Ascend Unto Unknown Realms of Hot Trash

...or alternatively drink deep and descend into the Oubliette!

While I've been working away on some very exciting stuff with the excellent Mark Brady, I've been doing a bit of DIY zine action on the side. And here they aaaaare:

Oubliette: a short story from a deep hole. A 12 page plus card cover comic which debuted at the excellent Glasgow Zine Fest in April this year.

And new for this year's once again excellent Glasgow Comic Con in July is Hot Trash Dimension, a 12-page plus hawwwt pink cover collection of weirdo illustration and misguided fan art.

You can get these rascals in my online shop for a single morgul coin (£1). More illustration and zine-garbage in the works!

Glasgow Con and New Work - A Welcome Breeze of Fetid Air

New comics are here, all up in your face and also eyeballs!

I'd meant to post some details of all the new work I had going on at this year's Glasgow Comic Con before the event, but yer old pal Craig was busy folding and stapling comics into the dead of the night and didn't manage to. So here we are...

I had an excellent time of Glasgow Comic Con once again, made some new pals and saw some exciting new work both by creators I knew and didn't, and the new venue seems to suit the event really well. I was on a speed-drawing panel, hardly my natural environment but a good time, and I was really pleased to have a strip in the Con's official Awesome! Anthology collaborating with my good pal and national treasure Neil Slorance. We did a deeply profound Battletoads comic called "Bufo Proelium, Bufo Paenitet". Here's a page:

There's loads of cool strips in their including work by Zyzanna Dominiak and Łukasz Kowalczuk, and check out that amazing big bear by BHP's Kirsty Hunter. You can even read the whole thing online for free. Get to it!

My big new effort for 2016 was launched! Medieval Times by me and the excellent Mark Brady went down great and people seemed to really like them, and we were left with just a handful by the end of the weekend. Some more info on these wee rascals in a previous post. I've now made up a new batch, and they're available in my online shop now. Make like the medieval English infantry and go forth and pillage!

I also finally released my Ultimate Ross Geller Fanzine, which for something so profoundly stupid seemed to go down very well indeed, which was lovely because I put a great deal of effort into it considering it's profoundly stupid. It's available online now, eight pages plus covers charting the life experiences of everyone's favourite F.R.I.E.N.D in the context of Occult Armageddon. Get one over at Central Perk.

Lastly I released upon this unfortunate world a couple of new microcomics that I give out for free (the last lot are here) so if you're picking up anything from my online shop some of these are sure to creep their way into the envelope. If you like hand-folded Space Marine illustration zines then hoooo boy nerds, have I got a treat for you.

It's been great to get some new work out there, so a big thanks to Mark and Neil for their collaboration. I've got a lot of different things simmering away, so stay tuned for some new comics soon!

Lurching Toward Legitimacy...!

It's possible but unlikely that you might have seen my ill-conceived prank in which my "successful line of children's adventure fiction Foes Forever" was presented on the shelves of Waterstones...

Well look here if it isn't me and Iain Laurie's books, genuinely and legitimately available in Waterstones of Argyl Street Glasgow, and the Graphic Novels of the Month at that!

A sincere thanks to Waterstones for having our work in store, and for the generous feature spot!

Scottish MCM Comic Con: Beyond The Wall

I'm very excited to be at this weekend's first ever Scottish MCM Comic Con (7th September) in the frozen wasteland of the SECC, tabling my comics in the Comics Village along with a massive but undisciplined warband of talented indie creators! It looks to be a very busy exhibition with a great deal going on, and for a pretty cheap entry too...

Here's a wee round up of the books I'll be selling - do drop Table C11 by and check them out, say hello and have a chat. Note that Metrodome cosplay is actively encouraged!

Metrodome: by me and Iain Laurie. Drawn from The Metro like poison from a wound, Eight Contenders in The Fight for Survival, The Battle for Ultimate Victory! An experimental production in creation, destruction and survival, in a comic created from a single edition of the free UK newspaper The Metro. Sized A5, 24 pages Black and White with colour cover, released July 2013 (£3.00).

"The characters emerge fully formed from the deepest, darkest depths of the magnificently poisonous headspaces of Collins and Laurie... If you like your comics unsettling, in-yer-face and gratuitously grotesque then you can’t go wrong with the wicked and wily wit of these guys." Broken Frontier.


Haunted Bowels: A collection of small press comedy comics - gruesome gags and oddball humour, surreal comedy and morbid light entertainment. Omniscient beings, strange cowboys, troubled poets and unruly spectres and much more await within...!

Nominated for Best Comic and Best Writer at the 2012 Scottish Independent Comic Book Awards.
Sized A5, 24 pages Black and White with colour cover, released June 2012 (£3.00).Chocked to the gills with comics and featuring art by a multiuide of fine comics artists from Scotland and beyond.

