I put the second issue of my Future Crimes anthology up for sale yesterday. Unlike the first issue, which was mostly a way for me to refresh and release unpublished work, this issue is all about collaboration.

The first and longest piece in the book is Uncle Frank, which was drawn by my friend Shaky Ghost based on a script I wrote while drying out from the rain in a cafe in Manchester. We had to evacuate the cafe because of a fire alarm at one point, so it’s tempting to attribute any melancholy to the fact that I had to dry off twice but that would be a lie.

Shaky and I went to school together, though we only became friends when we were both safely away from that place. We collaborated on a comic called Cut-Out Witch back in 2013, but even then it was obvious to me that Shaky had far less need of my talents than I had of hers. I think I once horrified someone who enjoyed Cut-Out Witch by referring to Shaky as “my former collaborator”, but looking at her craft empire I know I was right – her imagination is a place people do not need my encouragement to visit.

It’s still worth a read, Cut-Out Witch, if you like wit, ghosts and brevity. You can buy the print version here or download it for free here.

The idea for Uncle Frank came about from watching the work Shaky was doing with layered images in her contemporary work, and from adapting a fragment of a play I’d written into the strip Personal Development for Future Crimes #1 . I thought it would be fun to give Shaky a cast of characters to bring to life, and a stage to let them play on. The results, which included a resurrection of the strange beast from the cover of Cut-Out Witch, far surpassed my expectations. I don’t give a fuck about an Oscar but you can expect to see me doing my own David Lynch-style campaign to get Shaky some sort of acting trophy this season.

I wrote the strip thinking of one person who was now gone, who I’d had dealings with in a personal capacity. When I got the finished art back, I was thinking of a fresh loss, and questioning where I draw the limits of my hospitality. Don’t worry though, it’s a funny comic, with a cast of weird characters and a lot of swearing. The harder aspects are probably so far beneath the surface as to be illegible.

The other strip in Future Crimes #2 is a Necromunda comic written and drawn by comics’ own Craig Collins. In this case, collaboration went only so far as me convincing Craig that his work would fit in with the style and theme of this issue. I think it goes just nicely between Shaky’s strip, a poem about bad politics, and an essay on Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder: Talisman.

The theme is anthropology; what you make of it is up to you.