Mrs Woolf - Tumblr Posts

Guess where I was last weekend! Inspired Comics (from whose blog I have stolen the photo) got a table at Birmingham MCM, so I went along to help and to monopolize almost a third of the table with all my junk. I think it looks sweet all together though, all muted colours and soft toy mascots. (Fox!) You can see the edge of our latest anthology in the corner there. Remember the new Inspired anthology will be debuting at Bristol Expo on the 12th-13th of May.

Thinking of debuts, issue 3 of What's the Time, Mrs Woolf? was on sale, and is now available in our online shop. You can find information on our features and contributors this time on the zine blog, and you can buy it at Comiket later this month if you'll be in London. If you want issue 1 you'll have to be quick - sales were good at Birmingham, so there's only two left in the shop. 

And thinking of shops, I now have an Etsy shop, how exciting! You can buy my postcards and miniprints there so far, I hope to have new products up soon, including some original paintings. That last picture is the header, before I cropped it. Isn't Tabitha cute?

This week Sammy was at Manchester MCM, and next Saturday (work shifts permitting) I'll have a little stall at Bristol Ferment Farmer's Market, so I made a mini-comic to give out instead of business cards. Sammy's been doing it that way for ages, and it works really well - people tend not to turn down a free comic. We also made a free mini-zine to promote What's the Time Mrs Woolf?

Anyway, I decided on a miniature Patience mystery, since I'm hoping to get the first full-length comic done before the spring cons next year.

Aside from the new issue of What's the Time, Mrs Woolf? (with a 'hairy' theme) the other things I'll be taking are all original paintings. I'll be posting some of those next week. I'll also have a few copies of Inspired's latest anthologies, and limited numbers of the mini-library Sammy tried at Manchester.

If any of you are near Bristol, I hope you'll stop by and see me!

Happy All Hallows Eve my ghoulish peeps! Hallowe'en is my favourite festival, but I haven't had time to draw a special picture this time, so instead here are my four favourite ghost stories from the Hyaku Monogatari (100 stories) feature in What's the Time, Mrs Woolf.

If you want to play, gather some friends together and sit in a dark room with one candle each. You each tell a ghost story, and blow out your candle when you're done. When everyone has told a story and you're all sitting in darkness, count off around the room, and you should have an extra person.

Happy Hallowe'en!

Behold, what I've been doing for the past few weeks! I kind of burned myself out making new postcards for Thought Bubble (I'll post those later, for now there's a photo of them on the stand), so once they'd been sent to print I decided to do something entirely different. I transformed my computer desk into a sewing desk and set about making a dress from Josceline Fenton's lovely webcomic, Hemlock! It's the first one we see Lumi wearing. Eventually I'd like to make all of these four, but I think I've done enough dressmaking for the time being. There's also a picture of the finished dress! Also of me awkwardly standing with Josceline trying not to seem creepy, which is hard when you just spent three weeks slavishly recreating someone's work in cotton form. She said it was very accurate, which makes me happy.

There's the Inspired table, with Sammy behind it because we used my camera this time, my postcards, 5 issues of What's the Time, Mrs Woolf, my art cards hanging out with some new ones by Sammy and Shaz, a shot of my side of the table, complete with Patience, miniprints, Bad Fairy Bakery etc., and a portrait commission I did! If you look really closely in the back you can see a little drawing of Patience that Sammy gave me. It's so cute! I seemed to do pretty well at Thought Bubble, and we certainly did well as a table. I also bought about £80 of comics, and John Allison said some very nice things about our work, so I'm very pleased with how it went. There'll be a write-up of Thought Bubble on the Inspired blog soon as well, now that I've got round to sending the photos to Sammy.

Happy New Year, peeps! I thought I'd make a post with what I think is my best work of  this last year. In chronological order, these are:

The Mysterious Land of Under-Noodle, from the Inspired Eat Me! anthology

The Mystery of the Night Boy, a Patience mini-comic

The Hyaku Monogatari feature from the Hallowe'en issue of What's the Time, Mrs Woolf?

This Is Not A Serious Music Publication, a collaborative music zine I made with Sammy, which is probably my absolute favourite thing I did this year.

Two postcards from my Autumn 2012 set.

I think what I learned this year is a) I do some of my best work under extreme time pressure, and b) I also do my best work when I'm really excited about it. (Both apply to the music zine.) Possibly also c) due to being willfully contrary, bad reviews only make me draw MORE COMICS.