"Yep, funny and surreal, dark, gruesome fun inside with a series of wildly different art styles..." Forbidden Planet.

"In the strips that make up Haunted Bowels, Collins combines clever bad taste humour with perceptive pop cultural parody... ruthless satirical swagger" Broken Frontier.

"That dichotomy between wry observational humour and outright bad taste lies at the heart of Collins’ best work... Collins’ love of horror elevates his comics to the extent that I suspect we’re only getting a glimpse of what he’s be capable of on a more sustained project" Starburst Magazine.


Roachwell: A surreal horror comedy comic by me and Iain Laurie. Sized A5, 28 pages Black and White with colour cover, collected June 2011 (£3.00). Featured in Indie anthologies Hive 4 and 5 and New British Comics #2. Nominated for Best Comic and Best Writer at the 2011 Scottish Independent Comic Book Awards.

"It’s a clever, solid, surreal and funny comic – and at its end, it manages all four in one strip." - Forbidden Planet.

"This is exquisitely macabre material drenched in a flawless cynicism; wonderfully and self-indulgently morbid in its delivery, it is gruesomely entertaining fare" Broken Frontier.

"...refreshingly weird, effortlessly funny and at times just plain psychotic... Funny, frightening and a world unto itself..." - Comic Heroes.

"...an interesting meld between Collins' absurd blackout gags and Laurie's intensely hatched and grotesque character work". Rob Clough's The High-Low.


Crawl Hole: A collection of surreal horror comedy comic by me and Iain Laurie. Trilingual comics, relationships past and the terrors of the Vengabus await... Sized A5, 16 pages Black and White with colour cover, released August 2013 (£2.50). Includes work featured in Indie anthologies New British Comics (UK), Top Shelf Online (USA), Lazer Art-Zine (Belgium) and Yuck (Australia).

"As usual with these gents, gore, violence and a twisted sense of humour is real high in the mix... All in all, this one is slight, but manages to do the important thing; it’s satisfying, with ideas that make the sum of the experience far greater than the page-count". Forbidden Planet.

Forbidden Planet - Roachwell / Crawl Hole cover spotlight. 

Of course, if you fancy any of these but are nowhere near Glasgow you can head over to my Big Cartel Shop. You, yes YOU, could be the guy who pulls a gun because we're no longer serving the breakfast menu!

Stripped to the bone...

I'm very excited to be exhibiting at this weekend's Stripped Mini Comic Fair, part of the 2013 Edinburgh International Book Festival, and here's a wee roundup of the books available at my table...

Metrodome: by me and Iain Laurie. Drawn from The Metro like poison from a wound, Eight Contenders in The Fight for Survival, The Battle for Ultimate Victory! An experimental production in creation, destruction and survival, in a comic created from a single edition of the free UK newspaper The Metro. Sized A5, 24 pages Black and White with colour cover, released July 2013 (£3.00).

"The characters emerge fully formed from the deepest, darkest depths of the magnificently poisonous headspaces of Collins and Laurie... If you like your comics unsettling, in-yer-face and gratuitously grotesque then you can’t go wrong with the wicked and wily wit of these guys." Broken Frontier.


Haunted Bowels: A collection of small press comedy comics - gruesome gags and oddball humour, surreal comedy and morbid light entertainment. Omniscient beings, strange cowboys, troubled poets and unruly spectres and much more await within...!

Nominated for Best Comic and Best Writer at the 2012 Scottish Independent Comic Book Awards.
Sized A5, 24 pages Black and White with colour cover, released June 2012 (£3.00).Chocked to the gills with comics and featuring art by a multiuide of fine comics artists from Scotland and beyond.

"Yep, funny and surreal, dark, gruesome fun inside with a series of wildly different art styles..." Forbidden Planet.

"In the strips that make up Haunted Bowels, Collins combines clever bad taste humour with perceptive pop cultural parody... ruthless satirical swagger" Broken Frontier.

"That dichotomy between wry observational humour and outright bad taste lies at the heart of Collins’ best work... Collins’ love of horror elevates his comics to the extent that I suspect we’re only getting a glimpse of what he’s be capable of on a more sustained project" Starburst Magazine.


Roachwell: A surreal horror comedy comic by me and Iain Laurie. Sized A5, 28 pages Black and White with colour cover, collected June 2011 (£3.00). Featured in Indie anthologies Hive 4 and 5 and New British Comics #2. Nominated for Best Comic and Best Writer at the 2011 Scottish Independent Comic Book Awards.

"It’s a clever, solid, surreal and funny comic – and at its end, it manages all four in one strip." - Forbidden Planet.

"This is exquisitely macabre material drenched in a flawless cynicism; wonderfully and self-indulgently morbid in its delivery, it is gruesomely entertaining fare" Broken Frontier.

