Welcome dear readers to my first post on this new blog page. This is the part of the site where I get to tell you about the comings and goings of all the various contributors, alert you to the schedule of the updating comic, let you in on production secrets (if they let me), talk shop and generally liven up your day with all things Ulysses! I’m Michael Perridge and that’s my signature picture to your left, a guarantee of quality if ever I saw one, but none of that will mean anything to you until you get to know me. You might have noticed that this site is based around Rob Berry’s interpretation of the James Joyce novel Ulysses in comic book form. That may seem like a fairly simple statement, if you take out the fact that Ulysses is considered to be that most difficult of modern novels, but I assure you attentive reader that the webcomic aspect of this venture is just as torturous as the Joycean.

My background is almost entirely made-up of an enduring interest in comics in all their myriad forms. Not just your Batboy and Superhorse but Oor Willie, Roy of the Rovers and Dan Dare too. Yes, I’m one of Her Majesty’s British Subjects, the son, not of a Joycean, but a Shavian, and if nothing else I hope here to bring you into an appreciation, not of the novel because there are better people here for that than me, but of the comic book adaptation presented here. There’s more to comics than childhood nostalgia too as we will find out, but here is where two worlds collide. The Joycean and the comicbook geek. They have so much I think (and hope) in common, so it is only fair that in bringing the two together that I, standing on the one side representing comics, join the opposing forces and attempt the novel itself.

It is, after all, only a book. It is only one word after another. How difficult can it be? What is it? A driving examination? Feel free to chip in whenever you like. I’ve some reading to catch up with.