More Christmas Carol

Here's a drawing I did for the CBLDF's annual San Diego Comic Con Art Auction. It'll also be used on a sketch card. Back to the Dickens!

Bless

More work-in-progress. I'm so very close to finishing this now...

LSD

A friend once told me that his dad used to say, "It was all LSD in my day!" L being pounds, S being shillings and D being pence, of course (the less obvious initials derived from the Latin).

Very close to finishing this job!

Cheating

It's late and I'm tired and I don't have anything good for you so here's an old illustration job I dug up. I have no idea what went in the balloons originally. Why not make up your own and amuse your friends! (If you still have any friends left afterwards you might want to apologise by making them a nice cup of tea.)

Who Dat?

The dark secret of cartoonists is that we don't take holidays. Partly because, as freelancers, if we don't work, we make no money; and partly because switching off that part of our brains for more than a few days at a time feels like death. So I've had a couple of jobs I've been working on whenever I get a minute while I'm in New Zealand, and this is one of them: an illustration for a book on Doctor Who, the exact details of which I'm a bit hazy on, except that it was needed in a hurry and I was (sort of) available and it just happened, okay?

Not having access to a scanner while I'm larking about the country, I did this piece entirely digitally. The roughs were done in Photoshop, the various elements were inked separately (the Tardis in Photoshop, where I sort of knew what I was doing, and the figures in Manga Studio, where I really didn't but I liked the approximation of an inked brush line better than anything I could ever get out of PS), then I coloured all the bits in Photoshop and assembled them in a configuration to match the rough. I still don't really think I've got Matt Smith down. He's too damn young, that's part of the problem. Give him a few years and he'll have loads of interesting lines to play with, but right now there's nothing to latch on to.

Anyway. 

Ball of the Foot

For someone who knows zero about football, I seemed to get a lot of football-related jobs at one time. This was the cover for a children's book by Steve Barlow and Steve Skidmore, still available second-hand, apparently. This goes back to before I owned a computer, when it would take me days of mucking about with acrylic paint to do any kind of colour job - which dates this from the mid-to-late 90s, I suppose. Really, after doing this for a few years, it was a question of learning to colour by computer or starving.

2011, You're A Sweet Young Thing

I'm on the home stretch of my final Muppet Show issue now. About one-third of the way through inking... so I guess it's time to think about what's next. (A bit of thinking out loud, really, so don't feel obliged to read through the whole thing - if you get something out of what follows, great, but this one's really for me, not for you so much.)

If we're talking about resolutions, and I guess I am, I'm resolved not to take on quite the workload I had in 2010. I never really got a chance to come up for air all year, and I need to keep a bit of flexibility in my schedule this year. So there's that.

I'm also quite keen to make time to work on my own stuff - as rewarding as this year has been in many ways, I've been concentrating almost exclusively on properties owned by Disney in one way or another, and that doesn't really do it for me as a long-term creative journey. "A refreshing detour" is how I've been thinking of it. More power to those creators who can find fulfilment working on a dead man's ideas for the bulk of their careers, I'm not judging them - but I'm not one of them.

Over the last few weeks a few people have expressed interest in having me do work for them post-Muppets and post-Thor, which is great. I'm leaning heavily towards the idea that the work-for-hire side of things should concentrate exclusively on scripting, keeping my drawing time for myself alone, for working on things I own - keeping that side of things pure, at least in terms of comics (illustration work might be another matter). If that's economically sustainable, of course. I do have a family to support, so that's always going to be a consideration.

So - what? Right now I don't know what I'll be doing this year at all. Various approaches are all at the "let's see if we can work something out" stage - for all I know, everything might fall through. The only things I know for sure I'll definitely be working on in 2011 are finishing the Muppet Show comic (counting the days!), doing a short piece for an anthology that I've committed to, and creating at least one mini-comic (that's a proper New Year's resolution, that one).

Oh, and finishing Mugwhump the Great. That will happen.

2011 - a year of infinite possibilities and uncertain terror. Works for me.

Malinky!

I recently had the pleasure of doing a pin-up for the phenomenal Sonny Liew to go in his Malinky Robot collection, the English language edition of which will be out soon from Image Comics (though it's been out elsewhere in the world for a while). We worked together on a Spider-Man backup a couple of years back, and I was blown away by how much he brought to the story. It was a great privilege to be invited to contribute something to his own project.

