Axe Me No Questions

There's a thread going on at the moment on the message boards of the rather wonderful Art & Story podcast about sharing your early work, so in the spirit of that, here's something I did more than 20 years ago, around the time I was just starting to get published in student rags and fanzines. Script is by my brother Andrew. I seem to recall that "Axe of the Apostles" was meant to be a catch-all title for an occasional series of short pieces, but in the end we only did two. Only one of which was ever accepted for publication. By a magazine which was immediately cancelled.

A little microcosm of the following two decades, had I but known it at the time.

Nate Go Bye Bye

This week, I lost another editor. Not content to burn out three of them on the Muppet Show books, I appear to have also chased away Nate Cosby, the fine gentleman who offered me Thor: The Mighty Avenger a year or so back. So I'll just take this moment to wish Nate good luck in his future writing endeavours, and to say a heartfelt thanks.

Many Happy Returns of Fin Fang Foom

Last Saturday, my friend and colleague Scott Gray, he of Doctor Who and Fin Fang Four fame, got married. It was a fantastic day - a beautiful ceremony in the woods, great food, great company, a Tardis on the lawn and at least one person wearing a fez (who that was, I couldn't possibly comment). Anyway, this is the card I cobbled together for the happy couple, using the original Kirby/Ayers splash page as a starting point.


Have a great life together, you crazy kids!

Feiffer Fail

Currently drawing the first issue of the next big Muppet Show story arc, The Four Seasons, while writing the third at the same time. So I'm trying to keep straight in my head whether I'm doing summer or winter. Not really thinking at my clearest right now for various reasons, and this really isn't helping.

For no obvious reason, apart from the fact that it's there and I don't do any illustration jobs these days since I jumped on the comic book scripting bandwagon, here's an old sketch that never came to anything. I did a cover for Jules Feiffer's Harry, the Rat with Women a couple of years ago, and was asked to submit some ideas for another Feiffer cover a few months later, this time for Ackroyd. Nothing ever came of this one, though. I got the impression that Feiffer wasn't thrilled with my stuff. Still, the sketches remain on my hard drive... and now they're on yours.

Smaaalll Presss Expoooo!

All right, so it's SPX this weekend. But you all knew that already, right? So I'll be there sketching and what-have-you. I'll be at Table F15, right between the Center for Cartoon Studies and Mark Sahagian. Looking forward to catching up with some friends there and hopefully making some new ones. I'll also be doing a panel on Sunday at 12.30 in the White Flint Amphitheater on the subject of "Telling Stories" (a process-oriented discussion with Meredith Gran and Jon Lewis on how you turn ideas and experiences into a comic), and I'll also be presenting the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Series on Saturday night! That's quite an honour, and probably the nearest I'll ever get to one of those bricks. (Although I will have to practice pronouncing Yumemakura Baku and Jiro Taniguchi.)

Harvey!

I am delighted to report that the Muppet Show Comic Book won a Harvey Award for "Best Publication for Younger Readers" on Saturday night. Thank you to everyone who voted, everyone who has supported the book, and especially to all the talented people I've had the pleasure of working with.

Double Rainbow

Muppet-watchers: there's a short interview with me over at ToughPigs.com about the most recent story arc, "Family Reunion". Thanks as usual go to Joe Hennes for his patience!

Thor fans: in a nutty development, it appears that the first two issues of Thor: The Mighty Avenger are completely sold out! Wow. If you missed them, though, fear not! Because Marvel is re-issuing both issues under one spanking-new, gorgeous Chris Samnee/Matt Wilson cover with the fancy title "Double Rainbow".


As usual, I direct you over to Samnee for the details - he knows what's going on much better than I do. He's also younger and better-looking than me, and may one day visit me in a home.

Up for Air

A couple of things to which I would like to direct your attention, if I may: first, Thor: The Mighty Avenger #3 would appear to be out already. The initial, frenetic issue-every-two-weeks schedule should settle down a little from here on in, and we'll be putting the thing out once a month like normal people. Chris Samnee will get a good night's sleep for the first time in several months! On the subject of Thor, there's a very nice review on NPR's website here, singling out Mr Samnee for its most particular praise - and quite right, too.

Getting close to SPX now, ain't it? There'll be very little on my table that's even slightly new, I'm afraid (although I've re-ordered some more copies of the fancy, repackaged Doctor Sputnik collection, so there'll at least be a minty-fresh cover on the table) - but I'll have the usual suspects (Fred the Clown, Knuckles) and a pile of minicomics, and I will of course be sketching the whole two days. I haven't been to SPX for a year or three, and I'm really looking forward to it - always such an energising, inspirational show. If I can cobble together a new minicomic before then, I will - though I'd avoid holding my breath for that if I were you.


Something to look forward to

The Thing in the Garage

I'm currently visiting my wife's mother in France, working in her garage while the rest of the family head off to the beach. This cartooning life - it's all glamour, I tell you.

But, hey - Thor: The Mighty Avenger #2 is out! Fortunately, Chris Samnee keeps a closer eye on the release dates than I do, so his blog alerted me to it. Thank you, Chris! Just saw some of his inks for #4 and they look stunning. You're in for a treat.

On the subject of inks, I'm on the home stretch of inking Muppet Show #10 - a little late due to the San Diego Comic Con, but well in hand. (Speaking of SDCC, I recommend checking out Amy Mebberson's con roundup for (a) a slew of Doctor Who/Muppet mash-up sketches, and (b) a picture of me with Gonzo, which I'm totally stealing to show to my friends.) Those who enjoyed her run on the Muppet Show comic recently will be pleased to hear that we're talking about doing more work together. Still working out the details, but stay tuned!


And, hey - isn't this thing adorable?

San Diego Comic-Con 2010

Wednesday

Okay... so I'm here again, despite my best efforts to weasel out of it. It started well (smell the irony!) - my flight from the UK to America was supposed to have been booked with a vegetarian meal, but wasn't; I had to work my way around a dish of Beef Stroganoff as gingerly as possible, filling up on tasteless rice, carrots and broccoli, boiled to within an inch of its life. Yum yum.

