Since you asked Katy.....

Hope this is enough for you to coo over.

The week that was

Slow week at BlahBlahBlah. Seeing as I had a week of work I thought I'd have a week off blogging, a whole week, honestly I'm shaking as I type this.
So what did I do on my week off? Ah, just stuff, y'know. Dismantled a wardrobe and desk, took some books and other stuff to a charity shop, moved a bookcase downstairs took two upstairs (there was method in this madness), went to Manchester and met up with my sister and her chap and basked in the gloriousness of spending time with my wife and daughter.
Going to Manchester meant I got to pick up a few comics I might not have noticed otherwise, which is always appreciated, best of them was Brian Ralph's 'Daybreak', well worth a look for his brilliant artwork. 'The Mighty Skullboy Army' collection was a lot of fun too. Talking of comics I see 'Fluffy' by Simone Lia was reviewed in the Guardian, I read a few issues of this and adored it, Lia's artwork is lovely and lovely, I'll be buying the collection.
For my own stuff I didn't try too hard to do anything but I rough scripted a story I'll call 'Robot' for now and hope when I draw it I'll have come up with a better title. I'll post up the design for robot in a couple of days, I might even start drawing the comic in week or so, as long as the shock of going back to work tomorrow does send me mad.

Zombie of the Great Unwashed page 5

Bit of background here for a change, and it helps! There was originally supposed to be an exterior establishing shot of the burger place but Jason suggested it might not be necessary so I decided against it. Not sure if Jason was after Derek fancying the girl serving him but the dialogue seemed to suggest it to me so that's why he's grinning (not suffering from mumps!) and rubbing the back of his head in panel 2..... oh I am the master of body language! Went a bit over the top with Hugo's zombie lurch on p3, but dammit I like him!
Panels 4 and 5 was originally one panel but I thought it'd be nice to slow the action of finger eating down. Not intended but the graphicy look of the last panel makes it feel like a nice full stop.... I think. Attempting to make the finger look exclamation mark like was intention, but as usual I'm not sure if that comes across.
And that's it, as whiney as I am about my work it's been fun and writing about it like this helps me see where I need to improve (background, backgrounds backgrounds!), hope you all enjoy the story and I'll let you know when the finished book comes out.

Zombie of the Great Unwashed page 4

That's some seriously stylised trees (perhaps they inspired Eileen's hair), but I like them and think they work. There's no perspective to speak of working here but after sketching an early version of this using proper perspective I just didn't like it, perhaps because of the odd looking trees. More panel repetition and straigtforward composition, but I like it here because of the back of the bench unifying it a little - little confession, these panel had to be reversed and redrawn cos I got Hugo and Derek the wrong way round, oops, that's like drawing an extra finger on someone's hand (which I've also done once or twice). Jason pointed out that it might not be immediately apparent that the note Derek is holding was previously stuck to Hugo's face, I have asked AccentUk if I can redo it, but it's not looking likely.

Zombie of the Great Unwashed page 3

This page went through a complete layout change, mainly based around how to do the first panel. The script asked for the setting to be a modern bank in an old fashioned building and I had originally planned to have the panel run the width of the page, but as I'd already worked out the last panel and liked it as it was I realised panels 2 and 3 would be cramped. Also the old fashioned banks are all about ceilings, so I did a rejig and came up with this page. My slow thinking on this meant it was the last page I drew and as such it's rushed - the ceiling is the only thing that says 'bank' in panel 1 (ever tried to take a photo of a bank interior? Frowned upon.) The last panel highlights a bit of mistake I always make, I get grabbed by an idea for only part of image and then have to fit the rest of artwork around it. Still, that's some nice zombie biting action:)

Zombie of the Great Unwashed page 2

A bit more background on this page and a work on Eileen's outfit wouldn't have gone amiss. The challenge of this page, and the first 3 to some degree, is that there's 3 people close together reacting to each other, compositionally that's tough (for me, anyway) to do and keep things interesting. Fortunately there was a clue in Jason's script that asked for a panel to be repeated so I went for more repetition. I think the column of panels on the right works better than the left, Hugo slumping is a nice touch (Jason's touch not mine) and I'm pleased with the slight zoom to the newspaper with Hugo and Derek poking over the top. Eileen's hand in p3 is supposed to give the impression that she's barely looked at the form, not a bad idea, but I'm not so sure I pulled it off - although Jason emailed me and did meantion he like the hands in the story, so maybe I did! As scripted panels 5 and 6 were actually one panel, I split them as I liked the symmetry of layout and it made it easier to show everyone's faces and the newspaper headline.

Zombie of the Great Unwashed page 1

As I've not heard that I shouldn't post this I've decided to go put up the 1st page from Zombie of the Great Unwashed with a bit of added commentary. cFirst panel and the face should've been bigger to make more impact, but there was a fair bit to put in the rest of the panels and quite a bit of dialogue (Jason likes dialogue and I like Jason's dialogue so even though he was fine with changes I tried to avoid them) as well as the title. I thought about having dramatic lighting or a black background to make it jump out, and play against the everyday settings, but in the end went with sparse background (intentional for once!) and my usual heavy inking for Hugo. The large word balloon's had a missing word artlessly shoved in driving home the need to sort out an art package on my Mac. Lack of background in the next panel might not get the point across that this scene is in a Job Centre. Pulling back to show more of the setting would've helped but I think the main characters are small enough. The guy in the star t-shirt is from a comic I did waaaay back, sad to see him all washed up, but them's the breaks. Last tier's a bit crushed (particularly p4 with it's questionable foreshortening!), but I wanted p2 to run the width of the page, so it had to be. The last panel was originally meant to be the first panel of the next page but I got all 'meta-panelly'.

Telly

I missed Ugly Betty tonight as it clashed with Party Animals on BBC2, which I wasn't so sure about but ended up really enjoying - the guy from Ruby in the Smoke was really good. And, y'know, there's 4 chances to see Ugly Betty, which is crazy, but as I love it I don't mind.
Also saw the trailer for the new series of the unbelievably brilliant Life on Mars, which was as amazing as I'd heard, utter utter genius.
I'll calm down now.

Zombie of the Great Unwashed page 2

I don't want to moan about my artwork on these posts, but I will say I find this page the least effective. A bit more in the way of backgrounds and a bit more work on Eileen's outfit wouldn't have gone amiss. The challenge of this page, and the first 3 to some degree, is that there's 3 people close together reacting to each other, compositionally that's tough (for me, anyway) to do and keep things interesting. Fortunately there was a clue in Jason's script that asked for a panel to be repeated so I went for more repetition. I think the column of panels on the right works better than the left, Hugo slumping is a nice touch (Jason's touch not mine) and I'm pleased with the slight zoom to the newspaper with Hugo and Derek poking over the top. Eileen's hand in p3 is supposed to give the impression that she's barely looked at the form, not a bad idea, but I'm not so sure I pulled it off. As scripted panels 5 and 6 were actually one panel, I split them as I liked the symetry of layout and it made it easier to show everyone's faces and the newspaper headline.

Back again

Been a while since the last update, I won't lie, it's been a tough couple of weeks. Work (the regular paid kind) has been not good for a variety of reasons, it's been odd.
Olivia's become more.... 'challenging' during the evenings, which is... 'fun'. It balances out really well though because she's also getting seriously interactive, responding to my Beaker impressions with smiles, laughter and some beautiful cooing that puts Gizmo to shame.
In the odd spare moment I managed to finish 'Zombie of the Great Unwashed', just last night, which feels like a major achievement in the circumstances. I'll post artwork up with some comments, a sort of 'commentary' kind of thing I've nicked from someone else.

