Sneak Peek: Verity Fair Book One: Custard Creams & Pink Elephants by Terry Wiley

By John Freeman on June 2, 2015

Although previously published last year and also available digitally for iPad from SEQUENTIAL (And Part One is also available from Madefire), Terry Wiley‘s marvellous VerityFair Book One: Custard Creams & Pink Elephants gets another round of distribution in comic shops this week thanks to Northampton-based Borderline Press‘ partnership with Fanfare Press (who recently released 24×7 in partnership with the Lakes International Comic Art Festival).

A slightly twisted soap opera with the merest dash of X-Files, VerityFair tells the story of Verity Bourneville, a 40-something semi-talented actress and full-time extrovert, in her quest for success and a good night’s sleep.

“Quite frankly, nobody else produces comic stories that are anywhere similar to Terry Wiley’s,” enthuses Bryan Talbot. “They are unique, well-crafted, character-driven comics, filled with humour, incident and emotion and populated largely by a cast of distinctly individual female characters. In a medium that’s still, in the English-speaking world at least, largely considered by the general public to be dominated by male adolescent power fantasies, Terry’s stories are firmly set outside this geek boy’s locker-room territory.”

<br /><br /> “Verity Bourneville doesn’t so much break ‘the fourth wall’ to address you directly, as demolish it and grab you to join her and her mates for all sort of escapades inside the panels,” enthuses Paul Gravett of the story. “Terry Wiley is at the top of his game in VerityFair, fashioning this ’45-year-old car-crash of a personality’ into the most feisty, fascinating, personable, unpredictable, multi-faceted new character in 21st-century British comics. She’ll tell you what it’s all about. Brilliant!”

• VerityFair Book One: Custard Creams & Pink Elephants is also available in all good bookshops

• Follow Terry Wiley on Twitter

About the Author
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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.