ANYWAY. I was supposed to make a connecting flight in Dallas, but due to the excruciating length of time it took to clear Customs I was late. I missed the damn thing by a whisker; it left at 3:40pm, I arrived at the gate at 3:41, panting, wheezing and sweating. Arse! The lady at the counter was very helpful and put me on standby for the next flight; I was able to get on that one, managed to sleep for maybe half an hour on the flight, and arrived in San Diego not quite fresh as a daisy, but only slightly wilted. I ended up going straight to the convention centre as I was already late - first of all, I had to find someone who could let Boom! know I was there so I could actually enter the building, because they had my badge. While I was sorting that out I ran into Tom Spurgeon and Dave Lanphear, both of whom had issues that needed sorting out and so were waiting in the same queue as me. I'm always amazed how many familiar faces I happen to bump into by chance when I'm wandering around among 120,000 strangers, or however many it is.

So! Inside the hall at last. As usual, the Boom! crew were super-nice and welcoming. Amy Mebberson, my Muppet Show collaborator on the Family Reunion story arc, and Travis Hill, the Toy Story artist, were already swamped with sketch requests. Travis was going to have a particularly busy time of it over the next few days - definitely the man of the hour.

I don't actually remember a whole lot about Wednesday night. I know I was super-tired, which probably explains it. I know I did 11 sketches - they were operating a sketch list that night, which was abandoned on subsequent days in favour of a first-come-first-served system when they saw how snowed-under Travis was getting. Stuff happened! People came! My apologies if I can't remember anybody. In any case, today was really just a warm-up - the real show would start tomorrow. Eventually I trudge back to the Hilton, where I'm staying, and finally check in - I'm sharing with Peter Krause, the artist of Irredeemable, who says he might be up early to go for a run. Good luck, I say - and zzzzz.

Thursday

My body-clock, still on London time, gives me an early-morning wake-up call and I'm up and out on the street by 6:30am, while Peter's still snoozing away. The convention crowds are already out in force. I make my way to Ralph's, the supermarket, and get some carrots and apples for the sake of having something vaguely healthy to eat later on. For breakfast, though, I weaken and get a croissant. Bad Roger. Bad, bad Roger.

I get back to the hotel. Peter is now out of bed and probably off running somewhere - I take the opportunity to Skype my family and say hello to everyone. Peter comes back in after his run (brave devil that he is) and we compare notes about our respective families - his sons are all more or less grown up. Apparently they all get along really well, which gives me a ray of hope I'll cling to when my own little darlings' wilfil behaviour gets a bit overwhelming.

Off to the convention centre! It's probably the only chance I'll get all day to wander around and take a few pictures before the crowds swarm in, so I take advantage of it. Lots of properties represented which I don't recognise - of course I don't, I spend eleven months of the year in an attic staring at a piece of paper - and lots more I'm vaguely aware of that don't seem to have even the slightest connection to the comics medium, which raises an argument that's been done to death. Let's just say I get why they're there - there are probably only 50,000 regular comic readers in the entire English-speaking world, if that, and their numbers are dwindling all the time; they have to get those crowds in for something - but I think it's kind of sad that the medium after which the entire show is named is treated like some sort of ugly cousin who smells of wee. But maybe that's just me. (Not smelling of wee, I mean. Oh, let's move on.)

The show begins - and the sketches. Looking back after the show, it'll be clear to me that today is my busiest day sketch-wise, but in the middle of it, I'm just kind of zoning out - drawing is what I do all day anyway, after all. Some familiar faces stop by - Mister Phil, Andrew Farago, Zach Bosteel. Zach asks me along to a drink-and-draw event that night, which sounds like fun - it's only after he leaves that I remember the official Boom! Drink-Up is later on tonight and I should really be there instead. I finally get to meet my original editor on the Muppets, Paul Morrissey, who's working on the Fraggle Rock books these days. Fellow Act-I-Vater Jim Dougan stops by just as I'm getting ready to leave at the end of the day and asks if I have dinner plans - I don't, so we get a meal at an Indian restaurant and trade stories about our in-laws. His seem really nice. I tell Jim about how my mother-in-law routinely locks me in the garage whenever I come and visit, and about how she has the TV unplugged and facing the wall because "the newsreaders are saying rude things about her". And I'm off for another visit two days after I get back from San Diego! I love my life.

Dinner done, we move on to the Hilton for the Boom! Studios "Drink-Up" (what we call a Piss-Up where I come from) and Jim kindly gets the first round in. He goes ashen-faced when he hears the price. I'm jet-lagged out of my brain and by this stage I'm just about falling over, but I resolve to stick around at least long enough to buy Jim one in return. We end up talking a bit about my Barney Google obsession - I reckon I'll have 95% of Billy DeBeck's run on the strip scanned by the end of the year - and the current newspaper strip reprint boom in general. It's good times for someone like me right now. Jim has a penchant for some of the later realistically-drawn soap-opera strips, the Stan Drake-type stuff. Strange to think that once upon a time, if you had serious ambitions as a cartoonist, newspapers were the place to be. Thanks to the web, the daily format has had a resurgence in recent years. Daily increments of great cartoonists - the perfect delivery system. By 10:30pm I'm ready to call it a night; by 11:15 I'm snoring.

Friday

I'm up early again, though not quite as early as yesterday. Just in time to grab a coffee and another naughty croissant. It's the Eisner Awards tonight - I know I'm not going to win before I start, but even so, I mentally rehearse what I might say if I'm actually called up there. Which I won't be. I've been convinced since the nominations were first announced that the award would be going to John Stanley, because he's, you know, JOHN STANLEY.

More sketching - Amy's taking up some of Travis' overload on the Toy Story sketches today, as she's done some covers on the books and is thus eminently qualified. This manages to keep some sort of lid on the length of Travis' queue, which is pretty preposterous by now. More familiar faces stop by the table (Robert Goodin and Paul Maybury among them) and I finally get to meet my second Muppet Show editor, Aaron Sparrow. He tells me a drawing I did for him last year, a Muppet/Alice in Wonderland mash-up, is is responsible for the relationship he's currently in. Good lord. Apparently it won the fair lady's heart.


