Brum Brum!

My almost-three-year-old son Thomas started going to nursery recently. It's been two short weeks from screaming, sobbing abandonment trauma to essentially telling me to piss off after I take him through the door. Oh, and he's in love with a boy called Stanley, apparently.

This coming weekend I will be attending my first Birmingham International Comic Show. I'm going to try to have a new Doctor Sputnik minicomic ready, but I'm not making any promises. Sleep might take priority. Otherwise, expect more of the usual from me -- sketching, selling books and artwork, and showing off photocopies of anything vaguely recent to anyone who's interested. I'm skipping the Friday Night Launch (mainly because nobody told me there was one until after I'd booked my hotel) but I'll be there Saturday and Sunday. And, after my shameful display of hangover at the Bristol Comic Expo earlier this year, I will attempt not to vomit in front of any more children.

Currently finishing off the Time Out piece (four pages to colour today, wish me luck) and writing a six-page Captain America all-ages story set in World War Two. Interestingly, being all-ages, I'm not allowed to use the word "Nazi". I'm not sure pretending they never existed is the best approach, but it does mean my focus is less on the front lines and more on home front saboteurs and plucky girl reporters (I'm calling her Rosalind Hepburn!) and such stuff. Starting to come together, anyway. If I get my druthers I'd like to have the splendid Rob Davis on board as artist -- not sure Marvel will go for it, but I'm fighting. I'm fighting! I'm writing with him in mind.

Lastly, for no reason, here's a page from an abandoned project that will probably never see the light of day otherwise. That's what blogs are for, I guess.



Right. Birmingham!

Monster Johnson Pig in Space

On Saturday I got together with Scott Gray to throw some ideas around for more Fin Fang Four stories. We didn't have any shortage of them, as it turns out, although whether Marvel will be interested in them is another question; if they'd prefer me to draw them, they might have to wait a while. But we definitely came away from our brainstorming session with the feeling that we still had a ton of stories to tell.

Currently working on a comic project for Time Out's Four Feet From a Rat comic supplement (second issue sampler available here), a one-off bit of satirical fluff featuring London's Wodehousean cartoon Mayor, Boris Johnson, as a 30s-style pulp adventure hero, beating the crap out of communists and other undesirables. (I say Wodehousean -- there is a sense in which you think Boris has stolen Hugh Grant's stammering act -- but at the same time you can't help thinking he'd have no hesitation in having every one of us lined up and shot.) Not my own script, but funny stuff nonetheless, and full colour as well. And it's Time Out. Worth having that name on the old resume.



Just finished writing a Pigs In Space two-pager for the new Muppet comic this morning. I'm really happy with it, especially for a first draft. It's the first day since I started writing the Muppets again where I felt everything click. Hopefully there'll be more of those days to come.

Treading Treacle

Officially, The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels came out in the UK yesterday (I believe it's been out for a while in the US). This is the book by Danny Fingeroth that I illustrated 30-odd pages of in "graphic novel", i.e. comic strip, format. It's the longest bit of sustained comic bookery I've done for a while, my comics tending to be of the 7-to-10 page variety lately.

Apart from that, on the face of it, I'm exactly where I was last week -- one page left to go on "Jailhouse Crock", a good chunk of the first Muppet issue still to be scripted. Getting there slowly, an hour or two every morning before I start working on whatever else I have scheduled for the day.

On the Muppet front, I can tell you that the first issue will feature the Planet Koozebane, the Swedish Chef, and Kermit playing the banjo. I'm working from a fairly tightly-constructed subplot, and inserting sketches between the character bits which I'm making up on the spot -- an attempt to give Disney something to look at and approve/alter at the plotting stage while a the same time trying to keep an element of spontaneity. Harder than it sounds! Disney occasionally asks me to insert a degree of sentimentality that is, shall we say, outside my comfort zone. I'm finding ways around it that keeps everybody happy so far, but it's a tightrope I'm walking here...



Here's a half-page from "Jailhouse Crock" to whet your appetites (click on it for a closer look). Before you ask, no, I have no idea where or when it's going to appear. But all the Fin Fang Four shorts will eventually be collected (at least, that was the plan when we signed on to do them last year). So look out for that some time before the Second Coming.

