5 Obsessions

I got tagged by by my friend Mother and Bride to write 5 obsessions I have on me blog so I'll do that now-

Rob's 5 Obsessions

1- drawing comics (drawing comics is hard but I do it nearly every day, otherwise I feel sad and like i'm wasting my precious time. When I have a day off work I always feel bad and lazy if I don't get up early and get some drawing done. Unless I am hungover in which case I can happily watch rubbish on TV all day. I even did some on boxing day.)

2- reading comics (these obsessions are very obvious aren't they. But I like reading comics.)

3- seeing where I am on the google listings for rob jackson. (I am number 8 at the moment, it's a shame I have such a common name. I have talked to lots of other cartoonists and most of them do this too so it's not as egomaniacal as it seems.. or is it?)

4- Pedro the little cat (or as I often call him 'tiny wiggles' or 'wigglesworth') When he is asleep I wake him up every so often to make sure he is alright and he bites me.

5- worrying endlessly about everything in the middle of the night for no good reason

Plans for Next Year

I don't have many plans for next year yet, I'm going to finish Bog Wizards 2 soon and then make the board game that goes with it (I have lots of good ideas for that). Then in March i'm going to the

which should be cool judging by all the great people that have booked stalls there. i'll have Bog Wizards 2 for sale and some prints. I've never made any prints before so that should be fun.

My other plans are secret.

Website Shop

My website shop is now working. Why not go and try it out? Free postage in the UK, contact me for details if you live abroad...

My New Website

I've finally got round to re-doing my website. It's not finished yet, I still have to add links, a gallery page and a shop. I think it looks much better than the old one, and hopefully less '90's... what do people think?

www.robjacksoncomics.com

My Favourite Comics of 2008

Favourites of Year List 2008

This is my favourites of the year list, I’m not being fussy about when they first came out, its when I read them that counts…. in no particular order….

Jamilti – Rutu Modan
Skyscrapers of the Midwest – Josh Cutter
Tekkon Kinkreet – Taiyo Matsumoto
Little Nothings 1 - Lewis Trondheim
Curses – Kevin Huizenga
Travel – Yuichi Yokoyama
Goddess of War – Lauren Weinstein
Injury 2 – Ted May

Kevin Huizenga - Ganges 2

After reading ‘Curses’ I thought I’d better get some of the newer Kevin Huizenga books so here’s one of them. ‘Ganges 2’ has two stories, the first one is a quite abstract one. It’s a computer game type story with two characters playing a game Huizenga has invented called ‘Fight or Run’. They change their shapes in order to fight. It’s very beautiful with a lot of black ink.

The second longer story is about when Glenn Ganges worked at a dot-com company during the internet boom, the company is clearly doomed as it doesn’t really do anything like a lot of those companies. The employees stay in work till very late at night playing a computer shooting game called ‘Pulverize’. It’s a great story with a really good and clever ending that is very touching, surprisingly as the game is about blowing each others heads off with sniper rifles and rocket launchers. The artwork is again really great.

How To Draw Bog Wizards - Part 3

And now I do all the rest of the inking. And that's the page finished!

How To Draw Bog Wizards - Part 2

Now I add the lettering and the panel borders.

Yuichi Yokoyama - Travel

There's the cover above and the colour picture on the inside of the dust cover.

I was a bit unsure about whether to buy this one, I had read his other book 'New Engineering' and liked it but though it was more clever than actually enjoyable. I'm really glad I did as I really enjoyed this one, it's great!

There is no real story, 3 strange men get on a train, ride it for 180 pages and then get off at their destination. There are no words. It takes them the first 40 pages to find the seat they want on the train. I found this book hilarious. Every tiny action is built up into a vast important deed, for instance a passenger opening his book, or the lighting of a cigarette. One of the funniest bits is the three men walking through the train and everyone in the other seats turning to stare at them. Everyone stares at each other with enormous intensity for the whole book. The train travels through different weather - sun, rain, lightning - and they all are shown beautifully, as is the very weird landscape the train travels through. It seems to be a science fiction sort of landscape often full of weird men going about their strange and intense tasks. The drawing is very unusual. It often reminds me of a colouring-in book, with the clean lines and white spaces.
It is definately one of my favourite books of the year.

