One Item Bad, Three Items Good

Item the First: It looks like Disney Adventures, who were going to be running my Muppets strip, have bitten the dust. There has been talk of trying to get as much of the work I've done so far into the final issue as they can. Here's hoping. I'd hate to think none of it ever sees the light of day.

Item the Second: I'm currently drawing a few Fin Fang Four shorts for Marvel. The first one is nearly finished, and Sinister Scott Gray is putting the final touches on his last couple of scripts as I write. There'll be five in all, one featuring the entire group and four solo stories. I have absolutely no idea where or when they're likely to appear at this writing, so watch this space.

Item the Third: Those wacky guys at Doctor Who Magazine have asked me to draw a Christmas story for them, which I should be starting work on shortly. The script is by Jonathan Morris, who's written some of the funnier Who strips of recent years, and the premise sounds like a hoot, so this one should be loads of fun.

Item the Fourth: The Knuckles the Malevolent Nun special, She Might Get Rather Crude, is currently in the hands of those nice people at ComiXpress and is on track for release at SPX in October. Written by Cornelius Stone with most of the art by me, the issue is rounded out with one-pagers drawn by Dylan Horrocks, Mike Mignola, Bob Fingerman, Ant Sang, Chris Slane, Roberto Corona and others. It'll be available online from the Hotel Fred once I get back from SPX on October 16th.

We Still Have Muppets (very badly - but they're clearing up nicely)

I've had some queries about the Muppets strip in Disney Adventures (or lack of it), and I have to admit I was wondering about it myself, as I had been under the impression it would be starting in the August issue. So I asked the comics editor, Steve Behling, what was up - last I'd heard from him, he'd sent my PIGS IN SPACE effort off to some Disney high muck-a-mucks for their official nod, and that was a while ago. I was beginning to worry that the whole thing had been vetoed. Fortunately, I received this reply last night:

"We’ve had pretty tight space constraints in the last couple issues, so we’re holding off on running the three MUPPETS strips we have until either the Dec/Jan or February issues. I did send the PIGS IN SPACE strip off, didn’t get back a detailed response, but did get a general “this is cool!” response. (I’m a big fan of the general “this is cool!” response.)"

So there you go. It looks like I'm not going to be doing any new Muppet strips for a couple more months at least, which is fine and dandy, as it happens - it will give me time to work on the odd side-project. Hooray!

I bring you news from Earth

That Comics Journal interview is out now! Four years in the making, if you count from the date where they first asked me if I'd be interested. Those nuts! Chock full of Langridge waffle from both myself and my brother Andrew, plus 20-odd pages of comic content by me, as well as whatever else they threw in from the small rainforest's worth of paper I mailed them. That's this year's book sorted, I reckon.

Also worth announcing is the Indie Spinner Rack anthology, Awesome, which (despite the cheesy title) promises to be quite an amazing collection, featuring new work by myself, Al Columbia, Renée French, Nick Bertozzi, Bernie Mireault, Andy Runton and many, many others. I'm slightly awed and humbled to be in such illustrious company. It's going to be out for SPX, and can be ordered from the latest issue of Previews.



Last but not least, I'm currently putting the new Knuckles one-shot, She Might Get Rather Crude, together. It'll be out for SPX in October if all goes well. This one is written by Cornelius Stone and features stories by me, Dylan Horrocks, Ant Sang, Chris Slane and others, as well as pin-ups by Bob Fingerman and Mike Mignola.

That should keep you busy for another couple of months...

Muppet News Flash

The new Muppets gig proceeds apace. I'm currently working on my first twelve-pager for the Disney Adventures Comic Zone specials. Getting some interest from Muppet fans as well, which is a subculture I wasn't previously aware of. Steve Swanson, of the MuppetCast podcast, interviewed me about the strip a couple of days ago and I believe the show will be up shortly. And the Comics Journal interview is almost done now as well - I'm copy-editing the transcript at the moment. It's playing merry hell with my schedule, but it will keep me from sinking into obscurity for another few months.

The Journal piece has been quite an undertaking - five hour-long sessions with me, plus a short interview with my brother Andrew on top of it. And it looks like they'll be printing 20 pages of my comics in that issue as well. I guess that's my book for this year sorted.

Here's a teaser for my first Muppet strip, coming up in the August issue of Disney Adventures (August cover date means it should be out very soon, as is the way with newsstand publications, for arcane, probably once-valid historical reasons).

Are you still here?

