It's all the fault of two people called Dave.

I'd more or less given up on comics (reading and producing them) in 1987. I'd sent off samples to Marvel and Viz resulting in the inevitable rejection slips.
Then the lovely David Gedge, of indie band The Wedding Present, began running the (very badly drawn) cartoons I'd submitted in a Weddoes fanzine called 'Invasion of the Wedding Present' for a few years and my enthusiasm for producing comics was rekindled.

Upon discovering Dave Sim's 'Cerebus' the following year, the spark became a flame and I set myself a goal: to produce twenty pages of comics a month while working a full time job and still having some kind of a social life (just try it some time!).
This insane idea eventually bore the fruit of the 'One For Sorrow' saga, which took up most of my time between 1991 and 2000. It started life as an eighty page one off story about a prostitute, her girlfriend and her insane brother, until the main character, Carol Roswell, decided that there was a lot more to her story than I had anticipated. I scrapped the original story, although the basic ideas and themes formed the basis for the longer one, which clocks in at one thousand pages.
I'm happy with how most of it turned out, although the artwork in the first two books is profoundly amateurish and I have reservations about the futuristic setting I placed Carol's daughter in (a story that still needs telling and I can't work up any enthusiasm for).
I sent each book to various publishers as soon as they were completed, only to receive, again, the inevitable rejection slips. Paul Gravett was very kind and displayed a few pages in a London gallery show. Matt Silvie of Fantagraphics provided very positive feedback via mail and even gave my work a generous review in the Comics Journal.

I moved on to autobiographical strips in 2000, setting myself the task of producing half a page a day for a full year, which resulted in the 'My Year' books, some of which were bought up by Chris Staros of Top Shelf Productions, but still nobody wanted to actually publish my work.

The following year I began to wonder what the point was. Nobody was going to see this stuff, I couldn't afford to print it properly (they were all done on a photocopier) and I was beginning to feel very tired and disillusioned. So I stopped drawing.

Last year, I contacted David Gedge (for the first time in years) via email, to share my grief over the death of John Peel and wish him all the best with the newly reformed Wedding Present. He put me in touch with (fellow 'Invasion' contributor) Paul at Zum! Comics, bringing everything, rather neatly, full circle.

Paul has very kindly set up this website showcasing my stuff, which I hope will generate some interest at least. If you like what you see, please let me know-my creativity is fuelled by positive feedback!
Who knows, I might even start drawing again.