Spandex update!

Thought I’d provide a Spandex UPDATE for anyone that is interested!
I’m hard at work on Spandex 4! Work has been slightly delayed by having to send my laptop to the ‘PC World Tech Guys’ (my ‘M’ button fell off about a week after I bought the thing) - let’s hope I get it back soon... It’s been nice to concentrate on illustrating the comic though, and lettering. If I had my laptop here, I’d be all in a frenzy and be scanning stuff before it was really ready. I get too excited and carried away, and start Photoshopping things before I really should do!
Anyway, issue 4 is going well, and proving a little bit easier than previous issues. For a start, it’s a bit shorter – I’ve deliberately kept it down to 23 pages of story (rather than spiralling towards 30, as usual). And there are no ‘daunting’ panels to draw (such as St Paul’s pics, huge celebrity gay zombie panels – even the page where Glitter goes home in issue 3 was a lot of work). Issue 4 is much more character driven, so there are some nice talking heads pages!
It’s actually the start of a 4-part arc called ‘OMFG’. Now, I pretty much kicked off The O Men with a 4-part arc and at the time I felt it was a bad idea (readers might lose patience at such an early stage of the series). However, it’s a strong story, and each issue of the arc is very different and compelling, so hopefully people won’t get too put off. I have to say, the cliffhangers for each issue are doozies.
So now I just need to work hard on Spandex 4 for a Bristol/May release – it should be okay. I’ve had a couple of other projects to work on (not paid projects of course – never paid projects!), but now they’re out of the way so I can focus on this.
I’ve storyboarded issues 5 and 7 too. Those are quite key issues, and I was anxious to make sure everything fit into them. Issue 6 is a big issue, and is something I can have fun with and be a bit ‘loose’ with. Maybe tie up all the story strands before issue 7 kicks off.
I love how writing all this comes together. Because it takes such a long time to draw each issue, ideas for future issues come into my head all the time. I now have a huge new plot twist for Pussy in issue 7 – it’s one of the biggest shockers of the series. And I’m also going to address her name and why she’s called it – because even I’m uncomfortable with it!
Finally, here is an early version of the cover for issue 4 (above). I thought this idea up at Bristol last year (when some of the straight punters didn't seem to want to buy a pink colour for some reason) - but it’s not quite working, so I’ve come up with a similar but re-worked idea.