Progress

Eek, the zombie deadline looms ever closer like a, um, hungry zombie. Three pages are completely penciled, another two thirds penciled and one sort of over half way penciled but I'm unsure about the layout so want to mess a little. I've also started inking, but as I jump from panel to panel it's hard to say how much I've done. Anyway, the deadline's end of the month and I should manage that okay, in fact if I wasn't at work this weekend I might have done it by Sunday. It'll now be appearing in a more graphic novel-y format as AccentUK have had enough submissions to go that route. The next anthology will be robots and I had a nice idea for a story today so I'll try and contribute to that, early planning I know, but probably a smart move.
Not much else going on workwise, writing's ground to a halt as I struggle with plot and an overall lack of faith in the book industry. I put myself under a lot of pressure by dreaming how wonderful it would be to be published and paid to do something I love that frankly I lost track of the fact that I could care less about being published and would still try and make things up if I was paid or not. That and a growing dislike of the state of books makes me think I should put those dreams aside and just enjoy doing whatever I get round to doing.

Visiting

This weekend goes to the top of my weird family visiting charts. Nothing odd happened, but having Olivia stay at her grandparent's and seeing her great granda was another of those 'you have a daughter, idiot!' moments. Olivia had to be prized from her grandma's fingers like a gun from Charleton Heston's cold dead hands and she was a hit with her great granda, which I must admit brought a manly tear to my eye. My granda was diagnosed with stomach cancer and the decision's been taken not operate. He's fine at the moment and would rather have less time of better quality than a little longer and in no position to appreciate it. It did give seeing my baby girl smiling and gurgling on my granda's lap an extra jolt it probably didn't need and I'm so glad to have had it.
Back in Lancaster the house is a tip and feels very small after stopping at mam and dad's, there's a zombie script to finish drawing (it's about 80% pencilled, so it might be finished this time next week) and I'll be back at work tomorrow after a nice three day weekend.
Once the zombie comic is done I'm hoping to getting back to posting regular drawings, probably one a week. I like trying to regularly get something done and it being nice and self contained, I have been so inspired by noticing Eric Canete is posting artwork again, it's great stuff, but I'm just blown away by the fact how prolific he is, if I do four pix a month I'm patting myself on the back between catching my breath.
I sneaked a go on my dad's broadband and had a look at the ace Grindhouse trailer as well as this fabulous pic, which is compulsory viewing but may drive you insane

No zombies, but some baby talk

Another page of zombie antics penciled and lettered, but it's the last page so I'm not showing it yet. I would've picked a panel out, but the nicest one to show on it's own might spoil things a little. Sorry, might finish page 2 in a day or so though.
If you're wondering why I penciled page 1 and then page 6, wonder no more. Truth is it was a fluke that I did p1 first as I tend to draw random panels and cobble them together as I go with no thought or regard for proper progression. I tend to dig into the panels I have a strong idea for or are 'easy'. This is, for me, a very stupid way of working as I already have consistency issues, but I do it because if I didn't then it would probably take me even longer to finish a story, at least this way I know I'll be doing a certain amount and it often helps provide inspiration on the other panels.
I am going to try and leave the inking until it's all penciled though, but as I love inking and think my work doesn't look like mine until it's done, I might fail with that plan.

In home type news, Rebecca went out for the first time since Olivia was born. It was touch and go if she'd make it as she misses Olivia when she's in another room, but she got out on time. Now she knows better how I feel leaving to go to work and is dreading having to do it herself in a few months time..... unless it starts raining gold coins at our feet before then.

Actual sneak peak

Here's the promised page of pencils (in 2 parts due to duff art package, hope they actually fit on the screen proberly this time!) for Zombie of the Great Unwashed. Still no further forward to deciding how to render panel 1 (I'll probably just do it with no black areas and then experiment on photocopies to see which one works best)
Might go over the scratchy borders with a thicker pen, I love scritchy line work which is probably a bit odd since I strive for quite smooth brush work.

Sneak preview of a sneak preview

Finished pencils up soon, in the meantime here's the very first panel. Twice. First version is the initial (after the previous four) sketch, then there's my tighter version. I'm a bit stuck how to ink the final version because of these. See, I can't decide if the dramatic shadows on the face are too much. In the context of the light hearted story it might be a little OTT, but then I like the incongruity of it. On the other hand maybe just blacking out the (not very interesting in this panel) background will be enough....
What to do, what to do.

link

Brief post to sing the praises of LibraryThing, I've already started building my account here.

More to life than reading... apparently

Took me a while but I finally finished reading 'Heart Shaped Box' by Joe Hill and very enjoyable it was too. The main character, Jude (a mix between Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson Alice Cooper I guess.... he's a rock star btw), is sort of a bit unlikeable, but I liked him anyway as as well as having a bit of charm he's also a redeemable character, important in horror. There's not much in the way of plot, it's more of a ramble, but that work's fine. It's more of a ghost story than a horror one if the distinction matters and whilst it won't be worrying M.R. James coffin it's a fine yarn and I hope it does well.
Next on the reading list is G.W. Dahlquist's The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters which I have high hopes for. I was very lucky to get hold of an advance copy of this (although it's been out in the US for a while now) as the proof is a lovely looking thing it's own right presented as 10 seperate volumes with Victorian stylings.
Drop by in a day or two and I should have a page of pencils for Zombie of the Great Unwashed posted.

Happy New Year

No New Years resolutions or looking backs at 2006, I know what was good in '06 and what I want to do in '07 so I'll just try and get on with it.
Hope you all had a good Christmas and all the best for 2007.

Here's to you Clarence

Christmas is almost here, but working in a shop and preparing for Christmas insanely early (and I'll be there tomorrow (Christmas Eve) after we close up putting the Sale in, gah!) makes it sort of fade to the back of my mind.
My favourite moments still happen, the cheese/biscuit/port on Christmas Eve tradition my wife and I started a few years ago. Opening presents early Christmas morning and looking to see if there's a channel showing Laurel and Hardy, or any good b&w film. Crisp cold nights in town/city centres, people wrapped up, twinkling lights and stars and the promise of snow.
Christmases to come will have the added bonus of enjoying it all through our daughter's eyes and that will be the best gift of all, work or not.
And so, as tiny tim observed "God bless us, everyone!' Merry Christmas to everyone who's ever dropped by, I'll be raising a festive glass (got a present that looks suspiciously like a bottle of single malt) to you all!

Good for you sir!

It's the kind of bold, moral and possibly mad move that impresses the hell out of me (it's why I love Bill Watterson), an independant children's author has asked amazon to remove his book from their site as he would rather support indie bookstores. Read a bit more about it here.

What have I been up to?

As Peter points out, I've had an out of character bout of no posting.
Time's been taken up with Olivia, work (retail + Christmas=AAARGH!!!!), getting back into exercising again (great timing I know) and roughing out artwork for a story in the upcoming AccentUk Zombie book.... sneak peaks artwise coming as soon as there's something peakworthy. Been catching up on some reading too, but nothing particularly great as it turned out and I don't want to be negative about other people's work. I do have a proof of Joe Hill's upcoming book to read which I'm hoping will be good. Thanks to the new age of information the big secret that he's Stephen king's son wasn't a secret for long (nice to hear it was as much a surprise for his publisher, although I bet it now makes it's way onto the marketing!)
Better get back to things.

Did you know the last post was no. 400?

