Our traditional 'last Monday of every month' meeting time has been ditched this month to avoid the Monday Bank Holiday! So come and join us on Monday, 22nd May. Usual place - for now - upstairs at The Farm Tavern, 13, Farm Rd, Hove, just off Western Rd, from 6 onward, with chat starting at 7-7.30.

Our guest this month is Simon Birks, co-founder of Blue Fox Comics, an independent comics publisher based in Yapton, West Sussex. Simon has written various titles including the Sci-Fi saga Gone, and horror comics Sinners and Hexes, launched via Kickstarter. Blue Fox also publish Lyndon White's graphic novel Sparks and the Fallen Star, and Simon's first novel Broken Song. This September, Simon will be helping to put on Chichester's first Comic Con, so there'll be plenty to talk to him about!
Don't miss it! Remember: it's Monday May 22nd!

Myriam is a woman who sees things a little differently from other people. Strange figures in garish costumes accompany her to the post office, wild exotic plants sprout from supermarket shelves and phantom walls rise up to block her path. Husband Fred and daughter Clare think she is losing her marbles, and it's only grandson Jack who seems to understand. Gareth Brookes's latest graphic novel, A Thousand Coloured Castles, conjures up the horrifying vision of a marriage set in its ways with the disturbing hallucinations that accompany failing eyesight. Add in a wild child next door, and you have a fictional tour-de-force from maestro Brookes, beautifully rendered in iridescent crayons, and described by one reviewer as ‘Wallace and Gromit in the age of Brexit’. Brookes, winner of the 2012 Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition with his celebrated The Black Project, is our guest at Cartoon County on Monday 24th April from 6pm for 7pm upstairs at The Farm Tavern, 13 Farm Road, Hove BN3 1FB. He discusses his penchant for garden birds, gnomes and suburbia, and the laboursome artistic practice with which he lovingly renders them, with Alex Fitch of Resonance FM.

Joe Decie is the kind of guy who gets to draw the bits of our domestic life we never knew existed. Nothing is more grist to his mill than having to wait in for a delivery. Out of such things great comics are made. Joe draws stuff beautifully and is the author of Collecting Sticks, published in April by Jonathan Cape. He is also our very welcome guest at the Farm Tavern, Hove, on Monday 27 March. Join us 6.30 until late with the real chat starting from 7.30pm, steered by the multi-talented host, broadcaster and academic, Alex Fitch.

In the form of the excellent Boo Cook, one of 2000AD's artist stars, as our speaker this month, we are, by happy accident, part of 2000AD's 40th birthday celebrations! But there's a whole lot more to Boo than being one Tharg's tireless toilers, and he'll be showing heaps of his terrific work and telling us all know about it via a chat with Alex Fitch, at, once again, The Farm Tavern, which is, appropriately, on 13, Farm Rd, Hove, which is just near the end of Western Rd, Hove. It's upstairs, from 6.30, with the chat around 7-7.30, on Monday, 27th, February. Don't miss it, and don't be late - unless you want to overhear it rather than see it!

Joining us for the first Cartoon County of 2017 on Monday 30th January are Matt Hardy and Edward Bentley, the creators of Mad Robot Comics, a new independent publisher based in Worthing. Their titles include Madhouse, an uproarious supernatural thriller set in an asylum, Cadavers, a zombie satire about British media barons, and Last Exit to Brighton, a dystopian look at a certain seaside town. Matt and Edward have been successful at using micropayments - for example selling Last Exit to readers at 50p per 10 pages - and kickstarter to fund the printing of their comics, and will be talking about their genre based titles and publishing techniques.

Northern Lights is closed for the moment, so we're meeting from 7pm, 30th Jan, The Farm Tavern, 13 Farm Rd (off Western Road), Hove BN3 1FB. Comics practitioners, fans and aficionados all welcome.