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.

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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!

HiEx Packing and Portfolio

Been pretty busy in the last few weeks, still settling into the new home (and art office studio workspace thing)...
...so there has been a distinct lack of posts.


All I have that I can show currently is the work I did on Teen Wulf and this is pretty much my favourite page from the whole strip. Fingers crossed this one page won't give too much away, but will whet your appetite for the rest!
Hopefully all my pre printing pimping means that you've already ordered this from the wonderful chaps at FutureQuake. I also hope you will enjoy it, it was a lot of fun to do!

Been preparing and packing this week for a long trek north to the HiEx Comic Convention (this coming weekend). I struggled to get my portfolio sorted until I entered the mindset "what if someone asked me what to include in a portfolio?".

Ruthlessly, I stripped out everything but my strongest sequential pages... now everyone says don't include pin-ups, but you know, I've had pretty good responses to this piece in the past and I think a pin-up can be something that sticks in a editor's mind, helping them to identify you. (WARNING: possibly slightly naughty for work and/or minors).
So I'm starting with that and then moving onto 6 pages of sequential work inc. a double page spread. Then I've got an illustration that will be printed in a book later in the year and a few other pieces of coloured work I'm particularly happy with. All in that's 10 folio sleeves, possibly a little more than I need but the order is such that hopefully by the point they get through the sequential stuff they'll be interested enough to see the rest.

Wish me luck, as I am driving all the way to Inverness, admittedly with a stop off in the Lakes courtesy of a very kind friend, but nevertheless, that's a long old drive. I'll be back soon, hopefully with some more stuff I can share!

Wulf Whistle

I'm back! This post has nothing to do with Whistling however! Unless a 'Phew', counts!


PHEW! I've just finished up the last pages for the Teen Wulf strip for Dogbreath.
In total it's a whopping thirteen page strip written by the wonderful Rich Clements, lettered by the immensely underappreciated Bolt-01 and has another logo designed by me.


Yes it's (in part) trying to mimic the 'Teen Wolf' logo from the Michael J Fox film... but the 'Wulf' lettering is all my own!

Strip will be published in issue 22 of Dogbreath and is launching at the HiEx Comic Convention in Inverness in just over a fortnight!

Leap of Faith

Once again my good lady and I are moving, this time hopefully though will be the last move for a long, long time! Internet will not be hooked up for a couple of days and so, this might be the last post for a while!
To tide the old blog over then, here's another teaser for that Teen Wulf strip.


The page this comes from was an absolute joy to do, I'd devised an interesting panel layout and I think it really worked.
I've just seen Vicky's final version of the colours for the double page spread too... it's gonna be pretty special when that issue of Dogbreath is released at HiEx...

Teen Wulf Teaser

Busy, busy, busy. Here's a sneak peak at a panel from a rather funky double-page-spread that's being planned for the next issue of Dogbreath... It will be my first collaboration in print too as it's being coloured by the incredibly talented artist and busy HiEx organising firefighter Vicky Stonebridge.


You know, you really could do worse than to order some of the FutureQuakePress titles such as Dogbreath and Zarjaz. What's that, you've just ordered some today?... Good!

Teen Wulf

Ahh, some news has been reported on thequaequamblog about my involvement on a fun little project that has been brewing since last year's Bristol Comic Expo.
Teen Wulf, a two part story about Wulf Sternhammer's youthful exploits. The first part will be available in the next (imminent) issue of Dogbreath!


I did this sketch as a warm-up whilst Rich Clements, (who should need no introduction to regular readers of my blog) was writing the script.
I've blogged about this in one, two or three teaser postings before...
I'm working on the second part now, and then it's onwards with Corvus, also written by Rich!

Credit to Nic Wilkinson at Insomnia for the great punning on the title.

Happy New Year

Here is a very quick sketch of Strontium Dog (Johnny Alpha). I've just finished reading a story called A Traitor to His Kind in my catch-up reading of the weekly progs. It's a great story, and like A Portrait of a Mutant it really gives background depth to Johnny's character.


