Who is / was Kek-W?

[Van Dom]

Sorry if the answer to that is around here somewhere, I typed in kek-w in the search field but nothing came up. I've noticed a load of stories by "kek-w" throughout my read of the 900s. Who was he? Is this an Alan Smithee type name or just somebodies pseudonym??

Cheers for the help!

[Wake]

Sorry if the answer to that is around here somewhere, I typed in kek-w in the search field but nothing came up. I've noticed a load of stories by "kek-w" throughout my read of the 900s. Who was he? Is this an Alan Smithee type name or just somebodies pseudonym??

Cheers for the help!

Kek-W is Nigel Long.

[Van Dom]

Thanks Wake! I've never heard of Nigel (due to the Kek-W thing, obviously!) so cheers for that!!!

[The Monarch]

Reprint canon fodder series 2!

(haven't sauid it in a while good as thread as any to do so)

[The Adventurer]

Am I a terrible person for wanting a Second City Blues book 2?

[SmallBlueThing]

Am I a terrible person for wanting a Second City Blues book 2?

No sir, you are not! I utterly loved Second City Blues (forever to be mixed up with Bad City Blue by drunken squaxx)- in fact I have, in my photo album a lovely picture of the issue that featured it on the cover.

In case anyone thinks the above is weird- said photo also has my eldest son's first pair of real shoes in it- both prog and shoes were bought on the same day. It's just a thing I do...

Steev

Steev

[Dandontdare]

Am I a terrible person for wanting a Second City Blues book 2?

No sir, you are not! I utterly loved Second City Blues (forever to be mixed up with Bad City Blue by drunken squaxx)

ah.. that's what I've been thinking of. What was Second City Blues all about then?  Barney and Touched by the Hand of Tharg have no details beyond listing it, and this newfangled site doesn't have an index of stories apparently (progs, characters and creators, but not story titles)

[SmallBlueThing]

Second Division teenage sports team, based in Birmingham (transparently Birmingham City football club of the future) trying to get somewhere to do something.

I forget. I'll have to read it again- but it was aces (as they say in Birmingham).

Steev

[Dandontdare]

Second Division teenage sports team, based in Birmingham (transparently Birmingham City football club of the future) trying to get somewhere to do something.

I forget. I'll have to read it again- but it was aces (as they say in Birmingham).

Steev

OMG, I do remember that, but I seem to recall thinking it was absolute crap at the time - it made Mean Team look good! Now I wouldn't mind more Bad City Blue though...

[Bolt-01]

I've not long read Second City Blues again and I really enjoyed it. It had a lot of the traditional 'sport' characters in; Boss that wants to kill them all, Coach is a hard, retured player who secretly admires the pluck of the team.

I'd love a second season- but I doubt we'll get it.

[Roger Godpleton]

I remember there being a thread about a preview image of SCB. My contribution was "I hope the horse dies." (He didn't).

[Emperor]

A bit more bio:

Nigel Long aka Kek-W lives and works in Somerset, deep in the dark, mythic heart of England's West County. A music journalist and alt.culture obsessive, he writes regular features for the ink and electronic editions of UK magazines such as FACT and Dazed & Confused. He is also a long-term contributor for the UK weekly comic 2000AD. Recent short stories have appeared in the Chimeraworld #4 and Nemonymous Seven: Zencore paperback anthologies. He is currently preparing a mainstream Fantasy novel for a UK publisher. He blogs here.

Dylan Teague has some Rose O'Rion art on his blog (a strip that I have no recollection of - a re-read might be in order):
http://dylansdrawingboard.blogspot.com/2007/02/rose-orion.html
http://dylansdrawingboard.blogspot.com/2007/02/pinup-colours.html

If I remember correctly his short stories were effective but his series never seem to get much momentum (twice having to follow Mark Millar on a series!!). It seems he was merely unlucky, SCB seems to have suffered from lateness so it missed its slot of Summer 2004 (TPO p. 236) and Chris Weston speaks very highly of his Canon Fodder and says he "disappeared from the comics scene, owing to severe illness" (TPO p. 185 - full interview). I wasn't blown away by SCB but really liked his Canon Fodder, he sort of feels like the one that got away.

I am curious about the nom-de-plume though.

I'd love a second season- but I doubt we'll get it.

You have the power to make this happen!!

[TordelBack]

I hated SCB when it started, but by half way through it had won me over with its straightforward storytelling and mildly quirky setting.  Was looking forward to seeing how it played out when the Blues got off planet.  Probably too late to resurrect it now, but you never know. 


(I also loved Bad City Blue, at least once it reached the 'everything you know is a lie' point.  And what a finish!)

[SuperSurfer]

KEK-W chatted about SCB on his blog:
http://kidshirt.blogspot.com/2004/12/second-city-blues.html

Must confess I only recall it now that I Googled it.

[kek-w]

Thx for kind words.

Kek-W is actually my *real* name now, not alias/pen-name. I only maintain "Nigel Long" persona now in order to function in mainstream society, have bank account, etc. 99% of my work in magazines/books/etc now appears as Kek-W. Most editors now seem okay with it. If any aren't, then I withdraw the work.

Yeah, I was very seriously ill for best part of a decade, from late 90's til around 2004-ish. Started succumbing during the writing of Rose O'Rion wh/ is prob. why it's so, erm, uneven.

About 2+ years ago I started writing prose/short stories for the 1st time in 20 years. I'm not exactly uber-prolific, but two stories have already been nominated for Best Story Awards by British SF Association and British Fantasy Society, so guess I'm finally doing something right.

Here's something I did earlier in the year for Rudy Rucker's FLURB ezine:

http://www.flurb.net/7/7kekw.htm

There's some recent books my work's appeared in, here: http://www.goodreads.com/author/list/1639969.Kek_w

Working with Chris Weston was great; a very pleasurable experience - he's a lovely bloke, is Chris, and so is Warren P. SCB was the first thing I did when I started recovering - it was great fun to do n was a deliberately Retro/Old School homage to 70's/80's sports strips, but I didn't telegraph that very well.

I've started doing some comics again recently - after doing a zillion other different things - but they're mostly music-related strips, so completely off normal comic.scene radar.

And yeah, sure, I'd love to do some Future Shocks sometime if Tharg'll have me.