How To Draw Bog Wizards - Part 1

Welcome to my exciting guide to how I draw Bog Wizards. Lets look at a page from Bog Wizards 2.
First I do a thumbnail sketch, in this case I have drawn it at work when I was supposed to be working...


The next stage is my exhaustive research into the drawings...


Eventually I am ready to do my very rough pencils, here they are. They are very faint and hard to see so try clicking on them to get a bigger image..

Next time, the excitement of inking!!!

8 Stories Review

There's a review of '8 Stories' here from Optical Sloth. Thanks Whitey

Kevin Huizenga - Curses

Woah this is good. It has the best of Kevin Huizenga’s stories from a bunch of different older anthologies in it ‘Green Tea’, ‘Curses’ and ‘Jeepers Jacobs’. He’s done some newer stuff since that sounds great but I haven’t got round to reading them yet. It also has the strange story ‘28th Street’ where Glenn Ganges goes to steal a feather from the feathered ogre that secretly lives in the downtown shopping center area so that his wife can have a baby, and the great story ‘Curses’. ‘Curses’ is about how starlings were introduced to the USA where they have formed immense flocks which cause loads of damage as they fly around. Also it tells how they are gifted mimics and make the urban sounds of cars, alarms going off and trains.

All the stories star Glenn Ganges and they all interlink in various ways, it’s very clever. The cartooning is lovely looking, I especially like the way he goes all abstract sometimes and breaks down the drawing into lines and shapes. I remember seeing him do this before in one of his minicomics I own. He doesn’t do it very often, only when it’s important to the story. There are some great pages of strip malls and shopping centres at night and in the rain. This is one of my favourite books I’ve read this year, and one I will read again a bunch more times as it’s nice and dense. Also I am very keen to get his newer comics.

CF - Powr Mastrs 2

Just a few thoughts on this book….
Here’s a good review of this book at Jog The Blog which I mainly agree with.

I like it myself a lot, it actually is very funny in places. A lot of the humour comes from the way CF draws some of the characters, I like Naptha, the little archer fellow, and find the way he is drawn intrinsically funny. He’s drawn in a very childlike way. The colour sections are lovely looking, and I don’t think it goes to far away from trying to tell a story and into just random stoner type nonsense which is my worry with this kind of comic.

Emmanuel Guibert - Alan's War

This is a very good book and is the story of Alan Cope's Second World War experiences as a young GI. The drawing is very interesting, I read on the Comics Reporter that he first draws in water and then adds ink to the water to create his special effects. They look a bit like old photographs or perhaps murky photocopies of old photographs. It's a very strange effect i've never seen in a comic before. The faces are very simple but very precise, as are all the vehicles, tanks and uniforms. Alan Cope doesn't see much combat, I think he only gets shot at once, and talks in a very calm and measured way, I guess it's because he is talking about the war many years later when he's had a long time to think about everything, though he does see some horrible things happen, usually by accident. A lot of it is him talking about all the people he met during the war and how he tries to get back in touch with them later. I really enjoyed the book. Guibert talks about another book he is doing, about Cope's childhood in California, and I'd really like to see that too.

Sfar Trondheim Blanquet & Andreas - Dungeon Monstres Vol 2 - The Dark Lord

This is a very good Dungeon book, the best I've read for a while. The first story is drawn by Andreas, who I've never heard of before, and the second by Blanquet. They both draw the same scene in the stories, from the point of view of 2 different characters so it's fascinating to see the difference in their drawing, though they both have the same writers.
This book adds loads more details in to the dungeon story and does a lot of explaining about what's going on. Herbert the duck, from the first books, has now become an all powerful and evil dark lord, ruling with an iron fist, and has collected together all the seven objects of destiny, which we get to see in this book for the first time. I think you would need to read both the Dungeon Twilight books before this one though as it follows on from them two.

Bog Wizards 2 Character

I was pleased with how this character from Bog Wizards 2 has turned out. I am half way through it now. He is the leader of a band of knights.

Yoshiharu Tsuge - L'Homme Sans Talent

When I first read this I was thinking it was too wordy to try and read in French, and that I should have waited for the possible English language version to maybe come out one day. But then I read a proper review of it here at Indy Magazine and all of my guesses as to what was going on were right, so I have changed my mind. It’s surprising how easy manga is to read in a foreign language, it’s a good sign about the cartooning I think.