The One Wot Won It

During my lunch break I manage to pick up a few gaudy trinkets for the family back home. For the kids, some miniature Simpsons figurines and some Nightmare Before Christmas peppermints; for Sylvie, a set of Jordan Crane postcards (she's a big fan of Mr Crane). I bump into Joshua Leto behind a booth; he gave me some money at SDCC last year for some artwork which he was going to choose at a later date, and here we are a year later and we still haven't sorted it out - so we agree to fix that at the earliest opportunity. The artist he's with is amazing - unfortunately, his name completely escapes me for the moment, but I picked up one of his postcards with the intention of ordering some books when I get home.

On my way back to the booth I bump into Andrew Farago again, working the Cartoon Art Museum table. He points out where his wife Shaenon Garrity is stationed - it's great to see her again; it's been five years! Blimey. Dinner plans for Saturday are discussed. I very much want to see more of them before I go home.


Amy and I meet Darth Gonzo

Back at the Boom! booth, I'm given instructions on what's happening tonight at the Eisners. Everyone is to scrub up and look presentable. There's going to be food laid on for VIPs and award nominees - grand. The afternoon whizzes by - by the end of the day I've done 43 sketches; my running total for the show so far is an exact 100 sketches. Time to put my hand in a bucket of cold water.

Eisners! Peter Krause is up for a few as well, so we clean up, put on our fancy duds and head down to the hall where the ceremony is to be held. We're early, but Peter sees Kurt Busiek in a corner and offers to introduce us. Peter and Kurt have obviously known one another a while; they have one of those relationships where they insult one another mercilessly with big smiles on their faces. I mention that I sem to be digging a niche for myself as a writer of comics for people who don't usually read comics, something I'm quite proud of; Kurt says he used to have something of that reputation, but he got tired of it because those books receive very little support from their publishers as a rule. It's a sobering thought and one I'll have to sleep on.


Peter Krause and I in our Fancy Duds

In the Eisner hall we meet Tony Parker, also up for a gong for Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Other Boomers start to trickle in; before long there are three tables full of us. To cut a long story short, none of us won a blessed thing; my category lost to Scott Pilgrim, which in retrospect I really should have seen coming - that property is pretty unassailable at Comic-Con this year. My hotel has an ad for the film on the side of it several stories high, for crying out loud - and, bizarrely, three of the award categories are presented by the entire cast of the film, which, if that wasn't a bit of paid advertising, sure as hell looked like it was. Actually, I expect the film itself will be great - it's directed by Edgar Wright, who has yet to deliver a dud. Spaced is still one of the top sitcoms of the nineties (Father Ted being the only other serious contender off the top of my head).

After the show I see Charlie Adlard, who picked up an award for The Walking Dead, and we chat for a bit. He's joined by Duncan Fegredo, Sean Phillips and Shelley Bond, and I wallow in the familiar accents as we pass some time. Then, some drinks at the bar as we drown our sorrows, although to be honest, I'm not that bothered; even if I'd won, I'd essentially be accepting the award on behalf of Jim Henson, who is the guy everyone really would have been voting for. I see a few people I know - Frazer Irving, Shannon Wheeler (Too Much Coffee Man), Stephen Notley (also known as "the Bob the Angry Flower guy"), Bryce Carlson from Boom! and his lovely girlfriend Lindsey, who's just arrived. Then I'm out of there, acutely feeling the length of the day.

Saturday

Gonna whiz through this one, as I failed to make notes at the time so I'm already forgetting most of it. Early start, as usual; I drop by the Marvel both with the intention of introducing myself (they've got a huge Thor throne set up there and are giving away Thor the Mighty Avenger #1, which I wrote), but I can't get anybody's attention apart from one guy who has no idea who I am, but is friendly and apologetic that he's no-one important. Well, you were nice to me, that's important enough. Off to the Boom! booth - lots of sketching, lots of meeting people. At one point a guy comes up who tells me he was part of the team who created Doctor Teeth under Michael Frith. I don't know enough of the trivia to know if his story checks out, but I've got no reason not to believe him - I gratefully shake his hand.

Thirty-eight sketches today.

Show over, I head towards Andrew Farago and Shaenon Garrity for our dinner appointment. We're joined by Comics Journal editor Kristy Valenti, who at first I don't recognise - it's been years since or last fleeting introduction, and her hair was a different colour then - and some other people I haven't seen in forever, Dirk Tiede and Jason Thompson among them.

Dinner is at a different Indian restaurant from the one I went to on Thursday, and is excellent. Shaenon mentions she's been doing some teaching lately and finds it terrifying - I have the same feeling about doing the occasional workshop at events like Kids Read Comics, although it turns out we're both terrified for completely different reasons. Anyway, it's really nice to catch up with them. My tired brain has trouble holding up my side of the conversation - by the time we're done I'm ready to call it a night. Shaenon, Andrew and Kristy walk me back to the hotel and I collapse into bed.


Kristy, Andrew and Shaenon

Sunday

My flight is an afternoon one today, so I'm only at the con for the morning. I have a panel at 10am conducted by Mark Waid, who I've barely seen throughout the show - the only times I've seen him he's been accompanied by an impossibly glamorous-looking lady friend, and he gets me to do a sketch for her while we get started. The panel goes well, Mark making it easy, as he does - one guy in the audience has an idea for a plotline which I initially am resistant towards, then I start to consider ways it might work, and by the time I get back downstairs I think I've got four issues out of it. Mark promises him free swag if he drops by the booth, which I certainly hope he did. Soon it's time to say goodbye - I can't get out of there fast enough by this stage, but I put the brakes on long enough to say goodbye properly to the Boom! gang, staff and fellow artists, who have been 100% friendly, kind, helpful and supportive throughout the whole thing. Good people.

Soon I'm on the plane and on my way home. I find it easy to sleep for a change - not really surprising, I suppose. I'm glad it's over for another year. Hopefully forever - I'd love to avoid it from now on - but I doubt that's possible. Every time I think I've done my last Comic-Con, like the mafia, they pull me back in. As long as I don't wake up with Stan Lee's head in my bed I supose that's a cross I can live with.

By the Hoary Hosts of Harvey!

