Our Kickstarter for Tim Bird’s Adrift on a Painted Sea has just gone live and we’re really excited to share this gorgeous, moving story with you!
Tim’s been with us since the very start of Avery Hill and it’s been one of our greatest pleasures as a publisher to see him grow as an artist. Adrifton a Painted Sea is his most personal and engaging book yet.
A poignant, thoughtful graphic memoir that explores family, loss, and art through the author’s relationship with his mother, who painted as a hobby throughout her life.
Sue Bird was always painting: botanical art, landscapes, still lifes, and especially the sea.
She took classes, kept countless sketchbooks, and filled the house with art. From their neighborhood to their family trips, all the moments of her life were memorialized in her artwork. Throughout her life, she never sold a piece—she gave art to family and friends, and shared her work online, but never received wider recognition for her work.
This graphic novel by her son, Tim Bird, explores their family life and her creative explorations through a mix of her paintings and Tim’s comics, depicting their relationship and her life from teenagehood to her struggle with cancer at the height of the covid pandemic. After her death, this graphic novel at last showcases her work.
Specifications: 84 pages, softcover with French flaps, 168 x 239mm
Praise for Adrift on a Painted Sea:
“This is such a beautiful and touching work about the persistent power of love, the mirrors of memory and the endless narratives of the sea. When I’d read it I had to stop what I was doing and gaze out of the window for a while until my soul stopped trembling.”
– Ian McMillan
About Tim:
Tim Bird is an illustrator and comic artist based in Winchester, who’s finishing an MA in Illustration at Falmouth University in 2024. He’s published a number of comics through Avery Hill Publishing as well as self-published zines and webcomics such as Rock & Pop, and It’s a Bird’s Life. He’s contributed work to a diverse range of anthologies. His comic From the City to the Sea won best comic at the British Comic Awards in 2015.
Tim’s made some lovely exclusives for the campaign that you can add on at checkout—there’s a behind-the-scenes zine showing the making of the book and a postcard set featuring Sue’s paintings. You can also get copies signed and sketched in by Tim.
We’ve also created a ‘Personal Stories Bundle’ including five Avery Hill titles that we think complement Tim’s book beatifully:
We’re very proud to announce our line-up for autumn 2024!
The Scrapbook of Life and Death by J. Webster Sharp Adrift on a Painted Sea by Tim Bird
The Scrapbook of Life and Death by J. Webster Sharp – Out 3rd September 2024
88 pages, paperback, black and white, 210 x 297mm
The monstrosity of life explored through the strangeness of Edwardian England and the cartoonist’s own mental illness.
‘Dentist Robs Women of Teeth’ — ‘Death Chair for Nice Old Man’ — ‘Mother Feeds Son Like Bird’ The British newspaper clipping collection of egalitarian George Ives, collected between 1892 and 1949, ranged from murder and theories of crime to cricket scores. He was fascinated by the unusual, the gothic, the sexual, and the melodramatic. In this graphic novel, acclaimed cartoonist J. Webster Sharp shares some of the most bizarre stories from his archives, in silent comics form. With often shocking, visceral black and white artwork, the strangeness and eccentricity of the Edwardian era then provides a backdrop for Sharp’s own struggles with mental health. The Scrapbook of Life and Death is a fascinating, personal window into forgotten historical views of eccentric and socially transcendent and disturbing behaviours—and their resonance in life today.
Adrift on a Painted Sea by Tim Bird – Out 1st October 2024 84 pages, softcover with French flaps, full colour throughout, 168 x 239mm
A poignant, thoughtful graphic memoir that explores family, loss, and art through the author’s relationship with his mother, who painted as a hobby throughout her life.
Sue Bird was always painting: botanical art, landscapes, still lifes, and especially the sea. She took classes, kept countless sketchbooks, and filled the house with art. From their neighbourhood to their family trips, all the moments of her life were memorialized in her artwork. Throughout her life, she never sold a piece—she gave art to family and friends, and shared her work online, but never received wider recognition for her work. This graphic novel by her son, Tim Bird, explores their family life and her creative explorations through a mix of her paintings and Tim’s comics, depicting their relationship and her life from teenagehood to her struggle with cancer at the height of the covid pandemic. After her death, this graphic novel at last showcases her work. At its heart a book about creativity and family relationships, Adrift on a Painted Sea tells a story about the things we overlook in the people closest to us.
Press Coverage!
Kerry Vineberg reviewed Safer Places by Kit Anderson for The Beat: “Each individual story stands strong, leaving me enriched with insight, deep emotions, and sometimes a knowing laugh. It’s everything I could wish for in a collection.”
Infinite Wheatpaste vol. 1: Catalytic Conversions by L. Pidge was reviewed on Comicon: “A wonderful comic, full of invention and great characters with a light, fluidy art style that’s packed with colour and attitude. Infinite Wheatpaste is 280+ pages of great, great comics that take us into some far-out places of wonder.”