The story is about a depressed and miserable bloke who has given up a life as a commercial manga artist to try lots of different crappy dead end sort of jobs. He is constantly trying to think of get rich quick schemes all of which are doomed to failure, as they are not very good. He is constantly listening to people listing the prices of things. He tries selling birds but his main try for making a living is looking for valuable rocks, the zen Buddhist kind of rocks that look like little mountains. He has a miserable wife and a small annoying child with a constant dribbling nose. The drawing is interesting and very strange, for instance we don’t even see his wifes face for the first 100 or so pages, just the back of her head. There is always a lot of mixing of realistic drawing and very cartoony drawing often in the same panel.

Appollo & Lewis Trondheim - Bourbon Island 1730

Unsurprisingly I really enjoyed this book. Look at the second drawing above to see why. Trondheim's drawing here is amazing, just the kind of thing I really like. He has spent lots of holidays on Bourbon Island or Reunion Island and you can tell from all the nature drawings. The book is about an ornithologist who comes to the island searching for the last dodo. With him comes his young assistant Raphael who is fascinated with the pirates who used to live on the island. They meet various ex pirates who have become plantation owners now or drunks, slaves, maroons (escaped slaves living in the mountains , a bit like the more well known maroons of Jamaica, but not as successful) and other people. It's quite a strange story about the end of piracy and the end of early freedoms on the island as it is becoming more strictly controlled by the government.

Paul B Rainey - There's No Time Like The Present Part 8

There’s No Time Like the Present Part 8 is another excellent read in this series. In this episode Barry is very depressed after his long time prostitute retires and plans to throw away his lifetime of science fiction collectibles. Lots of new details are revealed and some of the gaps from the previous comics are filled in so the story is coming along nicely. Paul Rainey says this episode has ‘sexy new printing’ and he is right, the colour cover has come out very well on fancy glossy paper. This episode has come out very quickly so I hope Paul can get episode 9 out for May as he says he plans to in the back of the comic.
You can buy it from Paul Rainey’s website.

My Website

You may have noticed that my website is getting a bit out of date. It was described by The Daily Crosshatch as 'careful.. it's very nineties...' Also my two newest comics '8 Stories' and 'Bog Wizards' are not mentioned on it (if anyone would like these please e mail me, '8 Stories' is £2.50 and 'Bog Wizards' is £2). Now I have a new computer I'm going to re-do the whole thing over Christmas and hopefully launch a brand new 21st century sort of website in the New Year.

Joanna Hellgren - Mon Frere Nocturne

Wow this is a very beautifully drawn book. Joanna Hellgren is Swedish, from Stockholm. Her drawing reminds me a lot of Anke Feuchtenberger which is a very good thing, especially in the girls complicated hair. Also she does a lot of painting with brushes and black ink to show the dark night brother. The book doesn't have any panels and is more like an illustrated picture book with one or two pictures on each page and all the text painted with a brush so it becomes part of the drawings. The story is about a young boy called Jakob who fears that like his brother he will die on his tenth birthday. While learning to play the piano he makes friends with a girl called Miranda. A really very good book.

West Coast & East Coast

Just sorted out that the very excellent Sparkplug Comics are going to be distributing 'On The Banks of The Mighty Croal' from the cartoonist filled city of Portland, Oregon. I hope they sell well there...

J C Menu - Lock Groove Comix No. 1

A month or so ago I thought i'd buy a bunch of the comics that won prizes at Angouleme to treat myself cos I passed an exam at work. Sadly since then the pound has crashed against the euro so they ended costing me more than i thought, boo hoo hoo. Never mind.

Here's the first one, J C Menu's 'Lock Groove no.1'. There's the cover above, then the back cover 'Vinyl and Papier forever' he says on it, which seems to be the theme of this comic, a celebration of vinyl records. He talks about records he bought when he was little like the Beatles, Carl Douglas (of 'Dance the Kung Fu' fame) and Sparks, then he talks about going to concerts and clubs, doing a DJ set, seeing Neil Young and Pere Ubu and ends with a kind of record review section. It's all very good cartooning and it's great to see something new from Menu. It has such a lot of energy in the drawings, and he goes to see Fugazi too!