Morning Owl

Today sees the beginning of my new Mugwhump strip on the Hotel Fred site. Reaction at the strip over at Act-i-Vate so far has been overwhelmingly positive, so I warn you that today's strip threatens to be a terrible anticlimax.

Right now I seem to have slightly more coals in the fire than I usually do, which is something I'd be churlish to complain about. In the last week alone, I've been asked to write some more stuff for Marvel and I've received a script for a very funny three-pager I'm drawing for a supplement in London's Time Out. This is good, as I enjoy being busy, but I think I'd enjoy it slightly more if I didn't have to get up at 5.30am in order to fit it all in. Filling my days at the moment are the script for the new Muppet Show book and inking the last of the Fin Fang Four shorts, "Jailhouse Crock", featuring everybody's favourite robot mailman, Elektro, and a rogues' gallery of old villains from the Hostess Twinkie ads from the 1970s. It's a hoot!

Preee-sentinggg... MUGWHUMP THE GREAT!

Today I'm beginning a brand-new web strip, and if you're wondering why all you can see on my website is Fred the Clown, that's because the new strip is making its debut at Act-i-Vate.com. It's called Mugwhump the Great, and for the handful of you who have come to rely upon the Hotel Fred's WebComicsNation-powered RSS feeds and syndication features (whatever they are -- speaking as somebody who doesn't have a mobile phone and fondly remembers the old wooden computers), fret not! For Mugwhump will appear at the HotelFred.com with a one-week delay starting September 9th, a contrivance developed to satisfy Act-i-Vate's requirement for exclusive content (although you can already read the older Mugwhump material here). The black-and-white approach is the result of a conscious decision on my part to separate my personal work from my work-for-hire stuff, which these days is invariably computer-coloured. I thought it was time to draw a line in the sand somewhere and, for aesthetic, economic and scheduling reasons, colour seemed as good a place as any.

In other words, I'm expecting never to make any money from this and to have to print the damn thing myself eventually. Just like old times!

And another thing...

I'm very good at forgetting things. I'm a champion forgetter. I could forget for England if they didn't already have people who can do that much better than I can. So I should mention that I forgot to plug the new Tripwire Annual, which has a new(ish) Fred the Clown strip contained within -- actually a redrawn and recoloured old web strip, but don't tell everyone. You'll recognise the cover because it's got Doctor Who on it, which I'd be tempted to call a coincidence (on the basis of my association with Doctor Who Magazine) if it weren't for the fact that I don't think I know anybody these days who isn't occasionally involved with Doctor Who in some capacity or another. My longtime collaborator and friend Cornelius Stone discovered a missing William Hartnell episode a few years back; Scott Gray of Fin Fang Four wrote the strip for yonks. And it turned out that my son's godfather worked on The Runaway Bride and set fire to the Tardis on his first day. I don't know if they asked him back.

For a short engagement...

Fred the Clown is back with all-new content on the Hotel Fred website. Strictly a temporary arrangement, a four-week posting while I get the new strip, Mugwhump the Great, ready to go on Act-i-Vate.com... but hopefully a welcome return for those who have been requesting the big doofus nonetheless. It feels good to be back in the saddle.

And what is this Mugwhump the Great of which you speak, I hear you cry? Well, it's sort of a continuation of a story I did about a decade ago, which recently saw print for the first time in the Comics Journal (and which you can read for free online here). There'll be a slow start with a few gag strips before we launch into a longer plotline about a mysterious new manager taking over the Palace of Varieties and introducing his own macabre artistes. What's it all about? And what does Billy Woodentop have to do with it? All will be revealed, once I've actually finished plotting the damn thing. It's coming together, but plotting is a process I'm not yet entirely at home with. It's like giving birth to a watermelon at the moment.

It's Time to Play the Music

I believe it's now been officially announced, so I daresay I can mention it here at last: I will be writing and drawing a Muppet Show comic for Boom Studios (after an initial mini-series written by Mark Waid). Big and scary! But good! Scary because it will be the first time I write material for other artists to draw (being monthly, I can't do the whole book on my lonesome, so there will be other hands involved - although I'll be drawing as much of it as I can). The details are still shaking down at the moment... but still, good stuff.



