I've just sent out my e-card to (hopefully) all of my friends, family, clients and collaborators etc.
En-masse e-mail delivery paranoia demands that I state here that if you haven't received the card, feel you should have or would like to receive it next year... please do that which is necessary to alert me, fix your filters and/or notify your e-mail provider that I'm not spam!
It's a truly awful pun, but that is, in-keeping with festive or seasonal jokes found in crackers...
The initial idea was just a horrible cardigan made into a card, like so many 'Christmas jumpers' of my youth - after sketching a perplexed and generic 'every-man' holding up said offending garment, it occurred that the real joke was in the misunderstanding. Why it became Peter Parker and MJ is anybody's guess, but my guess would fall firmly in the camp of "because I like drawing girls".
The usual 'stages' stuff follows:
digital roughs
sketch-up lounge guide
final digital "pencils"
inks
All the very best of the season to you all, have a good one!
A terrible, terrible pun drifted into my mind - but one that had to be done! Nikolai Dante is the swashbuckling lead character in the 2000ad saga of the same name, created by Robbie Morrison and Simon Fraser. For the uninitiated, Jena Makarov is his love interest (a frequently thwarted one).
here are the pencils and inks for those of you who are interested in the process.
I had a number of captions and dialogue options, some more smutty than others, and I even asked for some opinions, and they were as divided as my own... in the end I left the 'sack' jokes alone, despite the puerile joy of them. You are welcome to suggest any and all alternate options in the comments though!
Following the 2000ad Lego commission, Ian Leonard asked if I could expand the concept by doing cover recreations of classic 2000ad covers. He had a number in mind, but first up was Brian Bolland's brilliant cover to prog 225.
For ref, I've included the original Bolland version below.
I missed a trick though, I should have edited in a 'Legoland' price... if Ian asks for any more of these, I will add that into the price list somewhere!
A little while ago, Lee Robson, asked me if I'd be interested in taking part in a project to help promote his (and Bryan Coyle's) upcoming Graphic Novel Babble, furthermore, it would mean doing my own take on BlueSpear for it! Naturally, I was coy, and simply said I'd be delighted. What was more, he'd squared the way with Andi Ewington and Com.X and they were happy for Lee to use my depiction of BlueSpear on his promotional project! Excited? Me? You betcha!
Lee has some other top characters and creators lined up and the project continues this week with Dave Evans' Whistler.
Recently did this illustration of Emma Frost for Andi Ewington, he of 'The 45' from Com.X fame. Watch out for 'Blue Spear' coming soon from Com.X by Andi, Eddie Deighton and Cosmo White.
She'll wrap you around her little finger, so it's no surprise that here's a picture of a happy looking Andi with my interpretation of Ms. Frost!
Well, last month I was delighted to be invited to contribute once again to Scotch Corner, the Caledonian Comic Artists Collective who're celebrating their blogging birthday this month with a series of guest slots. I'm am amongst some seriously talented folk contributing, too many cool people to name have already contributed - and there's more to come!
Previously, I've submitted Bat-world pieces to their guest slot: a Harley Quinn, a Joker, and a Catwoman, but no surprises, it is 2000ad that I have turned to on this special occasion. Specifically the world of Strontium Dog, and as is usual for me, I gravitated to the girl in the gang - Durham Red.
You can see the full coloured version of that over on Scotch Corner. Also note the edited hand... after I'd inked it, and saught the advice of trusted indivduals, I felt this version was too claw like.
If you like this, then please come back tomorrow as I'll be posting up a piece that celebrates the return of Johnny Alpha, in fact, the resurrection of Johnny Alpha and his imminent return to the prog - as trailered in prog 1742, see the prog or ECBT2000ad for the details!
Usually I bang on about my own art, 2000ad and not much else here on my blog...
But I bought a copy of SVK last week and felt the urge to share my experience of it. If you've heard nothing about this comic, then where have you been?
Hopefully I haven't gone all pseudo review tone in the following.
SVK, Berg London, Warren Ellis and D'Israeli (Matt Brooker) have created something wonderful. I ordered during the week, pretty soon after I saw that the comic was available - instinctively I knew here was something that was important. On Thursday, a beautiful package arrived, carefully considered and graphically pleasing, contained within was the high production value Comic and SVK device, or UV torch.
