Get With The Programme!

This week's 2000ad, prog 1740, features all new stories. One of the occassional 'jumping on progs'. I trust you'll all be doing the sensible thing and getting re-aquainted, introduced or just plain staying with the programme!


This isn't the cover, sadly. This is a mock 2000AD cover based on a Tharg I did for the 2000ad twitter spoof I did with Rich Clements last year - I've spruced it up and added some other effects since then though.

Oh, and I'm now on tumblr too!

Pepping It Up

Final art then for the much pimped Tyranny Rex commission:


Sometimes I go to silly lengths for effect. Rob asked for an in joke - the script for Phase V of Zenith... Grant Morrison wrote four books of Zenith, so-called phases, but I doubt there will ever be a fifth. You can only just see it in the final piece, and it took about half an hour of fiddling to get it right - D'Oh! I'm not even going to mention how long it took to find reference for the Our Price bag.


Finally on this, for the process completists amongst you - here are the final inks too.


I'm available for commissions like this and the Dredd piece I did earlier in the year. please feel free to contact me via the e-mail address in the sidebar for a quote.

Kapow! (goes the weekend)

This weekend was Kapow, I only went for the Saturday though.

I arrived bright (and what I thought was early) to the Business Design Centre in Islington... all the same, I spent a very happy half hour queuing with my good buddy (and cover artist extraordinaire) Neil Roberts. We happily chatted our way along the snaking path to the entrance in the glorious sunshine.

Upon entry I was handed the usual crap in a bag. After finding where to hand my portfolio in for a possible review slot and a brief circuit of the con I looked at the programme to discover that time had ticked on. The 2000ad panel was going to start in 15 minutes... where the hell it was it taking place?

I wanted to deliver John's commission to him before that began... With mobile 'assistance', I located John, at the front of the queue for the 2000ad panel (huzzahs!)... Then blushing from all the kind comments from members of the forum I shuffled into the auditorium and hid a bit.

It was interesting to hear some legends of 2000ad speak. The panel comprised of Dave Gibbons, Matt Smith, Al Ewing, Jock, Chris Weston, Steve Yeowell and Brendan McCarthy and for the most part it was as informative a previous such talks I've been to. It was also heartening to hear from Jock that the Dredd movie is on track and looking "really cool".

I'd been sitting with Matt Gibbs and after the panel, he showed me the lovely work that he and James Reekie have been doing on the Ionmonger's Daughter... I honestly hope they find a good home for it, as it looks very cool indeed.

My next port of call after a respectable break was to once again approach Matt Smith at the 2000ad booth with my portfolio... as always, Matt was generous with his time and succinct in his appraisal of my work. He preferred the work I've been doing more recently, particularly Who's Next and my Joe Pineapples strip, because he felt my inking had more "life" to it. He still felt some of my panels were a little stiff, and pointed out a couple of the ones I wasn't happy with anyway... He said to send the samples in for him to put on file and happily that means I'm still moving in the right direction!

I'd prepared a cheeky business card specially for Matt, please see below (photo courtesy of Strontium71 on the 2000ad forum).


It just struck me as funny when I thought about doing it and I hope Matt got a kick out of it. (for those of you who've not seen it before, I originally did this piece for Dirk Van Dom's 2000ad Christmas party themed game)

I bumped into my most excellent friend and co-Tharg-hassler Conor Boyle, who had just been informed that portfolio submissions were now closed... and so he'd missed the opportunity (such as it was). From a couple of reports I've read though, it was oversubscribed and very few people actually ended up being seen anyway (I wasn't either) so I'm not sure if "opportunity" is the correct word...

Whilst Conor cornered Tharg I chatted briefly to Seb Antoniou.

With tummies rumbling, Conor and I headed out to find some food, Liz and Alec Worley in Costa Coffee, via the perpetually jovial Kerrin Shaw.

Fed and watered, we returned to the event, I picked up a copy of the ABC Warriors Special, which I'm sure you've all now ordered here or here from the good folk at FutureQuake. John Burdis, dressed convincingly in a Judge's uniform loomed into view and informed me that someone had been looking for me, the person in question sadly never found me - if you're out there, all I can say is, sorry, see you at Bristol?

