What a scamp

Here's another illustration job for a foreign-language textbook. The balloons were typeset, I just worked around them. It's pretty ho-hum, but the one vaguely interesting thing about it is that I based the male character on Rob, the main character in my friend Bob Fingerman's comic Minimum Wage (or Beg the Question if you bought the collection). I really didn't enjoy doing this work because it kept me away from working on my own projects, often for months at a time, so I would do this sort of thing every once in a while to keep myself from nailing a spike into a beam and buying some rope.

But what about Uncle Froopy?

Here's another one of those illustrations I can't remember doing. Something for an educational textbook, families were involved I think. Probably foreign language vocabulary or somesuch. Anyway, I liked the bottom one, and the nutty-looking guy in the middle of the top one for no reason. What the hell was he doing there?


Another page of Art d'Ecco squeezed out today, plus breakdowns and lettering on the next few. Should streamline the next few days a bit - I might crack that two-page barrier yet.

Caution: May Contain Comedy Swearing

Aargh, dropping the ball here again. All right, here's an as-yet unpublished Knuckles cartoon. Supposed to go into a new Knuckles comic (which I'll only be contributing to occasionally, although Cornelius Stone will still be the main writer). I think it'll come out when they've got three issues in the can, whenever that is. Corn, bless 'im, has made the concession for the American market of inventing the word "gunt" to replace the more obvious choice. By George, I think we've cracked it! Fame and fortune can only be a comic book away.

Head Missing - One Careless Owner

Here's an old book cover, back from the days when I actually painted all this stuff by hand. Perry Homes is a Boy Detective and the missing head is a head teacher who goes missing. Sorry.


Inside Soap day today! (And tomorrow, because I spent the morning trying to be a Good Dad. I'll be doing the old long hours again tomorrow to catch up...)

I'll be the little boot

Here's a spread for some educational textbook or other which I did quite a few years ago now. It's some sort of board game, I seem to recall. I'd just started colouring on the computer at the time so the colours are not really print-friendly; I wouldn't get the hang of that for a while.


I'll be lucky if I get half a page done today. Trying to get the spare room cleared so baby Tom can have somewhere to sleep when he outgrows the cradle (any day now, he's a big bugger). The day was gone before I knew it. I'm a bit ahead on the book so it shouldn't matter, but I'd like to actually stay a bit ahead...

Have a quick Who

Just throwing the first Doctor Who picture I lay my hands on up tonight because it's five to midnight and I remembered I hadn't posted anything today. And because I still have dozens of the things. Dozens!



Another page-and-a-half day today. And this is working 14, 15 hours. I need better hands or something.

Book 'im, Permhead!

Here's a strip I did years ago for a newspaper supplement pilot type thing that never took off. The character was assigned to me but the story is my own, such as it is. I think there was a dummy printed up or something but then the project ground to a halt. God knows. Anyway, here it is.



Did a page and a half again today. Aargh. Two pages, you will be mine, damn you.

Crucible Schmucible

Here's a Horrible Histories illustration of a witch trial. I love witch trials. They never go out of style.



Worked on Art d'Ecco today. Aimed for two pages, did a page and a half. Tomorrow I shall endeavour to break the two-page barrier (or the Craig Thompson Barrier, as it's known -- the four-page barrier, or Kirby Barrier, while theoretically possible according to latest scientific research, is far, far out of reach without several more years' worth of intensive training. It involves actually bending the laws of physics to stretch time to twice its normal length, as I understand it).

Anyway - onward and upward, and all that.

As promised...

... here's that design for the Gosh bags.

Who dat?

Here's another Doctor Who, with Daleks again because I like you.



Doing a job for Gosh Comics today - Gosh are a terrific London comic shop, and they asked me to design a paper bag for them, for customers to carry away their lovely comics in. Still have to plop the text in before it's finished -- I expect I'll post the final thing here tomorrow.

Rrrromance!

Here's another vaguely Valentine-themed pic, if you're into cow rump. I find this one funnier now than when I drew it, particularly the expression on the cow's face.


Today's Inside Soap day, did you guess? And tomorrow as well, by the look of it - I got a late start today when I took the family to the airport. They're off on holiday for two weeks while I get something useful done, or so the plan goes. I will be aiming for the ludicrous pace of two pages per day, so hopefully I'll get a page and a half done.

Animal Magnetism

Have I done an Inside Soap recently? No I haven't. Here's one for Valentine's Day. I don't write them, lady.



Today was my birthday so I inked some Art d'Ecco and basically carried on as I would any other day. Cartooning - the glamour can kill you.

Needle & Fred

During the first year of the Fred the Clown web strip's existence, I tried to get somebody to publish the strips I'd done so far. I put together a spiffy little dummy with the strips arranged into themed sections: Fred the Amorous, Fred the Artiste, Fred the Anomaly, Fred the Anachronism, Fred the Accursed and Fred the Astronaut. The plan was to have each section in the first book start with "A"; the second book would be "B" and so on. In any event, nobody nibbled, so I ended up using the section title pages in slightly altered form in the self-published Fred comics -- except this one, which I'm pretty sure has been an orphan until now. It would have preceded the haunted house story, "Scared Witless", from Fred #1.



Today: Inking Art d'Ecco page 1. (But probably not all of it; my wife and I are going out for a St.Valentine's Day dinner a day early tonight, because you should never count on your regular babysitter being free on Valentine's Day.)

No, I can't remember what it is

Here's something I found in a folder that is further evidence of my oncoming Alzheimer's. All I can tell you is that it was something to do with a pop band. Not a real one, a made-up one. Anyway.