Good lord. I appear to have scored a bunch of Harvey Award nominations. (What is the collective noun for award nominations, anyway? A "gaggle"? A "plethora"? Given that there will be more losers than winners, perhaps it should be a "disappointment".) Anyway, I'm up for Best Cartoonist (!), Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers (for The Muppet Show Comic Book), and Special Award for Humor in Comics (as well as technically being included in the ACT-I-VATE nomination for Best Anthology).

I have a feeling that a lot of the goodwill I'm getting for the Muppet comics is because I'm fortunate enough to be standing on Jim Henson's enormous shoulders, but I'm grateful nonetheless. Thanks to everyone who put my name in the hat.

Thorsday!

Thor: The Mighty Avenger #1 is hitting the comic book stores this week! I urge you to run down to your comic outlet of choice and ask -- nay, demand! -- that said periodical be placed in your hot little hands. Wonder at the sophisticated brush stylings of Chris Samnee! Ogle the chromatic enhancements applied by Matthew Wilson! And there's words in it, too!

Putting Out Fires

Okay, so I'm back from my travels for now. Falling into place over the last couple of weeks are details of my next foregn sojourn - to the almighty San Diego Comic Con - which I'd been expecting to avoid this year, but Boom! Studios wouldn't take "no" for an answer, bless 'em. Now it looks like I'll be there at the Boom! booth for five days straight (time to grow a small beard!). I'll be drawing $20 "sketch covers" during that time... so I've got a month to find some drawing media that works on comic book covers. My sketches are traditionally on something with a bit more tooth to it - the few times I've sketched on anything that glossy have been, let's say, challenging - so that's something to sort out before I go.


(Thanks to Derrick Cantrell for the scan!)

Meanwhile, I've essentially just been scrambling to get back on schedule since I got home. My Doctor Who ten-pager is in the can, and I'm right now writing issue #5 of Thor the Mighty Avenger (just seen Chris Samnee's cover to that one - glorious!) and drawing Muppet Show #9, both of which are going to take a few late nights to get done on time. But I'm on top of it, like the grizzled pro with no social life that I am.

Kids Read Comics Report (with preamble)

Wednesday

I manage to get a bit of work done at last, inking this ten-pager for Doctor Who Magazine. Today I've arranged to have dinner with Jerzy Drozd, so that at least is taken care of. I put in several hours inking, finishing a page and starting another one, then Jerzy swings by to pick me up - we get burritos (which are excellent!) then head over to his place - "The Art and Story Studios" - to eat them and record a couple of podcasts. I get to chat with show co-hosts Mark and Kevin over Skype, Jerzy and I swap comics, and we have some whiskey - all very pleasant. Jerzy is nervous about showing signs of enjoying tobacco, alcohol or swearing in case I react badly - this is alien behaviour to me (my mother ticks all three boxes), but I do my best to reassure him that all is well. The evening ends with us sitting on his porch talking about writing. Looking forward to the show.

Thursday

Anoher day of working in the hotel room - I feel better getting something done. I'm missing home. Jim Ottaviani has offered to show me around Ann Arbor a little bit before having me over for dinner - he comes by at 3pm and we go and see a wave-sculpture at the university by Maya Lin, a fabulous delicatessen called Zingerman's, the glorious turn-of-the-century splendour of the Michigan movie theatre (at which I take lots of photos - Muppet Show reference!) and other bits of local interest around the university (historic reading rooms, antiquarian books and other such turn-ons for the cartoonist/paper-fetishist side of me).



There are unique smells associated with each sight - the buttered popcorn of the Michigan, the heady aroma of cheeses at the deli, and of course the intoxicating smell of ancient paper. Then it's back to Jim's place where I meet his wife Kat - she makes a splendid pesto, and the evening passes by in a haze of good food, wine and entertaining conversation. I ogle at Jim's original artwork treasures on the wall - there's a huge George Herriman Krazy Kat original that gets me really excited. I think I did a little wee in my pants. At the end of the evening we take a pleasant walk to "the dairy" - which is an ice-cream parlour - and get ourselves ice-creams. Mine is a kiddy-size, which is plenty, and delicious. Then it's back to the hotel to do some more inking. I listen to some BBC Radio 4 podcasts on my laptop and think of home.

Friday

Jerzy is good enough to drop me off at the convention hotel - I arrive three hours before check-in, but they're good enough to find a room for me anyway and I see about getting some work done. I still have to prepare my workshop for Kids Read Comics - I find I am still spectacularly underprepared. I make a few more notes and try to find a way in - eventually I decide to start with the assumption that everybody there will have some comedic talent to begin with and to approach it from the angle of refining what is already there, rather than trying to make lead into gold, which I only now realise is the assumption I'd been operating on without even being aware of it. Great - the whole enterprise suddenly feels a lot less intimidating. Still needs work, though.

I hit a wall with the workshop prep and do a bit of inking for a change of pace, to the accompaniment of Charlie Brooker ranting out of my laptop - I occasionally have to stop because I'm laughing too hard. The hour of the Kids Read Comics opening party at Green Brain Comics approaches - I Google the route, see it's only a couple of miles and decide to walk it. As it turns out I allow more time than I need, but I overshoot the store by a couple of blocks and have to turn around, which conveniently makes me Mister Punctuality. I'm introduced to Dan Mishkin, one of the organisers and co-creator of Amethyst (he wrote the early, good ones) and Blue Devil, who is terrific company and takes very little effort to talk to, which is good, because after a week and a half of conventioning and travelling I find I'm a little burned out on human contact and am fighting the urge to shut my brain off completely. As the evening rolls on it gets a little easier, as I finally get to meet a lot of names who have up until now only been voices on my computer, or names in books and on websites - Kevin Cross (and his smart, funny wife Laura), Mark Rudolph, Diana Nock, Ryan Estrada, Krishna Sadasivam, Sara Turner and others I'm sure I'm blanking on right now. Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeier come in later, as do a lot of other people - the place is filling up. At one point a few of us sneak out for a quick beer - weirdly, every bar we see is closed, despite it being Friday night. We eventually find one, a really rowdy joint where conversation is difficult. I find this a relief, to be honest - I feel the pressure's off. Back to Green Brain for food (houmous, pita bread, vegetables and dips) and the fund-raising art auction which concludes the evening. My piece goes for $150, I think, and I pick up a Raina Telgemeier for $30 (a small one I can take home in my luggage without it getting bent to hell). Mark Rudolph drops me off at the hotel and I work an hour or so on tomorrow's workshop. Feeling a bit better about it now, I sleep at last.

