Cooey the Pigeon is a bird of good comics taste. She gets in a flap every time a new issue of The Phoenix drops through the door.

Here’s what she likes best about Issues 2 and 3. Straight from the knitted pigeon’s beak…

ISSUE 2

Hooray! It’s Gary’s Garden by Fleece Stationer Gary Northfield! Gary is the first Fleece Stationer to have a strip in The Phoenix, and may Cooey say it’s the best strip EVER! (She just did)

Cooey admits to being a little traumatised by how much goes wrong in Patrice Agg‘s Blimpville. But this pigeon-based attack made her giggle mischievously.

The spooky tale of The Whistling Ghost freaked Cooey out so much she had to nest in my pocket for a whole hour. Thanks John Dickinson (writer) and Warwick Johnson-Cadwell (drawing person and Fleece Station chum).

Cooey loved Ghost Ant by Fleece favourite Dave Shelton. She wants to befriend him and take him to anger management (the ant, not Dave).

Chris Riddell rules. Cooey says so.

ISSUE THREE

Cooey was all aflutter at the crazy action in this week’s Pirates of Pangea (by Daniel Hartwell and Neill Cameron). She demands her own dinosaur.

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This is Cooey’s favourite panel from Star Cat (by James Turner) this week. She laughed so hard her beak nearly fell off.

Cooey envies Castanett from the Etherington Brothers‘ Long Gone Don. He has an excellent hat. Though she still has no idea where Don has actually gone…

Dave Shelton‘s A Boy, a Bear and a Boat is Cooey’s favourite nesttime reading at the moment. She loves that people got a sneak of the story in The Phoenix but also thinks you should all buy the book. It really is very lovely

If the idea of an infinite supply of peanut butter sarnies wasn’t fabulous enough for Cooey, Adam Murphy‘s The Peanut-Butter Princess was so funny she very near exploded. Cooey gives this one two wings up (as she has no thumbs and only two wings).

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That’s your lot. Two issues of The Phoenix shown some love by the world’s most infamous knitted pigeon.

Laugh your own beak off by subscribing to The Phoenix over at their website. Or look out for it in Waitrose stores and independent comic shops (like Gosh).

Cooey will peck her faves from Issue 4 very soon…

The Phoenix is a shiny new story comic featuring comic strips (obviously), puzzles, competitions, and things to do. It also features stuff by some of our lovely comics friends and some people we don’t know very well (yet). And there’s Gary’s ‘Gary’s Garden’ strip and very soon a strip by Sarah too! Woo hoo!

Last month we all went along to the official launch (which you can read all about on Sarah’s blog) to celebrate The Phoenix taking flight.

Cooey the Pigeon, my tiny fibre-feathered sidekick, also came along. We loved the comic so much we subscribed as soon as we got home.

In fact Cooey is so in love with The Phoenix love she’s decided to pick out her very favourite bits each week and post them here on the Fleece Station blog.

We’re a little behind so here are Issues 0 and 1 all in one go! Take it away, Cooey!

Issue 0

Woo hoo! Dino-pirate win! Pirates of Pangea, drawn by Fleece Station friend Neill Cameron and written Daniel Hartwell. Cooey wants to be a pteranodon now. Sigh.

Cooey cannot begin to tell you how much she hearts Star Cat by James Turner (another Fleece Station amigo). Her coos of laughter can be heard miles away.

Learn to draw comics with a monkey in a hat. Fabulous. (Cooey fails to notice she’s a doofus. Hee hee.)

Spooky comics goodness. Cooey enjoyed Silk Roads: The Apprentice, drawn by John Welding and written by Ben Haggarty, very much indeed.

Cooey’s brain may be fairly small but she is a big fan of learning. Corpse Talk‘s Adam Murphy interviewed the skeleton of Amelia Earhart. Very inspiring stuff.

Issue 1

Oh Bunny vs Monkey by Mr Jamie Smart (another Fleece Station friend). Cooey thinks your comic is awfully coo-l. It did make her a bit shouty after reading though. Monkey influence.

The little Lucie strip by Fleece Station pal Simone Lia is ever so very lovely and reminds Cooey of her time in the nest with her own siblings.

Wowzers. Look at the feathers on Silk Roads: The Golden Feather, drawn by Fleece Station chum Garen Ewing this time. Cooey is now demanding we cover her in glitter glue.

You might miss Planet of Shapes by the mysterious Ricardo Tangle as it’s a teeny tiny strip but it’s so funny Cooey fell off her perch several times reading it.

So there we have it. Two issues of The Phoenix get a feathered thumbs up (if she had thumbs) from Cooey the Pigeon (who you can also follow of Twitter).

If you fancy seeing for yourself you can subscribe to The Phoenix over at their website. Or look out for it in Waitrose stores and independent comic shops too.

More of Cooey’s favourites coming soon…

Come read the online short story I just illustrated for Philip Reeve! It’s part of his amazing Mortal Engines world, and if you haven’t read his books, you’re in for a treat.

In Ellen’s honour, we’ve just had another play session of Plan B’s Rakin’ the Dead:

Nelson is a graphic novel created by not one, not two, not even three but 54 of Britian’s best comic creating talent squished into one amazing life story. The basic idea is that each creator helps tell the life story of the book’s main character, Nel Baker, by showing what happens on a single day in their particular year of her life. Each done in their own comic style.

The concept was the crazed ‘wouldn’t it be great if this actually works’ idea of Fleece Station friend Rob Davis, who teamed up with our pal Woodrow Phoenix to see if it could be done. Enter 52 other comic artists kindly agreeing to create their part for free, and the infamous Mr Kenny Penman and Blank Slate Books who agreed to make it all happen in print.