Well I had to squeeze it in on the odd spare minutes, but I’ve managed to finish the first pass at a new comic script called ‘Wedding Bells’, and I’m quite happy with it. It’s the first time I’ve tried just plotting something. My usual method is to make it up as I go along and then rewrite, fiddle, procrastinate, scrap, cut, paste and generally worry the thing into submission. Plotting doesn’t feel like proper writing, it’s still making it up as I go along, but without actually trying to write prose. Now I’ve got a full(ish) plot I see the wisdom. There’s the framework of a story that I can easily mess about with and there’s still enough room to add new stuff so I hopefully won’t feel like I’ve stifled off any possible future creativity.
It still sort of bugs me that Burgess made up Clockwork Orange as he went, but then if I start talking about my writing and Burgess I’m onto a bit of loser aren’t I:) And, y’mow, whatever works for you.

oh wow

Hope you've all been following the links on the right, if not you might not have seen Kazu Kibuishi's new incredible elephant illustration on Bolt City and your life will be much sadder for it.

Pens and pencils and bears oh my!

If there's one thing I love it's interviews with comic folk, seriously, I've got loads of TCJ as well as other comic magazines and have reread the interviews many times (including the massive Charles Schulz interview!) TCJ's interviews are amazing, long indepth and insightful, but one thing they do lack (apart from when Dylan Horrocks mentioned it) that I've always found utterly fascinating is 'tool talk', so I'm dead chuffed to see a blog devoted entirely to tool talk. Hurrah!

*** edited to fix links and ease Peter Bangs pain:) ***

One for the ladies

Don't know how true it is the this'll be the first of it's kind, but it is good to hear that DC are launching a new line of graphic novels, called Minx (wonder if they'll be 'minnie'?) aimed specifically at girls. A group of good and interesting creators and some nice ideas means that once again girls comics look better than boys. Don't think this would've been the case in the US as much (mainly romance titles there), but in the UK there was a quite a tradition of good girls comics.... that may be an exaggeration, but there's been enough of them. I've got a whole bunch of Jinty comics with some top stories in them and if it wasn't for the ridiculous price they go for on Ebay I'd be trying to get back issues of Misty (I really should pick up the fan produced Halloween special - esp. as Garen worked on it), a comic I remember borrowing off my cousin way back when.

Bugger

Bloomsbury returned my manuscript today. Disappointing getting a form rejection after the positive response from Orion. Unfair of me really, can't expect publishers to take time out to critique every manuscript they receive.
Few more publishers to try though before I let Simian rest and see if I can interest someone in something new.

Rolling up my sleeves

As mentioned in the comments on my previous post I've decided to dig through my old stuff in a effort to get working. I'm going to call this not wasting decent ideas rather than see it as running out out of new ones:)
First up is a 5-8 year novel that I never could come up with a name for. Reading through what I still have of it (lost the finished version, but I do have about 2/3's of it), it was my first go at prose and pretty bad ( hope I've improved!), but what really lets it down is a some terrible plot contrivances to move the story on. Not sure how I'm going to sort the plot out just yet, but it's good to have to do a bit of work on it instead of just cranking it out.
Plot is quite hard I think. When it comes to reading I like good prose and interesting characterization and could care less about plot.... until I started trying to write. Once you write a bit you realise that it's the plot that ties everything together (like a good rug!), I mean, you've got to give the characters something interesting to do and react to.
Over at Jeff Smith's blog there's sample art for the (not soon enough) upcoming Shazam, knowing I'll never be that good is a reason to keep trying harder!
Oh, and the Moomins comic collection is out adn I've bought it, so should EVERYONE!

Big Sigh

Back to work tomorrow, and I can quite honestly say that I do not want to go. Nobody likes going back to work after time off but I'm really struggling with the idea of leaving Olivia for over eight hours a day. Didn't think I'd find it this hard.
Slow going but I'm trying to get back into the (my own) work. The two biggest problems I face with writing and drawing is that I don't spend enough time doing it and I never send it off anywhere to try and get published. Best change that then.
It's going to be hard going but I'm going to try and knuckle down with the various projects I've got half finished barely started and not quite forgotten. There's also a couple of new things I'd like to do, I've not tried to do any picture books for years and I love them so I'm going to try very hard to come up with some ideas - the hardest part for me, picture book writers everywhere, I salute you!
The subtext here is that I'd much rather be working at home with my daughter than anywhere else without her:)

For Mr Glazebrook

Man this one took longer than it should've! I fiddled about far too much with the placing of each zombie to try and give them a decent outline but still look like a big jumble of DEATH!
Obviously this scene doesn't quite appear in Return of the Living Dead, but I'm gonna call artistic license if that's ok.

It had to happen

Quiet new born baby becomes actual baby and cries shocker! I guess Olivia couldn't stay quiet for too long. It's tough hearing your child cry and not always know what to do, feeding, holding and rocking and all the other tricks tends to work but quite often it's a short term solution. Checking up in books, websites and asking around it's nothing worrisome at all, just regular baby grizzliness.
Weirdly the crying is a lot less during the night (although fairly late), not that it helps as the evenings are draining enough.
There is something amazing about managing to calm down a crying baby though, it's a fantastic sense of achievement.

Sapphire and Steel

This one's for Danny, hope you like it fella.
Obviously it really needs some checkerboard/spiral/Steranko/Pop arty background, but I didn't fancy drawing that and I don't really have any artpackages.

What was I thinking?

Mix boredom, obsessiveness, bizarre sleeping hours and new beta blog account and you get me wading through my old blog posts. Which is weird, and scarily enlightening. Lot’s of posts about plans for things that haven’t happened, morose musing and not enough actual work.
Glad I got a lot of that out of my system:)
Found some interesting comics as I wasted valuable sleeping time, Zombee by Miles Gunter and Victor Santos sounds like fun; samurai, ninja, zombies? Yeah, I’m buying that.
I’ll also be buying Chickenhare. There’s preview pages here and the Bone influence shows pretty heavy, which is fine as it also has it’s own flavour.

Captain Kronos vampire Hunter

Welcome to anyone wondering here from the Forbidden Planet blog!
Thanks to a little help from Danny I've finally upgraded to beta which means I can tag all the various randomness.
Anyway, here's the skinny about the latest pic. Before Buffy, there was Kronos, and he was one seriously cool chap!
For those who don't know Kronos was a Hammer film and was written and directed by Brian 'Avengers' Clemens. It's one of the best Hammer films (which is saying something) and has some brilliant touches.
As I mentioned before I faffed about with the background, mainly out of guilt for the lacklustre Phibes background earlier. It's not the most detailed of bgs but I think it works at least.

Sulking..... not really:)

Ever since I started using sitemeter I've become obsessed with seeing who has been visiting... well, guessing, it doesn't say 'who'. Mostly it's the people who comment but I also get the odd visit from random searches, having mentioned that I enjoyed the Raconteers CD I seem to get visits for that and I get a fair few visits because of the Batgirl meme last year. What those hits have in common is that the visitors never look at anything else, fair enough about the CD but I get a little pet lip that the Batgirl visitors never look elsewhere, are they unimpressed? Dunno. Hope not.