This year, according to various sources, John Wagner will revisit/rewrite the death of Johnny Alpha, I'd like the story to give Johnny back his future. I didn't think Johnny should have died in The Final Solution and don't mind if there is a twist in the tale that gives him his life back - I'd like to think Johnny eventually finds happiness and gets to retire to an alien planet somewhere...

Hopefully that's a nice positive thought for the start to the New Year.

Zenith and Gronk

Earlier in the year, I illustrated two strips for the fab chaps at FutureQuake Press...
The first was Red Dragon, a Zenith prequel.


The second was Strontium Gronk, A Strontium Dog spin-off.


What do you mean you still haven't bought copies? GO NOW and order them... PLEASE?

Unlettered art for all the pages can be found both on my comicspace page and on my DeviantART.

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.

Zarjaz 08

Way back in February, I did this warm-up piece for a strip I was going to be doing for Zarjaz. I can now reveal that the strip is called Red Dragon. Red Dragon is a Welsh superhero from the Zenith universe created by Grant Morrison.

I was particularly excited that this was going to be my first published strip, as I have been a fan of Zenith since it first appeared in 2000AD over 20 years ago.

Issues of Zarjaz containing my strip will be available soon... see here and don't forget I've got something coming up in Dogbreath too, you can pre-order both of these awesome fanzines soon via the same link! Please do help to support these fanzines as they are non-profit ventures and without them it would be far more difficult to begin a career in comics.

Toning it Down

At the risk of repeating myself, here is that panel again, the small difference this time is the tone...

I'm hoping that the tone will add depth in the absence of colour, although there is just one thing with this panel that I've really struggled with and that is the fire... I can't seem to get effect of the light and heat in the way I want.

There is so much about this story I'm dying to gab about, especially as it will be a year before it's printed... SO, I'll satisfy myself for now, by saying it's been written by Richmond Clements who is one third of FutureQuake Press, one half of the team behind HiEx and is also about to make his professional comics writing debut with Turning Tiger for Renegade.

This story was born in one of those synergy moments, when I met Rich at the Bristol Comic Convention earlier this year, I casually said something that had been on his mind to do... I love stuff like that - when the right place, right person, right time, make cool things happen.

A Wee Drinkie?

This is another panel from the strip I'm doing for Dogbreath... and, from the end of the week, you'll be able to pre-order both Dogbreath and the issue of Zarjaz containing the strips I did previously... exciting isn't it!

There's cause for celebration again, as I had a very encouraging e-mail from Paul Gravett on Sunday. For those of you who haven't heard of him, Paul is a tireless supporter of the comics medium, through his own works, journalism and the organisation of the Comica festival.

Pat Mills had suggested (at the signing) that I contact Paul and I'm chuffed I did because this is what he had to say:

...I've taken a look at your site and blog - Pat's got a good eye, and he's right, you're talented and just need that good story to work on.
You're on my radar now...

I know it's not an offer of work. But I do feel that I am close to making that leap from amateur to professional paid work. With the pot emptying faster that I can fill it, that would be no bad thing.

Fireside Fun

That story I'm working on again today, these are the inks for panel one, page one. I've taken a bit longer to do the page than I had wanted to, but amongst the other things that were happening this week, not I'm unhappy. I think I'll eventually add tone to the strip, but I've got a bit longer to complete this than I first thought. So you'll have to wait longer than expected to see the final thing, sorry!


This weekend, the 'Godfather' of 2000AD, Pat Mills will be signing copies of his latest stories to be collected as trade paper backs, at Orbital Comics in London... with him will be the talented artists who he's worked with on these books, Leigh Gallagher and Clint Langley. As Pat is such a huge figure in the history of the comic, I thought I might pop along and try to show him some samples - you never know, it might do some good... if you see me there, say hello!

Pencil Pusher's Progress

Ye Gods! Nearly a week between posts...


I'm pretty chuffed though... six pages pencilled in less than three days - which I think is pretty quick and close to the necessary speed. Here's two panels from those pages as a taster - you'll have to wait a long time to see the final things as these are for a strip not scheduled to appear in Dogbreath until next spring!


I don't really want to say too much about these - as it might spoil a nice surprise...

When the pages are finished, I'll probably still post a panel or two more though...