"...refreshingly weird, effortlessly funny and at times just plain psychotic... Funny, frightening and a world unto itself..." - Comic Heroes.

"...an interesting meld between Collins' absurd blackout gags and Laurie's intensely hatched and grotesque character work". Rob Clough's The High-Low.


Crawl Hole: A collection of surreal horror comedy comic by me and Iain Laurie. Trilingual comics, relationships past and the terrors of the Vengabus await... Sized A5, 16 pages Black and White with colour cover, released August 2013 (£2.50). Includes work featured in Indie anthologies New British Comics (UK), Top Shelf Online (USA), Lazer Art-Zine (Belgium) and Yuck (Australia).

"As usual with these gents, gore, violence and a twisted sense of humour is real high in the mix... All in all, this one is slight, but manages to do the important thing; it’s satisfying, with ideas that make the sum of the experience far greater than the page-count". Forbidden Planet.

Forbidden Planet - Roachwell / Crawl Hole cover spotlight. 

Of course, if you fancy any of these but are nowhere near Edinburgh you can head over to my Big Cartel Shop. You, yes YOU, could be that little kid who shoots Omar when he's in for a packet of smokes!

Exhaustive Self-Promotional Götterdammerung over! It's an honour to be a part of this and the inaugural Stripped festival, and I hope both Stripped and the fair have many healthy years to come. If you're seeing other events at Stripped this weekend or in Edinburgh, come by and say hello and check out the wealth and diversity of talent that will be on show at the Mini Comic Fair.

 Featuring all these cool and talented folks! 

Enter The Crawl Hole....!

Crawl Hole: a new comic by me and Iain Laurie, and the spiritual cousin of sorts to Roachwell....

Sensationally bloody colouring job on the cover by Derek Dow. 

Crawl Hole is a collection of short surreal comedic horror strips, some of which you may have seen here and others that are completely new. Includes work featured in New British Comics (UK), Top Shelf Online (USA), Lazer Art Zine (Belgium) and Yuck! magazine (Australia).

A 16pg A5 comic, colour cover black and white comic. £2.50 plus p&p. Available now! 

 

Summer to Autumn 2013: Campaign of Terror!

This year I'm finally diving headlong into the abyss, and starting to table my comics at events. Exciting times!

Later this suummer I'll be at the Edinburgh International Book Festival's Stripped Comic Book Fest, taking part in the Mini Comic Fair on the 24th-25th of August in Edinburgh's Charlotte Square:

There's a wealth of Scottish comics talent exhibiting and entry is free, so do drop by...


Next up, I'll be exhibiting at the first ever Scottish MCM Expo, on the 7th of September in the Comics Village. I'd like to take this opportunity to say that Metrodome Cosplay is actively encouraged...

And finally, the largest and frankly most intimidating of them all: Thought Bubble!

You can find me in exhibiting in the New Dock Hall on the 23-24th of November, along with this vast horde of slavering ravenous comicsters... Look for the my exhibitor icon!:

I'll be selling Roachwell, Metrodome and Haunted Bowels at all of these events, and possibly a sneaky something else... Or alternatively, Glasgow pals can get all of these comics at Plan B Books, Forbidden Planet Glasgow and Geek Retreat, or anyone in the whole goddamn world can stop by my Big Cartel Shop.

Hope to see you there!

Enter The Metrodome!

At long last, Metrodome has arrived!

More information at MetrodomeBattle. Available now!

Haunted Bowels Phantom Newsround

Some news and reviews tumbling forth from the Haunted Bowels...

Ahem-hem. I'm pleased to say Haunted Bowels has received more positive reviews...

First up is on High-Low Comics, where Rob Clough has plenty of good things to say including "Accustomed as I am to seeing cerebral if visceral horror stories from Collins, it was amusing to see him riff on pop culture and lay down some deadly puns".

It's all about the Round-Ups, as Henry Northmore grabs the Scottish Small Press by the scruff of its filthy neck in Scotland's premier events and entertainment magazine The List, and describes Haunted Bowels as "... satisfyingly weird as long as you like pitch-black sci-fi/fantasy-themed humour." And surely you do!

Phillip Buchan review Haunted Bowels in the mighty Starburst Magazine, nestling me between reviews of Scott Snyder and Craig Thompson like a turd betwixt two tiaras. Among Phillip's comments are "That dichotomy between wry observational humour and outright bad taste lies at the heart of Collins’ best work..."

And "...Collins’ love of horror elevates his comics to the extent that I suspect we’re only getting a glimpse of what he’s be capable of on a more sustained project".

 Startburst #380 - available in all good newsagents and Aggro-Domes now!

Phillip also sets me against the "wholesome, Guardian-friendly fodder being created by so many independent artists around the UK" and likens Haunted Bowels to "the grotesqueries of Frank Quitely or the confrontational stylings of Mark Millar" which makes me sound far more bad-ass than actually I am.