I'm really lousy at this blog business. It takes time I don't really have, I think that's the crux of the problem. Quickly, then:

I'll be at the Bristol Comics Expo this weekend, the convention one American visitor described as "a flea market in a church". Nevertheless, I'll be there, hopefully with a preview of the upcoming new Knuckles the Malevolent Nun book (assuming the artwork arrives from New Zealand in time).

Curtrently working on: The Muppets! Disney Adventures Magazine are about to start a regular Muppets comic strip, written and drawn by Yours Truly. I have to admit this is a bit of a thrill - I realised only a few years ago how much of an influence the original, 1970s Muppet Show was on my comics work. So to be actually doing it is quite a weird feeling.

Here's a recent illustration I did for a science fiction magazine about a bunch of upcoming TV shows I'd never heard of.

It's A Cover Up

Here's the cover to Comics Journal 284, hot off the screen (which is to say, I finished it half an hour ago). They may move the illustration down a bit so they can get all the words on.

Bring On the Quickies!

This image is from something I've been occasionally contributing to called the ISR Quickies (an outgrowth of the Indie Spinner Rack podcast forums). There have been three so far. The idea is a simple one - each cartoonist has to draw a three-panel sequence in one hour, then the next cartoonist has to follow it with another one-hour, three-panel sequence and so on until it all falls apart or comes to a hilarious conclusion. There have been three so far (#1 here, #2 here and #3 here). I've been elected to start Round 4, the result of which you see here. If you're a cartoonist and you want to sign up, there's still a day or so to get in on it...

Further Ado

Mmm. Two weeks gone already. Really must watch that.

Latest news: My Comics Journal interview is scheduled for issue #284! Which surprised the hell out of me when I read about it, because we haven't actually conducted the interview yet. The first session will be tomorrow night. And I'll be drawing a cover for it, which will be grand.

Currently on the drawing board: "The Ballad of Silvertooth Johnson", a five-pager for the Indie Spinner Rack anthology. Featuring plenty of the kind of worn-out doggerel for which I am rightly scorned.

One for the Knuckles the Malevolent Nun fans: Cornelius Stone has (perhaps unadvisedly) allowed Sister Knuckles to put up her own MySpace page. With friends like these etc., etc. (insert own joke).

Just did a job for Disney Adventures Magazine. Here's the rough. I'm so kid-friendly I could hug myself.

Can you tell what it is yet?

I'm putting this up for the entirely fatuous reason that I want to be able to link to it on a mesageboard. It was drawn on television, Rolf Harris-style, for a documentary about the making of the Hellboy movie (somebody figured out that I'd done a five-pager for Hellboy Weird Tales and would probably come very cheaply, both of which were correct).

The Thing Cometh!

Couple of things. First, I'll be at the splendid UK Web and Mini-Comix Thing this Saturday doing my usual schtick, selling comics and artwork and sketching like a nut. Please come along if you're in London that day, it's always a great show. I'm working on a new Frankenstein Meets Shirley Temple mini-comic for release on the day. And I'm going to have new printings of Fred the Clown #2, so you'll be able to buy the complete set at a bargain price.

Second, today Modern Tales are launching a new service whereby you can download a bunch of free comics in digital format, among them Fred the Clown #1. The format they're using is CBZ, which is basically a ZIP file with the ending "cbz" typed onto it. (The press release explains it in detail, telling you the various readers that are available - or you can just unzip the file and read the individual JPEGs.) Anyway, the CBZ-formatted edition can be downloaded here.

Insert random illustration!

Where I'm At

Good lord, a new blog entry. I must be ill. Actually, it's far simpler than that: since deciding to use this forum for news, I've had absolutely none to report. I had the laziest Christmas I've had in years, and have been doing just a little bit of this and a little bit of that since then to keep the old gears turning - nothing major of note whatsoever. I don't think I've got the hang of this self-publicity business. If I don't have any news, I should invent some.

Anyway, here's some. I'm lined up for a few convention appearances this year - the first one will be next month, at the mighty UK Web and Mini-Comix Thing on March 17th. Then it's off to Bristol on the 12th and 13th of May, and last but not least (assuming I've applied in time and those air miles are still valid) the wonderful SPX in Bethesda, Maryland in October.

And Fred the Clown #2 should be available again shortly, thanks to those lovely people at ComiXpress. I received the proof today and it looks great - the printing is better than the original edition. So if you want to pick up a full set of Fred the Clown #1-5 at conventions or through the website, you'll be able to once again.

I'm working on a small job for Disney Adventures magazine at the moment. Here's the rough sketch...