Kids Read Comics Day 1 - Saturday

Wake up nice 'n' early, with an eye towards prepping my workshop one last time before the show - I'm proud of the thought I've put into this; I think I have some sound, teachable strategies worked out for generating comic-strip humour, based on some solid comedy principles. Breakfasted and (more or less) prepared, I put together my wheelie suitcase full of guff and head out to the Henry Ford Centennial Library where the convention is to be held. The mighty Google assures me it's just a short walk away. It is - kind of. What Google doesn't tell you is that there's a significant stretch of the route without any pavement - I'm forced to drag the suitcase along the grass verge. What larks. I get to the library covered in a fine coating of sweat and lawn clippings, ready to face the convention-going public in the manner to which they have no doubt become accustomed.

The show itself is great, if a little slow. Not in a bad way - it's steady, manageable business. Sketches are going well. Books, less so - it looks like I've overstocked and will have to ship a bunch of things home before my plane leaves on Monday, so I'm not totally off the baggage-weight scale. At lunchtime there is food laid on for the exhibitors, courtesy of Art & Story - I have a falafel wrap, which is excellent, and I thank the guys for laying it on. Towards 1pm I'm dragooned into an extra bit of programming, a Quick-Draw event, due to Matt Feazell having to leave for a family emergency. This turns out to be great fun, possibly one of the highlights of the show. Three cartoonists (me, Diana Nock and Mike Bocianowski) are given a challenge made up of suggestions from the audience which they have to draw against a strict time limit, the winner being judged by the volume of audience cheering. Half a dozen challenges later I'm an honorable runner-up. I forget the winner - I think it was Mike - but Diana knocks it out every time with sheer crazy inventiveness. My efforts are more traditional gags, like bad New Yorker cartoons. The kids seemed to like 'em, though.

Back to the table for an hour, then the dreaded workshop. I'm nervous, my notes all laid out in front of me as a visible crutch to get me through. Five seconds in, it's obvious that I've put in a lot of work for nothing, as what essentially happens is a bunch of five-to-ten year olds ask me to draw fart jokes for an hour. I go with the flow - I offer a figleaf of analysis at the end of each bit, once I've drawn the strips we work out together as a group, but this is essentially a sideshow for the kids, with Uncle Roger as their ink gimp. Once I've accepted that, I find it's actually pretty good fun. I make an executive decision at one point and steer a strip away from bodily function humour, because we've already been down that road for a while by this stage, but otherwise my input is more in the way of herding cats.

Back at the table and I'm trading books with loads of people now. This for me is the best part of doing shows in far-flung corners of the world - I get to see a ton of small-scale, small print run books that never get wide comic-shop distribution; everything is utterly unique and this show is the only chance I'll ever get to see most of it. The level of talent around the floor is for the most part really high, probably even more so than at the UK Web and Mini-Comix Thing, which it resembles in terms of scale (and that show's pretty good).

The show wraps up around 6 - I've been invited to a barbecue at Mark Rudolph's place and Zach Bosteel (amazing name!) has offered me a ride there, so after dropping off my artwork at the hotel we head out. It's a hell of a long drive - I think we'd been expecting it to be a half-hour or so, but it takes us over an hour. At one point we get lost and drive miles past our turnoff. Eventually we get there and the beer and conversation is flowing freely. I just have the one drink because I'm pretty tired and another one will have me snoring. There are grilled mushrooms for the vegetarians, and salads and dips and other good things. I sit on the back porch swatting bugs most of the night, enjoying what are essentially hugely entertaining rants by the other guests, particularly Kevin Cross, prodding them once in a while with the occasional question to keep things moving. Zach offers to take me back around midnight - we spend another hour in the car finding the hotel. Zach is good company, an interesting guy with an interesting mind. I resolve to check out his work. Around 1:30am I finally get to bed. I'm getting too old for this...

Kids Read Comics Day 2 - Sunday

Despite my tiredness, I wake up ridiculously early, which is par for the course for me these days. Aargh. Still not early enough to catch Sylvie and the kids, who will be out for the whole day at the annual school fair (Sylvie being one of the chief organisers, she's there hours before everyone else). I write for a while, then I breakfast, shower and brave the grass verges once more. No suitcase this time, fortunately - that, and my books, remain at the library. It's a slow start - someone mentions that everybody's probably still at church, which seems obvious, but living in a country where even the Archbishop of Canterbury seems to have his doubts about the existence of God, it surprises me. People still do that? The only churchgoers I know back home do it just to get their kids into good schools.

My workshop rolls around - at noon this time, so I'm getting it out of the way early. It takes much the same form as yesterday's session, only this time Matt Feazell is in the audience, which momentarily paralyses me - I know full well that he could be standing up there instead of me and running rings around my shabby performance. I soldier on, and everybody seems to have fun - those that stay, anyway. A few leave early, for reasons unknown. I'd like to believe it's because they were wanting some of the theory I'd prepared, but I expect it's more likely to be because the thing was an utter shambles. At one point during one of our improvised four-panel strips, desperate for a punchline, I shamelessly recycle a Goon Show joke. If Matt Feazell spotted it, he was kind enough not to mention it. Once we got onto the hands-on stuff, where the kids made their own strips, there was one boy up the front who had the most amazing ideas. I don't know whether it's because my blather about anticipating the obvious and doing the opposite for comic effect had sunk in or whether he just had funny bones, but his stuff was genuinely funny. All the kids were really original - none of them used the characters we'd worked up together, they all made up their own. I felt a warm little glow.

Back at the table, another falafel wrap was waiting for me courtesy of the Falafel Fairy (Jerzy won't like me calling him that). Lunch over, it's back to work. Traffic is slower today, and I get to walk around a bit during longeurs and pick up a few books. Aware that I'm accumulating paper like a madman, I calculate that I'll have enough time to go to the post office on Monday morning before I fly home and ship a ton of it back separately, which seems like the only sane course at this stage. It'll be worth it - I can read my own books anytime, but this stuff needs to be grabbed when I see it.