And while I've got your attention, I ought to mention that The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels, written by Danny Fingeroth, with a 30-page miniature graphic novel in the middle (what we used to call a "comic" in the olden days) drawn by Yours Truly, will be out on either the first of August (what the publisher told me) or 15th of September (what it says on Amazon) - I really have no idea which is correct, I'm afraid. Amazon pre-ordering info here if you're in America, or here if you're in the UK like me. Or else go to a shop like your grandfather used to do, you young whippersnappers.

Reeling, Writhing and Fainting in Coils

Now, you see what I'm doing here. I'm waiting until I've allowed a critical mass of news to build up -- something which usually takes, say, six months or so -- and then I let it all out in one big blog-dump and then I let the dust settle and wait another six months until I do it again. This way I avoid boring my long-suffering readers with insignificant trivialities or long, tedious opinionated rants which might come back to haunt me.

So here's what I'm up to. Guaranteed meaty-fresh until it isn't any more:

* I'm working like a bastard -- a BASTARD, I tell you -- on a 13-page story for Science Fiction Classics, an offshoot of the Graphic Classics line of literary adaptations. The story I'm illustrating is "The Disintegration Machine", adapted by Rod Lott from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story featuring Professor Challenger, he of The Lost World (and other tales with fewer dinosaurs). I finished inking it last night, but I have still to colour it, as they're splashing out for full colour this time around. So there's that.

* Also in the middle of a two-pager for the upcoming X-MEN: FIRST CLASS Halloween Special. I'm writing and drawing this one. It features Li'l Charlie Xavier in a mash-up pastiche of Village of the Damned and Edward Gorey. I have no idea if this is going to work -- I probably won't know until after I've done it, and possibly not even then.

* Also gearing up to start writing and drawing a regular monthly book for Boom Studios in September, which means I'm writing plot ideas whenever I get a moment. This hasn't been officially announced yet, so I should keep the lid on it until it comes through the Proper Channels, but I can tell you that it will mean picking up where I left off on a project that was very dear to my heart. Wakka wakka.

* Also plowing through a number of short solo stories featuring the Fin Fang Four members, to appear randomly throughout the Marvel line in the near future in unexpected places, thereafter to be collected into a book if all goes well. The most recent one had Googam, Son of Goom being adopted by Angelina Jolie (or a reasonable approximation thereof). The next one on the drawing board will probably be "Curious Gorgilla"... Scott Gray is on board as co-conspirator, as usual.

* Signed up to attend the Birmingham Comics Show in October!

* I'm about to start a new web strip, Mugwhump the Great. This has been planned for some time, but over the weekend the delightful and talented Mister Simon Fraser contacted me with an intriguing offer which has thrown a new spin on things. So there will be a short hiatus on the regular web strip content (which I'm guessing about five people have noticed in any case -- anybody been reading the brand-new Doctor Sputnik serial? No, I didn't think so) while I get ready to go with the new arrangement. Forgive me for being unnecessarily cryptic, but the details are still being nailed down at this writing. Let's just say that my next web strip will be appearing at an exciting new venue. Followers of Simon's work may already have a clue...

* Still available: the marvellous anthology Superior Showcase #3, published by AdHouse Books, for which I did the cover. The interiors are very much worth your time: the wildly popular Street Angel by Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg, plus stories by two of my favourite new cartoonists, Dustin Harbin and Laura Park. In addition to being a very fine cartoonist, Dustin is the driving force behind Heroes Con's spectacular Indie Island, at which I was a guest last month; and Laura is one of those people (like Mark Stafford) whose sketchbooks utterly blow your mind and you walk away wondering why they're not drawing every comic in the world. Laura, start drawing every comic in the world please!



I think that's picked the bones out of it for now. More when something exciting happens, unless nothing does, in which case there won't be.

I'm Not Talking About Comics

There's a teeny weeny mini-interview with yours truly on Douglas Noble's site, about this and that, and eventually comics. The comics news is old business to regular followers of this blog (both of you), but recorded here in the interests of narcissism.

And here's a Doctor Who drawing with a Transformer in it. I'm sure it made sense at the time.

