Old vector art

Had a clearout and found a disk containing my earliest experiments with vector art in Illustrator. These are from 1999-2001. Had no idea what I was doing, but some of these are fun images. Includes my first book cover job from 2001 doing covers for old ladies' romance novels.

The Phoenix Comic with Amber Eyes.

When I dropped out of art college it was with a clear aim - I wanted to make comics for kids, comics as startlingly original and inspiring as the ones I grew up reading. Sadly that publishing world was dying by the time I got there, opportunities were thin on the ground and getting thinner. In the 20 odd years that have elapsed since then I've given up that dream as the world of comics has drifted away from what should be its prime readership with most of the opportunities to create comics for kids revolving around merchandise projects.

Things are changing though. Kids love comics, it's instinctive for them to read stories on paper where words and pictures live together. The flag ship for this resurgence in UK comics is The Phoenix comic. It isn't tied in to any TV, Movie, game or toy franchise, it doesn't come in a bag with a toy on the front and minimum reading content within, it is quite simply a collection of stories for kids to read. What a zany idea!

Anyway, I desperately wanted to do something for Ben Sharpe, the editor, and I was really pleased when I realised I could squeeze in this little four page one-off story written by Ben Haggarty.

Whether you're reading this as a creator, a reader or a parent I suggest we get behind this thing and see if we can't make the next generation of readers as inspired as I was by reading comics.

Subscribe to The Phoenix and find out more about it here.

Gypsies.

This is the end result of my trip to Russia last October. I was invited by the Respect project to talk about comics, listen to, and take part in, discussions on human rights and the problems in Russia, then make a comic for Russian kids that might help. A big ask. But this is a scheme where these 'pocket comics' are given away in their thousands so that's a lot of lottery tickets.

Attitudes to gypsies in Russia are pretty horrible, and share some similarities with attitudes here. As part of the project I met with a local gypsy community leader, Yan, we got on remarkably well, and my lean grasp of Romany even meant we could exchange a few sentiments in the jib (language). This story is a mix of my experiences, stories I've picked up and observations of prejudice in Russia.

I'm not great at black and white politicking, my writing is usually a bit surreal, I think. For this I just wanted to do something simple that left all the thinking with the reader. If any Russian kid changes their mind after reading this it will be their thinking that has achieved that, no instruction from me.

Don Quixote cover designs

Just had the cover design for Don Quixote Volume II approved. It was my first idea. Last time I went through loads of ideas before settling on one. Here are some of them...

Doctor Who does Narnia

Happy new year folks. Sorry about the lack of bloggery here. Hope you had a good christmas. I finally caught up with the now traditional Christmas Doctor who (opinions on twitter as ever). Amusing to see the TV version do a Narnia style story exactly a year after Johnny Morris's Narnia christmas strip that I drew which featured in the Magazine. I realise there is no connection, the writer never reads the comic strips.

Here's the first 7 pages of our strip The Professor, The Witch and The Bookshop (sans lettering). It serves as a reminder that the DWM comic strips will be collected in Graphic Novel form again this year, starting with the Crimson Hand written by Dazzling Dan McDaid.

Russia. RESPECT. And other Gypsies.

%3Cspan+class%3D%22Apple-style-span%22+++style%3D%22font-family%3Ageorgia%3Bfont-size%3A100%25%3B%22%3EIn+October+I+was+invited+to+Russia+to+take+part+in+the+RESPECT+project.+I+had+no+idea+what+this+w,Uv2)FPF RI)S%{e+ N xhQ-

Tilting at windmills...

Apologies for the lack of blog posts, I have been blogging over at the SelfMadeHero site, so go read. If you've missed my rambling nonsense, that is...

Are we nearly there yet?

Tempting fate to talk about finishing something before it's over, but I probably won't get chance on Monday to post anything and I wanted to put this panel up because it's the first panel of the last chapter of Nelson. Truth is I've struggled to get the last chapter done due to an obligation I had to self destruct through June and July. The worst of that seems to be behind me and at last I'm enjoying drawing again. And I'm pretty confident this will done over the weekend in time for Monday's big Nelson pow wow.

This book was my daft idea in the first place and it's kept me company for the past 8 months, rather like a backseat full of screaming kids on a 10 hour car journey. But I absolutely love this book and everyone who has contributed to it. You'll all get to see it soon enough, it is rather amazing.

I owe a special debt to my co-editor Woodrow who has really taken it on his shoulders as I've floundered in the bottom of a whisky glass. Cheers mate. Nearly there now.

Lightnin' Hopkins

Did this yesterday at lunchtime. It's based on the cover to Walkin' this road by myself, the Lightnin' Hopkins LP. If you have the misfortune to follow me on Twitter you probably saw me posting images of it as I went along. Started out as a tiny thumbnail sketch (below) then got dragged into Manga Studio, which I prefer now to Illustrator for creating these kind of sans line images. I may have a go at turning it into a 'proper' painting on some kind of wood paneling (or whatever I can chor from a skip).

