Reads - Issue 1 (Real Version)

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Despite the best efforts of all involved, the return from Leeds was made with minds, bodies and souls mostly intact. Thought Bubble was excellent fun, and damned inspirational to boot. What more could we ask for? Erasure being played as requested on the Saturday night, that’s what, but then we are very difficult to please…

So we begrudgingly return to the real world. We playfully teased you last week with a mention of Reads Issue 1, the new home of all things comic-like in the world that was and will once more be Tiny Dancing. Now we are coy no more. It is time to let it all hang out.

We showed you the wraparound cover, dreamt up in a fever by Ricky Miller and realised in a storm by Rebecca Strickson, and we told you it was amazing. But we were wrong. It’s also great – and how do we know this? Because Jock told us, that’s how. A wise as well as very nice man - we suspected as much. Here it is again, because it really is amazingly great.


But what else is there? Well as this is a first issue we thought we’d give you a bit of hot value. That explains the 48 pages (48!) that contain the next instalments of Ricky and Steve Horry’s dinosaur infested Hilary Harper expedition, Tim Bird’s beautiful musings on youth in suburbia, Michael Gosden’s first glimpse of the fate that awaits Shelby Matthews (I even helped a bit with that one), and Ricky rounding things off with the final pieces of the Metroland puzzle he's been putting in place in order to introduce the band. Here are some temptingly arty photos of all that:





I’m really not being a mental when I assure you that everyone involved has produced their best work, and that for the bargain price of £3.00 you will be owning something that we really are rather proud of. Get your hands on a copy by doing the Paypals below, or by sending me an email to work out what we call in these parts a ‘solution’. It’s what we’re all about. Unless we’re in a casino in Leeds at 4am, when we’ve got to be up in about four hours to try and be retail professionals for an entire day. That one we still need to put some work into.


THE AVERY HILL PUBLISHING SHOP!


EDIT: We think we've worked out the problem some people have been having with the PayPal link. It's all a bit fingers crossed, but we believe it had something to do with 'masking' - that could be a technical term, or we could have made it up - that's the level of competence you're dealing with here.

So, if you can't get the PayPal button above to work go here and use the PayPal button on that page - it'll look exactly the same, but it should work.

If you're still not having any joy with the PayPal after trying that, send me an email at
dancer@tinydancing.co.uk, and we'll sort out another way of transacting. We won't let the machines beat us. Oh no.

ANOTHER EDIT: Or, get yourself down to Orbital Comics, because we've finally got our act together and got them stocked up with some hot copies, just in time for Christmas. Whilst there, check out the Solipsistic Pop exhibition, and Ryan Hall's Mr Freeze Takes Over Christmas and be amazed and inspired in equal measure.

NEW! NEW! NEW!

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And lo, they did say that after the calm did come the storms and that. And they were very, very right indeed.

We've been a bit quiet lately. If you've seen me walking down the street, I may have nodded and serenely smiled, perhaps even proffered a cheeky wink, but deep inside I was a tumultuous whirlwind of new. 'New what?', you may well ask. 'New this!' is my response.

THE FIRST NEW - following a meeting in a pub a little while ago (yes, we have meetings - sometimes we even have an agenda), we decided it was time to relieve the pressure building on Tiny Dancing's dainty seams. It couldn't take it anymore. Something was going to blow. So we opened the little pressure relieving tap and what did spew forth? The comics did. The comics did spew forth. We took that as a sign, and if you know anything about us at all, you know we like a good sign.

So we took the comics, and we cared for them, and we gave them a new home. That home is called Reads. Here is the cover image for Reads Issue 1, by Rebecca Strickson. It is amazing.




Reads Issue 1 will be born this Thursday. From that point forthwards, Reads will be the receptacle of the amazing comics from the likes of Tim Bird, Michael Gosden, Steven Horry, Ricky Miller and more that you've seen in Tiny Dancing, and will put them together in a beautiful place where they will live side by side and make you happy. Happiness is a good thing.

And fear not - Tiny Dancing will live on, and will blossom into an even more fulsome creature, with all the same creative wonders that we had before, but with more room for more of them wonders. Tiny Dancing Issue 7 will be out by the end of the year with a bit of luck, and it's already shaping up to be a bit special.

THE SECOND NEW - with Reads spewing forth from Tiny Dancing, it looks to me like we have something of a publishing empire on our hands. And if you know anything about us at all, you know we like a good publishing empire. So following a different meeting in the same pub, we decided it was time to make all this a bit official. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you - Avery Hill Publishing. We've got a logo. This is it.



Reads Issue 1 will be the first Avery Hill publication, Tiny Dancing Issue 7 will be the second, but the third... well, that's where we get a bit dreamy. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I've said too much. Let us speak of this another day...

THE THIRD NEW - for the first time, this weekend we're going on a journey. Against all common sense and expert advice we're getting on a train armed with boxes of our wares, and we're going to 'Leeds' for the Thought Bubble Festival. We have a table. We have a backboard. We have to summon up enough energy to man said table for two days. This is still very exciting though.



All the information on Thought Bubble is here. It looks likely to be something of a weekend with lots of special guests, talks, signings, and... us. We're on Table E in Saviles Hall if you want to look us up. We'll be the chaps who look like they haven't got a clue what's going on. Speak softly and soothingly when you first approach us. We find that works the best.

That was the new. I feel a lot better now.