Finishing the roughs for the new Art d'Ecco story today, and brainstorming some story ideas for a short thing I'm supposed to be doing for Dark Horse. And starting to ink an Art d'Ecco page if I have time. Sleep? I laugh at your sleep.

Sadly-Sadly

I will cheerfully tell anybody who asks that I would love to do a Plastic Man comic. If there's a superhero strip anywhere to which I would be better suited, I can't think of it. Here are some sample pages I did a few years back in one of my periodic attempts to get DC to throw me a bone. The script is taken from a Jack Cole story, "Sadly-Sadly", and reinterpreted in my own style. Did it work? Did it arse.





Today: Starting to pencil the new 20-page lead story to the Art d'Ecco book (after finishing the Inside Soap pic I was supposed to finish yesterday). I'm going to try to pencil 2 pages today. Somehow.

Was this your idea, Wilson?

Today's work schedule was shot to hell by the only vaguely scheduled arrival of Colin Wilson, New Zealand cartoonist now resident in Australia, who may be best known for his work on Young Blueberry in France. Never met the dude, but since he was in the country for a few days I didn't want to miss the opportunity to do so, so around for dinner he came. And a fine time was had by all (hic).

I managed to ink this week's Inside Soap and start colouring it before everything went Colin-shaped.

Here's a Christmas card from 2001 for no reason.

Ooh, get Mister Digital

Here's another Doctor Who picture. (Yes, I know.) It's a bit of a curiosity in that it was drawn on computer, so no inked original exists. I don't do that a lot. This one was done more or less to see if I could do it.



Today: Finishing the Art d'Ecco page I was drawing yesterday and doing the rough for the latest Inside Soap illo. I'm thinking I might have to get up a bit earlier in the morning (like 5.30 am) if I'm going to get the d'Ecco book done in time; between the baby and my three-year-old daughter, my working day is getting broken into a hundred useless pieces at the moment...

Dumb as a Bag of Hair

Art d'Ecco continues. I'm redrawing an old a one-pager today - some of the work we're including needs a bit of polish, some a total overhaul. I don't want the book to be a load of old junk but I don't want to redraw every line, either -- a bit of a fine line to walk. Anyway, here are roughs for a couple of the new pages.

The plot involves Art d'Ecco trying to track down copies of his first comic book appearance because it's suddenly getting huge prices on eBay due to the fact that the lettering was done by the famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma. I think that about covers it.

Small Pond

Here's one I stumbled across on my hard drive. I have absolutely no memory of drawing this. Don't know what it was for, don't know when I did it -- it's a complete mystery. I only know it's mine because it's in my drawing style. And because it's in a folder with some other things I must have done around the same time.

I'd say I'm getting to that age when I forget why I came up the stairs, except I've been like that for as long as I can remember. Which is about last Tuesday.



Today I've been working on the Art d'Ecco roughs a bit more. Mainly it's a case of knocking the rhythms around until everything ticks. Might post a page or two tomorrow.

Customs and Habits

Here's a Knuckles strip I did a few years back, for a benefit comic to raise legal fees for Knockabout Comics vs. H.M. Customs, when Customs seized a huge number of their Crumb books and tried to prosecute them. (Knockabout eventually won but they didn't get their books back in time to capitalise on the Crumb movie -- which is why they imported them in the first place, I seem to recall.)

The strip didn't go in the Knuckles collection a few years back because it needed too much context to make any sense. Probably still a bit thin on context even here, but it's only the internet, innit.





Today: doing rough breakdowns for a new Art d'Ecco story to go in the collection. I laughed out loud when I read Andrew's script. Good sign.

It must be about time...

... for another Doctor Who illustration. No, no, sit down, I'll be as quick as I can. Look, this one's got Daleks and everything.



This morning was spent finishing the lettering on the Doctor Who strip because I didn't finish it yesterday. This afternoon has been spent finishing this week's Inside Soap illustration because I didn't finish it on Thursday. Tomorrow will be spent doing whatever it was I was supposed to be doing today, which basically means that's another Sunday buggered. It's a glamorous life, this cartooning lark, I tell you.

They're crazy, these Romans...

Here's the first ever Horrible Histories job I did, of Ancient Rome. Rather wonderfully, the reference materials I was sent for this job were photocopied directly from the Asterix books.

I'm going to start mentioning what I'm working on at the bottom of each post, because the "news" aspect of the old website isn't really being served by my Memory Lane posts at the moment. So, to start the ball rolling, today I was lettering the latest Doctor Who comic strip for Doctor Who Magazine.

Yes, I can tell you're excited. Don't worry, it will get better. I don't want to peak too early.

Humdrum Bum Conundrum

Here are a couple of lowlifes from EastEnders, chosen for no particular reason apart from the fact that I'm drawing an EastEnders picture today and it popped into my head. Note generic spotted handkerchief, the symbol of bums on the run the world over, although I've never seen one in real life. Maybe they have to be ordered from a special shop at enormous expense, which is why the people who have them are hobos in the first place -- they've spent all their money on designer spotted handkerchiefs.

Another mystery solved.

All-Hitler funnies

Just a quick one, before the day completely runs away from me again: here's a spot illo I did for DC Comics' Big Book of Weirdos in the early 90s. I'm having trouble remembering the details, but I think I did two versions of this, and this one here is the unpublished version. They asked me to redraw it, as I recall, because I'd already done Hitler for the Big Book of Conspiracies and they didn't want to turn the series into All-Hitler Funnies. Andy Warhol was the substitution decided upon in the end, I think...

Must remember to take the pills tomorrow.