Happy Birthday Barney Google

Today is the 100th Anniversary of the first appearance of Barney Google, Billy DeBeck's wonderful comic strip. It was my great pleasure to write and draw a Barney Google adventure when I worked on IDW's Popeye comic a few years ago. (Other kids wanted to draw Batman when they grew up; I wanted to draw Barney Google. I was a strange kid.)

2019 Convention Schedule!

It's my great privilege to be attending Wellington's ComicFest 2019 this coming weekend! Incredibly, it will be the first convention I attend in New Zealand EVER, despite having grown up there (they weren't a thing in my day). Big thanks to the festival for inviting me and to Creative NZ for covering the cost. I'll be doing some panel discussion things, doing a presentation where I'll be wanging on at tedious length about my career, and running a workshop based around the idea of creating comics from an arbitrary set of formal constraints. Because that's how I roll.

Next up will be Macc-Pow! in Macclesfield on June 22nd, who were also kind enough to invite me, except this time no planes will be involved.

Then there's a small flurry of the things around October-November - first will be the Lakes International Comic Art Festival on October 12th-13th. I found out yesterday that my application was approved, so hooray!

Following that a few weeks later is Thought Bubble, in Harrogate this year, on November 9th-10th.

And last but not least, one that's a short bus ride from my house, so it would be daft not to go: the London Winter Comic Con at the Olympia, on November 22nd-23rd.

Given the geographical spread of this year's appearances I'd be absolutely flabbergasted if anyone managed to see me at all of them, but I very much hope some of you can be at at least one.

Ideally I want to have a new self-published comic out for the end-of-year shows, which I've managed to do three years running now (one Fred the Clown book and a couple of Zoots). Nothing even slightly ready at this point in time, though, so if I manage to pull that rabbit out of a hat it may be a delightful surprise to both of us. I'm not quite at the "better pull my finger out" stage, but teetering on the edge of thinking very hard about pulling my finger out. (Which, as we all know, is a tale as old as time itself.)

Anyway, comics!

Kickstarterness!

Hello! I'd like to draw your attention to a couple of Kickstarter campaigns if I may. I'm tangentially involved with them both, to the extent that I've contributed some artwork to each one in some capacity. See if you find them of interest.

 

The first one is "Amiga Power: The Album with Attitude". It's a music album put together by Matthew Smith, inspired by the magazine Amiga Power (1991-1996). I had the privilege of drawing the cover. You can find out more about it here.

The second one has already smashed its funding goal in record time, but there are stretch goals aplenty, and a print by Yours Truly is one of them. It's cartoonist Nick Prolix's Slang Pictorial #4. There's ways to catch up on the entire series through the Kickstarter, which you can find here... or you can just pick up the latest issue. Nick's doing some great work here and I recommend you get on board.

Thank you for your kind attention!

Chemistry World

I recently did a series of informational comics about the discovery of various elements of the Periodic Table, in collaboration with writer Jim Ottaviani, for the Royal Society of Chemistry's Chemistry World website. As of a few days ago they're all live, so clicking on the picture below should take you there:

Thanks to Jim and to editor Neil Withers for making it happen!

President Fred

A new idea I'm messing around with. Might make it a weekly, might never do another one. I haven't decided.

Anyway, here you go.

Alice commission

Here's a recent commission what I done.

Popeye's Cartoon Club

My Popeye Sunday strip went live today! It can be seen in all its glory over at Comics Kingdom, but here's a li'l teaser. Big, big thank you to Tea Fougner for making it happen!

Doodle

Happy Birthday Popeye!

Popeye first appeared in E.C. Segar's comic strip Thimble Theatre ninety years ago today. The strip had already been running for a decade by that point, so 2019 is in fact the 100th anniversary of the strip (and of Olive Oyl, who was there from Day One).

I thought it would be appropriate to share this story which I wrote for IDW's Popeye title a few years back but which was never published (mainly because the book was cancelled with #12). It was based on an idea suggested to me by that fine writer, editor, cartoonist and all-round good egg, Chris Duffy. I didn't get a chance to complete it at the time, and the script had been sitting on my hard drive doing nothing in particular for a couple of years when Chris commissioned me to draw it (as a graduation present for his son, if memory serves – hence the "Peter Duffy" character). So here it is.

Happy Birthday, you one-eyed bum!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sketch 2019-01-05