Yaaaawn

Bit tough last night with Olivia being unsettled from the evening on. Cranky and hungry is not a good mix for a baby, they want to feed but are just too fed up to do it, so now we know.
We're both dog tired, with Rebecca obviously having to shoulder the worst of it, but at least Olivia's being a bit more cooperative today.
The latest issue of Neo magazine reviews Best New Manga and on the whole is pretty positive, with reservations mainly due to the 'is it manga' aspect. The first review on amazon is less that complementary and although very little is mentioned about individual strips I can't help feeling a little put out as it seems to be a petty and cursory reading of the comic at best and at worst is quite arrogant in it's assumptions. I never realised the 'is it manga?' thing would be a... 'thing'. Like Bush I guess it shows what I know. Shame about the uncharitableness shown to new creators too - even if not all are that new. Oh well, can't please everyone.
Bulldog: Empire artist Neill Cameron is writing and drawing his own comic, Thumpculture and it's shaping up to be top stuff indeed, Neill's a great artist and his writing's a lot of fun too.

Inevitable baby post

Good thing about sleeping babies is how still they get, perfect for drawing. The biro drawing was done when Olivia was a day old, the pencil one late last night when I was giving Rebecca a chance to catch up on some sleep. I'm still a bit rubbish with likenesses, luckily these are recognisably 'baby'!

Long post

(Edited to fix links.... hopefully)
Normal life is resumed, or gone forever depending how you look at it. Rebecca is finally out of hospital and last night was Olivia’s first in her new home, and therefore my first night of interrupted sleep - luckily Peter was right, having Olivia lying on my chest easily balanced out being woken.
Nonbaby stuff now.
Last Saturday was the Lancaster Comic Con and I managed to get an hour off work to have a look, which was a good move as although the con was unsurprisingly small it was perfectly formed. Catching up with Solar Wind creator Paul Scott was nice (even if he had forgotten me! And after I’d contributed to Solar Wind 2. Mind you that was 3 years ago so fair enough) and getting a stack of Solar Winds was an added bonus.
Talked to small press mogul Jay Eales about our contributions to Best New Manga and I picked up an issue of the Girly Comic, edited by his Partner Selina, and very good indeed, as well as a couple of issues of the top Violent!, including the last one I contributed to (for the excellent strip Flatworm)
A quick chat with Colin Mathieson of AccentUk might mean I’ll be doing a short strip for their next anthology, it may even be written by Jason Cobley, which would be great as it’s a long time since we’ve worked together. The ‘could’s’ are due to dwindling time on my part, but it’s a zombie anthology so frankly I’ll just have to make time!
I also picked up The Faceless from the very friendly Adrian Salmon, which I highly recommend you check it out (it’s available on amazon if you’re comicshopless) The artwork is beautiful and I love the story as it’s set in the 60’s, involves a secret society, monsters and the main character as well as being a two fisted monster fighter is also a super cool seducer of women and director of horror films for a studio that bares more than a passing resemblance to Hammer)
A few more nice chaps and comics rounded out my flying visit and then it was back to work. I hope that the con proves to be an annual event and that it grows from it’s very respectable beginnings.
Even with the big new happy responsibility I hope to get working on stuff. Instead of feeling like writing and drawing is even less likely than before I really feel like doing stuff. I hope to take a look at the various things I’d been writing and see if I can’t make sense of them. Drawing wise I’m not sure what I’ll be up to, some more spot illos when I can think of something and possibly a comic strip or two - I bumped into John Freeman of Down the Tubes yesterday, he was still feeling excited from the Lancaster con and was thinking about channelling that into something, which might give me something to aim for - I don’t necessarily produce my best work to deadline, but I do produce more!

Ahem

In my haste to show off our little girl I mixed the weight up. Olivia was seven nine and a half, still very healthy. Thanks to Nimiwey's amazement for pointing that out!

Olivia Harrison-Davies

Born yesterday, 9lb 7.5oz and beautiful beyond belief.

Halloween

So it's a little late, but here's my contribution to Halloween.

Nigel Kneale no more

But Quatermass will live forever.

The Abominable Dr Phibes

Classic film.
Figured it was time to go back to a kind of drawing I'm most comfortable with, hence the french curvy bendy arms.

Book 'em!

It's a bit of thrill to unpack a book you're part of, that's what happened to me today. The Mammoth Book of Best New Manga turned up today and I have to say it's a nice package. I'll be honest, my own contribution is a bit disappointing, seeing it in print all I can see are the flaws, and the whole strip looks rushed, which it was. Fortunately it's still not bad and I'm happy to keep trying to get better, and that's a never ending process. The really good news is that the other strips look great with an excellent Andi Watson strip amongst the other nice stuff - Craig Conlan's strip looks great too.
So, er, please buy a copy, I want a chance to do a better job next time!

The new me

Very much like the old me really, but with slightly shorter hair and some glasses to pick up in a weeks time. Sadly it seems the new me still has terrible eyesight and I've discovered it's worse than I thought. Due to the appalling state of my 'bad eye' (the right one), not only is my other eye doing all the work but my brain is in fact not even registering the duff eye, it could be poked out and make no difference to how well I see at the moment, I'm like a cyclops. The glasses are to take the pressure off the working eye and to correct it because it's not actually that good (I'm badly long sighted in my right eye and slightly short sighted in my left), there's not much point in doing much with the duff eye as it's not paying any attention to what's happening anyway - also it'd require a lense the size of a jam jar bottom and I had enough of that as a kid. Tsk.
We bought the last lot of baby stuff (for now!) today, so now we're just sitting tight waiting for the stork.

For Penny

Having been told off for not posting lately plus having a tashe conversation I present a picture I took way back when I last grew a beard. Any other hairy gentlemen enjoy facial hair experiments?
Actually, I really liked my tashe (which might explain the posing expression I adopted here), but Rebecca had a VERY bad reaction to it, so it only last an evening.
Typing of Rebecca, the belly's big, tight as a drum
and making sleep next to impossible!

Stuff

Haven't posted for a while which mean's I'm burning out, drawing regularly (for me!) has been great and there's a lot more characters I want to draw, but I think I need to broaden things a little.
It's possible that there'll be another 'Best New Manga' and I'd like to be in that one too (got my cheque for the first one - due out end of the month folks, be sure to check it out... please!) - the only thoughts I've had is that it'll be a horror story and something to do with a wedding..... and zombies probably.
Links have been updated, blogs that aren't updating anymore (I've kept Garen's because it goes to 'Rainbow Orchid') have been (oh so ruthlessly) and changed the Bryan Lee O'Malley (creator of the fantastic 'Scott Pilgrim') link to his livejournal.
I've also deleted the link to my writing samples, as I wasn't updating much.
Rebecca's only got 4 weeks of big big belly left and everything's going well, Olivia's got a strong heartbeat and is already keeping her mum awake. There's still a bit of work to do in the nursery, but the cot's up and we bought a cool playmat and mobile last weekend - I'm getting jealous of all the cool stuff babies get to have!c

Axel Pressbutton

Pedro Henry and Curt Viles' classic creation from 'Sounds' and later, with Steve Dillon/Mick Austin/Alan Davis, in 'Warrior'.
It's the 'Sounds' version that I liked best so that's the version I decided to draw, Steve Dillon's redesign was great but I just liked the quirky lo-fi charm.
This is the pic I decided to redo, there's not that much difference between the two versions, but enough to keep me happy!

Hellboy

Finally managed to get this pic uploaded, but it's not as sharp a scan as a result, I'll try and sort a better one out tomorrow.
Mike Mignola's a tough act to follow, but the nice thing about doing these pix is that I feel like I'm learning quite a bit from looking at the original works and then doing my own version, I certainly learnt a lot from this one.

Transformer?

It's a pram, it's a car seat, it's a push chair! Yes my new toy just stops short of turning into a large kick arse robot.
Nice having a pram in the house, what with Rebecca's belly-button becoming an 'outie' last night I things are moving forward baby-wise.