The Nun Has Landed

I'm very pleased to report that the new Knuckles the Malevolent Nun comic, She Might Get Rather Crude, is now available through the Hotel Fred. As an added enticement, I'm giving away a free sketch to anybody who orders one directly from me (selected from my groaning pile of convention sketches which are otherwise going to clutter the place up indefinitely).

The banner above doesn't click through to anything, by the way - I couldn't work out how to do that. Mister Technology, me.

Still doing the Fin Fang Foom story I mentioned last time. One more page of pencils to go. My next thing in print is likely to be the Doctor Who story, which should be in the December issue of DWM (#390). James Offredi has coloured it beautifully. Here's a taste:

Disney Biz

Thought I'd post a few of the spot illos I did during my brief dalliance with the Mouse. Now that Disney Adventures Magazine is no more I think I've a better chance of getting away with it. This was the third of the illustrations I did for their editorial credits page - the idea being that I was supposed to incorporate the credits into the illustration. It's hard to think where else they could be used, so it's either here or oblivion. This one was for a pirate-themed issue.



Currently pencilling the second of the new Fin Fang Four shorts - this one is a Fin Fang Foom solo story. There's a Googam one already written for me to jump into next, Little Orphan Angry, which is really really good. So's the Fin one, actually - super-tight comedy plotting in a scenario realistic enough to be credible but odd enough to be funny, like a Carl Barks ten-pager. I can think of worse ways to wrap up the FFF's adventures.

These Doctors Are Crazy!

Amazingly, and perhaps rather foolishly, I've gone through all my old Blog entries and figured out which Doctor Who illustrations I haven't posted yet. Starting today I'll work through 'em, because I know one or two people give a damn. And it will give me an excuse to update a bit more regularly.

For those of you who are either indifferent to or can't stand the sight of the good Doc, I'll make sure it's only every other post. See if I can't dredge up some other dross for the rest of you.

Newsy bit: there's a piece at Newsarama about this Avengers special that the first of the Fin Fang Four shorts by Scott Gray and me will be appearing in. Although it looks like they didn't actually use any of the interview Scott and I did with them, so I don't know what that's all about. We were hilarious, it goes without saying.

That graphic novel I'm working on has had a couple of false starts. I might post the abandoned pages next time, actually. Starting again today, trying to thumbnail the damn thing first before I jump in and draw a lot of stuff I can't use. Worse, I seem to be afraid of writing again and I don't know when that happened. I thought I was cured. I guess the only cure is to do more of it...

Heroes Con confirmed! Et cetera!

I'm delighted to announce that I'll be attending Heroes Con in Charlotte, North Carolina in June 2008 as a part of their "Indy Island" area. I met Dustin Harbin of that august institution at SPX, and we got to talking, and before I knew it I'd been plied with cheap booze, stuffed into the boot of his car and forced to sign a number of dubious documents. I just finished colouring this piece for them, after which Dustin has promised to release my children:



Also signed up this week to attend the next Bristol show, which is the 10th-11th of May 2008. (Fair warning, that link will take you to the cheapest-looking website you have ever seen in your life. Which, on reflection, is perfect for the British comic industry.) No blackmail required for this one, remarkably - it's the only time I see most of my cartoonist friends, so it's that or not seeing them for another year. I need to get out more.

SPX pics!

D'oh, I forgot the photos. Here we go, then. I'm more than a bit rubbish at remembering to take photos so it's a bit of a patchy record, but there are about a thousand photos elsewhere on the internet so I feel the pressure is off me somewhat.


This is the Convention Center. It's a very swanky joint, but it's stuck in the middle of a sea of faceless concrete. I guess they don't expect people to leave once they get there until it's time to get back on the plane.


This is the pre-show party at Big Planet Comics.


Nick Abadzis relaxing in the hotel on Thursday night.


Sacha Mardou took this picture of Nick and me, both of us looking completely wiped out, Nick from his book tour and me because I can't hold my drink.


Left to right: Dylan Williams, Sacha Mardou, Nick Abadzis. (Hiding behind Dylan is Sacha's husband Ted.)


Friday morning, the view from my table.


My table.


Tom Neely photographing me photographing Tom Neely photographing me.