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!

Now, Here's the Thing...

I spent yesterday getting ready for the UK Web and Mini-Comix Thing this weekend - London's finest (and possibly only) small-press comics show. Oh, such treats! As well as printing up another batch of my usual old mini-comics, I'll have a brand new mini-edition of Mugwhump the Great collecting the web strip to date which will be making its debut at the show. This one clocks in at a stonking FORTY! PAGES! - and that's only Chapters 2 and 3; Chapter One is in a separate mini which I put together this time last year (also at the show this Saturday - so you can get the whole thing if you want). Terrifying in its own small way.

If you've seen the latest Mugwhump strip, you'll be aware that I'm taking a short break from the strip. Still a bit vague about when I'll be picking it up again, but I'm thinking it'll be a couple of months. During the gap, I'll still be updating the blog, so do keep checking in, won't you?


Here's an oldie. My brother Andrew and I did a comic called Zoot! for a couple of years in the early 90s. Zoot! #7 is a comic that never happened - most of what was intended to go into it was eventually collected in Zoot Suite, and I used a re-done version of the cover as the back cover to that book, but this actual version of the cover has never been published. I've often considered starting up Zoot! again as an online project, releasing it as a PDF every so often or something, right before looking at my schedule, falling off my chair and laughing.

New Year's Revulsions

What about that 2009, eh? What about that?! Yeah, me neither. Actually, my 2009 has been all right, so I'm counting my blessings, really. I know it's been rough for a lot of people.

New Year's Resolutions:
(1) To try and get a collection of my old mini-comics and scattered one-off short stories together, probably as a print-on-demand affair for selling at conventions and through the ol' website.
(2) To produce a comic through entirely digital means that looks as much like my hand-drawn comics as possible, just to prove to myself it can be done. So far my attempts at digital artwork have been very digital-looking, and that's not what I want. So yeah, learn some skills.
(3) To get more sleep. Of the three, that's the least likely to happen.


Here's a picture I did as a commission - Waiting for Godot as performed by Laurel and Hardy, which I'd love to do one day - a straight adaptation, with the entire original text unaltered, just with Stan and Ollie as Vladimir and Estragon. It's a book waiting to happen.

Well, Ho Ho Ho to you too

It's actually starting to feel like the end of the year now - people are getting reflective all of a sudden. There's a short interview with me on ToughPigs right now where I talk a bit about The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson - check it out here. Also very flattered to be mentioned as part of Rich Kreiner's Best of 2009 roundup over at the all-new Comics Journal website - and especially pleased for Fin Fang Four collaborator Scott Gray, who's getting some much-deserved attention lately.

Here's a Christmas present for you all - Kevin Cross starts his new webcomic, Monkey Mod, today. Yow! Been looking forward to this for a while. If you haven't seen the trailer, go now. Now, I say! Fly like the wind!

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Happy Daddy

I'm a very proud daddy this week. My seven-year-old daughter asked if she could watch a DVD "for grownups". Once my heart had started again, I showed her Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr -- and she loved it. And my four-year-old son has been getting me to make pencil sketches for him to trace over for the past few days, essentially so he can practise inking; he calls it "tracing", but that's effectively what he's doing. So, yay kids! I've posted this picture once before, but I thought it deserved a return engagement.

You Were Rubbish, Sir

In the UK we don't really have a tradition of trick-or-treating - it's an American invention that commercial forces have been trying to force down our throats over here for about a decade now. So every Halloween we get a lot of people who don't really know the procedure trying to do something we've only ever seen on television. But even with that caveat, there was no excuse for the kid (about 13) who knocked on our door without a costume of any kind. We asked him what he was dressed as; his reply, after thinking about it for way too long, was, "Um... I'm a chav." Well, I'll tell you, he only got one lolly from us! Oh my yes! And a stern admonition to try harder next year! I don't know what we need Halloween for here anyway - we've got a perfectly good Catholic-burning five days later we can celebrate.