The third picture is Mini Mune, Menu's contribution to the Pattes de Mouche series of minicomics from L'Association. This ones a bit old (from 2003) but I bought it cos it was very cheap. It's got funny stories from all Menu's different characters like Meder and Lapot.

Peter Beare - Dangnabbit 4

Peter Beare writes really good one or two page gag strips. In this comic he also does a 9 page story called 'Junior'. The cartoons are very well drawn with a lot of drawing craft evident. Well worth a look. Dangnabbit

Francesca Cassavetti - The Most Natural Thing In The World

I traded Francesca this book for some of my comics. It collects all the issues of 'The Most Natural Thing in the World' into one softcover volume. It's really good, even if you don't have any babies yourself. It's a great looking book, and very well drawn. It's very warm and funny, full of stuff about how having a baby totally changes their lives even though at first they think they will be able to carry on as usual and still go out.
Have a look at it here Fabtoons

Adam Cadwell - The Everyday Collection 2

Adam's new Everyday Collection is very good. It's 40 pages long and collects strips 51 to 100. If you like good quality diary comics you will like this one. Have a look at some here

Also this week I saw Adam's 2007 entry for that Observer Competition which is here and is awesome by the way... i'd never seen this one before. I wish I could organise myself to enter this one year.

Gareth Brookes - Can I Borrow Your Toilet?

The cat is trying to burrow into my scanner so these reviews are very short and difficult to do tonight...

I like everything I've seen from Gareth Brookes in this detailed cross hatching style. I really enjoyed his story in the Dan Lester Monkeys Might Puke Guest Artist Issue.
This one is a day in the life of his job as stock boy in a little warehouse, moving boxes in and out of vans. It is told in an extremely dead pan way, but is very funny. He draws the different van drivers, other stock boys and pigeons eating a puddle of sick that he sees in this day of work.

Steven Tillotson - Banal Pig Comic #4

First in a series of 'what I got in Leeds' is Banal Pig Comic #4. It has a lovely very fancy cover (and back cover too) with every character in the comic drawn in a little box. My favourite stories were the first two, 'Not Santa Claus' and 'Cat Dad'. If you like the other Banal Pig's you'll like this one, his drawing has got better too, and I think it's the best Banal Pig yet.

Leeds Thought Bubble 2008 Report

I had a very good time at this one and have bought and traded some good new comics so I'll be mentioning them next week. I had to get up at 6 so I was getting really sleepy by the end of the day, just got the train home afterwards so didn't go to the after party (I am trying to save money this month as i'm skint).

I had a big pile of old books and comics to sell. I was a bit worried they might effect my sales of my own comics and also make my table look a bit like a jumble sale, but they were fine. Some people looked at my small press comics and other people looked through the second hand books, there were only one or two people who had a look at both, they are totally different crowds. I had some manga to sell so it was nice to sell something to all the millions of manga kids who were there and usually have no interest in my stuff at all. It was good to have a bit more to do instead of just waiting for the next small press person to come wandering round. It's very easy to sell other people's stuff instead of your own work, so much less personal involvement...

In the end I made £44 of the second hand stuff which was great and nearly sold all of it. I sold, or traded for stuff I wanted, about 25 of my own comics which is good for me too. In the end I had covered all my costs and made a bit of money too, so that's great.

I was happy with my cardboard wonder, hopefully I'll find a picture someone has taken of it and be able to post it up on here. I was sat next to Peter Beare and his family who were very nice even though I had to ask them for change twice. He does Dangnabbit which I had seen before at Lancaster a few years ago and is great.

Here's the First Page of Bog Wizards 2

It's not cleaned up yet so it won't be quite this messy... to show more pages would give away my joke (there is only one so far... but hopefully there will be more).

Leeds Thought Bubble 15th November 2008

Don't forget its Leeds on Saturday. I'm going there on the train in the morning, so I'll have to get up fair early. Never mind. I'm going to take a pile of second hand comics and graphic novels along to sell (cheap!) so even if you hate my stuff have a look at my stand and grab yourself a bargain...I'm going to try and make some extra cash off them to pay for the stall as I'm poor this month.

My fancy cardboard stand is finished and will be displaying '8 Stories' my newest comic.