Strontium Dog

Not as much atempt of the old school 2000ad stylings for this one. I'm not actually a big fan of Johnny Alpha, I think his last decent story was the one where Wulf got killed off and he went off for revenge, but the early stories were great and he is a classic 2000ad character.
Think I'll try my hand at some non2000ad stuff next, although I do plan to do some more. Maybe I'll give Hellboy a go, Mr Zombie Dollars Nik Holmes' fine version has inspired me!

Ghost Rider rebelling against whadevah ya got

Back when I lived in london I was a regular at the excellent Gosh comic shop and when the staff decided to put together a Marvel pin up book they asked me and some of their other regulars to contribute, this meant getting fine pictures from the likes of D'israeli,Ilya, Woodrow Phoenix, Will Kane, Craig Conlan and Garry Leach.
IIRC I figured that it'd be fun to draw a goofy but cool character and when I thought of GH an image popped into my head so I did it. I stuck with the early Ghost Rider because the later versions with the big flashy bike look a bit embarrassing to me, bit too 'hair metal' instead of the rock 'n' roll of Mike Ploog's version.
Anyway, the basic drawing's not quite right, GH isn't sitting on the bike right, and so on. But I was really pleased with the inking and I think the pose and attitude worked despite the proportions being off.

Judge Dredd

And here's the finished version. Not as scratchy as my RoBusters pic a few posts back, but hopefully just as chunky looking.
Deliberated over whether or not to draw the original lawgiver or the new one and decided to not be such a old sod.
No new artwork for a few days as, like the previous post says, I'm going away, but I will dig out a Ghost Rider pic I did as I saw the trailer for the upcoming film and thought it looked pretty cool (or as cool as a seen it all before effects driven film can be)

London's calling

We're off to visit a friend in London tomorrow. Since we left five years ago we've been to London twice, read into that what you will.... as long as you read into 'London? Pah'.
We were at our weekly 'parentcraft' class last night and watched a two day old baby getting a bath, it was brilliant, can't believe it's taken me this long to see how amazing babies are.
I also learned a bit about Ventouse and Forceps birth..... ow. Respect to Mothers everywhere. There was a picture of a baby that had been delivered by the ventouse method, poor little thing! Basically this method involved using something that resembles a sink plunger (there's a a fancier looking one now but the principle's the same), sticking it on the unborn babies head and pulling (it might require a bit more finesse than that). Then end result of birth by this method is a healthy baby which will look like a conehead for about three days. Seriously, it's not a little bump on top it's like a pink bowler hat without the brim.
Forceps on the other hand require mum having,um, a snip in the lower regions to allow room to get the forceps and the baby out. Once again, respect to mums everywhere.
Olivia is under instructions to leap out not touching the sides.

Jobling made me do it

Here ya go Mr Bling, you asked for it.

Jackanory

There's something to read over on my writing blog if anyone feels like looking, go on, have a go.

Astrodog

Sorry about the ropey scans, had to do these using my digital camera so they're a touch fuzzy (my shaky hands) and the colours aren't quite right. There's another painting in between these but I just couldn't get a decent picture of it - I'll try later.
These are from my attempt at a picture book called 'Astrodog, I mocked up the full thing and did three finished pieces but only sent it to Walker Books (I knew someone there), they liked it, but not enough. I did the decent thing and gave up. Actually I find painting really hard (these are nearly two years old and the last that I've done, I just wasn't happy with the end results - annoyingly I did a couple of paintings a year before, cranked them out and am still far happier with them than my 'proper' attempts!) and writing picture books even harder, I'd love to try again, but not just yet.
As soon as I can muster up a better scan I'll post the middle pic, it's of Astro's space ship coming out the ground from underneath his kennel, very Thunderbirds.

Rojaws and Hammerstein

Long time 2000ad fans will know who these guys are. Did this a while a go, it was one of my occassional atempts at drawing in a different style, I felt like trying to capture a little of the look of yer classic 2000ad artdroids McMahon and O'Neill, both of them comic gods.

Batgirl Returns

A few people visited here lately to look at the pic I did for the Batgirl meme thingy back in January. So I thought I'd repost it as I'm not sure if the people who visit nowadays ever saw it. Apologies for the pixellation, neither me or the scanner are to blame this time around, when I coloured it on the shockingly basic art package I have it ended up all blocky and I don't have the original smooth scan on my hard drive anymore.

Drunken blogging, why?

Honestly, what made me think it was so important to tell people what I had on my ipod shuffle? No idea. And when I'm sober 'Working Class Hero' is good but embarrassingly 6th formy.
Now I think of it I reckon I might post a bit less drunk or sober, I'm stuggling for things to waffle about lately and deleting posts before I put them up. I'll just post art and stuff and reviews on t'other blog. With the odd ramble here and there just for good measure of course.

Danny's Doctor

As requested, by Danny by me, here's my go at The Second Doctor by the brilliant Pat Troughton. The cover design of the book (d'y' geddit?) he's reading is inspired/stolen (delete as applicable) by Ian Edginton and D'Israeli's fine comic adaptation of 'War of the Worlds' fact fans.

Save my brain

Okay, I feel like drawing stuff but I'm not sure what, so how about I get other people to do the thinking for me, pop something in the comments, keep it simple (please!) and keep it comics/monsters/films/cartoon characters/you get the idea, pin up stuff basically.
That's it really, I'll probably come up with something myself but any help assistance in not thinking for myself is greatly appreciated.

Another blog.

After the teaser of my last post, and a comment from Mr Bling on his blog, I unveil the new improved Jackanory
Now that I'm moving all my review type stuff to HappennyWorth I've decided Jackanory is where I'll put examples of what I'm writing. The first chapter of 'Simian Smith' is still there (it doesn't have the changes in it I made after fine suggestions from INJ, but that only counts for a few lines here and there) and I've also decided to post the first chapter of 'The Tale of The Turnip'. TTOTT is in fairly early stages at the moment with only four chapters written and this is very much in first draft stages, but for anyone who wants to read a warts an' all (ie spelling mistakes and grammatical gaffs and an' all) work in progress you might find it interesting. All comments are, as always, greatly appreciated.

You won't break me!

Bit of rough day today. Moving boxes went fine and my folks have been doing a spot of decorating for us, but work was an exercise in pain. I didn't realise practically every aspect of the place was under warranty, but it must be as they all seemed to expire today accompanied by many puffs of smoke. Computers crashing, tills jamming, orders going weird and staff sick, and that wasn't half of it.
To unwind I've posted more reviews on Happenny Worth and am just about to finish 'The Bullet Trick' by Louise Welsh, is it better than 'The Cutting Room'? Not sure, but frankly when your books are this good it doesn't matter.

Opinions, everybody's got 'em

After much faf I've revived my 'review' blog. It's called Happenny Worth and the links to the left. The first few reviews will be from my old review blog and Wazzock's Lantern but I'll be sneaking newer stuff in too. Reading it is not obligatory but if you want to agree/disagree please join in so I can tell you why I'M right and YOU'RE wrong!

We move house next week!