Not exactly a new reading experience, as I could liken certain aspects of it to '3D' comics with '3D' glasses of the 70s and 80s but it's certainly a different and intriguing concept. Intiguing enough to keep me engaged to the very end and had me scouring the pages over and over again to hopefully eek out those little secrets no one else had noticed.
The only criticism I can find is that perhaps the build quality of the torch could be a little better, as one bulb flickers slightly, but that didn't harm my reading experience in the slightest. I don't want to say too much about the story, it is short and punchy and perhaps for the money, I might be used to seeing twice the number of pages, but I think I'm entirely happy with the value for money.
The current trend for digital books has posed the question: is print dead? SVK answers that with an unequivocal NO. Reading a comic or book for that matter can be an immersive experience and when the reader is engaged in a way that SVK engaged me interactively, then I hope that print very much has a future. I also hope that others will be inspired to push the boundaries in similar ways that SVK does. I know I'm certainly thinking a little differently after reading it.
The first print run has sold out, but it looks like there will be a second printing coming soon. I strongly advise anyone with an interest in graphic media to get hold of a copy! For more details see the official SVK page.
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.
I was contacted recently by Ryan Ballard, who is putting together a whole book of sketches based on the fantastic Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon series Preacher as a present for his Dad. How cool is that? You can see all the contributions he's got so far at The Preacher Project.
He asked me for a Jody and TC - two of the worst brothers I think that have ever been cooked up.
I went for their flashback versions - as that's where we see what a pair of evil b*stards they really are... if you've read the story, you'll know what TC is up to here.
I showed the initial pencils to Ryan and he asked if I could revise the sketch more inline with the scene where Jesse's Dad get's shot. <<<-- highlight for spoiler. This moved from the implied humour of my initial concept, and would play up the emotional resonance - Ryan also asked if I could add in a young, upset but determined Jesse... TC's dialogue just didn't fit anymore.
I was chuffed to be invited to join the gang, and I was pretty pleased with the result too!
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.
This weekend was a dash around extravaganza. Bristol Comic Expo on the Saturday and a family event on the Sunday. All in all a good weekend.
There were some fine chats had with some good folk, and as is usual with a convention, I missed loads of other friends I'd wanted to see. On this occasion, not at all surprising as I was buzzing around so much in the short time I was there.
Thanks to John Freeman, Brady Webb, Joel Meadows & Gary Marshall, Emma Hayley, Andi Ewington and Eddie Deighton for very kind words about my portfolio - I've got some good feedback to think about and there are some very interesting irons in the fire as a result of the dash around, but more on that as things pan out.
I don't really have anything else I can show at the moment so, in the meantime, here's a piece I did for A Little Bit Bunny a while ago.
The creature was Owl, but hopefully it doesn't need too much more explanation. It was a nice distraction, and hopefully shows some other skills. Blue Whale is the next creature, if you felt like joining in!
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.
Amongst other bits and pieces and preparation for this weekend's Kapow, I've been doing a commission for John Burdis, I'd done something for The Cellar of Dredd before, a quick single illustration of Hondo-Cit's Inspector Inaba. I'd done that under my own steam following the fab time I had at the Hi-Ex Comicon, but this time, John had something in mind.
The following is all about the "process" for those of you who like to see the work in progress stuff.
I did an initial sketch based upon John's original brief:
"Dredd stood in the middle of a street with dead superheroes strewn all around him and Joe saying something along the lines of "Costumed vigilantes, leave the real crime fighting to me!" The characters who would be dead would include Superman (head missing definitely), Batman, Wonderwoman, Captain America and all those other US bods."
One thought kept floating around my brain, a pile of dead super-heroes and something in Brian Bolland's classic cover to Prog 2000 kept nagging at me as well.
John liked the inital sketch but had a couple of requests for additions if I could manage them:
First up was a simple addition to the roster of the dispatched: "Green Arrow's arm with a broken bow"
Next was just a weapons' upgrade to the "Colt Widowmaker " instead of the Anti-Hero gun I'd been musing over as the reason why Dredd was now able to dispatch these super-heroes.
Finally, a nice way to really make the commission a personal one: " a large pristine BURDIS BLOCK and a couple of derelict smaller blocks with the names MARVEL and DC".