Nick and Dustin Harbin, organiser of Heroes Con's "Indy Island" and a rather good cartoonist.


The Ignatz Awards. I was trying to capture the Gorilla Incident but all I got was a sea of hair.


This one wasn't taken by me - it was e-mailed to me after the show. Chris Reilly with his stolen trolley of booze.

SPX 2007

SPX is over and I had a wonderful time. Sold some books, discovered some new treasures, made some new friends, and got very happily reacquainted with some old ones. What more could you ask for?

I had two things to push at this show: my contribution to Indie Spinner Rack's AWESOME anthology, and a new Knuckles the Nun comic book, She Might Get Rather Crude, both debuting that weekend. I have no idea how well AWESOME went, but I sold most of the Knuckles books, as well as nearly everything else I brought with me, so I'm well pleased.

I managed to have a drink and/or talk with so many people that any list would be both incredibly boring and likely to offend somebody I left out, so I'll just say how nice it was to catch up with Nick Abadzis, who only lives a few miles away from me but who I never seem to see except at American conventions. It was also really good to put faces to a bunch of familiar names from the Indie Spinner Rack community.

I picked up a few books and was most kindly given a whole lot more. I think there were only about three that weren't absolutely great, and even those were obviously made with love. The highest quality swag I've yet had at one of these shows. I'll single out Tom Neely's The Blot as the one I like best so far. I'm still working through the pile.

I owe a big thank you to Sacha Mardou for looking after my table while I was on a panel about Comics and Animation (which, having never done any animation, I had no business being on in the first place - but it was a good excuse to meet Jeff Smith and Kim Deitch, and to catch up with Tom Neely). Mardou's latest comic, Washing Machine, is recommended, by the way.

Some random memories:

• Discussing the topic of passing out in bars with Jamie Tanner, Jim Ottaviani and others - it seemed to be a recurring theme for some reason
  
• Chris Reilly's stolen supermarket trolley full of alcohol in the bar on Saturday night - which nobody commented on ("It was a gift from a friend," says Chris)
  
• Meeting the extraordinary Dustin Harbin and being invited to be a guest at Heroes Con next year - which I'm still thinking about
  
• The Ignatzes, comprehensively covered elsewhere on the Interweb, which were a hoot - speed presentations, gorillas accepting awards from the tops of their buttocks and all
  
• And just how generous and friendly everybody was. Cartoonists really are the nicest people in the world.
  

For me, SPX has always been a tremendous energising experience in previous years, so I was a little surprised at how melancholy I was feeling at the end of it. I spend most of Sunday feeling acutely aware that I need to "up my game" somewhat.I'm still not exactly sure what the problem is, except that it has something to do with a kind of coldness about my style that needs to be dealt with, and a feeling that the work-for-hire stuff I've been doing lately has been gnawing away at something fundamental that I'll never get back. (Not that I've had a choice; I have a family to feed.) I've been hoping for a moment of clarity that isn't coming. All I'm sure of is that this is something I need to work through.

Well, whatever. I was going to upload some pictures about this point but Blogger is being a bad boy, so I'll have to wait until the technical difficulties are over. Check back shortly.

Wireless Wandering and Tardis Tinkering

I'm currently in the middle of drawing a new story for Doctor Who Magazine. It's one of those draw-a-whole-lot-of-past-Doctors stories they throw me every once in a while - I won't elaborate in case I spoil the story, but there's a page of pencils below as a teaser.

Also started work on a 250-odd page story of my own which has been rattling around my head for a good long while. It's called "The Pictures Are Better on the Radio." I'm setting aside my Mondays to work on it, which is all the spare time I can afford, so at that rate it'll probably take me about five years... still, like they say, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Five years is a whole lot better than never. So - one page down, 249 to go... I'll either find someone to pay me to do it and get it done in a more reasonable amount of time, or (more likely) serialise it on the website starting in January (when the Fred the Clown reruns run out), then look for a publisher once it's done. It's a romantic comedy, sort of, but it's also about the last days of radio as the mass medium and the dawn of the television age. I'm not going to talk too much about it in case I jinx the whole thing...

Anyway, here are some Doctors for yez.

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...