Picked up the keys yesterday after a lengthy but straightforward buying process. The sellers dawdled signing papers and agreeing times, we only found out we could get the keys on the 21st late on the 20th.
It'll be a rushed move but we're pretty handy at moving after wandering from house to house over the last 10 years.
A quick look around the place last night turned into a drama as the last people in (house sitter I think) decided to set the alarm and no one thought to tell us the code or how to use the thing. Half an hour of shrill ringing before we found someone who knew someone who knew the people who knew the code.
Once our ears stopped ringing and we were able to look past the left behind tat, dust, cobwebs and green stained sink with a beer can in it, it was nice to be looking at our first home.
It's not fancy but it's big enough to fit us all in, it's practically detached (the bedroom at the back is the only part of the place connected to next door) and is quite private, which is great for me as I like a house less like a castle and more like a cave away from civilization. For people on our measly wage we seem to have been really lucky.
And anyway, we've bought our first HOUSE!!! YAY!!!

Everyone's going zombie crazy

And so they should!



Check out Zombie Dollars for some seriously tasty flesh, uh, I mean artwork.

Superman Returns. Not really a review.

Oh gosh. Superman Returns, Brilliant. Ok, it's not quite as good as Superman The Movie, but it is utterly fantastic and oh so close.
Don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet so I'm not going to say much about it. There's some beautiful moments, as expected from Bryan Singer, some brilliantly tense moments and some jaw dropping moments. Brandon Routh really does honour Superman, Clark and Christopher Reeve, Spacey is a crueler but recognisable Lex with everyone else doing a bang up job in their roles (I did find myself wishing Kate Bosworth would channel Margot Kidder but that probably wouldn't quite work for the film so what the heck), Parker Posey and James Marsden bringing a lot to roles that could've gotten lost.
If it has one flaw it's that it works so hard to successfully achieve the balancing act of introducing Superman to a new audience and respectfully following the Donner film (and there are so many wonderful riffs on that film, minor and major)) that it's not quite able to cut free. Funnily enough Singer's excellent X-Men film had a similar flaw, so much work was spent setting it all up that it was the 2nd film that took all the glory. Which is why as much as I absolutely loved Superman Returns I think the next one (please be another!) will be phenomenal.

Grinning

Felt Olivia moving around for the first time! Couldn't tear myself away, Rebecca kicked me off after getting sick of my head on her belly.

Syd Barrett - RIP

Bye Syd.

First tour of duty

Back from Nottingham, and I have the bruises to prove it. Paintballing bruises, those buggers sting!
Paintballs was as embarressing and dumb as you'd expect with the coaches looking exactly like the kind of social misfits you'd imagine them to be. It was also a lot of fun. And I was pretty bad at it. Thankfully there was a few games which just involved shooting anyone and ignoring the fact you were getting shot at, which is how I ended up with the kind of bruises I used to get when I fenced (little circular welts with red and purple halos)
Managed to remain upright throughout the night (I'm not a big drinker), but had enough to temporarily convince me I could dance (I can't), and all in all had a jolly good weekend.

With his band of men

Going to Nottingham tomorrow evening for the first for the first time in a year. Should be fun, paintballing curry and drink (not all at once, that'd be messy) - if it sounds like a boys day out then that's because it's a friends stag do.
Didn't get much work done this week, it's just been too hot (we've not had the storms yet) for me and I haven't been able to concentrate, typical Brit. I've felt sweaty and grubby all week and I'm uncharitably wishing Autumn would get a move on.
By way of a diversion (always with the diversions!) I've decided to resurrect my book (except it won't just be books, more like anything I've read or seen) review blog and have been hunting down all my old reviews as well as catching up on the new ones. It's not really about reviewing, I just like having a record of what I've read and watched, it makes me evaluate them properly, something I don't do when I first take them in (I don't mind this, I enjoying taking stuff in without thinking to hard about it), and as I don't want to keep everything I buy anymore it makes it a little easier to let them go after I've spouted of about them.

Secrets and gripes

Annoyingly it's very difficult getting hold of DVDs in Lancaster, the local HMV is not geared towards marginal releases or backlist and the only other place is Musiczone which isn't bad and does have the odd interesting thing but still suffers from the same problem HMV has.
Renting's also a problem with only one place in town which is basically a vending machine that stocks pretty much only chart releases. Renting and buying here has the same big negative factor for me - I like to browse.
So I usually wait until we go to Manchester (I don't always buy online because I get a discount at HMV) but with no plans for traveling at the moment there's 3 DVDs I'm going to have to be patient (not one of my strengths) for, 'Eerie Indiana', 'Beasts' and 'Kingvig'. Fortunately I managed to get hold of 'Seance on a Wet Afternoon' and 'Dust Devil' which has finally been given a descent release (now if only the 2000ad 'inspired' 'Hardware' was reissued) so that's the next couple of evenings sorted!
'It's Superman!' is proving to be very enjoyable indeed, I'd love to listen to the interview Garen sent me the link for (cheers) but after an hour of downloading all my lame modem connection could give me was a minute and a half of a couple of comic fans talking about mylar bags and backing boards so I gave up.
Things will be going topsy turvy here soon as it looks like we've bought a house, signing papers on Monday so fingers x-ed that works out, and a couple of interesting possibilities have cropped up where I which I'm not going to jinx by saying anything more about, all I've got to do now is start getting my work published and world domination is merely a short step away! When that happens I'll be moving next to somewhere that has a big DVD shop.

Close encounters

Let me introduce our little girl Olivia.



It took me over half an hour to get over seeing this, and even then seeing the pictures again, seeing babies in the street or thinking about it made me fill up (no denying it, I am the biggest sap you'll ever meet, just ask anyone who saw 'Finding Nemo' with me), for the first 10 minutes I couldn't speak (a novelty Rebecca enjoyed)
What these pictures don't show is just how much she was moving around, clearly taking after me (I rarely sit still) which was just amazing. We also got a brilliant look at her little face which blew my find, the features were so clear, I could've stared at her for hours.

Final lot of Simian Smith artwork.... for now

All done at last. Storywise I'm going to incorporate some suggestions from INJ (cheers for them!) which shouldn't take too long as it's only for the first chapter and doesn't effect any of the others.
I had planned to send a couple of copies of the manuscript off today but I wanted to do some examples of incorporating the artwork into the text and other stuff (I'll spill those beans in the post after this) took over the day.

Up up and Away!

If you read my geek splurge on Wazzock’s Lantern a while ago you’ll already know I’m a bit of a Superman fan, sort of. I love the 70’s movie (the sequel is great but as any fellow nerd will already know it’s sadly flawed - be interesting to see what the ‘directors cut’ atempt will look like), the Bruce Timm cartoon and the early Fleisher ones as well as some of the old comics and I’m incredibly excited at the prospect of the new movie. But Superman isn’t always handled that well, I’ve not read many Superman comics in the last ten years or so. He’s a great concept and a great character but time and over used has tarnished.
One of the sad things about loving books but working in a bookshop is that you rarely get suprised, advance proof, trade press, info passed down from head office etc means you’re forewarned about new releases. So imagine my surprise when I pick up a stack of books to shelve and see a beautiful Chris Ware cover adorning a copy of a book I’d never heard of, and it’s called ‘It’s Superman!’ Being a small shop we only had one copy come in so I quickly put it aside for myself and ordered a bunch more.
I wasn’t sure if I’d actually buy the book when I first saw it until I read the back and found out that the author (Tom De Haven, a writer I’m vaguely familiar with but have never actually read - a quick check on amazon is making me think I’ll be reading more) had done something I always wanted to see happen. No dumb updating of Superman, this is Superman in the time he made sense, ‘It’s Superman!’ starts in the 30’s, everything is right with the world!
And so here I am ‘reviewing’ a book I’ve yet to read. I’ve flicked throught and it looks interesting, De Haven’s reputation as being a bit of an arty post modernist but his obvious love of comics are solid signs and the fact the chapter three’s entitle ‘The Saucer-Man From Tinsletown’ all adds up to a fun read. There’s a couple books on my to read list first (see, I can rein in my enthusiasm), but as soon as I read it I’ll let you all know how it was.

