Happy Daddy

I'm a very proud daddy this week. My seven-year-old daughter asked if she could watch a DVD "for grownups". Once my heart had started again, I showed her Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr -- and she loved it. And my four-year-old son has been getting me to make pencil sketches for him to trace over for the past few days, essentially so he can practise inking; he calls it "tracing", but that's effectively what he's doing. So, yay kids! I've posted this picture once before, but I thought it deserved a return engagement.

And the winner for most boring post is...

Bit of Sam the Eagle for ya. These are the pencils for one of the covers for Muppet Show #4.

Just a short post this week - I'm running behind schedule due to some domestic crises that needed dealing with. All right, the cat was ill. He's a weird old fella who we recently adopted from an animal shelter, found as a stray originally, and it turns out he's got this terrible catalogue of ailments. So he's turning out to be quite high-maintenance. Behold the mighty Sylvester...


I have just posted a picture of my cat to my blog. My life is now complete and I can die happy.

Skin

I designed a tattoo! My artwork is now a permanent part of someone's body. How about that.

I believe the final issue of Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson is out this Wednesday. I think I managed to pull everything together at the end (by the skin of my teeth), but from here on in there'll be a lot more of a self-contained quality to each issue. That whole series was quite the learning experience.

Looks like I'll be drawing a Doctor Who story next year for the Who Mag! It'll be a ten-page short story with the Eleventh Doctor, written by Jonathan Morris, and without giving the concept away, let's just say it sounds like the research will be a lot of fun.

Finished the script for the first issue of the Muppet Show: Guest Stars story arc this week, featuring Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. There's also a brief appearance by Galileo which should make Mike Dawson very happy.

You Were Rubbish, Sir

In the UK we don't really have a tradition of trick-or-treating - it's an American invention that commercial forces have been trying to force down our throats over here for about a decade now. So every Halloween we get a lot of people who don't really know the procedure trying to do something we've only ever seen on television. But even with that caveat, there was no excuse for the kid (about 13) who knocked on our door without a costume of any kind. We asked him what he was dressed as; his reply, after thinking about it for way too long, was, "Um... I'm a chav." Well, I'll tell you, he only got one lolly from us! Oh my yes! And a stern admonition to try harder next year! I don't know what we need Halloween for here anyway - we've got a perfectly good Catholic-burning five days later we can celebrate.