Dan recently gave the Hater website (www.thehatertrilogy.com) a lick of paint, turning an image of a Lowestoft housing estate (home to Danny McCoyne in THEM OR US) into a post-apocalyptic ruin. He has a talent for manipulating images, as can be seen from the before/after pictures below.

I first ‘met’ Dan when he featured HATER and a subsequent interview with myself on his site www.thenovelblog.com. He produced a striking animation for the top of the page, which impressed me so much he was the first person I thought of to ask to work on the idea I had for Duck and Cover. I knew what I wanted to illustrate the story, but it was way beyond my very limited technical and artistic skills. He turned this photograph of Birmingham City Centre into the image at the top of this post.

I asked Dan how he approaches his work – does he consider the technical or the artistic side of things first? He explained that he has no formal training in either, and that he’s completely self-taught on all counts. “I’ve always enjoyed being creative and the creative, be it another artist’s work, taking time to draw with a pencil and paper or creating a functional software that’s aesthetically pleasing—an art form I might add, all its own. It’s not easy to design interfaces for end users, they’re picky and usually have a tech-level that hovers just above dangerous. There’s a fine line between looking good and being functional, and the real art for me anyway, lies in finding that balance.”

Dan’s now branched out with a new company, Wicked Concept Creations. For him it marks the first step in moving from building data-driven applications to creative content. It’s something he’s been looking to do for a while, and already he has some impressive clients including a major Hollywood FX company and a film score producer. “I‘m really looking to step into the creative side of entertainment in a big way and being able to feature work like I’ve done for you goes a long way. I’ve no delusions about this though, I know it’s a lot of time and effort and can be a significant source of stress, but I’m passionate about books and movies, so it never really comes across as work.”

I asked Dan about www.thenovelblog.com. Launched in December 2008, it aims to provide independent, unbiased book reviews. “I’ve often struggled with the spending of $25 – $30 on a hardback that reviewers had raved on and on about how awesome it was, only to find out that, well, it sucked. I’m also extremely aggravated by all those “reviewers” out there who give a book a one-star review on Amazon with nothing more to say than they hated it. No reason as to why or where it fell short, they simply hated it. To me, that’s not a review, that’s another author who’s jealous over someone else’s success. My point is if it sucked, say so, just back it up with facts—which is what I hope we do.”

As an aspiring author himself, he’s well aware of the ‘reviews game’  played by some publishers and writers. “If you read one of our reviews, you can rest assured that there’s no outside influence, it’s simply our opinion.”

Dan cites Stephen King as his foremost literary inspiration. With CUJO, King opened the floodgates for him to devour any books he could find by a wide range of authors including Peter Straub, Richard Matheson, Peter Benchly and William Blatty. “I would love to be a full-time writer,” he says, “and that is my ultimate goal.” And after a number of false-starts, he feels that 2012 will be the year he makes it happen.

I want to wish Dan the very best, both with his writing and with Wicked Concept Creations, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank him again for the AUTUMN and HATER-related artwork he’s provided. Cheers Dan!

The AUTUMN artists – Dan Boucher is a post from: David Moody - author of HATER, DOG BLOOD and the AUTUMN series

The book’s available from AMAZON and all the usual outlets, and can be downloaded from AUDIBLE and ITUNES.

Special thanks to Shawn who campaigned for this release. I don’t know if they bowed to your pressure or whether the book was in the pipeline anyway, but thanks all the same!

THEM OR US – audiobook out today is a post from: David Moody - author of HATER, DOG BLOOD and the AUTUMN series

By the way, if you’re interested in signed foreign editions of the AUTUMN and HATER books, you can find some of those listed over at www.infectedbooks.co.uk too.

Finally for today, thanks to my good friend and web guru Rich Grundy, I have a new tool for those trying to locate specific eBook editions of my books. Check it out below:

Pick the book you’re after, chose your country and the eBook platform you use, then press ‘Go’. Simple! You can find this widget at www.infectedbooks.co.uk.

