About Me

The Standard Stuff

My name is Derek. After traversing several parts of the lovely county called Staffordshire I know find myself in Birmingham. I've been here for about 5 years and worked here for getting on 7. I work as technician for the Audiology course at Aston University and intend to do so for some time as they're currently paying for my part-time degree in Life Sciences!

Aside from comics, my hobbies include playing guitar and piano, listening to music (live and recorded) and reading things that aren't comics. My genres of choice currently seem to be political thrillers (Robert Ludlum and the ilk) and sprawling space opera (Iain M Banks, Peter F Hamilton etc).

Writing

I hope, at some point, to write a book and get it published (several would be even better!). To this end I took part in NaNoWriMo ( http://www.nanowrimo.org in 2006 and wrote 50,000 words of a pretty mediocre story. However, it did get my creative juices flowing. I still have the urge to write a thriller but suspect it's really not my thing. I have a few ideas but have yet to put pen to paper on them.

Comics

As would be gathered from the above, my primary goal in comics is to be a writer. I don't even necessarily want to be hugely famous. In terms of what I read it basically boils down to anything that isn't superheroes or Strangers In Paradise (sorry Terry!). Although I do favour the darker kind of book.

Whilst not being a published writer yet I have made some progress. I am now website administrator for Orang Utan Comics ( http://www.orangutancomic.co.uk ). More details can be found at the site. I enjoy the work tremendously and hope both OUC and myself can go on to bigger and better things.

As well as being web administrator for Orang Utan Comics I also am now a regular story editor for Approbation Comics. The first two books I was involved in (Amour #2 and Evil Inside #2) are due to be released soon.

Con Appearances

As part of OUC I'll be attending both the Bristol Expo ( www.comicexpo.net ) in May and the Birmingham International Comic Show ( http://www.thecomicsshow.co.uk ) in October.