Dave Stokes emerged a while later from a crowd and we spoke about the benefits of our twitter accounts and the difficulties associated with getting a break in the comics' industry. We parted with a mutual assurance that we would show our work to at least one more person. Pat Mills was in my peripheral vision and so I approached him... he asked that I show him during his signing later and so I nipped off to buy something suitable, as I don't usually 'do' the whole signing thing.

There was just time to swing by a very busy and record breaking Jim Campbell before getting in line.

I did manage to show my portfolio to Pat, and although again, he said he liked my work, I think it was my 'Blackmailing Tharg' business card that he liked most.

Knackered from standing in the queue, I headed for the Slug and Lettuce, where thanks to Liz and Conor, a nice space had been reserved for the 2000ad forum gang to congregate.

I was glad to put faces to so many names and hopefully I'll see them all again at the next convention I go to. I did a few sketches had a good laugh and didn't drink nearly enough to feel a woozy as I did before running to catch my train home.

A final thanks, goes out to the lovely Pete Wells of the 2000ad covers uncovered blog for letting me into a little known secret I'd been missing... a little motion blur and the judicious use of red, can really add the finishing touch to a piece of work.

2000AD Xmas Party

The 2000adonline forum virtual advent calendar is still going strong. About a month ago, one of the board members, Dirk Van Dom, asked whether I'd be willing to contribute something to help illustrate a game he was trying to produce/write/organise!

Here's a cropped section from my illustration...


To find the full (cheeky) image you'll have to play the game!

I'll let Dirk explain the idea:

Quote from: Van Dom
Remember the old ‘choose your own adventure’ stories? Well, I’ve prepared one for you to read/play, that centres around a night at a 2000ad Christmas party, as you mingle with various characters, get involved in various situations, and just generally try to make it through the night. The rules are simple. DON’T get eaten by Zombo. DON’T send Slaine into a warp spasm. And, above all, DON’T piss off Judge Dredd. If you can manage all that, you MIGHT impress Tharg and be rewarded, you MAY score with a really hot chick (3 to choose from!), and you COULD foil a devious plot to sabotage the party and blow everyone to smithereens! Depending on the choices you make and the way you progress through the story, there are a number of different objectives you can be presented with. There are also quite a few sticky endings you can come to if you don’t choose carefully, so watch out!

PARTY CRASH! THE 2000AD CHRISTMAS BLOWOUT, 2010!

Support 2000ad

If you are a fan of 2000ad, run a blog or wordpress/live journal etc. please, include this nifty little gadget on your sidebar. The widget should, if clicked, lead you to the digital download of the current issue of 2000ad at their online shop.


Here's the code, for you to copy and paste. The prog will change as each new one becomes available for digital download.

<iframe scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" frameborder="0" width="105" height="200" src="http://shop.2000adonline.com/widgets/latest_prog/index.php"></iframe></code>
Hopefully, even if it only helps to reawaken one lapsed reader, it will have been worth the effort. Thanks in advance.

Austerity Measures

It's virtual advent Calendar time again over on the 2000ad forums.


Dirty Frank is one of my favourite characters from 2000ad at the moment. He's a long term undercover Judge who talks about himself in the third person and is named after a Pearl Jam song. He's part of the Lowlife strip written by Rob Williams. I showed Rob the inks for this and I'm thoroughly chuffed to say he like it... so, I showed it to Tharg, who thought Frank's left arm looked a little awkward... I can't see it myself, but I'll bear it in mind next time I'm asking him for work!

He needs to hire me soon though, or it'll be me picking through the bins for food scraps! (only joking)

If you're interested, last year's entry is here.

Get Well Carlos Comic

The public version of the Get Well Carlos Comic, aka Supersquirrel Undefeated aka The Secret Project is now available for download.


Two options for download, both are a 54Mb. These links will not work forever, so I would suggest you download sooner rather than later to avoid disappointment.

zshare

dropbox

I'd also like to suggest that you make a donation to a Cancer charity too, by way of payment for the comic.

Super Secret Squirrel

About a month ago, the sad and sudden news that Carlos Ezquerra had been taken ill with Lung Cancer broke on the 2000ad forum. The good news was that it had been caught in time.