I hope no one thinks I was trying to rip off 'Trains are Mint' after my review on the Forbidden Planet Blog yesterday. I wasn't.. I was trying to make a cross betweeen Jiro Taniguchi's 'The Walking Man' and Bryan Talbot's 'Alice in Sunderland' but no one ever notices that....

Three New Reviews

Richard Bruton reviews 'On the Banks of the Mighty Croal', 'Bog Wizards' and '8 Stories' today on the Forbidden Planet blog.

Third Annual Manchester Artists Book Fair Report

I had a good time at this on Saturday, I sold the same number of comics as I did at Birmingham, which meant I broke even in the end money wise, so I was pleased.
I was sharing a table with Adam Cadwell Lou Naniibim and Will Kirkby

Looking forward to leeds next week. Maybe I will even make a profit there, I am building a fancy table display to hold one of my comics because I feel my table will be too flat otherwise as I didn't book a backing board. If you are there why not come and marvel at its cardboard wonders.

News

I'll be at the Manchester Artists Book Fair on Saturday and Thought Bubble the week after selling my comics. I don't have much money at the moment to buy anything but if anyone wants to trade books I'll be happy too.
Yay, i passed my exam so I can get back to drawing Bog Wizards 2 tonight....

Carlos Nine, Sfar & Trondheim - Donjon Monsters - Creve Couer

Carlos Nine is an Argentinian cartoonist and draws this Donjon book in his very strange and unique style. It really is very different drawing and well worth a look. The people look a bit like some sort of wind up metal toys, the kind that are tied together with wire inside them. There are loads of pencil lines all over them and the backgrounds and everything is very warped and organic looking. The story in this book is from the early life of the assassin Alexandra who returns in the Donjon Early Years Book - The Nightshirt. I'd like to see more work by Carlos Nine, I hope some comes out in English at some stage.

Akira Toriyama - Dragonball 1-10

The first ten books or so in this series are really great. They are so cartoony and lively and a lot of fun. After that I get bored as they turn into an endless series of martial artist fights to win some kind of competition. I got them all in Korea for £2 each so I can't read them but thats ok. I know the basic story anyhow as it's the story of 'Monkey'. The jokes and gags in this one are really very good and the character design is great and very cute.

Moebius & Jodorowsky - L'Incal Tome 1

Has this never come out in English? Or was it in one of them old Heavy Metal magazines, I don't know. Its definately awesome drawing, have a look at the top picture to see Moebius at his best...
I don't know if the story is as great as the art, it might have dated a bit as many films and comics since have used its ideas. The film it reminds me of the most is 'The Fifth Element', I assume this is on purpose. The comic is stuffed full of excellent and interesting ideas. I read this one and then Part 2 but didn't bother carrying on after that, perhaps I should. There are loads of books in the series and lots of spin off series too, like 'The Meta-barons' series.

Old Comics Covers

Here are the covers to the comics I made at university in case anyone would like a look. They are pretty badly drawn now I look at them these days, i'm glad i've actually got a lot better....
They are 'Cannibale de la Luna' - this one had a long Lovecraft adaption in it, 'The Haunter of the Dark' which I quite like still..
'Robs Journeys' - this one had stories of me wandering about and getting beaten up...
'Bride of the Effigy' - this one was a Tezuka rip off / homage with people living in a desert and worshipping a giant bronze effigy - which is clearly a vast statue of me at the time - its very freudian...
'3 and a Half Hours on Milton Keynes Station' - my first travel comic which is just what it says in the title. I must have done these in about 1998 or so... They were all A4 as i hadn't though of making A5 comics at this stage as i'd hardly seen any minicomics by anyone else.

News

I've got a new computer now as the old one was really old. So sometime over Christmas i'm going to have to redo my website robjacksoncomics. It needs doing anyhow as its got very sprawling and confused over time.

Had some ideas for Bog Wizards 2, but haven't been able to start it yet as I have to do an exam for my boring day job. That will be over with next week so I can get drawing again. This ones going to come with a board game...

It wont be quite as fancy as Hotel 'the game of wealth, power and glamour' but it should be pretty good. I always liked making my own board games when i was little so it should be a good laugh.

