You may already be familiar with the UK Government’s Petition website. And, if you’ve spent more than seven minutes reading any of the petitions there, you may already be aware that an alarming number of these petitions are stupid, poorly thought out, and in come cases remarkably racist or xenophobic. Many of them aren’t actually Government business.

Fellow Jump Leads writer Andrew Taylor and I have subscribed to the site’s RSS feed for some time and were sharing the more ridiculous ones with each other on Google Reader, but a few weeks ago we decided it might be a pretty swell idea to collect them on a blog instead. And that blog is But, Sir….

Feel free to check it out. Or don’t. Either way is good.

The filler strip I was expecting to receive on Thursday for Friday wasn’t sent to me at all, it seems, and I don’t have one for tomorrow either. Fortunately I have some alternate content to go up for Tuesday’s post, and on Friday we should ideally be looking at the cover for Issue #5, Who Wants To Rule The World? written by Paul Varley.

Stay tuned, Grue Believers!

(Do you see what I did there?)

The internet is chock-a-block full of ironic tee-shirts, but none quite as ironic as the one we’ve just added to the Jump Leads Apparel store:

Now that is irony. It’s available in men’s and women’s sizes. I can only apologise about the price - it’s not something we currently have any control over as we can’t currently afford to pre-fabricate our tee-shirts.

Back in March, Jump Leads was represented at the UK Web & Mini Comix Thing ‘08 by myself, Euan and Paul, as well as the young and incredibly enthusiastic “Honorary Teammember For The Day”, Rowan. In the coming ‘09 event our presence is going to be even better. How many of us do you think will be there?

Oh, how about all of us?

I’ll be flying in from the States. Issue #3 writer Euan Mumford will be there, as will Issue #5 writer Paul Varley and, hopefully, Issue #6 writer Andrew Taylor. But perhaps the most important appearance will be none other than the Jump Leads artist himself, JjAR, who is planning to fly in from Russia for the event! (Although, as a word of warning, that could change. Watch this space should there be any alterations to the line-up.)

What will we be doing? Well, I imagine there will be books to sell. We are maybe as soon as two weeks away from the publication of the first Jump Leads trade paperback, Tales From The Flurry. We also have a few copies of the limited print run of Issue #1, which will be available on a First Come First Serve basis, as well as the usual tee-shirts (we hope to have some brand new designs ready for the Con).

We’ll also be having a Silent Charity Auction. I will be bringing one poster for each of the covers for Issues #1, #2, #3 and the impending #5. JjAR and I will sign all four, the Issue #3 cover will be signed by writer Euan Mumford, and the Issue #5 cover will be signed by writer Paul Varley. There will also be a poster of the top panel of Issue #4 Page 2 (the first time Meaney and Llewellyn are seen with their new appearances) signed by the entire team. All five pieces will be auctioned separately (as opposed to one bid for all five) and the proceeds will be donated to the charity or charities of our choosing (we’re still discussing who to donate it to). So that’s nice.

Live in the US and can’t make it across the pond to see us? Don’t fret - it looks very much like I’ll be at both Wonder-Con and the San Diego Comic-Con in ‘09. I’ll try to have something as cool as the auction for these conventions too.

…is when Page Three goes up. I crashed pretty early last night and consequently Page Three didn’t get lettered. Fortunately for you, I was responsible enough to bring my laptop in to work today, so I’ll get it done in my lunch hour.

Sorry for the extended delay - this one is my fault, not JjAR’s.

JjAR had sent me an email on Sunday warning me that Page 3 of Issue #4 would be a little late. And, like a fool, I didn’t heed his warning. Now it’s Tuesday and we have no new page. Why was I so blind?

Hopefully the new page will go up tomorrow, but the worst case scenario is that you get Page 3 on Friday instead. ASctually, the worst case scenario would be Dino kicking us out of SoulGeek Webcomics, then coming over to my house to destroy the external Hard Drive with all of the Jump Leads files on it, then cutting off my hands so I can’t write any more comics.

You probably don’t need Jump Leads today anyway, what with all that electing that’s going on.

Also: Thanks to Kris for linking to us this morning. The “Space Pirate” design on the front of our poor victim’s tee-shirt is actually a Starslip Crisis shirt and can be bought now for a pretty golly gosh darned reasonable price from the Nightlight Press store.

For the second time in a week, I’m going to be frank, earnest and a little personal with you guys. I only hope you can stomach it.

Growing up, I knew I’d be moving to America one day. I’ve always been creatively charged, and making the jump from the UK to Los Angeles always seemed like the logical thing to do. I was going leave when I turned 18, but ended up instead leaving just after my 21st birthday last year.

I’ve been a Green Card carrying resident of America now for a few days north of sixteen months. I came here knowing about the problems America faced - the economy, the “war” on Iraq, and so on. Problems that seem to have only worsened since I moved. These are problems which need fixing. Tomorrow, American citizens will have the opportunity to put their country - our country - on the road to repairing these problems.

Americans: You can vote. I can’t. I’m trusting you guys to make the right choice. Please, for the love of Glod, don’t screw this up.

I was hoping for a mid-October publishing date, but we’ve obviously gone past that. I just wanted to let you guys know that the book will be out soonish - possibly as soon as the next two weeks, depending on… things. I’ll keep you informed.

It’s not often I post personal stuff here, but I think this merits an exception to the rule.

A good friend of mine, Vincent, has had a progression of on-going medical woes over the years, and earlier this year he ended up taking several weeks off work so that Doctors could try and work out what the ruddy Hell was wrong with him. Last week he was admitted to Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank, California.

Yesterday he posted this video from his hospital room:

He’s not usually that boring, I hasten to add. I think he prepared what he was going to say beforehand. Also he’s ill.

As you can see, Vincent is urging people to donate to St. Joseph’s Emergency Room, and now I’m asking the same. As Vincent himself has pointed out, you can go without one Latte and Blueberry Scone a week and make a small contribution to St. Joseph’s. As a certain British supermarket is very fond of saying, every little helps. If you’re at all interested in keeping an eye on Vincent, you can do so via his blog and his Twitter feed.

Get well soon, Vincent.

Issue 4 is half celebration, half experiment. Back in July when JjAR and I were talking about how we’d reached the One Year milestone, we talked about doing a short story to celebrate. And so I wrote Just Dropping In, a four-page story. I hope you guys like it.

I’ve had a couple of emails asking me “Where’s the cover?”, to which the answer is “We didn’t do one.” Exciting times.