A short while later, I, and many others (including some professionals) were contacted by Mark Howard (The Legendary Shark) and asked if we would like to contribute something to a get well comic that would be given to Carlos. The importance of Carlos Ezquerra's work in 2000ad's history and it's meaning to hundreds of adoring fans cannot be understated. With John Wagner, he created both Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog, two of the comic's most enduring characters. His work was also something of an inspiration to me in my youth, so my answer to the question posed was a resounding yes, I want to contribute something!.


A quick e-mail to Rich Clements and Dave Evans to ask whether they'd like to collaborate on a special 'Teen Wulf' for the project and a simple suggestion that it involve Wulf's Dad, who would be a doppleganger for Carlos yeilded the swift and genius response from Rich, a script for 'Cucumber' (a favoured word of Wulf's in his dealings with Johnny Alpha) arrived in my in box. I had enormous fun illustrating the strip, and I'm sure I've not done Carlos justice, but it's the thought that counts, right? I'm not going to share Dave's lettering for the page here, because there will be a publicly available link to a download of the whole comic that I will share when the time comes.


With my contribution made, I thought nothing more of the project until I received an e-mail via Dave that Mark had secured a deal for printing the comic, the printer would do the job for a substantial discount if he could get a logo designed for his motorcycle club... could I help out? Well, again, it was an easy decision, of course, if I can help out - I will.

Luckily the illustration above, did the trick and with one happy printer, the project could go full steam ahead!


Again, I thought nothing more about the project until Mark posted on the 2000ad forum asking if anyone could help out with special duties... In the spirit of the project's secrecy I responded simply to ask what the problem was and if I could help again... Mark desperately needed a cover, had a pretty clear idea of what he wanted and needed it pretty swiftly - I should have been working on other things, but it felt like an important job to help out on, so again, I found myself contributing to the project.

Yesterday, the comic was received by Carlos and he expressed his gratitude to all involved through a message to Mark on facebook. It has meant a great deal to me to be involved in honouring a hero of mine and I only hope it helps speed his recovery.

To Mark the Shark, all who contributed and those who simply kept the secret, I salute you, it makes me proud to be a fan of 2000ad!

Tharg Touts Teen Wulf

Check it out... Zarjaz and Dogbreath get promoted in the Nerve Centre in this weeks' prog (1681) with a special mention for Teen Wulf written by Rich Clements, centre spread colours by Vicky Stonebridge and lettered by Dave Evans (and drawn by me, as if you didn't know already!).


I consider it the highest praise indeed that his majestic greenness chose to mention our strip and if you haven't already, I suggest you do as The Mighty One says and visit The Quaequam Blog for all the info!

BICS Year Two

Well this weekend was my second year at BICS. ( The Birmingham International Comics' Show, as previously linked to.)

FRIDAY:
We had decided to take the hassle out of the journey and went via train, by booking ages in advance, the good lady and I got there and back for the sum total of £32!
I arrived pretty relaxed and uncharacteristically chipper and confident. The Hotel, Holiday Inn (Queensway, City Centre) was brilliant and in that respect it was a nice contrast to The Britannia that we stayed in last year. The only other thing to say was that we were in what appeared to be a room equipped for disabled people and for the entirety of the stay I had this scene from the it crowd in my head!

The evening was spent in the fabulous Wellington pub - a real ale pub with a selection of 10 real ales on tap. Met up with Rich Clements, Vicky Stonebridge and Dave Evans (the FutureQuake gang) and also Duncan Nimmo, another contributor to the current issue Dogbreath. It was a fine evening with good people and lubricated with very good quality drink! I think the strong beer contributed to a weird dream about submitting my work to Tharg, in the dream he liked my samples, but I awoke from the dream feeling somewhat scuppered and a bit groggy. After an hour or so, I drifted back to sleep.

SATURDAY:
Headed over to the ThinkTank/Millenium Point. I had a quick chat to my good pals PJ Holden and Dylan Teague - and as always, they were generous and helpful in reviewing my porfolio. Then it was a quick stop over at the FutureQuake table to pick up my comp copies of Zarjaz & Dogbreath both of these are still available to buy if you haven't already ordered your copies. I showed Dave and Rich the art for the strip I'd been working on for them too, I'm chuffed to say they were pleased with the pages.

