The Eternal Battle

Way back in 2020 when I was putting together the pitch for Punycorn, I figured I needed a piece of eye candy to sweeten the pot. I thought I'd throw in an epic battle scene to show our humble heroes facing outrageous odds. There's no possible way they could defeat an evil army on this scale, is there? Spoiler Alert, they aren't chopped down by Sir Ogre's army. This is a middle grade funny fantasy, for flip's sake. No swears, this is a kid-friendly book. However, no kids were present when I effed and jeffed my way through this rod for my own back.

Allow me to share the slow process of completing this RSI inducing double page spread.

Line art from the initial pitch in 2020

Farewell big bug who was edited out in an earlier draft.

Full of vim and vigour.

Too late to back out now.

Must...keep...going.

Great Cthulhu enters the field of battle.

Like a jigsaw puzzle, the four corners are done.

One. Last. Push.

And done! I pity the fool who has to colour this sucker.

Oh, crap. I'm that sucker.

Goblins, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

Goblins? Check. Gelatinous Cubes? Check. Shading? Arghh!

Anddddd DONE! Finally this time. I will never ever do this again.

Unless...I decide to fill in the speech bubbles.

I know what you're thinking, wouldn't this make a spectacular poster?

As a matter of fact it would. Check out my InPrnt store for this and other wonderful gifts. And I should probably mention that the graphic novel these pages are from is out now. End of November in Australia. January in the UK.

Read the first two chapters.

Published by HarperCollins

Blackwells/ WHSmith/ B&N/ BAM!/ Bookshop.org/ Hudson/ Target/ Walmart/ Amazon/ AmazonUK

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Clarion Books (November 14, 2023)

• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 224 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0358571995

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0358571995

• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 8 - 12 years

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You can read more about the making of Punycorn, from pitch to publication over at my patreon.

And if you read and enjoyed the book please leave a positive review online so that I know my toil has not been in vain.

I also have a t-shirts and totes here.

I now have a bunch of my books on Kindle. Dumped, Breakfast After Noon, The City Never Sleeps (short story sampler), Super Hero Pink(previously Gum Girl...it's a long story), Glister and Princess Decomposia.

I have DRM-free PDF versions of more of my backlist on Ko-fi and Gumroad

I still have books out in the world: Sunburn, Paris, Kerry and the Knight of the Forest & the awards nominated The Book Tour. Support my efforts through my store – digital comics – patreon or by leaving a positive review online.