Come out soon!

Take a look at the latest post on Bob Fingermans blog (link to the left) for some droolsom sketches from his upcomin book Recess Pieces. Fingerman's artwork is wonderful mix of clean elegance and disgusting detail. I honestly can't wait for Recess Pieces it's a killer idea for a cutesy/horror nut, zombies in a kid's school, cute little moppets hacking up zombiefied teachers in gruesome glorious detail, my schooldays should've been like that!

Brilliant artisit, new blog

the very wonderful Matt Broker, commonly know as D'israeli in the comic world, has a blog and there's a link to the left. D'israeli has drawn some great great comics over the years, starting out I believe in Deadline way back when I was more spotty than I am now, and I've loved every bit of artwork he's done. Scarlet Taces features some of his finest work and Leviathan is well worth checking out when Rebellion release the collected edition.
D'israeli combines everything I like about certain kinds of comic art, it's got a lovely clean line European feel but it also has the odd quirkyness of yer classic 2000ad artisit like Mike McMahon and Kevin O'Neill.
Look at his blog, marvel at his skill and go out and buy his books.

Another piccy

Here’s another Simian picture, the little shifty guy is Mr. Crankadder and the big fella is Augustus.

Glued to the telly at teatime

Where ever the Doctor Who team are right now I hope they’re taking a bow or having a drink because that was a hell (ouch!) of a good episode tonight.
In other fine works of art I listened to Vivian Stanshall’s genius ‘Sir Henry at Rowlinson End’, today, a fine example of British eccentricity. Here’s a quote, “A pale sun poked impudent marmalade fingers through the grizzled lattice glass and sent the shadows scurrying, like convent girls menaced like a tramp.” Maybe it’s best to imagine it spoken aloud in Stanshall’s fantastic voice so rich it was an early inspiration on Stephen Fry.
Off to bed now, won’t be sleeping though as I’ve got an advance copy of Meg Rosoff’s new book and her last one was brilliant.

Deep sigh update

Thanks to everyone who responded to my earlier post, on and offline (special thanks to Gopher for his thoughtful response)
Had a brief sort of unofficial chat with a counsellor friend and have a pretty good idea of where I need to go from here.
INJ (hope I get a freebie mug or t-shirt!) hit’s the nail on the head, a lot of this angstiness is work (not my day job) related. The other problem is the usual selfesteem issues, some of it to do with writing and drawing and some of it personal.
In about 4 months there’ll be new Harrison-Davies and I’m so looking forward to it but I think I’ve been putting myself under a bit of pressure to get things done before then instead of simply enjoying the process of doing them (ironically when I don’t question it not only is the work better and more fun but I do more, gah!) which has just worn me out.
Thankfully the sun has beaten all the worry out of me as it’s far too hot for anything other than sleeping and melting into a sunburnt puddle.

300

In the interests of some sort of balance (or just being flighty), here’s a less self pitying post. Well, can’t moan on my 300th post can I?!
I’m loving writing at the moment.
About six months ago a few of the different things I was doing were going nowhere (it’s a familiar tale) so I decided to do something else. Starting something new whenever you get stuck isn’t always a good move, I’ve far too many uncompleted projects lying around, but sometimes it’s just nice to work on stuff and not worry too much.
Anyway, I eventually ran out of steam on my side project and went back to finishing the other stuff. Last week I started thinking about that not forgotten just resting side project and a few days ago decided to have a look at it. It turns out it’s not bad and as I read through it I started extending bits, took bits out and added new bits. And I just realised how much fun it was, making things up, I can’t believe I keep forgetting that.
Real life and all it’s concerns is still looking behind my shoulder but I think it’s probably taking a sneaky peak at the computer screen now.

Deep melodramatic sigh

A slightly blue mood has descended on me over the last week, I’ve moped and stropped around, started reading several books, put them down, started others, gone to bed late slept in too much, tried to write, tried to draw, not been happy with the results, trawled the internet for forgotten friends and bitter enemies, updated my profile and have written over a dozen posts that I’ve not bothered posting.
Today Rebecca suggested that maybe I should ‘see someone’. Ugh. I get down sometimes but I’ve never considered myself depressed, and still don’t. Still Rebecca's concern/fed upness made me think. I don’t like this feeling, it’s self indulgent and dull, but worst of all I don’t like the idea of bringing down people around me.
There’s loads of interesting possibilities in my life, I’ve never quite understood why I’d rather regret not taking advantage of them instead of making the most of them.
Silly boy.

Bookshops

Tried to write something relatively lucid about the possibly going ahead buyout of Ottakar's, but I just can't. Well, I can't do it and be anything other than dull and rambling. Shame really as it has been a real pain at various times over the last few months or so, especially when ill informed people have actually taken me and other members of staff to task over it (particularly over Christmas)
I suppose all I really want to say is that I'd love to see more choice of places to shop (and that's not just for books), but I'd love for those places to afford to stay open. Sadly people shop for cheapness and bookshops, particularly but not exclusively independents, just can't compete with online retail and supermarkets.

Comic Con

Seeing as I’ve been too lazy/broke to go to any comic conventions for a while I’m pretty chuffed that there’s going to be one in Lancaster in October. Even better is that I’m involved in it - well, I like comics and live in Lancaster so I got invited to the first chat about it, other than that I’m not sure what my involvement will be. By a lucky quirk of fate the book I’m in should be out by then, so that could be handy.
Had the day off work today and thought I'd get some writing/drawing done, instead went into Town with Rebecca, drank coffee, ate cake, went to the park with a friend, lay on the grass, read, ate ice cream, went back to friends and ate pizza and played with their cat. A day wasted isn't always a wasted day.

Animal crackers

Readjusted the previous artwork post, the images should fit a little better and still be big enough to see properly.
The picture below introduces the villains of the piece. No more Simian artwork to scan now.



Danny asked earlier where I'm up to with Simian so here's the update. The new final draft is all complete, it's shorter and tighter than the previous one but other than that there's nothing new about it, I haven't added any scenes or characters or taken any out, this was pretty tricky in places but it's always rewarding, hopefully it now reads smoother and is better paced.
Artwise I want to do another spot illo (all the ones shown are from chapter 1 BTW, apart from Simian jumping from his office, that's the start of Chapter 2 but I really wanted to draw it!) and a mock up of the cover. Don't know if it'll seem presumptuous to do a cover, it's just meant to be enticing. At the moment I haven't got a clue what to do for the cover, so I might end up not bothering including it with the manuscript.
And that's it.

And now the fearing starts!!!!!!

YEEEESSSSSS! The finest show Channel Four buried (not including OZ) is finally getting released on DVD. All hail Garth Marenghi's Darkplace!

Been drawin'

Only going to do a couple more pictures to chuck in with my manuscript. Might actually get it done by the end of the week after all!
This fellow is Lionel Cetera, fish fan.



Simian Smith primate detective prepares to interrogate a banana.



Here's a reminder of an older pic for those who've forgotten, or not seen it before



and another



There's another bit of artwork I'll post tomorrow, right now I'm off to bed.