Autumn: Disintegration now available (again!) is a post from: David Moody - author of HATER, DOG BLOOD and the AUTUMN series

But just looking back over 2011 for a moment, I’m amazed how many releases I managed to chalk up: In the US, AUTUMN: THE CITY, AUTUMN: PURIFICATION, AUTUMN: DISINTEGRATION and THEM OR US were all released, along with the mass-market edition of DOG BLOOD. It was the same in the UK, along with a mass-market edition of AUTUMN as well. Elsewhere, SEPTIEMBRE ZOMBIE and CIUDAD ZOMBIE were released in Spain, and translations of HATER appeared in Romania, Japan and Italy. Oh, and there was THE MONSTER’S CORNER anthology, and my story for the recent SFX ZOMBIE SPECIAL. See what I mean? It’s been a busy year! And that’s before I start talking about the events and signings and interviews and meetings and website launches etc. etc. 2011 has been a blast, and thanks to everyone who has been a part of it.

This won’t be my last post of the year, but I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a Happy Christmas. Whatever you celebrate, wherever you are, have fun! I’ll leave you with a festive treat. Remember back in October when Wayne Simmons, Jasper Bark and I ended up holed-up in Leicester, surrounded by zombies, discussing our love for the genre and our favoured survival techniques? Well here’s the video evidence.

It’s very tongue in cheek and everyone had a huge amount of fun on the day. Thanks to Vince, Adele, and all involved with Un:Bound Video Editions.

Happy Holidays (and Christmas Zombies!) is a post from: David Moody - author of HATER, DOG BLOOD and the AUTUMN series

When the call for Autumn artwork first went out in Summer 2010, David was one of the first to respond. Within days he’d sent me illustrations for Brigid Culthorpe and Jacob Flynn, and even more art soon followed: Karen Chase, Jim Harper and my personal favourite, Office Politics (see below). David’s distinctive style is quite unlike the approaches taken by the other contributors to the site, and I think the mix of approaches works well.

But as well as being a keen artist and designer (he’s particularly proud of the Department of Military Sciences logos he recently created for Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger books), David’s also the co-owner of KnightWatch Press, an up-and-coming publishing house responsible for such cracking titles as Rhonnny Reapers Roadkill Café and Soul Survivors. I asked him a few questions about KnightWatch, and about his influences and techniques.

Whilst David’s happy to make the most of technology (extolling the virtues of his iPad because – quote – it makes him feel like Captain Kirk), when writing or drawing, he goes back to basics first “My favourite medium to work in is actually white copy paper with a blue biro, I find I do all my planning in this form but never are these mini masterpieces seen – they are for my eyes only.  But I like to do my final pieces on Bristol card with black ink.”

His love of the traditional comes from memories of watching his granddad – a sign writer – at work, back when sign-writing was (in his words) a true art form and there wasn’t a computer in sight. “One of my earliest memories was watching him stood on top of a tall wooden ladder with a palette and brush painting the sign hung outside a pub. It was only a touch up job he was doing but when he had finished you couldn’t tell where the old work finished and the new started. He was an artist in the truest form.”

David’s influences today are varied – from Hieronymus Bosch and William Blake, through to comic book artists Neil Adams, Jim Lee and Danny Kelly.

David formed KnightWatch Press because of his frustrations in dealing with some traditional publishers. Since the publication of Rhonny Reaper, the press has lined up plenty more projects including CODE Z: An Undead Hospital Anthology, and a huge number of novels, comics and anthologies (including more from the Survivors). And if that’s not enough, David’s also in the early planning stages of SurvivorCON – a post-apocalyptic convention to be held in Ireland next year (count me in!).

So many thanks to David for his Hater and Autumn-themed artwork which a lot of people – me especially – have appreciated. If you want to keep in touch with David or learn more about his work, you can follow him on Facebook or keep up to date with www.KnightWatchpress.info and www.theimagedesigns.com.

The Autumn artists – David Naughton-Shires is a post from: David Moody - author of HATER, DOG BLOOD and the AUTUMN series

This is the far end of Hinchcliffe’s compound. Continue down the road and you’ll soon reach the magistrate’s court, the building where Hinchcliffe bases himself – aligning himself with the pre-war positions of authority.

A little further still, and you’re getting close to two important landmarks. First up is Gulliver – the wind turbine which towers over Lowestoft. In THEM OR US, Hinchcliffe talks about Gulliver as a beacon of hope, but Danny’s not so sure: “Hinchcliffe reckons he’s going to get it operational again one day soon, so the town will have a steady power supply rather than having to rely on generators and the like. I hope he’s right. For now it just stands here useless: one of its massive blades broken, its internal mechanics and wiring no doubt completely fucked. It’s a huge white elephant: a constant reminder of what this place used to be.”