There are a number of developments from Saturday that I'd like to keep under my hat for now, suffice to say I think I'm moving in the right direction...
I once again had the opportunity to show Tharg my samples - those very ones I was working on only last week. I still don't think I feel confident that I'm interpreting his comments correctly. Basically he said that there were some nice things going on in the pages and that I should send the samples in to the usual address and that he would put them on file and let me know if a suitable strip arose. I'm taking that with a pinch of salt as I don't want to go getting ahead of myself. (I did say I would rework a couple of panels before I submitted the samples, see below).

Over the course of the day, I met up with some cool people - Matt Soffe and his good friend Olly, Jim Campbell, Jim Boswell, Nic Wilkinson, Gary Erskine, Stacy Whittle, Ben Clark, Matt Banners and Paul Gravett amongst other exellent folk whose names I'm ashamed to say I have forgotten.

The evening was spent in the Briar Rose, the local Weatherspoon's pub just a few doors down from the Wellington. In short, great laughs, good people.

SUNDAY:
My head was a little swimmy, but I was buoyed up by the developments of the previous day. All I really had time for was a quick chat and cheerio before my portfolio review with Michael Wright - a DC commissioning editor. He said he thought I had some drawing chops - I took this as a compliment, ultimately I don't think he thought I was up to the required standard for DC or Marvel but he said I might make it as a penciller at somepoint... ahh well, whatever will be will be. I made a quick dash out of there thinking I had only a narrow window in which to catch my train out of Birmingham... we ended up at Birminham New street station about an hour early - but that was good as it gave me a chance to take stock of events and have a good chat with my better half about what it meant for us going forward.

Of all the pieces in my portfolio, there must be something about this piece, because it caused for the second year running, by far and away the most comment. I guess it says something about the comic reading demographic - worth pursuing in more pin-up pieces I reckon then.

Sorry for the wordy post - normal service will resume in due course.

Sinister Dexter - pencils!

Thanks to all the learned gentlemen who've offered advice to me after yesterday's post. This morning, after taking in all the great advice, I decided that it was best to have the whole story pencilled - I've got plenty of inked stuff and I felt it was better to tell the whole thing rather than look flaky and only have the start and finish. Here then, are the finished pencils.

Page two:

Page three:

I think these are ok for the showing to good old Tharg... I hope he likes them!

I won't be inking any of them, although I do have time tomorrow, because I'm going to get acquainted with my portfolio, print out a few samples for potential hand-outs and I'd like to do something about my business card - although I think it will probably just end up being a case of printing some more of the old one...

Wish me luck friends - I'll post again after BICS!

Dynamic Dredd?

After Tharg's last comments and in line with some sage advice from Dylan Teague, I revisited the 'two guns' approach for Dredd - with a healthy dose of "have you ever fired two guns whilst jumping through the air?" I think there is a distinct improvement in Dredd's 'power' and the further push on the foreshortened right hand adds more "IN YOUR FACE!" Looking at it again, I now notice the Eagle needs to be further out, to broaden Dredd's shoulders. I'll rework this a bit more, I think.



I've been working on a new website all week, as I feel that the current one isn't really reflective of what I'm doing/want to do more of.
Whilst scanning stuff for the (long overdue) sketchbook pages, I found this sketch of Dredd from a couple of weeks ago - I think it's way too static, but something made me scan it in... something about it really screamed "that's Dredd!" at me... I don't think it's representative of how I think I want my comic pages to look, I think it's more that there's something familiar about this Dredd, he looks 'bigger' somehow...
I've nearly finished building the new site, it's more of a 'refresh' than a rebrand, but hopefully it'll be ready soon and I can upload it.

Zarjaz and Dogbreath Strips

I've been doing some fanzine work for the splendid chaps at FutureQuake Press. I've already done a six page story for the next issue of Zarjaz and I've just finished a three page Gronk story for the next issue of Dogbreath... I'm pretty chuffed as I lettered this strip too. I've got another strip for Dogbreath in the works as well that should be pretty cool too...

Find out more about these two brilliant publications at The Quaequam blog. If you need some reading material until your next Prog or Meg arrives, swing by their shop and order yourself some of the finest small press sci-fi you're likely to read.