I got to meet William Messner-Loebs, who told me he's writing for Boom! as well (I told him I read Journey back when it was first coming out, which seemed genuinely to surprise him - maybe I don't look as old as I think). Actually, I met a lot of people and reacquainted myself with a lot of others, and many of the names aren't coming to mind right away, to my shame - I'm pretty awful with names at the best of times, but the last couple of weeks have been a challenge all round. I remember Joe Foo, Paul Storrie, Thom (blanking on surname), Michelangelo something-or other... oh, I'll shut up now, I'm just embarrassing myself. Forgive me, people!

By six o'clock everyone's pretty eager to get out of the joint - it's been a long, slow afternoon, and most of the general public went home an hour ago. Dinner arrangements are made - the plan seems to be to meet in the hotel lobby and head on somewhere from there, so I prevail upon Zach one more time to take me and my heavy suitcase back to the hotel. Soon, gear dumped, I head downstairs, and pretty soon the place is filling up with exhibitors. The plan now seems to be to order pizza to be delivered here - there is beer available at reception in a little fridge you could miss if you blink, so we get in some drinks and the chatter begins. Kevin and I compare notes o the New Zealand punk scene - he's got a smattering of knowledge, but it's all of bands I've never heard of, and I thought I'd at least heard of most 1970s New Zealand bands. I promise to send him some Exploding Budgies and Toy Love and whatnot. Kevin asks me if I've ever been in a band - I mention my only claim to fame in that regard, the mighty "Gondaliers of my Black and Blue Love Canal", in which I perform as Knuckles the Malevolent Nun. He and Mark Rudolph are intrigued by this and make me promise to send them MP3s presently.


(Left to right: Kevin Cross, Laura Cross, Zach Bosteel)

The company is great - really, the company is hysterical - but I feel ever more exhausted and I still need to pack. It's time to say goodbye. I go around the room thanking everybody and slink upstairs to do what needs to be done. It feels like an ending in a way - and I guess it is, as far as this report is concerned - but I feel like I've made some friends.

Greyhound Madness

(Here's a short account of my travels between Heroes Con and Kids Read Comics - full KRC report to follow shortly.)


Time to leave Charlotte and make my way to Michigan for the Kids Read Comics show. Not having anywhere else to go once I leave my hotel, and having put off the moment of departure as long as I dared, I find myself at the Greyhound bus station waaaay too early. Fortunately, I have a book - Mad World, a highly entertaining biography of Evelyn Waugh by Paula Byrne - which sees me through the hours I have to wait. I attempt to find something vegetarian in the cafeteria that isn't disgusting - I fail miserably, and end up with what is possibly the worst cheese sandwich I have ever eaten. Next time I hear an American say the British can't do sandwiches, I will be prepared.

I buy a phone card and (after trying two phones that don't work) I phone home. Sylvie is giving the children dinner - Thomas is throwing his food around in an uncharacteristic tantrum when I call, and has just been told off. Thomas and I exchange a few incomprehensible words through his floods of tears and snot and I feel keenly that my absence makes me a terrible father.

More waiting, more reading. At last 6pm rolls around and we board the bus. I'm sat next to an enormous woman whose bulk makes the entire bus tilt to our side when she sits down. She and her two male friends - one to our side and one in front of us - talk loudly and raucously between themselves, the guy in front doing a repetitive hour-long riff on Scooby Doo and Shaggy being potheads, like he's the only guy who's ever thought of it. Eventually I manage to sleep, briefly. I awaken in the middle of a sentence by the guy on our right: "... solitary. I mean, they put me in solitary confinement just for that, man." I reflect that I may have some trouble going to sleep again.

We stop to refuel - both us and the bus, it seems - at around 9pm. It looks like the only option is a McDonalds, presented to us as if it's some sort of treat. I've managed to avoid giving any of their horrible establishments any of my hard-earned money for close to twenty years - not for ideological reasons or anything, I just think the food tastes like garbage - but I need something in my stomach. This seems to be the trip for breaking the habits of a lifetime. I order a Caesar Salad - the poor cow at the till asks me "Crispy of Grilled?" about six times before I realise it comes with chicken. I make involuntary horrified noises - one twenty-year habit I have no intention of breaking on this trip is my vegetarianism - and am duly presented with something that resembles a Caesar Salad not a jot. It's basically just a green salad. What the hell, thinks I - down it goes.

Back on the bus. I manage to sleep without half trying this time - Heroes Con has wiped me out somewhat. But it feels like I've hardly been asleep five minutes before we stop and we're all told to get off the bus while it's "serviced". I am to discover over the next few hours that this is to be a pattern - sleep, rude awakening, off the bus, sit in a station terminal, back on the bus. My only previous experience travelling by bus has been in Europe, where you just, you know, get on the bus and sleep until you get there. Alas, this is not to be.

Many long, weary hours pass. Many layovers in many places. I am occasionally gripped by an irrational terror that I have got on the wrong bus and am on a one-way trip to Nowheresville, but by the following afternoon I finally end up in Ann Arbor. Helpfully, the bus station has a big sign in the window giving half a dozen phone numbers for local taxi services. Unhelpfully, there are no telephones, just a telephone directory on a small shelf - a big space on the wall above it with a couple of wires sticking out where the telephone used to be. I head out to the footpath (sorry, sidewalk) and start walking, dragging my suitcase behind me, in the blind hope that I will see a public phone, a taxi or, failing that, the street in which my hotel is situated. At one point I stop at a Borders to buy a map - I mention the street I'm looking for and the guy tells me I'm practically on it. That's the good news. The bad news is that, once I get onto it, the hotel is about thirty blocks away. I start walking, confident in the knowledge that the worst-case scenario is that I'll get there eventually. Fortune smiles upon me - I see two taxis. I jump in one and (apart from one moment when I almost give the taxi driver a hernia with my suitcase full of books) all is well. I reach the hotel, unpack, send a couple of e-mails, phone home, shower, get some dinner (another salad from a burger restaurant, all that's available after dodging traffic on a pedestrian-unfriendly stretch of road) and sleep. Oh yes. Hitting that pillow is without a doubt the highlight of my day.

