What just happened?

What a strange, strange week it's been. First thing to say is thank you -- thank you to everybody who said kind things about Muppet Show #1 online or in person, thank you to everyone who bought it or read it or just gave it a chance. (I'm especially gratified by the thumbs-up from ToughPigs.com who, as the name implies, I was expecting to be a tough crowd.) And thank you to Mark Waid for getting to the heart of the matter in his inimitable style.


The page above is one of the ones I did for the late, lamented Disney Adventures magazine, which was never published. It seems to me I ought either to have some Muppet content on my website or a link to a place where you can find some, so this will have to do for now until I figure out what I'm doing.

I had the privilege of recording an interview for the wonderful podcast for freelance illustrators and cartoonists, Big Illustration Party Time, on Sunday night. It's a great show for those in the ink-wrangling field, and very entertaining for those who aren't -- highly recommended. (And check out the work of hosts Kevin Cross and Joshua Kemble while you're there!)

But the highlight of my week was the great UK Web and Mini-Comix Thing, my favourite UK show by some distance. No dealers, no costumes, just cartoonists promoting their own comics, like it should be. Mmm... comics. Smoke one today.

Gimme an "M"!

The first issue of The Muppet Show should be out on Wednesday - there's a preview at Comic Book Resources for those who can't wait. I saw a PDF version of the finished book last week and I'm very happy with how it's come out -- let's see if anyone else agrees... Below is a frame from the pencils to issue #3, the Gonzo issue. (Just to give you something to look forward to -- or to avoid, according to personal preference.)


If all goes smoothly, I should have a minicomic version of the first chapter of Mugwhump the Great available at The UK Web and Mini-Comix Thing this weekend. (I still need to do a bit of work on it, but it's getting there.) If you're in London (or willing to make the journey), please stop by and say hello -- I'll be there all day sketching, selling comics and artwork and generally making an appalling nuisance of myself as usual.

Brown Thing

Been a while since I've posted any Horrible Histories illustrations, so here's one from the vaults which I don't actually remember drawing. I rather like the penwork on this one, although in hindsight I don't think I quite captured the Martin Brown look as much as I probably thought I had at the time.


Counting down the days now until the Web and Mini-Comix Thing. And indeed until Muppet Show #1, which will be within a couple of days of one another. Currently drawing issue #3, writing issue #5 and wondering what the world outside looks like...

A Box of Frogs

I love the expression "mad as a box of frogs". No idea where I first heard it, but whoever came up with it - well done.


Here's the cover to Zoot #6 from years gone by, photoshopped to remove the text, for reasons which escape me now - I think I just wanted to see if I could do it. On reflection I thought it might make a good cover to the hypothetical Zoot collection I floated last week (thanks to both of you who thought that was a good idea, by the way). Especially since I don't have a spare day to do a new one. Not saying it's going to happen tomorrow or anything, but it's another piece of the jigsaw falling into place.

Oh, Yoko!

Turned in the script for my X-Men story this week. Well, I say X-Men story -- what it is is, for all intents and purposes, a roll call for the never-quite-actually-formed Legion of Substitute Mutants. All good clean fun, which is why I'm going to have to think of another character to replace Holland's mutant hero, Dykefinger.


Here's a strip written by my brother Andrew for our long-forgotten comic, Zoot!, based on a never-used idea for a film conceived by Yoko Ono, in which every character experiences time at a different speed simultaneously. This was in my "I Don't Know What I'm Doing" phase of painted colour, where I'd basically fix everything with coloured pencils after I'd botched them in watercolour. Circa 1992 I think.

I've been thinking lately that I should sort out some kind of Best of the Rest Zoot! collection, a companion volume to Zoot Suite (Zoot Brut? Zoot Cheroot?), maybe on a print-on-demand basis -- I can't see any real publisher taking a gamble on something so relentlessly anti-commercial in these troubled times. Tell you what, I'll keep you posted. Might be one for the Bristol show in May, if I can get my junk together.

When Worlds Collide

It's been a while since I posted one of my illustrations for Inside Soap magazine, so here's one I did this week with a vague connection to my current comics work. The scenario was suggested by the editor and I'm pretty sure he's not aware that I'm doing Muppets and vaudeville puppetry elsewhere, so this is a complete coincidence. But it felt nice to think that all my work had a kind of thematic coherence for a brief moment.


Always with the puppets, Langridge. You want to get out more.

Oh, yes - while I think of it, it looks like the first of my Captain America short stories is out now, in Marvel Adventures: Super-Heroes #8. Lead story scripted by Scott Gray, backup scripted by me, all beautifully drawn by Craig Rousseau. Further installments to appear at three-month intervals, so I think that makes the next one issue #11. Anyway, cover reproduced below for your convenience.