This panel is from the six pager, I won't say which 2000AD 'parent' story it's from as I don't want to give too much away until the strip is printed. I felt that I should use a hatching style on this for a number of reasons, evoke part of what the original strip had and also because this is set in the 60s, I wanted a traditional 'older' look to the work - on reflection I'm not sure my hatching is up to the standard I wanted.


This panel is from the Gronk strip. I've used a home-made digital tone as I wanted to control how the 'grey' areas would appear in the final print. I also wanted to test-drive something I'd experimented with before. The other thing to mention for those of you are just along for the ride is that this panel has my depictions of Johnny Alpha and Wulf Sternhammer from Strontium Dog.

I'll submit these (and the Dredd Pin-up) to Tharg, and hopefully share his feedback as soon as I have it!

I do have some more, enormous, headline grabbing news that I can't blog about yet, but when the next issue of Zarjaz comes out... you'll know about it!

***EDIT***
Just had feedback from Tharg - man he's a speedy alien that one!
(copied from his verdant e-mail which pinged into my inbox with a certain authority)

Thanks for the samples, Kevin. Your linework is quite strong, and the pages are nice and clear, but I think you need to work further at your human figure drawing and anatomy. Dredd's foreshortened arms in the pin-up don't look quite right, for example. The characters need to feel like they're moving and have life, and that they have substance to them.

Right, onwards and upwards - I've got more samples to produce - I'll keep working on my figures - I do have some problems with anatomy and foreshortening that I'm working on and hopefully once I've cracked that...

I'm in 2000AD!

A letter I wrote a letter to Tharg and it was printed in this week's 2000AD!



Wahoo! I'm in the prog! Another step in the right direction.

Cornering Tharg

Yesterday was the bumper 2000AD signing at Forbidden Planet in London to support the release of David Bishop's Thrill-Power Overload in paperback. I dutifully got a copy signed by the the gang of charming creators (affectionately known as 'droids') who were in attendance.

My thanks for pleasant chatettes go to: Dan Abnett, David Bishop, Simon Davis, Rufus Dayglo, Al Ewing, Henry Flint, Frazer Irving, Tony Lee, Brendan McCarthy, Matt Smith and Si Spurrier. Particular thanks to Simon in fact for looking at my work, claiming to know me from somewhere but mainly for being ego boosting about my artwork - charming fellow!

Once again I showed my work to Tharg - poor man hemmed in by my portfolio, a table and a rack of books (not to mention the other fans of the Galaxy's Greatest Comic) - I left him no where to go...
...He was once again very kind about my story telling and complimentary about certain other aspects of my work, although he didn't think I was exactly suited to Dredd, he told me to e-mail him my samples. No promise of work but a major step forward!

On friday I had managed to bash out this extra page of finished pencils.


I don't think it helped much other than I felt I had enough in my porfolio to show what I could do with a script. Look out for a subtle Police Academy reference on this page.

I'm not sure how close I am to having my work printed in 2000AD but a letter I sent in is printed in this week's prog... more on that when I pick up my copy in the week!

Judge Dredd - Informant 4.1

I've not had time to do any comic art for such a long time. This weekend there is a 2000AD signing at Forbidden Planet in London... another chance, perhaps, to shove my work under the nose of the Mighty Tharg. Today I had a brief window in my schedule, so I thought I'd redraw the panels that irked me on page 4 of the Judge Dredd script I was working on so long ago.


I am much happier with this page now. Panels 2, 4 and 7 were a little weak previously... I'd never expect that anyone would remember the originals so here are both versions side by side for reference:


Whatever I manage to do tomorrow to prepare will be a bonus - in amongst other commitments and the house move I'll be surprised if I finish much more than pencils for the remaining pages in the script.

Wish me luck, friends, as I once again prepare myself to wrestle with that Betelgeusian Editor and try to persuade him to give me a chance to work on the Galaxy's Greatest Comic!

Judge Dredd © 2009 Rebellion Developments/2000AD

The Mighty Tharg

Alien editor of the Galaxy's Greatest Comic.


Verdant of hue and pithy of comment - Tharg has introduced the "thrills" on offer in nearly all the issues (progs) of 2000AD to date. He is a figure head, a fictional creation (don't let him hear me say that though) for the real editor to use as a mouthpiece, so-to-speak. Periodically an artist will be charged with the task of updating his 'look' - this is my take on him.