Curses by George Wylesol was reviewed on Slings and Arrows: “It’s deliberately disorienting yet magnificent for the sheer power of Wylesol’s imagination. His is a unique voice to be cherished.”
Slings and Arrows also reviewed Barking by Lucy Sullivan: “Barking is powerful as both mental illness testament, and graphic story-telling.”
In this episode, comics editor extraordinaire Shelly Bond interviews Pidge, the creator of Infinite Wheatpaste Vol. 1 – Catalytic Conversions about her extraordinary Sci-Fi epic. Help support the book now on Kickstarter (campaign ends 11th April 2024!)
In this episode, Avery Hill Publishing’s Ricky Miller talks to Lucy Sullivan about the cultural influences on her work in comics. Lucy picks a favourite book, film, comic, TV show and piece of music to discuss.
Our Kickstarter for Pidge’s Infinite Wheatpaste Vol. 1 – Catalytic Conversions has just gone live and we’re really excited to share this incredible universe-spanning sci-fi epic with you!
This amazing 280-page book collects Pidge’s Ignatz-nominated self-published comics series into a stunning paperback collection with a beautiful wrap-around cover with french flaps.
Pidge has designed some fantastic bonus items to accompany the book too, so read on…
Relationships . . . androids . . . car repair . . . time travel . . . gods – these interconnected stories set on the edges of human experience share the moments of the little bits of life that feel less than real.
Abby and Lilah are a couple drifting apart. Jeff is a flaming star. Soe is a perpetually late college student and the goddess next door. Casimir is a man with a past, and Abe is his future, maybe everyone’s future. Otis is a grief-stricken robot on a road to enlightenment. Groob is fun-loving and the salt of the earth. Some are slowly making their way to each other, but some are breaking apart.
L. Pidge is a Colorado cartoonist and educator. She has been writing and drawing her epic series Infinite Wheatpaste since 2016 and has no intention of stopping anytime soon….
Specifications: 280 pages, softcover with french flaps, 156 x 239mm
Praise for Pidge’s work:
“Infinite Wheatpaste isn’t simply a world-building triumph… it’s a universe-building one. Immersive character-driven storytelling on an epic and yet still very personal scale.” – Broken Frontier
“A vibrant story of love & lizard tag among friends, semi-demi gods and robots. Pidge is one of the most blithely fascinating cartoonists this side of the 21st century. Part Paul Pope smarts and cyberscience, all heart and soul.” – Shelly Bond
About Pidge:
Pidge is an artist and educator who is the creator, illustrator, and letterer of her Ignatz Award nominated comic, Infinite Wheatpaste. She currently resides in a quiet mountain town in the heart of the Colorado Rockies with her spouse and colourist, Professor Chase Hutchison. Pidge’s other published works include contributions to Heavy Rotation and Fast Times in Comic Book Editing alongside various micro-press anthologies. She is currently working on more IWP and Skylarks, an all-ages mystery. When she isn’t drawing or teaching middle schoolers, she can be found knitting and snowboarding.
We’ve devised a special bundle of Avery Hill books called The Cerebral Sci-fi Bundle that we think complement Pidge’s book beautifully, and it’s available as an add-on when you check out!
It includes:
The Hard Switch by Owen D. Pomery (brand new paperback edition!) Outer Wilderness by Claire Scully A City Inside by Tillie Walden Goatherded by Charlo Frade
There are also some seriously amazing bonus items that you can get when you back the various reward tiers! There’s a postcard set, a signed foldable poster, a screen-printed tote bag, and stickers. The poster and tote bag have limited numbers available, so don’t delay if you want them!
We’ve just had some new paperback editions printed of The Hard Switch and Victory Point by Owen D. Pomery, and also Walking Distance by Lizzy Stewart! Pre-order copies here: https://averyhillpublishing.bigcartel.com
Our Kickstarter for Kit Anderson’s Safer Places went live recently and we were absolutely thrilled to see it reach its goal in just over a week. Kit’s a creator we’re really excited about, and we’ll be publishing a second book by her in the near future, so if you don’t know her work yet this a great place to start!
There are still ten days of the campaign to go, so if you’d like to snap up any of the absolutely gorgeous special items that Kit designed for it, make sure you do before it closes on the 22nd of February!
We devised a special bundle of Avery Hill books called The Liminal Spaces Bundle that we think complement Safer Places beautifully, and it’s available as an add-on when you check out!
It includes Quiet Thoughts by Karen Shangguan, A City Inside by Tillie Walden, The Wilderness Collection by Claire Scully, Grey Area: Our Town by Tim Bird and Something City by Ellice Weaver.
Here are some of the absolutely stunning bonus items that you can back at the various reward tiers! There’s a sew-on patch, a signed print, and stickers. There were a limited number of original sketches also available, but they got snapped up fast!
In this episode, Avery Hill Publishing’s Ricky Miller talks to George Wylesol about the cultural influences on his work in comics. He picks a favourite books, film, video game, TV shows and piece of music to discuss.