Coming up in the next installment: PRODOK! How's that for a teaser?

Rehearsal Time is Over!

As I write this, the first issue of the Muppet Show comic is getting ready to go to the printers. This week I've been doing a few last-minute art fixes after Disney finally got back with comments - nothing too drastic, they seem pretty happy for the most part. They wanted Animal's hair a bit shaggier, that's about it. So shaggier it shall be.


Nick Mag's Nickelodeon Comic #33 (February 2009 issue) arrived in the post this week with a "Back to the Barnyard" story I drew, so I guess that's out around now. Oh, and Cthulhu Tales #11 as well. I have very mixed feelings about how I can work for months with nothing coming out, then everything hits the stands in a three-week period... it makes me look like a very lazy man with an occasional amphetamine habit.

The Ultimate Answer

This week I turn 42. When I was 22, my then-flatmate was turning 20 at around the same time, so we threw a 42nd birthday party. (So I've done this before, you see.) Anyway, one of the presents I received that year was this strip by Dylan Horrocks. I guess this is my last good reason to share it, so here it is.


I've been asked to write two pages for an X-Men title. I know next to nothing about the X-Men -- haven't even seen the movies. Ha ha! So of course I said yes immediately. But probably the highlight of my comics week was being befriended on Friendface by Fred Hembeck. When I was ten I wanted to be Fred Hembeck. And now he's my Friendface friend. I've arrived!

Mangled Manga

Not quite a week old: there's yet another Newsarama interview, this one focussing on the Muppet Show comic, over here.


Almost finished with these old Disney mastheads now; just a couple more left. I was asked to do this one in a Manga style, except I can't do a Manga style to save my life -- so what you get is more or less 100% Langridge with a few big eyes grafted on top of it. Sorry, Manga fans.

Bristol and Death

Here's an illustration I did recently for a book called Machine of Death, co-edited by David Malki! (who does the very funny strip Wondermark). The piece it's illustrating is called "Prison Knife Fight", written by the brilliant Shaenon K. Garrity.


Newsy news: it looks like I'm going to be a guest at the upcoming Bristol Comics Expo on May 9th and 10th. Normally I go the whole hog and exhibit as a small press publisher, but this year it looks like I missed the booking window, so I thought, why not see if I can blag my way in as a guest for once? And, in an interesting development, there's something called the Small Press Expo (not to be confused with the identically-named American show in Bethesda, MD) happening in connection with it this year, so I'll be involved with that as well, doing children's workshops and a bit of sketching and what-have-you. So that's all worked out rather nicely.

Here be Beasts!

The magnificent new BEASTS! book, BEASTS! II, arrived in the mail this week. It's absolutely beautiful - a beautiful object containing beautiful things. I did Spring-Heeled Jack for the book, as seen here:


The original artwork for this piece, as well as many, many more by the other contributors, is on display at Giant Robot in San Francisco right now - well worth checking out if you're in the area.

Finished inking Muppet Show #1 last night, just in the nick of time. Now I've got to start #2. How dare they put these things out once a month!

Tough Pigs

One for the Muppet watchers among you: there's a brief Muppet-themed interview with me over at ToughPigs.com this week. Thanks to Joe Hennes for conducting it.

Meanwhile, back here at the Hotel Fred, I thought we deserved a splash of colour for a change, so here's another one of those Disney Adventures credit-box masthead illustrations I did a couple of years back.


It's only just occurred to me that the Hotel Fred website is probably overdue for a redesign - the black-and-white theme was concocted when I was doing a weekly colour Fred the Clown cartoon, and since switching to black and white for Mugwhump it's been looking a tad drab. Might have to give this some thought over the next little while. Watch this space! But, er, don't forget to go away and have a cup of tea and a biscuit every once in a while. Otherwise you'll just starve.

End of Chapter One!

Mugwhump Chapter One concludes this week over at Act-i-Vate (and at the Hotel Fred next week). Time to panic as I try to figure out Chapter Two. I've got a plot written down but not a single word of dialogue. Watch this space as I fly by the seat of my pants, very probably into a cliff.


Here's another Kirby-themed convention booklet page, by popular demand (if two people counts as popular - as a proportion of my readership, that's probably about right, actually). I suppose it's a sequel of sorts to Kirby Planet a couple of weeks ago. These things were always auctioned for charity, so I tried to get some Marvel and DC characters in there each time to bump the bids up a bit, while still doing something identifiably Langridge. You have to pay a fee to be in the convention books these days, and the artwork doesn't go to a good cause any longer, so I've kind of stopped caring. I'll shut up now before my true age of 112 becomes even more obvious.

Have a Happy Nude Ear

Nothing special happened this week except I took two days off and promptly caught the biggest cold I've had in a while. It's something my body seems to do whenever I take off more than a single afternoon - it treats my inactivity as an excuse to stop fighting whatever viruses have been hovering around me and get really, really sick. So, atchoo. There's something to be said for working through Christmas...