Don Quixote - Broken Hearts and Broken Minds

Finished. Volume One of Don Quixote is in the bag. I finished it a couple of weeks ago, but it's taken me this long to get over the loss and the separation and move on. Hmmm... I'll start again... That was a piss poor attempt at making an oblique reference to the fact I marked the end of Quixote by separating from my wife and moving out of my home with her and the kids. Quixote wasn't in any way responsible for what happened, but I found much in the book that echoed my state of mind and my situation.

If you're not familiar with the original book you may be surprised to learn that it contains eternal truths about love and loss as well as madness, delusion and goats. But love is to some extent the ultimate madness and delusion, it's the quixotism we all indulge in (not sure where the goats fits in, but each to their own, eh). Maybe the best way to appreciate the idealist, the impulsive, the rash romantic that is Don Quixote is to think of madness as love, then his crazy exploits don't seem any more ridiculous than our own. (Hmmm... how long can I stretch this analogy...?)

I'll switch from discussing it in general terms and instead use some synchronistic examples from recent weeks.

The day of the Royal Wedding was a particular low in my life, the point in this particular marital breakdown where events spiraled out of control into the kind of nightmare-scape that I'd always dreaded. On that day I did this panel:

For Don Quixote love is as unrequited and sweet as a teenage crush.

Everything he does is for the Lady Dulcinea del Toboso, a figment of his imagination, a deep, lasting love he has projected onto a peasant girl in the village.

Nothing like a teenage crush to make you act like a fool, you might not have dressed in armour and fought windmills, sheep and cats to prove the validity of your own imagined love, but it will probably have found a way to make a fool of you I'm sure.

It's in the stories within stories from the people he meets on the road that we get a more realistic picture of how men and women inflict their madness upon each other in the name of love.

They're simple morality tales with a cruel twist and a wicked sense of humour.

Cervantes saves the best for last in Volume One - an entire novella within the novel. In my version this is crushed down to just four pages. 'The Novel of the Curious Impertinent' paints a painful and hilarious picture of what happens when monogamy and curiosity collide.

Now I'm not trying to belittle the complex states of insanity that afflict folk by comparing them to love anymore than I'm trying to turn anyone's idea of love sour; I'm interested in the mechanisms of fiction and how close those mechanisms echo sanity and love. I don't expect to understand these things, it's just handy to leave a few breadcrumbs on the path as you go in so you can find your way out again.

2D Festival Derry 2011

I've attended a lot of comic conventions and arts festivals over the years, I think the 2D festival in Derry might just be my favourite. Granted, I am writing this in the hazy after glow with a crooked smile on my face, but this event was everything I would like to see from a comics' festival.

The whole festival seemed to be about getting artist to actually give something back rather than sit and receive their fans like royalty. There was no reaching into your pocket from artists or punters and yet everyone went away so much richer for the experience.

I spent a weekend in great company that included my boyhood hero, a host of brilliant artists and writers and so many people from Derry who all seemed to become instant friends.

Saturday was spent sketching all day, and I mean ALL day. No one charges for sketches and whilst you get some people who want you to draw 'what you do' (I did a LOT of Daleks and Matt Smiths) you get a whole bunch of people asking for anything under the sun (I have now drawn Wonder Woman, Wolverine, the Joker etc etc). Most of the people were kids. I got handed sketchbook from a 6 year old that contained zombies by Glen Fabry, Spiderman by Phil Winslade and Tank Girl by Rufus Dayglo mixed in with the kid's own drawings from the day before. "What would you like?" I foolishly asked. "A robot squirrel," he said.

I spent the day sat next to the genius that is Mick McMahon and his wife Chrissie. They were great company and the nervous quaking that should have wrecked me in his presence was dispelled by the fact he's a such a nice bloke. We spent a lot of time together and talked A LOT of comics.

Here's a couple of sketches he did for me:

Dredd done in my sketch pad with my pen and...

Spikes Harvey Rotten. And here's the man himself busy drawing countless sketches for everyone. I had so much stuff with me it spread all across his table too.

Eventually the kids go off to bed and the adults head to Dino's bar for the panels. I was on the first panel on the Friday night with Rufus (Tank Girl) Dayglo, Denise (crime writer) Mina, David (Bulletproof Coffin) Hine and Mark (Vice president of DC comics) Chiarello.

From L to R David, me, Denise and Mark. Photo by Rufus.

Below is the bar filling up ready for the panel.

Once again 2D was a great leveler as artists, fans and locals all mixed in. The discussions from the panels filtering out onto the street and vice versa. This is what a festival should be like and David Campbell who puts it together with the help of, yet another new mate of mine, Gary (Marvelman) Leach deserves all the praise he will get from us in the coming weeks. I don't know how he does it, but anyone else putting together a festival like this should give him a ring and find out. I want more.

I learnt a lot, had a lot of fun and made a lot of new friends. I think that was true of everyone who came.

Thanks David. Thanks Derry.