Throwing Peanuts

Back to some proper drawing this week. Feeling rusty after only occasional doodles for a few weeks, but my scripting schedule is completely back on track now and ideas for the next couple of Muppet Show story arcs are falling into place. So I'm feeling on top of things for the first time in a while.

Hey, I received my copies of the first Muppet Show collection in the mail this week - not bad! I was expecting the dimensions to be smaller, more digest-sized. This looks about perfect to me - my originals are drawn pretty close to printed size, so a small amount of reduction actually flatters the work considerably. There's a weird printing error on one page for some reason - the resolution on one of the Pigs in Space pages is all screwed up - but apart from that it's everything I could have hoped for. And I'm really, really pleased to see my old Disney Adventures strips published in the back at last.

Also received a copy of The Widow's Curse, the Doctor Who graphic novel which features a nine-pager by Jonny Morris and me, "Death to the Doctor!", plus a bunch of sketches and notes about the story. (And lots of other goodness besides, of course.) The Tenth Doctor strip really started to find its legs around this period.


And now, for no reason whatsoever, here's something I did years ago for a Schulz-themed exhibition organised by my friend Brad Brooks - not quite the last time I tried painting anything, but pretty nearly. Ah, computers, you've ruined me.

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?

Middle-Class Twit

Thanks to the handful of people who've sent me a note saying they'd like to follow me on Twitter. I'm afraid I don't do Twitter. I can't see the point of getting up and running over to the computer every half-hour to tell the world I've scratched my arse. Because, frankly, that's what you'd get -- my life ain't that scintillating. And I can't see that I'd get anything out of it on my end except a colossal drain on my time. If anybody's got a persuasive argument in favour of the blasted thing I'll give it a hearing, but I've yet to hear one that doesn't sound like a justification for faffing about instead of working. And I'm perfectly capable of faffing about on my own. Sorry, folks, but there it is.


Here's my back cover to the new Indie Spinner Rack anthology, Awesome 2: Awesomer, which is out around now. It concludes a narrative begun on the front cover by Jeff Smith which continues throughout the issue. The line-up in this one looks absolutely stellar, and it's my first time being published by Top Shelf after dancing around one another for over a decade. Highly recommended.

Heroes Con is just ten days away. Cushlamochree! Last year I had a blast and I'm thrilled that I've been asked back. (Guess I can't have been as drunk as I thought I was.) I normally like to have something new to sell at a convention, but I've been so busy with Muppet stuff that I haven't had time to do any new mini-comics apart from those. What I will try to have that I didn't have last year, though, is a convention-only special sketchbook mini. I'm looking at a stack of sketches about a foot high and I'm sure I can cobble something together out of that before the show. So, yes, I will have something new. I'll also have copies of the Mugwhump the Great mini-comic which debuted earlier this year at the UK Web and Mini-Comix Thing, collecting Chapter 1 of the online strip. So you've no excuse for not spending money.

The Lone Stranger

Further behind schedule than ever on the Muppets, but The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson #1 is only a couple more days away from completion now. I spoke yesterday to some cartoonist friends who, concerned for my health, kindly pointed out that nobody else writes, pencils and inks a monthly comic single-handedly. "Nobody else. Just you."


Now here's an illustration I did a while ago (judging by the art style). The name of the file is "Egghead and Zzapboy", but for the life of me I can't remember a single other thing about it. Who was it for? (affects Pee-Wee Herman voice) I Don't Know! Answers on a postcard please. Actually, writing these words, something comes back about the Egg - I originally drew him dour and professorial, but the client kept asking me to make it look more and more like "he was having a good time" until the final version looked completely unhinged. Who was that masked client? Shucks, Jimmy, I don't know.

Back to Indie Island

This week, the delightful Dustin Harbin followed up last year's casual invitation to attend this year's Heroes Con in June with a rather more definite and heartfelt one, so after some quick investigation of air fares I've accepted, and will be attending with bells on. Boom! Studios, the publishers of my current work on the Muppet Show comic, will be there as well, so I daresay I'll be putting some faces to names at last. I went last year and had a great time, and I'm looking forward to this one immensely.


Here's an illo I did for Nemi Magazine in Norway - the text was about a missing Munch painting which was eventually discovered in the possession of a sleeping passenger on a train. I love drawing that creepy screaming bastard.