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Showing posts from May 9, 2020

The Return of Bishi Bashi and Freak Daddy ( All issues )

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First Bishi Bashi Flyer for Exhibition at the Black Swan Arts Centre. Bishi Bashi comes, Bishi Bashi Goes.  Here are the other two flyers from the night. I returned with my stall and all issues were going on sale ! this was a huge success in my mind ! Bishi Bashi. Returns to the Black Swan !  We returned to the Black Swan bigger and bolder than ever !  I think I sold every copy of Freak Daddy.  I also sold two T-shirts on the night. Brilliant night and brilliant cause, bringing a buzz back to Newcastle comic fans. 

Freak Daddy at the Bishi_Bashi Exhibition / Black Swan Arts Centre.

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Bishi_Bashi Exhibition at the Black Swan Arts Centre Bishi_Bashi Freak_Daddy at Black_Swan Arts Centre, Newcastle Here are the first Flyers for our Exhibition at the Black Swan Arts Centre, Newcastle. It was a really cool night meeting other people and artist's into fanzine creation, illustration and comic art. A guy called Andy Smith, basically put the entire thing together, along with his girlfriend Martine . Excellent job and well done for a creating a buzz within the North East. We were all definitely onto to something here...... If we could keep it going ......

Cliff Sainsbury Planning World Domination with an 'Indie' Title. Freakdaddy comic

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Cliff_Sainsbury holding Freak Daddy Comics Newcastle upon Tyne.  This was me, planning my next issue. I was also sending images to 2000AD , but never heard back. I reckon the work was just a bit too dark for their publication. I continued selling my independent magazine throughout Newcastle and further afield. I was then approached by Bishi Bashi to collaborate on an Exhibition at Newcastle Black Swan.  peep

FreakDaddy Flyer for Issue 2. Newcastle

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Final Freak Daddy Flyer  At this point I was printing around 300 copies per month. I was also selling the comic in more places, such as pubs and established comic book outlets. I was also featured in Newcastle's Evening Chronicle ( The Chronicle) trying to gain a bit of publicity for my work. I contacted Project North East for advice , they were very impressed with the publication and offered me £200.00 to cover costs of my next print run , which was to be  Freak daddy part 2. 

Early Freak Daddy Promotional Flyer with a free serve website.

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Another early Freak_Daddy promotional Flyer. I was still trying to work out a marketing strategy as I was pretty new to distribution and networking. Looking back on this experience, it gave me a good grounding in where to place your time and when to fully research the market. Saying all that, I  wouldn't  of changed anything. The Freeserve website was designed by a good friend called Mark Robson. It was full of sound bites and slideshows. Mark went on to study  Scientology and got offered a job in London.  The stories were getting pretty wacky at some point and I had a great time doing them. I have attached a few examples of the Freak Daddy issues, along with some of the exhibitions I was involved with at the time. 

My first Print-Run of 100 Freak Daddy Comicsback in 1999

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Back in 1999 I embarked on a journey of self expression and creativity. I planned to create my own Graphic Novel called Freak Daddy.  I quickly realised that local magazines were not interested in my work so needed to execute a plan of attack. My influences at the time were the IceBerg Slim books written by the late Robert Beck. I began reading his best seller - Pimp, from cover to cover and soon devoured his whole collection, everything from Trick Baby to Doom Fox.   My story was to be loosely based around a pimp called Freak_Daddy who lived in Chicago around the mid 60s. I cobbled a little story together which went something like this... Freak Daddy accidentally kills his twin brother, he does a small amount of time in jail as he is released by a secret benefactor called Claude. Claude was a police commissioner and had scores to settle on the 'streets' thus , Freak Daddy would be a perfect 'shakedown' person for the job.  The only thing was , is that Freak Daddy n

peep_magazine. How I started a graphic Novel and began illustrating.

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First Freak Daddy Flyer. Available only at the Trent House Pub Newcastle. I spent spent around three year completing three issues. I had a full time job at the time and every night was spent on my floor with a can of beer, paint brush, jar of water and black Guage paint. That's all I needed !  Honest !