I've Got the Pods

Here's a sketch of Barney Google I did for Mike Rhode at Heroes Con. Eye candy for all the octogenarians in the audience! My thanks to Mike for the scan.


May I draw your attention to a couple of recent podcast appearances? A Heroes Con panel I was on, Craft and Process in Comics, is up at the Dollar Bin website - one for the cartoonists there, I imagine. Also for the cartoonists is a guest appearance on Art and Story, the podcast about the craft of making comics - actually sitting in in person this time, as I'm in Michigan for Kids Read Comics. Thanks to Jerzy Drozd for making me welcome and for sharing his bourbon!

Heroes Con Wrap-Up

(Scan courtesy Tim O'Shea - thanks, Tim!)

Heroes Con Day 0 (Thursday)

For once I've had the foresight to bring my laptop with me to a convention, so I might actually be able to get a report out. Even remembered my camera! Go me.

Okay, so I arrived on Thursday afternoon, only slightly late, and got the shuttle in from the airport to the hotel with none other than Brian Bolland, who I'd never met before - we must have been on the same flight, but I didn't recognise him. What a nice man! This is a good start. Our driver is Billy Reed (not "Billy", "Billy Reed") - an old friend of Shelton Drumm's, he says - and his wonderful accent is already relaxing me.

I check in to my hotel and get to my room - five seconds after I sit down there's a knock at my door and a frantic lady comes in looking for her telephone charger, wondering if it's still here - this had been her room until she switched it, and she left it here. No sign of it. I sit down again, phone home just in time to say goodnight to the kids (Ahh, Skype! You save me many hotel phone bills), and there's another knock at the door - this is getting on my nerves now, as all I really want is a shower. It's one of the hotel staff asking if everything's all right. I tell him yes - off he goes. I have my shower - and now I know why the lady switched rooms. There's no cold water. Both taps run hot. I decide I'll live with it and take a shower jumping in and out of the boiling cascade.

Refreshed and slightly pink, I go and get my guest badge. I run into some of the Boom! Studios crew as I leave, so we go and get some pizza. This will be dinner - I'm trying to lose a few pounds at the moment, so I eat lightly, but the food is good and it sticks to my ribs. Speaking of ribs, Boom! head honcho Ross Richie gives me a bear hug, presumably in appreciation of the Eisner nomination, and it feels like he cracks a couple. (He's a big guy.) I go and set up my table afterwards, walking funny.

So far I've run in to a few familiar faces: Paul Maybury, MK Reed, Alec Longstreth and David Malki off the top of my head. Con organiser (and brilliant cartoonist) Dustin Harbin is running around like a chicken with no head, but he makes time to look at my Heroes Con Art Auction contribution and makes all the right noises. I'm relieved. My painting skills are really rusty and there were several occasions when I thought I'd ruined it.

The mobile phone I bought at the airport, swallowing back a lifetime of antipathy towards the damn things in order to make my presence here in the USA less of an inconvenience for others, appears not to work. It's entirely possible I'm just doing it wrong - I've never even looked at one of them up close before - but even so, I'm less than happy about it. I'd hate to think I threw away my principles for no reason. Always have a reason for throwing away your principles, I say.

End of Thursday - I try to watch a video on my laptop and fall asleep in the middle of it. So much for dropping in on the hotel bar later. That will have to wait until Friday.

Heroes Con Day 1 (Friday)

Awake ridiculously early - I'm still on London time. I manage to kill an hour or two writing before I go and get some breakfast (and technically lunch as well, as what I'm about to eat has to last me until dinner). At breakfast I see Irwin Hasen smooth-talking the waitress, the sly old dog. He doesn't look a day over ninety. The convention kicks off at 11 - I'm there at 9:30 to have a look around and say hello to a few people, buy some sketch pads and so forth, but I've barely had time to introduce myself to Muppet Show's "Family Reunion" artist Amy Mebberson (at last we meet!) before I'm getting sketch requests, and that's pretty much it for the rest of the day - I've got a list going before the doors open to the public.

Which doesn't mean I don't get to see a few people, as I'm pretty easy to find. Off the top of my head, I see Mr Phil of Indie Spinner Rack, Evan Dorkin, Andy Mansell, Jamie Cosley, Steve Leiber (fleetingly as I rushed past his table), Mike Maihack, Chris Schweizer, Richard Thompson, Mike Rhode, Dave Roman & Raina Telgemeier. At the table next to me, lo and behold, it's the lady who switched rooms with mine yesterday, who as it turns out is Jill Thompson. Well I never.

At 4:30 there's a panel conducted by Dustin Harbin with me, Jim Rugg and Drew Weing talking about The Craft of Making Comics. Dustin freely admits this is entirely for his own benefit, it wasn't really put together with an audience in mind; despite this, we get a respectable crowd by my (admittedly very low) standards, as the last panel I did at TCAF was attended by, like, five people. It's an interesting talk, albeit a bit of an esoteric one. A fair bit of thinking out loud on my part, I know that. I often wasn't sure what I was going to say until I'd already said it. I kind of liked that, though.

Back to the table - as I pass the Boom! booth, I'm told I have a dinner invitation from Ross Richie. I gratefully accept, put in another 90 minutes at the sketches, and am delighted to see I'm only a few away from the end of the list.

Waiting in the hotel lobby for my dining companions, I see Tom Spurgeon at the bar talking to a few cartoonists, among them Jim Rugg and Sammy Harkham. We chat about Thor, of all things, and about New Zealand (Sammy lived there at one time). Then Mark Waid grabs me and I'm off.

Dinner is great. Apart from the Richies, we're accompanied by Mike (Boom! staffer), Mark Waid and Peter Krause. The wine flows and an enjoyable evening filled with scurrilous comic industry tales passes by. We then head back to the hotel - I intend to have a drink and socialise at the bar, but I don't see anybody I recognise. I decide to go back to my room and catch 30 winks, then come down later. At 2am I wake up in my clothes with a headache and write that idea off for another night.

