Zoot Lives!

Been a bit quiet on the blog recently. Time for a catch-up. There are a few things of note to report:

 • The new Zoot! arrived from the printer this morning and it's a beauty – forty pages of black-and-white comic-bookery under a painted cover. It's now available from my web store. (I will also have copies for sale at Thought Bubble in September and at the Nottingham Comic Convention in October.)

• I've just turned in a short story for Archaia's Labyrinth 2017 Special. It's sort of a David Bowie tribute. That should be in stores in November.

• Criminy, a Max Fleischer-inspired project which writer Ryan Ferrier and I have put together, has found a home with a major US comic book publisher. More on that in a while, once some of the details are worked out. Suffice to say it's all rather exciting. A few sample pages from our pitch document are shown below; Ryan showed these on Twitter a month or so back, which led to the project finding a publisher.

 

The blog should become a bit more active in the near future, as I'm about to start working on a run of commissions that have been waiting in the queue for far too long.

Labyrinth

And then there was this rascal, for Archaia's Labyrinth Artist Tribute book a few months back. I've recently started dabbling with Clip Studio's perspective tools, but there was none of that nonsense here; this was all hands-on, hand-drawn perspective, crosshatched using traditional media, and I had to have a bit of a lie-down afterwards.

Thought Bubble Sketches III

Review Roundup

The Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow has been out in the world for a few days now. Here's a round-up of some of the press, all gratifyingly positive so far:

Bag & Bored
Bleeding Cool
Comic Book Critic
Comic Book Resources
Previews World
Robot 6
Tough Pigs
Pop Mythology 
Geeks of Doom

Consider me relieved. I've been metaphorically holding my breath for months.

The Turkey Has Landed

So this came out today (at least, in comic stores - not sure when it's hitting the bookstores, though Amazon US lists it as coming out October 7th and Amazon UK has it down for December 6th). Anyway, it's something I was privileged to be involved with, and I'm very proud of the book in the sense that I think it does everything I set out to do with it – so I hope you'll give it a look if you get a chance.

Back on the Blog

 

Ouch! Two months since the last blog post! And I was doing so well, too. Apologies, all. Let's blow some of the dust off the furniture and throw away that suspicious carton of milk in the fridge...

• THIS WEEKEND: I will be attending the Glasgow Comic Con! It's my first visit to Scotland in years; I think the last time I was there was sometime in the mid-90s. Looking forward to seeing the place again. Do come and say hello if you're in the area. I believe I'll be upstairs, sitting next to the legendary Alan Grant.

• JULY 19th & 20th: I will be attending the Contern International Comic Festival in Luxembourg! It's to be the last stop in a sort of mini-tour by me and Tanya Roberts of signings and appearances over a few days within the area, organised by Panini Deutschland (they publish my Thor comics in Germany).

• SEPTEMBER 13th & 14th: I will be attending SPX! Always a highlight of the convention calendar, and a show of which I'm very fond. Some killer guests this year, too! (Drew Friedman? Lynda Barry? Jules Feiffer?! Pinch me, I'm dreaming!)

• OCTOBER: THE MUSICAL MONSTERS OF TURKEY HOLLOW will be out! This is the reason for my absence from this site. It's a book I've been working on for the last few months, an adaptation of an unmade Jim Henson TV special, conceived in 1968 but never produced. Well, now it's a graphic novel from Archaia Books! I just put the thing to bed a couple of days ago and have been pretty much trying to recover ever since; I was putting in some lo-o-ong working days, folks. Very happy with the results, though. Most exciting.

• NOVEMBER 15th & 16th: I will be attending the Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds! Another highlight for me, this show keeps getting better and better with each passing year.

• RIGHT NOW: I attended the great Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC a couple of weeks ago and have returned with convention sketches to show off here. Starting tomorrow, I'll be posting a run which should take us clear through August, if I'm putting them up them at the rate of one per day... which I fully intend to do. (If you've never been to Heroes Con, incidentally, you owe it to yourselves to go at least once. It's such a fun show.)

So, that gets us up to date. Back tomorrow with daily sketchy goodness.

Storyteller Rejects

In addition to the short piece I wrote and drew for Archaia's Jim Henson's Storyteller anthology a couple of years ago, I was originally supposed to do an image to go at the front of the book –  but it turned out my style wasn't Lisa Henson's cup of tea. But I did a few roughs before the rejection note came, and I found those when I was cleaning up – so here you go.

Mugwhumpery

After a quiet few weeks, I finally have a bit of news to report. Firstly, I am now working on the final chapter of Mugwhump the Great - the web strip on ACT-I-VATE that those of you with long memories may remember. I've got one more chapter to go, and I'm scripting it at the moment; negotiations are under way for a print collection once it's done. But more about that another day. For now, rest assured - it's coming.

Secondly, I may have a small Jim Henson-related project coming up. I'm waiting for a yea or nay on something, then I'll be able to spill a few more beans. Meanwhile, enjoy the suspense.

Lastly, I'm working on a brand-new mini-comic for the first time in YONKS - and it feels great! I've had a fun time working for the Diamond crowd over the past couple of years, but it feels nice to be doing a proper comic again. Here's the cover.


That's all the news I can share right now. I wish I could tell you more, but then I would have to kill you with my bare hands.