I thought I was out...

This week, I thought I'd share a spot illustration I did recently for Doctor Who Magazine - it's for their soap-opera-themed issue, #427, out later this month. They're taking advantage of the fact that I used to do these kinds of illustrations for Inside Soap magazine and DWM, y'see... anyway, it was nice to be back in the saddle again, however briefly. That's the thing about Doctor Who... it's a bit like the mafia. You think you're out, but they pull you back in...

Pyjamas are great

Oh, I've had such a lovely week. While Shelli Paroline works on drawing the upcoming Muppet Show #0, I've been writing, just writing. And working "gentleman's hours", which in my case means getting up at 7am instead of 5:30am. I could get used to this. But, alas, it's time to get back in the saddle again, before the extra time the fill-in has bought me is entirely frittered away. Still, I want to take this opportunity to thank Shelli as publicly as can for saving my health and my sanity. Really, it was getting that bad.


On to other things! I've given up my regular illustration spot in Inside Soap magazine, and will jump off that particular horse as soon as they get a replacement cartoonist. That's going to buy me an extra 4 or 5 days a month - it means a bit less money, but it'll mean I can do some other things once in a while. (I mean, I love working on the Muppets, but I like a change every now and then too.) One thing I've done over the last week is work out the next chapter of Mugwhump the Great, which I've now got no excuse for not starting up again as soon as the nice people over at ACT-I-VATE will have me back. I'm planning to pick it up one month from now - October 20th. Mark your calendars!

Speaking of Mugwhump and ACT-I-VATE, I'm reliably informed that our guy at IDW, Scott Dunbier, has held a copy of the much-ballyhooed ACT-I-VATE PRIMER in his trembling hands. He says it looks amazing. And who am I to disagree?

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?

The Thing Cometh!

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

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

Insert random illustration!

Ah, the children of the soap...

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

Dropped the soap

You know, I started uploading this picture, went to the post office, came back and now I can't remember which one it was. What fun! Let's find out together. All I'm sure of is that it's an Inside Soap spot illo. Hooray!

Give me enough Soap and I'll hang myself

I'm posting this image from Inside Soap for no other reason than it's quite sweet. Particularly surprising as it features the terrible Wendy Richard, whose picture I can never look at without imagining two glowing red coals in her eyes while she cackles.

Don't call me Tracey

Bit pressed for time today, so why not foist another Inside Soap illustration upon you? Answers on a postcard please.

This one was the first where I just couldn't capture the likeness sufficiently well to pass the scrutiny of the editor. In the end they said, "Just think of the money and trace the bitch," advice which I've taken to heart ever since.

A Site for Four-Eyes

For the last few days I've been working on the breakdowns for my Goon story and getting the old website updated to a WebComicsNation model. I'm looking at starting a new Doctor Sputnik web strip before too long (currently I'm running the old stories from the minicomics), so I want everything up to speed and well tested before I start. The new Hotel Fred site is here and most of the content has been shifted over. I'm really itching to get back into the regular strip routine. It keeps me sane, knowing there'll be something of my own on the boards every week.

Selecting an Inside Soap illo more or less at random today because I've got a hard disc full of the damn things.

Coo Coo Ca Choo Mrs Robinson

Doing a picture for Inside Soap today which illustrates the resolution of this particular plotline, so I was seized, nay, inspired with the notion to post the one that illustrates the setup. Is it Hollyoaks? Might be Hollyoaks. They all run together after a while.

I'm still alive

Exhausted, but ever mindful of the fickle public's attitude to cartoonists they haven't heard from lately, I'm cobbling a hasty post together in order to remind everybody I'm not dead. This one's another Inside Soap illo, with a heavy slapstick element. I suppose the modrn version of slapstick is "Funny" Home Videos, and I guess there's an element of this here (ooh! what's going to happen next?!) but, being an illustration, without the moral quandary of filming your four year old setting himself on fire with the intention of sending the tape off to Carlton Television.