Bits and bobs

Oh, friends trade blows over Doctor Who shocker! Ok, I exaggerate but as Sam nearly never reads my blog I can do that and not get caught. The controversy is this, I reckon 'Life on Mars' is the equal of the new 'Doctor Who'. Sam is a massive Who fan and has trouble with this even though he rate LOM very highly. Anyone else go any thoughts?
Back when I first wnet online I signed up for all sorts of newletter stuff I never look at now, but an email from Universal caught my eye. The have a new site called BrilliantButCancelled, which is probably not much use to my nonbroadband connection. Not sure what I think about that. There's been far too many shows that've fitted that bill and it's brilliant that DVD popularity has allowed some of them a better chance (Firefly's been an obvious winner, but so has the excellent Wonderfalls (thanks for the heads up Danny)), but it's bittersweet to watch something that was never allowed to grow. Still, nice to be able to see this stuff.
Had hoped to have some Simian Smith artwork done to post but haven't managed it and as family are visiting to look at my wife's belly it'll probably be a couple of days before I do. Best hurry up though as I'm planning to send Simian off to some publishers in a week or so.

The rest of the cast

This is the mad scientist (I'm hoping that's obvious), I've scanned a little larger in scale to the monster, he comes up to the monster's ears. I also drew his hands pretty badly, ignore that.



Evil assistant, this fella's more a deviation from the classic Universal Frankenstein look, but I needed something more in keeping with my idea for the comic strip. Height wise he comes up to the bottom of the monster's moobs. The blank bit round the neck is due to my not being sure about whether to give him a regular collar or not. Actually I'm not sure about his costume full stop, that's why it took me a while to finish the drawing.



The artwork's brush on watercolour paper, a technique I really like but don't pull of very well myself. Craig Thompson, Andi Watson and Dean Haspiel really make it sing, but I labour the brush lines a little more which tends to loose the textural effect that's the whole point in the first place.
It'll probably be a while before I get round to doing the strips featuring these guys. I've got two scripts but would like to get a few more written before I start posting, consider this a teaser. I've also GOT to finish the Simian Smith artwork this week so I can send off the manuscript. I've part done two new illustrations and want to do a couple more and maybe a cover. Might take me two weeks come to think about it.
Too many things and too little time!

Behold, my creation!

A while back I mentioned I planned to do an ongoing series of one off comics. Well, this guy's one of the cast. There'll be two other people in it, if I told you one was a scientist and the other was his assistant would you be surprised? Thought not.
Anyway, I quite like this big guy.

A couple of months ago I mentioned that

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Not what it was meant to be

I had planned on posting some artwork, Danny recently reminded me about a children's book proposal I knocked up a couple of years ago (that long? Oh dear) and I decided to dig it out.
Thinking it's about time I started proving that I do occassionally write and draw I though I'd scan the dug out kid's book, sadly although I'm getting the hang of scanning b&w artwork my colour scanning sucks. Give me a couple of days and I'll sort it out.
In the meantime I figure I'll catch up on comic reviews. Unlike the book reviews these aren't in any order, mainly because I've read so many in the last few months (it's my last big spending spree before all the money gets spent on nappies and the like) and can't remember when I read them.
First up is a couple of books published by the always reliable Fantagraphic.




Mad Night by Richard Sala

Buried in archives of this blog lies my fevered musings on the greatness of Richard Sala. And great he is, if you like that sort of thing, and I do. He’s often compared to Edward Gorey and Charles Addams, but he mines his own version of macabre humour. The original title of ‘Mad Night’ (it was first serialised in Sala’s comic ‘Evil Eye') was ‘Reflections in a Glass Scorpion’, a title that screams the influence of Mario Bava. Intricately plotted slasher thrillers are the order of the day here. There’s secret identities, mysterious killers, gruesome deaths, a crazed disregard for logic and plenty of psuedo-psychology, but Sala makes it his own. His artwork for example, an obvious way to draw these kind of tales would be in an EC style, all lushly detailed all the better to appreciate the violence and sexiness, instead Sala works in a quirky, almost woodcut style, with all the dreamlike menace of german expressionism (‘Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ clearly a major influence) Add a love for bizarre trashy crime and the Sala picture is almost complete.
Mad Night is vintage Sala, it all is, he’s sometimes criticised for doing the same thing over and over again, yet he believes this criticism misses the point, for him it’s an exploration, mining the same influences in a never ending quest to find his perfect story - as he points out, nobody complains that Hitchcock did the same thing.
What I like about Sala is that he takes all these influences and churns then up into something obviously very personal to him. A hard trick to pull off, harder still to make it look so easy.




Meow Baby by Jason

When a new book by Jason comes out I buy it straightaway, don’t care what it’s about or how much it costs, and I knew that’s how it’d be when I finished his first translated book, ‘Hey Wait’. Like Lewis Trondheim Jason uses a anthropromorpihc characters, but they have more in common than that, they both like to play with the formal elements of comic storytelling, they’re as adept with ‘silent’ comics as they are with ‘talking’ ones and they seem to move effortlessly from humour to pathos.
In ‘Meow Baby’ we get to see more of Jason’s funny side, it’s a collection of short pieces and ranges from belly laughs to wry smiles.
Jason and Trodheim share another trait, they’re prolific. Fantagraphics have released 7 books by him in the last couple of years, ‘Why Are You Doing this?’ and ‘Hey Wait’ are good places to start, but you can pick any of them up.

Back again

No posts for a week!? Pretty slack of me.
Actually I have written a few posts, I’ve just not put them up, most are comic reviews which I’ll put up soon. Other are typically whiny and self indulgent and I figure I should try and spread that kind of thing out so I don’t end up looking too... um, whiny and self indulgent.
The heatwave at the moment is very nice, shame my body doesn’t seem to like it, I tend to get headaches and rashes (such a sickly child) before I adapt to such non British weather. Think Rebecca would appreciate more if she could work un the energy to get out and about a bit. A couple of you kind folk have asked about Rebecca so I thought I’d update. She’s not too bad, except for lots of discomfort over the last couple of weeks. She pulled a muscle through retching (nice), as apparently it’s easier to pull muscles during pregnancy, and had to have a very boring couch and bed bound week off work. There was a brief respite from that and now she’s having some serious trapped wind discomfort, which is rubbish for Rebecca but quite pleasant for the baby - I can only assume it’s a boy if it’s finding such pleasure in bodily functions.
Oh yeah, I was 34 yesterday.

Once I get on that soapbox it's hard to get off

Just had some rubbish news confirmed. Red Route has closed. Some of you probably have no idea who they are, but they’ve been very handy for me, working in a bookshop and trying to get an interesting range of comics was made very easy due to their existance. Last week I tried to contact them a few times to try and order some stuff and got a ‘number does not exist’ type message which gave me cause for concern, looks like it was justified.
Trying to move into book shops is a risky undertaking for comic publishers and distributors (as Pete Pavement of the sadly missed Slab O Concrete will tell you) and it could be that this is what has been Red Route’s downfall. With only a couple of places for bookshops to get a decent range of comics from, it could be that Titan books are the only thing you’ll see in the graphic novel sections, nothing terrible with Titan but a section that only has Batman, Superman, film tie-ins and a few UK reprints is not going to attract that much interest.
As you might’ve picked up from the last post, I’m a bit worried about the lack of variety and quality when it comes to books, films, etc. Sadly (I speak from bitter experience here) it’s easy to blame the places that create and sell these things but the biggest problem is the people who buy them. As customers we get what we deserve, and if that’s a bookshop full of Dan Brown or a cinema full of repetitive Blockbusters then maybe it’s time we started actively supporting quality and dismissing dross.