The third and final New Thing for Thought Bubble this weekend will be the appearance of my story ‘Spilt Soda’ in the latest experiment from We Are Words + Pictures, Paper Science. Here’s the blurb from editor Matt Sheret:

“Somewhere between a ‘zine and a mini-anthology, Paper Science is a snapshot of what We Are Words + Pictures are interested in at the moment. The only criteria was that the contributors had to throw something together that’s a little bit different from what they usually do, resulting in a collection of illustrations, short stories, comics, essays, an extract from a book and an interview.

A twelve page, full-colour newspaper printed by the lovely folks over at Newspaper Club, 300 copies of Paper Science will be available at Thought Bubble from We Are Words + Pictures. It will cost £1 (£1!), or come free with any other purchase from the We Are Words + Pictures stand.

The contributors are Adam Cadwell, Chrissy Williams, Dan Hancox, Emilie Chalcraft, Julia Scheele, Katie West, Lizz Lunney, Marc Ellerby, Mark Higgins, Mark Oliver, Matt Jones, Matthew Sheret, The Girl With Shit Stories and Tom Humberstone. To find out what they’ve contributed you’ll have to pick up a copy.*

We Are Words + Pictures is an occasionally market stall that stocks ‘zines, comics and small press books. For more information visit www.wearewordsandpictures.com

*or ask them very nicely.”

And here’s a preview of the comic on the back cover, on newsprint as it was originally conceived.

Our comic big success!

Thankfully, quite a few people came by the table on the Sunday after reading the free comic and bought our stuff, so the tatty rag did serve it’s purpose in the end.

This is the final Stockholm strip I’m afraid, back to Manchester based hijinks on Thursday, or next week, or whenever.

I don’t know why I turn into Mister Funnyman at dinner with friend’s parents, later in the weekend I burst out singing the Rainbow theme song for very little reason, but here I was bested by Tomas Petterson. It was a delightful evening that spawned numerous catchphrases and funny motions; Lizz’s angry dinosaur impression and Gunnel’s looking for her glasses motion shall never be forgotten. Thank you Tomas and Gunnel for your hospitality and generosity.

(I may have drawn Matt slightly larger than he really is but Lizz is actually that small.)

I was incredible excited and exasperated all at once.

The tall gentleman who spotted the theme park first would be Mr. Matt Sheret, a fine writer whom I got to know better that weekend, and whose site I shall link you to right now.

Polaroids are used in this comic not for any pretentious reasons but because Liz Greenfield was wielding a chunky instant camera throughout the weekend and if you have a dig through Matt’s site you’ll find he’s quite fond of them too. Here’s two of my favourites from Liz of us all eating strawberries in the Kungstragarden (King’s Garden) including one I used for reference in the comic: