here please feel free to email me back with any questions);

• Dimensions: the final image MUST be 700px × 1,070px (at 72 dpi)
• Content: You can do anything, so long as it relates to Fera, it’s world and characters. The one rule is that it must be suitable for anyone over the age of 15, so no “adult content” please. Nudity is fine, but try to keep it as nothing more than has already been shown in the comic.
• Credits: Please feel free to include your name and/or web address on the bottom of your image (in a similar way to the footers on the Fera pages). I will be posting blogs and tweets over the week(s) that will include a link of your choosing.
• Reference or queries: feel free to check through the archives etc. on the site OR let me know via twitter or email t_iii@angelk.at* Deadline: Please, no later than Sunday 3rd July.
• Email- please send me the files via this email address: t_iii@angelk.at

Anyway, enjoy and have fun with it and I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with.

T III

Here on the website, the rest of Fera issue #2 will be wrapping up around 27th June, and will continue to update every Monday until then. I plan on uploading the next issue starting in July. So, for the week or two following the last update for the current issue (depending on the response) I’d like to invite you all to submit a piece of guest art, or a guest page. This call for guest art is open to everyone, fans and fellow comic artists alike.

There are only a couple of rules that I’d like you to follow;

• No porn/hentai. Try to keep it within the boundaries of the comic, nudity is fine but no ADULT content please.
• The final image should be the same dimensions as a Fera comic post (usually 700 x 990 px) and saved as a jpg image.
• If you’d like to include your web address on the submission please do.
• Submissions can be comic pages OR fan art, I leave that completely up to you.
• All submissions should reach me on, or preferably before 20th June 2011
• Submissions can be emailed to: t_iii@angelk.at
• Any questions, either email me at the same address of tweet me

Thanks, and I look forward to  seeing what your guys come up with!

T III

First of all, I’d like to let you guys know that I’ll be sending Issue #2 of Fera off to Ka-Blam next week and they’ll be on sale for the first time from my table at London MCM Expo in May… well, I guess they may be available online via Indyplanet before then. Indyplanet currently has Fera #1 and some new tshirts available for anyone interested as well- so make sure to check out the shop.

As a side effect of having Issue #2 ready for print by next week, we shouldn’t have any breaks again for quite some time. The last page of Issue #2 will post on the site at the end of June so we’ve got plenty of updates for you until then.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ll be attending London MCM Expo, I should also have a table at London Film and Comic Con in July and I’m currently chasing up tables for a couple of other events too. Those of you who follow me on twitter or have joined the Fera fanpage on Facebook… or, indeed, follow me on deviantArt will have already seen the new banner for the conventions this year.

I’m sure we can all agree that it’s a vast improvement on last years banner- and hopefully eyecatching enough to attract some visitors to our tables.

In other news, the site is not going to be staying as it is. I’ll be updating the backend of the site and replacing the layout with a new design in the coming weeks. You may have noticed that as of today there are two new additions to the sidebar.

The first is a paypal button, anyone who wishes to donate can do so by clicking that button. Donations aren’t required so don’t worry, it’s simply there in case anyone wishes to do so. I will be introducing a monthly donation wallpaper where anyone who donates over £3.00 will receive a special limited edition wallpaper that won’t be available any where else on the site. That will start in April 2011 so keep an eye out for that in the news next update.

The second is  a “FLATTR” button. Now, I’m guessing most of you haven’t heard of Flattr, hell, it’s new to me too. Flattr is a fairly recent service that allows you to donate money to support creators of work that you enjoy. Instead of using the Paypal model of having to put in back details etc. Flattr uses a “like” system that’s as easy as that on Facebook.

Once you have an account on Flattr, you agree to a monthly budget (of around $2.00) that is split between anything that you “Flattr” during that month. Not seen anything to “Flattr”? That $2.00 is donated on your behalf to charity. So either way you’re doing something very cool. And the best part? You KNOW that the creator of the comic, music or whatever it is that you “Flattr” is doing just the same. Creators have to include the $2.00 per month too, not as a standing fee- but to share amongst they’re favourite content or charity too.

Since I’ve probably done a terrible job of explaining- take a look at this handy instructional video:

This is FLATTR!

TWC is offering an ipad to one lucky winner on march 20th. An email address and a name is pretty much all you need, go here for details.

If you haven’t already used an iPad or other digital tablet to read a comic, you’re severely missing out. Luckily, one of you will receive an iPad! The winner will be announced on March 27th, 2011. We’re using Wildfire to track entrants and they’ll randomly pick the winner

If you like or know a webcomic owner, and they aren’t entered in the contest, you may want to let them know about the contest so they can try and win an iPad too (pun intended)!

“What was your favourite comic of 2010? Which artists and writers really grabbed your attention? Nominations are now open and will run until 7 March for the world-famous Eagle Awards.

The top five nominations in each section will move to the voting round which gets underway on 14 March – let us know who you want to see honoured on the big night of 27 May at the London MCM Expo by picking your favourites of 2010.”

The Eagle Awards are the longest established awards in the comic industry and recognise indie/smallpress creators such as myself alongside industry giants such as Mavel and DC. And most importantly- these awards are voted on by the public.

The awards will be presented at the MCM Expo in London in May this year. At present the awards are in the “nomination stage” – this means that YOU can nominate any creators or comics for each category. In each category the five nominations with the most public support will go through to become the final nominees. I was amazed to see myself and Fera listed already (so thank you to those who have already nominated Fera).

For those who have yet to cast their votes- do so however you like on your favourite comics of 2010, but please consider voting for myself (Davy Shirley) or my comic (Fera) in any categories that you feel are applicable such as;

Favourite Newcomer Writer (Davy Shirley), Favourite Newcomer Artist (Davy Shirley), Favourite Writer/Artist (Davy Shirley), Favourite British Comicbook: Colour (Fera issue#1: When Worlds Collide), Favourite New Comicbook (Fera issue#1: When Worlds Collide), Favourite Web-Based Comic (Fera), Favourite 2010 Original Graphic Novel (Fera issue#1: When Worlds Collide)

Anyway, if you can spare a moment or two to vote for the comics that you loved of 2010 then click on the link below and go vote:

http://www.eagleawards.co.uk/survey/index.php?sid=86574

The nomination stage ends on 7th March so get those votes in whilst you can and share that link with your friends.

PLEASE NOTE: If there is a category where the drop down list does not include the name or title that you’d like to vote for, you can select “other” and nominate a new candidate by entering the name manually.

Thanks,

T III