Here's another of those Disney Adventures credit boxes, vaguely topical if you're watching a lot of telly over the hols. Happy New Year!

The Christmas Clown

Here's that Fred the Clown Futurama cameo mentioned last week, which Chris Reilly was kind enough to send me. What an odd feeling... in a nice way.


Nate Cosby at Marvel has suggested the extremely talented and wonderful Sonny Liew as an artist for my Spider-Man story, which is so great I could sceam. He's a fabulous artist, and I really hope he says yes, particularly as my entire story pitch is now based around the idea that he'll be drawing it.

And since this will be the last update before Christmas, let me just wish everyone a very merry one.

We all live in the future now

Weirdness Department: I was informed yesterday by Chris Reilly that Fred the Clown makes a cameo appearance in Futurama Issue #39. I haven't seen it myself, but I'm dying to.

Working on writing the third issue of the Muppet comic and pencilling the first issue and, er, that's about it. Nate Cosby at Marvel asked me to write eight pages for an upcoming Spider-Man comic, which I can just about work into my hour-and-a-half per day writing schedule if I move some stuff around. Now all I need is an idea. Eek.


For no reason at all, except for a glancing Marvel Comics connection, here's a strip I did for a convention booklet many moons ago. It's scanned from the printed page and doesn't look too pretty as a result, but I think the gags sort of stand up nonetheless. It's a page I should probably redraw one day.

Squarwick

My colleague, friend and fellow Kiwi expatriate Scott Gray was involved in a car accident yesterday and was quite badly hurt, so I'm not feeling too clever this morning. I believe he's going home today after a night in hospital, with some broken bones and "a black eye the size of a rugby ball". I'm relieved it wasn't worse -- as, I'm sure, is he. Merry Christmas, eh? Anyway, this one's for him.

The Sincerest Form

This week I've been doing a two-pager for Boom Studios' Cthulhu Tales anthology (#11, if you're curious). So tempting to post it here, but I should probably wait until it's been out a while. So instead here's another of those Disney Adventures credit mastheads I did last year.


Observant readers will notice that I completely stole my own idea from the back cover of Fred the Clown #1. Which in turn was stolen from the radio panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.

As to where they stole it from, I'm afraid you're on your own there.

The Three-Headed Rat of Doom

First things first - I believe the new Fin Fang Four stories begin their online serialisation on Marvel Digital tomorrow (I'll update that link when I have an actual page to direct you towards). Last I heard, they were going to kick off with the Fin Fang Foom solo story, The Bald Truth, which is one of Scott Gray's finest and funniest.

Monday was a deadline cluster - a triple whammy of Nick Mag, Muppets and Inside Soap spot illustration. Like three rats with their tails tied together (I'm just tired enough for that metaphor to make perfect sense - it'll probably be a complete mystery to me tomorrow). Finished the second variant cover for Muppet Show #1, just squeaking in on the deadline - there may be tweaks before publication, but this is what'll go in the Previews catalogue for now.


And I should clear something up: there's an online press release which seems to suggest that I'm some sort of "supervisor" on the Muppets comics, which is not the case, I'm afraid. I'm just a schlepper with a pencil, and that's kind of the way I like it. Any and all supervision is coming from Boom Studios, Disney and the lovely Jim Lewis at the Henson company, while I sit in an attic all day, scratching away. (I blame this new laundry powder.) So if there are Muppet fans who are worried about what I might do to the characters we all know and love, please rest assured that I don't have anything like the kind of power that could do any serious damage. Frankly, I'm lucky to be allowed to cross the road by myself.

Disney Dribblings

It's my daughter's sixth birthday today. Blimey. Where did that go.

Just about finished the second of the short Captain America stories I'm writing for Marvel Adventures. This officially puts me ahead of schedule. Yay! It looks like Scott Gray will be writing the first 16 pages of each book now, which makes me very happy indeed. (He'll be doing the 21st Century Cap, I'm doing the World War Two stuff.) Scott's plot outlines look fantastic. I'll have to actually work at this.

For no reason at all, except that the magazine's been gone for long enough now that I don't think posting the illustrations here will make any waves, here's a piece I did for the defunct Disney Adventures. For a few months there I was their official credit masthead illustrator... fun job while it lasted. I've got a few more of these I'll post over the next little while.


Currently working on: Muppets, Nick Mag, Captain America, more or less in rotation. Plus I'm illustrating a two-page strip for Cthulhu Tales (did I spell that right?) which imagines H. P. Lovecraft's early, failed career as a writer of descriptive paragraphs for chocolate boxes, which is such a lovely idea I wish I'd thought of it myself.