The Lille Deal

I've just returned from a very pleasant visit to Lille for their Comics Festival, where we were treated like kings. Kings, I tell you! And I made some friends. Here are a few of them:


Left to Right: Emma Simcock-Tooth, Ali Pow3rs, Emily Hare and Kev Crossley


Left to Right: D'Israeli, Lin Carey, Mike Carey, Jamie Delano, Chris Weston


Left to Right: David Billoir, Jamie Delano, Bryan Talbot, Alan Mitchell, Lin Carey and Mike Carey.



I also did a bunch of sketches - here are a couple I managed to bring home with me:






A big thank you to the sponsors and hosts of the show. They even managed to find some vegetarian food for me, which I had expected would prove impossible in France (the country where eating meat is not just a right, but a duty).

And yes, all right, the beds and the rooms in which we found them were exactly the same size, but you can't have everything.

Newsaramalamadingdong

I just received an e-mail from my frequent collaborator Scott Gray telling me that our latest story, "How Fin Fang Foom Saved Christmas", is available in its entirety from Newsarama. If you want to take a look, pop on over.

And that Doctor Who story should be out any day now, because I received my copy in the mail yesterday (issue #377, fact finders). Thanks to James Offredi's extraordinary colouring, it looks absolutely bee-yootiful. (I think the Goon Noir #2, with my Pete & Dud story, is out now as well -- but don't quote me.)

This weekend I'll be at a comics festival in Lille, so to both my French fans, I'll look forward to meeing you!

Because It's There

Art Attack

Now is a very good time to mention that I've added a huge amount of new artwork to my Art For Sale page at the good ol' website. The reason it's a good time to mention it is because it wasn't there yesterday and it is today. Taken me the best part of four days to do, and there are stil some pages uploading even now, but the bulk of it is available for purchase right now.

And now, apropos of nothing in particular, here's James Offredi's spectacular colouring for that Doctor Who page I posted a few days ago.

Things to Come

I suppose now would be a good time to let you know what I've been working on that has been keeping me too busy to maintain a blog. Well, there are a few things coming up:

(1) The Goon Noir - a five-page story in #2, written and drawn by me, which should be out this month.



(2) A Howard the Duck story for one of those Civil War things Marvel are chugging out - script by the simply brilliant Ty Templeton, and I only wish I'd had a bit more time to do it justice.

(3) A story for the next issue of Doctor Who Magazine (#377), featuring David Tennant as the Doctor, plus Rose, Mickey and Jackie. Called "The Green-Eyed Monster", it's written by Nev Fountain and it's loads of fun.



(4) A story for the upcoming Marvel Holiday Special, sort of a follow-up to last year's Fin Fang Four, called "How Fin Fang Foom Saved Christmas". Script by Scott Gray.



I'm going to appear really, really busy for a month and then disappear off the face of the earth...

Back from the Dead

Well, not quite - the daily update thing has long since been abandoned, as you can tell from looking at the date of my last update. This is going to be a sort of news dump for now until I figure out what to do with it.

First on the agenda, and my mind may well change about this before we get there, but I've abandoned plans to do more Doctor Sputnik cartoons for the moment and am instead running some old Fred the Clown stuff, which doesn't appear to be on Modern Tales any more - not sure what happened there, I confess I haven't been paying attention. I blame the children.

Anyway, current plans are to run a few weeks of "Classic Fred", updating every weekday, and then start a new weekly strip on Mondays while continuing the old Fred cartoons Tuesday through Friday.

Got that? Good. So nice to have cleared the air.

I'll leave you with a couple of stray links (plugarama!):

The Louche and Insalubrious Escapades of Art d'Ecco is still available. You can order it online from Fantagraphics, Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

And the Indie Spinner Rack interview with me isn't linked anywhere else at the moment, so I'll leave it here for anyone who's nutty enough to want to listen to it. And so I can find it again.

Tanks for the Memories

Another Horrible Histories spread. I remember having to redraw the tank quite a few times, so that it looked (to me) like one that was exactly the same. They had some boffin there who did it to everyone on that issue, apparently. People kept drawing the tank tracks a quarter of an inch too far apart or something...

Ah, the children of the soap...

This is an illustration I did for Inside Soap earlier this year. I had a pig of a time getting the likenesses right on this one, for some reason -- some weeks are just like that. Anyway, quite a fun one to do.

Eeek! A Man in a Rubber Suit!

I'm just about done with my Goon story, and tomorrow I'll be starting a Doctor Who ten-pager, so here's a Who pic. I honestly can't remember if I've posted this one before or not. I suppose I should keep a list and check it every time I... no, wait, that's crazy talk!

Anyway.