In Dredd's world, towering apartment Blocks are often named after famous people, sometimes for satirical reasons, sometimes equally as a tribute to that person. I felt that DC and MARVEL blocks could nicely be rolled into the one (albeit well beaten-up) DEE CEE MARVILLE block.
I wanted the blocks to say something about John and the two comic companies respectively... aside from the beaten-up aspect of DEE CEE MARVILLE, I wanted the block to hint at those companies' stock-in-trade - Super-heroes!
John's online forum name is COMMANDO FORCES, for reason's which are obvious to anyone who knows him. Hopefully my intentions for his 'block' shouldn't need much more explaining. For the DEE CEE MARVILLE block, I wanted it to look as much a possible like a cape flowing over the shoulders of a hero, almost immediately that dictated a very Art Deco style, evocative of old movie theatres.
By this point I've switched into Google Sketch-up to muck about with the architecture, mainly because if we decide to change the POV, I haven't got to reconstruct the difficult curvature on that art Deco styled block... but it wasn't there that my main problem would be!
I had inadvertently created, by virtue of the military style helmet, a very phallic looking building... "could you put some sort of roof sports complex/airport style thing somewhere around/on that part?". Thankfully we caught it and had a chance to make a suitable alteration.
The only other thing John wanted was "More gore on those bodies." I guess the super-hero fan in me was just subconsciously trying to limit the damage to all those "good guys", but, you've got to give the client what they want!
I'd been concerned over Dredd's footing and so I added in Reed Richards, utlising his 'rubbery' consistency to nicely fill in the space between Superman and WonderWoman.
After showing the last version to John, I couldn't help but think we'd lost the 'Military' in the styling of 'Burdis Block' in favour of Miners or worse still, Doozers!
The easiest way to show him some alternatives was a little fly-around movie taken out of Sketch-up. I can't advocate strongly enough the time saving aspects of this program for me, where previously (hours of projecting the perspective correctly) would have ended up making me want to stab myself in the head.
Throughout the process, there had been dissatisfaction on both our parts over the wording of Dredd's proclamation, neither of ours had been punchy enough. John had started a forum topic to ask for help and there had been some great and some very witty suggestions, but it wasn't until my good pal and Fractal Friction co-contributer Chris Askham suggested a short and sweet "When are you CREEPS gonna learn?", that either John or myself found a 'fit' for the illustration.
We we're all happy until John posted my initial sketch in the same forum topic...
PJ Holden (who has always been insightful and helpful to me from my very earliest foray into the comics business) suggested the even shorter and IMO 'sweeter' "WHO'S NEXT?". Sorry Chris, but you know when something's right.
With the final version okayed by John, I turned the 'pencils' into a 'blueline' ready to print out. Using another tip I'd picked up from PJ, I left the 'speech' to print out in Black for crispness in the final artwork.
I inked the dead super-heroes first because I knew there would be a lot of work in that part, in fact it took most of a morning to do, but after getting Dredd inked in, it was all fairly plain sailing and came together quite quickly!
I sent a scan of the final thing to John yesterday and I'm pleased to say he's very happy with it and looking forward to seeing it in the flesh at Kapow!
I guess that's it really, other than to ask: "WHO'S NEXT?"
I've just finished my strip for the upcoming ABC Warriors Special issue of the Eagle Awards nominated fanzine Zarjaz.
The strip is another creative partnership with my good friend Rich Clements. I was really chuffed because Rich's script included a few panels with all the ABC warriors as they appeared in the Black Hole story line.
Pat Mills' original story, which marked the comics' debut of Simon Bisley, had a massive effect on me as a child - one of the major things that made me want to be a comic artist all those years ago!
I made the somewhat foolish decision to try to ape a little of the Biz's style - I can say now, that I didn't quite achieve the dynamism that he seemed to so effortlessly inject into his ABC Warriors pages - but I did learn some stuff as a result and it was a fun strip to do!
When the issue is out, I will share a bit more than this one panel... because I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise!
Just as early with this as I was with last year's e-card...
With all the snow we've been having and also because I'm feeling very seasonal (we just put up our tree this week) it seemed appropriate to get the festive season off to an early start!
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.
Hopefully, even if it only helps to reawaken one lapsed reader, it will have been worth the effort. Thanks in advance.
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)