Unfortunately I also learned that it's very easy for me to get caught up working on small press comics and zines because they're a lot of fun to make, neglecting the work which would get me closer to illustrating actual books. Hence my plan for next year is to manage my time better and prioritise book-related work, even if it means making fewer comics. This was a really difficult conclusion to accept because I really love making comics with my friends, but I only have so much time in the week after going to my day job, and I just can't do comics (in the quantities I've been doing this year) AND do the work I need to break into book illustration. Not until someone starts paying me to draw things anyway.

So... I hope 2013 brings me people who pay me to draw things? 

AW YEAH NEW YEAR!

What's the Time, Mrs Woolf is once again looking for submissions! The deadline for the Jan/Feb issue is provisionally set at January 31st, so you have lots of time! We don't have a theme for this issue, but as it's the January/February issue if you want to do something related to New Year or Valentine's Day then that's fine. As usual we're looking for articles, illustrations, comics and questions for Poppet. (Especially articles! We also accept short stories, poetry and reviews.) However we're NOT looking for a cover this month, as Meg Guindon has already volunteered one. submission guidelines are as follows:

the zine is printed A5, black and white

all files should be 300dpi, preferably jpegs or tiffs

we recommend leaving a 5mm safety margin within the A5 page

WTTMW is currently by women, for women

please email submissions to [email protected], or to myself or Lilywoolf directly.

P.S. Lilywoolf and I assess suitability on a case-by-case basis, but in general try to keep it PG-13 as far as violence or nudity goes.

November/December 2012

Better late than never, I hope! Sorry it’s taken so long for us to get this post up. The next issue is nearly here, we’re that late!

In any case, here is our spiffy issue 7, which had a vague theme of baking and/or winter festivities. Lilywoolf did the intro for the first time, as well as the cover, how exciting! We were graced with not one, but three adorable pictures from regular contributor Clem Tarrant. Deb Clerkin, who drew the internal cover on the previous issue, gave us three whole pages based on the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ song. Gem Sheldrake did us another lovely one-page illustration. Naturally there is another Sewing Sans Pattern, showing you how to fuse plastic and turn it into a bag. In the spirit of Christmas deliciousness, Rebecca Fogg wrote up some recipes for traditional German Christmas fare, including Gluhwein, Lebkuchen and Stollen. Lilywoolf added her own delightful treats in the form of a genuine Grandma’s Cookies recipe from her very own Grandma! Last but not least, comic maker extraordinaire Sammy Borras provided not only another Stale Symphony, but a recipe for gluten-free cakes, and Poppet answers a question on the historical origin of some popular Christmas decorations.

It was great to have so many returning contributors this time, and lots of recipes!

We’re still faffing around with our online shop, so until then please contact the Woolves at whatsthetimemrswoolf.gmail.com if you’d like to buy some lovely zines, and Sarahwoolf will get back to you.

I thought you might like to see my cover for the Spring 2013 issue of What's the Time, Mrs Woolf? It took me a long time to think of some ideas for the cover, but I'm pleased with how this turned out. I used a watercolour wash then finished it with coloured pencils.

The flowers are wood anemones, which I think are some of the prettiest Spring flowers.

I've also put this issue up for sale in my etsy shop.

Hello hello, Woolves! I’m pleased to report we did a very brisk trade at London MCM Expo, and we’ve funded some future tables! We also sold out of the Spring 2013 issue, so we’ll be doing a second print run.

It’s also time for submissions for the Summer 2013 issue! This issue has no theme, and...

Submissions reminder

Hello Woolves! This is a reminder that the deadline for the Summer issue is the 6th of July, one week from now. We’ve had some really nice submissions so far, so if you’re working on something please send it in!

Our email address is [email protected]

You can find guidelines on the submissions page.

What's the Time, Mrs Woolf? is looking for submissions for the Autumn issue!

Hello hello Woolves!

It’s that time again! We’re now collecting submissions for the Autumn issue of What’s the Time, Mrs Woolf.

There’s no official theme, but if you’d like a starting point we have some that might help. As we’re now into the two darker seasons, it’s a good time to submit...

Yusss it was a good time. Although my train journey home was not.

Please do come and see us at later events if you missed this one! We'll have new Mrs Woolf zines, new comics and maybe a new music zine soon!

Sarah Fogg and I had a good day at Midlands MCM Expo yesterday. It was great to see so many friends and meet new people. Thank you to everyone who came by the table for a chat and/or purchased comics and zines.

We have 3 tables confirmed this spring. You will be able to find us at the following events. 

Birmingham MCM Comic Con (Comics Village) - 22nd-23rd March

BCExpo - 10th-11th May

London MCM Comic Con (Comics Village) - 23rd - 25th May

All our comics and zines are available to order through my Etsy shop or Sarah Fogg’s Etsy shop.