Lynda Barry - What It Is

Lynda Barry's 'What it is' is a very nice book. Its all full colour and full of collage and cartoons. It is the essence of her creative writing course she has been teaching, and all her ways of keeping writing when worrying about what she is doing. I've been after this for ages, I think it would be a great book to read if you were suffering from the dreaded writer's block, like I was in the summer. There are some great games to play to get yourself writing that Lynda has found very useful. The best one seems to have one page in front of you to write the story on and another page to draw spirals, doodles, eyes and stuff to keep yourself going. She wants to always keep the pen moving so you don't come to a stop and don't try to work out if your writing is good or bad, it's just writing. I think all the rules of writing will also apply to cartooning, no problems. Also there are loads of questions, what is an image, what is a memory. There aren't really any answers, just questions to make you think and get you going. A lot of it is like beautiful poetry, with all the random words and collage on each page. Highly recommended.

8 Stories Review

Francesca Cassavetti has put a nice review of '8 Stories' up on her blog
fabtoons blog

Cover for Bog Wizards 2

My plan is to do this comic over christmas. It should be a good laugh to draw. I will have to have another mini mini comic inside it again, but I don't know what that will be about this time...

Leeds Thought Bubble 15th November 2008

And then i'm doing Leeds Thought Bubble on Saturday 15th November. What a busy month it'll be. I won't have time for any drawing at this rate.

Manchester Artist's Book Fair 2008

I'm sharing a table at this on November 8th in Manchester.
More details here-
http://www.artdes.mmu.ac.uk/rightonpress/bookfair/

Tove Jansson - Moomins Book 3

I’ve got a lot of books from D & Q recently, their new autumn books are very good.
Here’s another one, the third in the series of Moomin books.

I like these books, I used to read all the moomin books when I was little and always liked them, so its no wonder. They have a lovely expressive swooping kind of pen line, and the stories make me laugh. Well worth getting if you have fond memories of the moomin’s or are a fan of newspaper type cartoon strip stories. The best thing is the unique character design.

Guy Delisle - Burma Chronicles

I’d only read one Guy Delisle book before which was ‘Shenzhen’ his book set in China. I’ve only got it in French too so I’ve really only looked at the pictures. I liked the drawing in that one better than this new one really. Shenzhen is all drawn in charcoal and big smudgy black pencils whereas this one is much more clean line looking and finished in ink and pens, he must have changed his drawing style over the 8 years or whatever it has been between the two books. My favourite thing in Shenzhen is that he stays in a hotel in Shenzhen identical in every detail to a hotel I stayed at in Shanghai and drew in my ‘Train to Shanghai’. They must be mass produced in China. I was going to call my comic ‘Shanghai’ until I saw ‘Shenzhen’ just before I finished it and decided the name was too similar…

‘Burma Chronicles’ is a very good book though, in this one he is not working as an animator abroad but instead is accompanying his wife who is working for Medicins sans Frontiers as an aid worker in Burma. He doesn’t have that much to do except look after his little baby and draw his graphic novels when he gets the chance. He does a good job of showing how weird it is to live under a secretive and repressive dictatorship where you never get anything explained, it’s just ‘do this’. All of a sudden while they are there, the capital of Rangoon is moved to a new capital hundreds of miles away with no warning and no explanations of why. The regime is constantly making things difficult for the aid workers who are trying to distribute medicines.

Rutu Modan - Jamilti and other stories

This is a new book by Rutu Modan, it is a collection of earlier stuff than Exit Wounds. I really liked Exit Wounds but I thought this book was even better. The art work is awesome, much more texturely interesting than Exit Wounds and very beautiful. I can see why she went with a more simple artwork on Exit Wounds so as not to draw attention away from the story but its great to see her using all kinds of art materials, collage, pencils and whatever else works here. Nearly all the stories are in full stunning colour, except for one in black and white which is strangely smudgy, which I thought worked well. I really enjoyed this and highly recommend it to everyone. My favourite story was one set in a theme hotel.

Francesca Cassavetti - Party Pieces

Like it says on the first page 'Three stories, all loosely about parties and mostly true'. Another excellent comic from Francesca. 'College Party' about being at college and being a punk, 'Small Talk' about being rubbish at parties and telling people you are a cartoonist and their usual stupid replies (i've had lots of people want me to draw them as caricatures too, its very embarassing) and 'The Death of Cool' about a 50th birthday party. Highly recommended.
fabtoons