Note to self: Bring Camera Tomorrow.

Heroes Con Day 2 (Saturday)

Okay, I forgot my camera again.

Busy day sketch-wise, and I sold some artwork, too, which means the trip is officially now paid for - everything else from here on in is a bonus. I had a sketch list going most of the day which I just caught up on as the show was closing. I finally got to meet Chris Samnee (there with his wife Laura). What a nice man! Nice and TALENTED - he gave me one of his convention sketchbooks which is amazing. Saw a few more faces today who I'd missed yesterday, including Craig Fischer, Greg Means, Johanna Draper Carlson, Paul Tobin, and at this point I know I'm going to slight someone I left out, so let me just cut my losses and apologise in advance. The business of the day means, paradoxically, that I have a whole lot less to report - as it was just a case of drawing my socks off all day. I sold out of some books, both ones I expected to (I only brought a few Fred the Clown, Art d'Ecco and Knuckles collections due to baggage weight restrictions) and ones I didn't (Mugwhump minicomics are gone?!). All good in terms of what I can take home with me - I don't want to be paying excess baggage rates, after all - but it leaves me a bit underprepared for Sunday, not to mention Kids Read Comics next week, though I'll have Muppet books to fill the gap for that.

Show over, I join Mr. Phil, Alec Longstreth, Greg Means and MK Reed for dinner. I wisely take the salad option tonight. Then back to the hotel for the art auction, where my piece gets a respectable $400 - I ogle at the art a bit (and not at the ladies dressed as fishnet-era Zatanna who are showing it off, oh no), then chat and sip beers with Tom Spurgeon, Chris Pitzer, Evan Dorkin, Craig Fischer, Greg, MK, David Malki, Dustin and various other bods for the rest of the night.

At about 1 am I turn in, surprised I made it that far.

Heroes Con Day 3 (Sunday)

Bit of a lie-in - another Skype call home - and then it's off to work once more. Sunday is much slower than Saturday for me, although still pretty respectable. I shift some more books, some artwork, some sketches (no list today) and managed to say hello to a couple more people (Robert Goodin being the only one I can remember right now). Robert asks me to contribute to his Covered project - I say I've been wanting to for months but haven't been able to find the time. I pick up a print of his version of an issue of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories which cracks me up every time I see it. Forgot my camera again.


Managed to earn enough to officially call the trip a success from a financial standpoint, at least - though my suitcase doesn't feel any lighter because it's full of stuff people gave me (or which, in a few cases, I actually bought). Just as importantly, I had a good time; it's an amazingly friendly show, everyone's super-nice.

The traditional after-show party was great, as always. This year the food that was laid on wasn't pizza, it was actual dinner-type food - though vegetarians like me were pretty much left with coleslaw and houmous. Oh, and beer. Let's not forget the beer.

Managed to get some quality chatting time in with Jeff Parker, Steve Leiber, Evan Dorkin, Ed Piskor, Guy Davis, Rosemary Van Deuren, Chris Schweizer, Heidi MacDonald, Mr Phil, Robert Goodin, a brief outside-the-lavatory-door chat with Liz Baillie, and some conversations with friendly strangers. I buy a couple of Dustin's mini-comics and a Laura Park mini I haven't seen before. Catch the second-to-last shuttle back to the hotel, crash, happy ZZZs.

Tomorrow I catch a Greyhound bus to my next stop on this two-stop tour, Kids Read Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. But that's a story for another day. (And oh, what a story.)

Frog of Thunder!

Just finished this piece for the Heroes Con Art Auction and I thought I'd fling it up here for people to have a look at. The paint's barely dry!

I'll be on a couple of panels at Heroes: the first is "Craft and Process in Comics" on Friday at 4:30pm, and the other one is called "Family Friendly Comics" on Sunday at 12pm. And that table number again is 518 -- I'll be there whenever I'm not at a panel, signing, sketching and selling my wares. Hope to see you there!

Heaving on a Jet Plane

Two days until I board the plane to Heroes Con and there's still a ton to do. I'm currently working on a Doctor Who story, a ten-pager for Doctor Who Magazine, the inking of which I'll be finishing on the road by the look of it. Here's a sneak look at some of the pencils.


It's called Planet Bollywood, which pretty much tells you all you need to know - script by Jonathan Morris, who wrote the last one of these I worked on, Death to the Doctor, a couple of years ago. Great fun.

Anyway - Heroes Con. If you're going, look out for me at Table 518 (looks like they've moved me out of Indie Island - I'm in the block of tables around Boom! Studios instead, so I should be really easy to find). Indie status notwithstanding, I will have my own self-published books there with me, including my new Doctor Sputnik collection. So if you're after a sketch or you want to get a Muppet Show book defaced in a personalised way, please feel free to stop for a chat and a browse. I seldom bite - hardly ever, really.

How Conventional!

Been a bit slack on the blog lately, I'm afraid, though I have an excellent excuse: I'm gearing up for a two-week trip to the USA to attend not one, but two conventions. Yes! Such madness sounds impossible, but I assure you it's true!

First there's Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC on June 4th-6th; then I climb aboard a bus and schlep my way to Dearborn, MI for Kids Read Comics on the 12th & 13th.


Looking forward to both for different reasons - at Heroes Con, for example, among the many fine people I expect to run into, I'll have the opportunity to meet my collaborator on Thor, the Mighty Avenger, Chris Samnee, for the first time. We seem to be getting along great so far - hopefully meeting me in person won't spoil the magic for him.


And then, at Kids Read Comics - apart from the fact that it's you know, a comic book show actually targetted at an all-ages readership, which is to say my audience - I'll get to meet the hosts of the always thought-provoking Art and Story, the creative podcast which whiles away many an hour at the drawing board and which has been a near-constant companion for me for a couple of years now.

Did I mention I'm going to be hosting a workshop at Kids Read Comics? I'm going to be hosting a workshop at Kids Read Comics. It's called "Making Funny Comics" and you can sign up for it by going here and registering. It's free, and you may get the opportunity to see me make a complete twerp of myself in front of a live audience. Smell my fear!