Bog Wizards 2 Review

Here's a very nice review from Kevin at Optical Sloth for Bog Wizards 2 (scroll down the page a bit to find it)

The Story of Greggs

Today while "working" I was suddenly struck with a flood of ideas for my story in the upcoming Greggs Anthology. I have started to write out the script. It will be an illustrated tale of 'The Story of Greggs'.

News

Dave Hughes says nice things about Bog Wizards 2 on his new blog Stonechat Productions

Bog Wizards 2 - the board game

Here's half of the board from the board game that comes with Bog Wizards 2 , so you can have a look....

Bog Wizards 2 - now in my shop

I have now added Bog Wizards 2 to my online shop so you can buy it there with paypal (£4 with free postage in the UK, please e mail me for details if you live abroad), and I've put a page for it on my website too.

Some Assembly Required - Bog Wizards 2 Out Now

Bog Wizards 2 - Rise of the Elder Gods - is now finished and back from the printer. I am selling them at £4 each. Each pack comes with a 28 page comic with colour covers, an exclusive Bog Wizards board game, rules and playing cards. Some assembly required (you will need some glue, scissors and old cereal boxes)....

Things Have Feet

Kate Beaton

Kate Beaton's Valentines day cartoons are awesome.

BodyWorld

I've just finished reading Dash Shaw's BodyWorld, give it a try, it's well worth a read and works really well on the computer screen.

Weirdo no. 28 - Edited by Aline Kominsky Crumb

Weirdo no. 28 is the very last issue of Weirdo, it came out a couple of years after no. 27. By now it was edited by Aline Kominsky Crumb and she has some nice pages of her 'Bunch' comics in here. As the Crumb's are living in France there are a lot of French cartoonists in here too, JC Menu (see page above, he is travelling around in America with his now ex wife), Baudoin and Matt Konture. They all do stories about their experiences of America. Crumb has one of his best stories in here 'When the n*****s Take over America' (Dont worry, it is very satirical). Also there are good stories by Phoebe Glockner and Mary Fleener, so it's a very good classic issue.

Greggs Pasties - Part 2

Work in Progress - 'Under the Sign of Mars'

Here's the first page of my new 4 page story 'Under the Sign of Mars' which i'm going to try and send in for the UK Mini Comix and Web Comix Thing anthology. It needs some redrawing yet I reckon. I know a crab isn't the sign of Mars by the way....

Greggs Pasties - the taste of Modern Britain

While I was trying to go to sleep last night I had this idea so I quickly drew it today. I was thinking about doing an anthology based around Greggs Pasties - the food of modern Britain. If anyone would like to be in this let me know.... imagine ..... 'the story of Greggs' a Viz style tale of the centuries of loyal service done for the people of Britain by the bakers, and lots of other stuff about pasties too. Hmmmm. The cover could look exactly like a Greggs paper bag.

Weirdo no. 12 - edited by Peter Bagge

Weirdo is still in print isn't it? They are very good though I don't have that many issues. The best thing in this one is the classic Rory Hayes story (page of it above) 'The Keeper of the Mind - Popoff Hayes the Drug Fiend'. It's a great little tale and is the best introduction to Hayes in my opinion. This issue also has some cartooning by Peter Bagge (I've never read much of his stuff for some reason, though I like his drawing a lot) and a cool 80's Crumb story - 'Mode O'Day' about yuppies. 80's Crumb is very interesting to see, it's a lot different than the better known 60's stuff.

Covers of Popular Manga Magazines from around 12th December 2000 Part 2

Here's two more from December 2000 too. I carried all these giant phone book sized magazines back with me as hand luggage, with loads of other bags of stuff too, I bet they wouldn't let you get away with that on a plane anymore...

Covers of Popular Manga Magazines from around 12th December 2000

Here's another thing I found when I was tidying up...
When I was in Japan in December 2000 I bought loads of manga magazines, as a sort of random selection of the popular titles for sale that week. I think I was doing it as some kind of survey, (I can't remember quite why I thought I should do that) but I've never done anything with them so I thought i'd post em up on here in case anyone wants a look.
Click on the images to see them bigger.

Herge - Tintin in Tibet

This is the only Tintin book I had as a child, its widely regarded as the best one so I did well there. I was never that keen on Tintin, I was more into Asterix and had all the older Asterix books. I found it again today when I was tidying out my room to give me some more room to draw in. This one is a very good book and I'm going to read it again now...

Theo Ellsworth - Capacity

I got sent a copy of this from Secret Acres and it really is awesome. Have a look at the pictures i've badly scanned from it above. It's very dense and i'm still reading my way through it as the pictures are so complicated and beautiful that I start just looking at them for ages instead of reading the story. There's a lot of stuff about dreams in it and trying to draw your dreams in a more real way. Highly recommended.

PS: Now I have read it all the way through and it's great. It's got his seven Capacity mini comics in it and loads of extra stuff about what he was trying to do with the comics and what they mean.. It seems to be about visiting your subconcious and collecting the stories there and then working out how to draw them, i'll definately read it again in a bit.

Here Comes Madness

Is everyone already reading this?
Michael Kupperman Blog

Tiny Bit of News

Secret Acres have got copies of my newest comic '8 Stories' for sale in their shop now so any American readers can buy a copy from there and save on postage from the UK. They have most of my older comics for sale too...
Any UK readers should visit my shop on my trusty website....

I've been to Copenhagen for a few days but now I am back and going to start the tedious job of rubbing out all the pencil lines on 'Bog Wizards 2 - The Rise of the Elder Gods' before I get it printed up in time for the UK Comix Web Thing at the end of March.

Dupuy and Berberian - Get a Life

Last summer I read the authors book ‘Maybe Later’ where they talk about all the problems and questions they faced while making this book so I thought I’d give it a read too. It’s very good, lovely drawing. You can see the bits they have done from their travel sketchbooks in the section where the hero goes to Lisbon. It’s made up of short interconnected stories which surprised me as I was expecting just one long story for some reason.

It’s a slice of life story from the life of the main character Monsieur Jean, a thirty year old writer living in Paris. In this book he turns thirty, meets publishers, goes to Lisbon to a literary festival and has trouble with his concierge in the apartment he lives in. It all must be very autobiographical from the lives of Dupuy and Berberian.

I do think I liked ‘Maybe Later’ better than this book, which seems strange as that is a kind of ‘making of’ book of this one. It would be weird with a film if you enjoyed the ‘making of’ documentary more than the actual film, but I think ‘Maybe Later’ is very interesting to cartoonists having trouble with their work and thinking about what they are doing.