And very close to Gulliver is an enormous Bird’s Eye food factory. In the book, it’s ominously referred to just as The Factory. I’ll not reveal what’s going on inside there, suffice to say, they’re not making fish fingers…

Carry on along the coast, heading out of town, and you can walk for miles alongside the sea wall. This is the route Hinchcliffe takes when he leads Danny to the hotel where… again, I’m not going to tell you what the hotel’s being used for. You’ll have to read the book.

And finally, a couple more locations. First, the library where I spoke last week. To me, the mention of the library is one of the saddest parts of the novel, which clearly illustrates how far we’ve fallen as a species. Danny says that books are “used to fuel fires more than to fuel minds these days.”

And then there’s Southwold. The place where Danny begins to realise that… sorry – can’t tell you that in case you haven’t read the book. It’s also where he faces his final… no – can’t tell you that, either.

You’ll have to read THEM OR US if you want to know more!

Location, location, location is a post from: David Moody - author of HATER, DOG BLOOD and the AUTUMN series

I’m going to post again later this week and explain more about why and how Lowestoft was the perfect setting for the book, but for now I just wanted to report back on the launch event and thank a few folks for their help in making it a success.

We kicked off with a well-supported Waterstone’s signing, before moving on to Lowestoft Library (a location referenced in THEM OR US) for more signing, followed by an illustrated talk and a question and answer session. Thanks are due to David Naughton-Shires for producing some great post-apocalyptic artwork (an example of which is below, you’ll see more in my next post), and to Iain McKinnon and the cast and crew of Projekt for the video clips I used. You’ll probably not have heard of Projekt before… in early 2010 we produced a series of HATER viral videos which were designed to tell the story of the first book, and set the scene for DOG BLOOD. Unfortunately rights issues prevented us from releasing the footage (and the position’s still the same), but it was great to finally be able to show a few brief snippets.

At this point I need to mention the audience – many of whom had travelled considerable distances to be there (but let’s be honest, you have to travel a considerable distance from anywhere to get to Lowestoft – that’s why it made such a perfect location for THEM OR US!). There were plenty of Survivors there, and huge thanks to them for their ongoing, yet vaguely stalker-ish support. More about that in another post which is coming shortly…

Thanks also to Jane Rothon and the staff of the library for being so accommodating, to Ivan Bunn for the technical support, to Jo and the staff at Waterstone’s for actively supporting the event with real enthusiasm, to the staff at the Chinese restaurant most of us ended up in for the most bizarre dining experience I can remember in a long time, and finally to Emma Bunn for being the glue which held it all together. Emma – if you hadn’t spotted my wife and I out drinking in a Lowestoft pub last summer, the event would never have happened!

Visiting the end of the world is a post from: David Moody - author of HATER, DOG BLOOD and the AUTUMN series

I had a huge amount of fun writing the piece, although it made me realise that I’ve spent far too much time thinking about the living dead over the years! Why not pick up a copy and see if you agree with my tactics?

Moody’s Zombie Survival Guide in SciFiNow is a post from: David Moody - author of HATER, DOG BLOOD and the AUTUMN series

Scott Lyall wins the complete signed HATER trilogy, a HATER T-shirt and mousemat, and a piece of the original cover art.

Signed copies of THEM OR US go to Rod Nojek, David Naughton-Shires, and Rebecca Besser.

Congratulations, and thanks again to all who entered.

THEM OR US – giveaway winners is a post from: David Moody - author of HATER, DOG BLOOD and the AUTUMN series

Just a few quick reminders:

Next Thursday evening I’ll be in Lowestoft (the town where the book is set), signing at Waterstone’s then moving on to talk about the HATER series and my work in general at Lowestoft library (which also gets a mention in THEM OR US). A few tickets are still available, click here for information.

And in case you missed my last post, I have some copies of the UK edition of the book available for sale through www.infectedbooks.co.uk. All copies will be signed, but please get in fast if you want one – my stocks are rapidly depleting!

Finally, I’ve just extended the deadline for the THEM OR US competition. You’ve now got until midday tomorrow to enter. Click here for the details.

THEM OR US – out in the UK today is a post from: David Moody - author of HATER, DOG BLOOD and the AUTUMN series