I get strangely lucid sometimes when I'm a certain type of tired.

Metaphors in the Closet

Here's an Inside Soap illo (from Emmerdale, I think?) featuring a couple of characters who apparently have lots of secrets. Figure One is still trying to keep his in the closet, but Figure Two has so many she doesn't even try to hide them any more. At least, that was what was described in the brief, and who am I to argue with a brief for a show I've never watched. The woman who looks like death is a frequent figure in these illustrations, partly because she keeps doing interesting things like murdering people or escaping from lunatic asylums, and partly (I suspect) because my editor Gary likes the way I draw her.

Rrrromance!

Here's another vaguely Valentine-themed pic, if you're into cow rump. I find this one funnier now than when I drew it, particularly the expression on the cow's face.


Today's Inside Soap day, did you guess? And tomorrow as well, by the look of it - I got a late start today when I took the family to the airport. They're off on holiday for two weeks while I get something useful done, or so the plan goes. I will be aiming for the ludicrous pace of two pages per day, so hopefully I'll get a page and a half done.

Animal Magnetism

Have I done an Inside Soap recently? No I haven't. Here's one for Valentine's Day. I don't write them, lady.



Today was my birthday so I inked some Art d'Ecco and basically carried on as I would any other day. Cartooning - the glamour can kill you.

Humdrum Bum Conundrum

Here are a couple of lowlifes from EastEnders, chosen for no particular reason apart from the fact that I'm drawing an EastEnders picture today and it popped into my head. Note generic spotted handkerchief, the symbol of bums on the run the world over, although I've never seen one in real life. Maybe they have to be ordered from a special shop at enormous expense, which is why the people who have them are hobos in the first place -- they've spent all their money on designer spotted handkerchiefs.

Another mystery solved.

Photosoap

Here's an Inside Soap illustration from last year. A scene from EastEnders, I believe.

I often miss the days when I did everything by hand, even though it was usually more time-consuming, because I'm an old-school old fart and I like having black fingers and paint up my nose. But every so often I'm incredibly grateful to have Photoshop to get an effect it would have taken me forever to get by hand, and probably wouldn't have looked as good anyway. This is one of those times.

Infernal Hypodermy!

I haven't posted an illustration from Inside Soap for a few days, so here's one. I won't make any comment on it, except to say that the briefs I get are sometimes really, really strange.

Whatever Happened to Patrick Mower?

Emmerdale happened to Patrick Mower, apparently. It's the show where old film stars go to die or something (Patsy Kensit being the most recent example). Another of my Inside Soap illustrations. Mower is the one on the right.

For those who are thinking (like I was when I got the brief) "where do I know that name from?", Patrick Mower appeared in films like The Devil Rides Out and was once tipped to be the next James Bond (after Sean Connery). Here's his filmography.

Anyway, Mr. Mower earns a place in my pantheon of Decent Chaps because, to date, he's the only soap star I've done who said he liked the way he was drawn.

Corrie's Angels

Here's another Inside Soap illo. This one's from Coronation Street earlier this year.

I kind of think of this gig as being for my Dad. I've been self-employed as a professional cartoonist for sixteen years and have been nominated for several major comic awards and he doesn't really give a shit, but the moment I told him I was drawing characters from Coronation Street he was telling everyone he knew. It's almost worth doing the job just for that.

Lord of the Rich Tea Biscuits

I'm a New Zealander, albeit 12,000 miles away from the place, and one of the reasons I prefer not to live there is because their pathological patriotism terrifies me. One gets the impression (as a casual visitor, which is all I ever am these days) that saying you thought Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings was overlong and badly written will get you chased down the main street, covered in tar and feathers, sodomised by rabid dogs and lynched, possibly not in that order.

I offer the following as a peace offering to my former countrymen, then. From when Ian McKellen did a guest-starring role in Coronation Street earlier this year.