And as an aside Rob Clough is back reviewing New British Comics in The Comics Journal as part of a Survey of International Small Press, giving a nod to me and Iain Laurie's strip "The Quiet Burden".

So thanks to all the above for the very kind review! You can head over to my Big Cartel store, but you won't find any copies of Haunted Bowels to buy I'm afraid. Either I sold them to you, or I gave you one because I think you're cool and I like your work. But I'll print more soon, so check back sometime!

Haunted Bowels Ghostly Update

Some spooky news and reviews emanating from the Haunted Bowels...

Ahem. Haunted Bowels has received a couple of pretty warm reviews. First up is the excellent Forbidden Planet Blog, where Richard Bruton calls it  "...funny and surreal, dark, gruesome fun inside with a series of wildly different art styles..." and compares my work to Evan Dorkin, Charles Addams and Gahan Wilson! Read the review over here...

It's also been reviewed over at Comics Anonymous, where Linsay Powell gave it a smashing 8 out of 10 and declared it so enjoyable that it gave her the "kick up the arse" required to drop some more woeful mainstream publisher's titles from her monthly comics haul... but which ones!?

In other news, the Glasgow Comic Com will soon be upon us, and Haunted Bowels has been nominated for a couple of awards at the Scottish Independent Comic Books Awards (SICBAs). I'm up for Best Comic and Best Writer (the same categories as I was nominated in last year for Roachwell), along with the following people and books:

Best Comic:
 ALL YOU CAN EAT 1 & 2
GUTS POWER
HAUNTED BOWELS
JON BOT VS MARTHA
KING EVIL
MAXIMUM ALAN
NO MORE HEROES
RAISING AMY
REALITY WAR
ROSE BLACK DEMON SEED
THE STANDARD
STAR TRUDGE
X 

Best Writer:

COLIN BELL - JON BOT VS MARTHA
CRAIG COLLINS - HAUNTED BOWELS
JOHN LEES - THE STANDARD
ROSS LEONARD - MAXIMUM ALAN
JASON MATHIS - ALL YOU CAN EAT
GORDON MCCLEAN - NO MORE HEROES
PAUL JON MILNE - GUTS POWER
STUART MORRISON - REALITY WAR
STEPHEN WHITE - RAISING AMY
STEPHEN WHITE - X

Needless to say I don't expect my heavy-breathing book of weird and gruesome gags to capture the hearts and minds of the voting public, but it's an honour to be among these talented nominees and good luck to everyone, especially my good pals Curt Sibling, Rob Miller and Colin Bell.

I'll be about at the Con and most likely packing some copies, so please come on over and harass me if you'd like one, or alternatively you can ram-raid my Big Cartel store if you'd like on by post!

Forever Foes!

Everyone seems to be getting in on the children's book market these days... Madonna, Katie Price, Idi Amin and many more. And just as they stretched their respective talents beyond pop music, brutal repression and having big tits, I have done the same and launched my own line of children's novels!

Proudly brought to you by Harry Potter publishers Bloomsbury, FOREVER FOES! is available in all good bookshops including Waterstone's as seen below. FOREVER FOES! follows the adventures of a series of different villainous adventurers "...as they run the gamut of negative human experience, smashing and fucking everything in their path!". Wowee!

A close up of those covers so your six to twelve-year old knows what to look for on Amazon, with each character brought to life by a different talented artist from the Scottish comics underground.

 Volume I: Fear, Emptiness, Despair.

 Volume II: To Philosophise With A Hammer

Volume III: Bastards of Ragnarok

Available now in national bookstores!:

A good look at the blurb, to reel in those enthusiatic young minds:

And here are the central characters, soon to be appearing on lunchboxes, stationery and backpacks and that kind of stuff:

Lust Ghost - by Spanky

Spewnicorn - by Robert Thomson

 Gaseous Bastard - by Rob Miller

Meat Nun - by Paul McCann

Plague Chef - by James Corcoran

The Wicker Gran - by Alex Ronald

 

Prison Troll - by Curt Sibling

 

 Gory Tory - by Dave Alexander

Space Racist - by Iain Laurie

Thanks to each of these very skilled gentlemen for lending their talents and tolerating the excruciating Bloomsbury editorial process.


BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!

In keeping with the fine tradition of cynical cash-ins and exhaustive merchandising, there's also the FOREVER FOES collectable card game FOE TRUMPS! Simply click to embiggen, print, snip, glue then destroy your opponents without mercy! Check out these cool kids engaged in a deadly match.

 Jim "Destroyer" Devlin is furious as Manglin' Paul McCann smites him with a killer play!

Expand your game - more Foe Trumps to follow! Gotta Catch 'Em All!

 
Gee willikers, sir! My favourite Foe has gotta be...