A Site for Four-Eyes

For the last few days I've been working on the breakdowns for my Goon story and getting the old website updated to a WebComicsNation model. I'm looking at starting a new Doctor Sputnik web strip before too long (currently I'm running the old stories from the minicomics), so I want everything up to speed and well tested before I start. The new Hotel Fred site is here and most of the content has been shifted over. I'm really itching to get back into the regular strip routine. It keeps me sane, knowing there'll be something of my own on the boards every week.

Selecting an Inside Soap illo more or less at random today because I've got a hard disc full of the damn things.

The End of Eccles

I don't want to turn this into a Doctor Who blog, but this is being posted by nature of a request from Sumisu (hello!), who asks if I'm ever likely to draw David Tennant. Well, it looks like I might be doing an episode of the strip pretty soon, so I guess that's a yes.

Anyway, this is the last Doctor Eccles one I did (Goon Show reference, sorry - "Doctor Eccles?! How did you become a doctor?" - "I lied about my height.").

Just in case you thought I'd forgotten...

Let's have some Cybermen. Go on, you know you want one.

Coo Coo Ca Choo Mrs Robinson

Doing a picture for Inside Soap today which illustrates the resolution of this particular plotline, so I was seized, nay, inspired with the notion to post the one that illustrates the setup. Is it Hollyoaks? Might be Hollyoaks. They all run together after a while.

Gimme a "U"

This was a commission - I don't usually take on commissions because it always takes me forever to find the time to do them, and so I tend to wait until I've finished the current one before taking on the next. (I'm getting through about one a year at the moment, so please don't ask...) Anyway, I managed to finish this one before continental drift changed my address. The guy wanted a picture involving the letter "U" and some word that began with it. Never one to hold back from thrashing a theme into the ground, and deep within my Fred the Clown period at that point, this is what I came up with.

Cut my hand off... I c-can't stop sketching!!

Last ones. Next post should be something that took me longer than 20 minutes.

And still they come!

Some more Bristol sketches for yez.

Just finished an episode of Smithson which should be appearing in a couple of weeks. Currently working on the Rosetta story I mentioned a few posts ago -- on the second to last page now, and I think I've got a better ending so I'm rewriting the last one. Then it's The Goon.

Also currently making notes for some new Doctor Sputnik stories. Watch this space...

More Bristol Scribbles

Here are a few more of the sketches I did at the Bristol Expo...

I got my computer back!

Nice to be home. Not that I've gone anywhere, but my studio has been off-limits while we had a Little Man In to fix up some stuff that needed fixing up. So I've been using Sylvie's creaky old iMac and my only slightly less creaky laptop to do whatever I had to do computer-wise, while all my files 'n' that sat in the studio, cut off from general access. But now I can finally post a picture, so by golly that's-a what I'm-a gonna do.

Here are some sketches I drew at the recent Bristol Comics Expo. Not seen here are a lot of Batgirl sketches I was asked to do this year for some reason. I also got asked to draw the Tenth Doctor Who, somewhat predictably (except to me - it never occurred to me until I got there). I couldn't do him without photo refs (too pretty), so they had to settle for a nice Doctor Eccles ("Plug from the Bash Street Kids") instead.

I'm still not dead

Haven't updated this in a while and it's getting to the point where people are e-mailing me and phoning me to ask if I'm all right. I am, I'm fine and dandy, thanks for asking. I haven't been posting (or working much) because my wife has been in bed with pneumonia and I've been doing extra child-minding duties. She's on the mend, I'm back at the drawing board, and the sun has got his hat on (hip hip hip hooray).

This weekend: The Bristol Comics Festival! I'll be there doing my usual buy-my-artwork-to-feed-my-children schtick, and I may even have a new(ish) minicomic or two if I can get my new laser printer working in time. If not, it'll be the same old shit I bring every year, I'm afraid.

On the boards right now: A story for the anthology ROSETTA (which may or may not be accepted when they see what a pig's ear I'm making of it), a new episode of Shaenon Garrity's web comic SMITHSON (which I'm rather pleased with), and a five-page GOON story featuring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (that was the pitch Eric Powell liked!). Talking to Marvel Comics and Doctor Who Magazine about more stuff at the moment, none of which is cast in stone yet so I should probably keep schtum for now.

Now you know.

I don't have access to my regular computer right now because we've got builders in, so there's no pretty picture to accompany this post. You'll have to imagine one. All right... think of lavender. There's a field of the stuff. The sky is glowing, orange and pink, as the sun gradually sets in the distance. A gnarled old tree is off to one side of the picture, its trunk battered by decades of exposure to the elements. Ivy wraps itself around its dead trunk, hinting at the possibility of new life. In the middle of the field is a cow, an old cow which chews its cud thoughtfully, as if imagining an idyll from bygone days. Standing next to the cow is Doctor Who. There you go!