Throw is piles of paper, rivers of ink, barrages of emails, clouds of hair tufts being pulled out, looming deadlines and some impressive story wrangling, and mix wildly for eight months.

Nel Baker finally stepped from the pages on November 18th and jaw-droppingly lovely she is too. From 1968 up until today she lives and breathes in inky comic brilliance, and happily for the Fleece Station we’ve been three of the proud parents.

The Fleece Station’s part in the Nelson story begins with the lovely Ellen, who introduces us to a shiny-eyed one-year-old Nel in 1970 (possibly some of my favourite Nel dialogue in the book. “Tooty” being a word that grown ups just don’t use enough).

Two years later Gary picks up Nel and drops her in his own charming little 1972 back garden (check out the perfect little birds on the roof in the first panel for Northfield ‘birdlife win’), complete with unexpected wildlife, screaming and flying vegetables.

Lastly for us Fleecers Sarah bounces Nel into 1973 with the ever-present cheeky smile and the mysterious disappearance of a classroom pet. Space hoppers will never go out of fashion for us Fleecers.

There are so many Fleece Station friends in here we may implode with excitement. In order of appearance (takes giant deep breath): Paul Grist, Rob Davis, Woodrow Phoenix, Ellen Lindner, Jamie Smart, Gary Northfield, Sarah McIntyre, Suzy Varty, Sean Longcroft, Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, Luke Pearson, Paul Harrison-Davies, Katie Green, Paul Peart-Smith, Glyn Dillon, I.N.J.Culbard, John Allison, Philip Bond, D’Israeli, Simone Lia, Darryl Cunningham, Jonathan Edwards, Ade Salmon, Kate Charlesworth, Warren Pleece, Kristyna Baczynski, HarveyJames, Rian Hughes, Sean Phillips & Pete Doree, Kate Brown, Simon Gane, Jon McNaught, Adam Cadwell, Faz Choudhury, JAKe, Jeremy Day, Dan McDaid, Roger Langridge, Will Morris, Dave Shelton, Carol Swain, Hunt Emerson, Duncan Fegredo, Philippa Rice, Josceline Fenton, Garen Ewing, Tom Humberstone , Dan Berry, Alice Duke, Posy Simmonds, Laura Howell, Andi Watson, and Dave Taylor…

And fabulously Nelson is raising money for the homeless charity Shelter with the profits from the the first run of copies going straight to the charity. Ah, the warm fuzzy charity comics feeling.

What on earth has Nelson got to do with me? I was ever so proud of my studio mates. As the only non-comics person in the Fleece Station I have been fascinated watching Nelson come together since the start and I have fallen hard for the lovely lady and her tale. With 54 artists to wrangle and a whole week of Nelson events to make happen I realised that making sure every creator got their kudos was going to be a toughie. So I contacted Martin Steenton and Kenny Penman and offered them a bit of help in the form of shiny metal circles and some of my marketing/social media kung fu.

Ladies and gents, these are the Nelson badges:

Ta dah!

My idea was to donate (and custom make) 54 exclusive edition Nelson badges (with a few extras for the rest of the Nelson team) to the Nelson cause. One custom made badge for every Nelson creator, which showed their name and told the world that they were one of the Nelsonites.

Oooo shiny!

The badges would then be given out to each Nelson creator to be worn with pride at every Nelson event, comics event and at fancy dinner parties (if they were feeling particularly Nelsony) to point out to comics fans and Nelson lovers that they were the ones who had made it all happen.

Cue a whirl of studio activity as all Fleece Stationers got stuck in and created the things of loveliness.

The Nelson badges won’t be worn by any one but the people who helped bring Nelson to life. This means that:

• Fans know who to ask for autographs
• Press know who to ask questions of
• Nelson lovers know who to say “Your pages were the best! You rule!” to
• Creators get to stand proudly out from the crowd at Nelson events in return for all their hard work

The badges bask in the Leeds sunshine

All this means I have a mission. A mission to find all 54 Nelson creators and make sure they get their shiny Nelson badge.

While trying to complete this mission I will also get them all to sign my copy of Nelson and photograph each one wearing their Nelson badge with pride.

Will I complete my mission bringing Nelson badge goodness to each and every one? Will I fill my book with signatures? Will I manage to find a way to involve knitting in any of this comics madness? Only time will tell. Watch this space. Nelson badge victory awaits!

First stop, Thought Bubble in Leeds…

[To be continued]

One of Deptford's long-term residents

We love the area of Deptford (and some of the less scary bits of New Cross during daylight hours) where our little Fleece Station lives, but sometimes it’s hard to explain to people just how much there is to do here and what makes it so fantabulous.

Lucky for us the good folks at Goldsmiths have made a video to show you around. It’s got some of our favourite folks and places in it too. There’s Deptford Market where we buy all manner of odd things from wigs and telescopes to ships in bottles and billiard balls; the brilliant Bearspace Gallery; Panda Panda where we slurp our bubble tea; the Deptford Project where we stuff our faces with excellent cake in an old train carriage; and The Big Red, a double decker pizza bus.

Well, making comics and crafty stuff is hungry work!

Cast your peepers over the film, or better still come and see it for yourself.

Huge woolly hugs to the lovely Deptford Dame for the link. You rock.

Mr Titchmarsh, just WHAT are you planning to do with Plarchie in that phonebox? Scandal.

I can’t look!

But it’s all for a good cause… More info about the book Stitch London here. Buy one. Buy a hundred!

The reveling crowds scoffed beautiful cupcakes while wriggling away from Plarchie the Squid’s roving tentacles.

And hey, look! The whole Fleece Station appears in the book, elegant fashion models that we are!

So go and find out more – and buy the book! – on the Stitch London website! And here’s a little speech by Lauren’s editor at David & Charles, and the brilliant Lauren herself.