Page Two of 'Gas Giant'

This is how the second page looks at the moment. I am happy with panel 8 with the spaceship taking off.

'Gin Palace 2' and 'Bastards 2' Reviews

Rob Clough reviews 'Gin Palace 2' and 'Bastards 2' on The Comics Journal today.

First Page of 'Gas Giant'

This is the first page of my new story set in space called 'Gas Giant'. It's going ok so far. Its not cleaned up or anything.

What's Pedro Doing?

He's licking a giant icicle for a cool refreshing drink.

I am Eating Ice Cream in the snow

Here I am eating ice cream in the snow at Hoghton Tower Farmers Market on Sunday, trying to drum up trade. I am pulling a silly face as it's cold. Ice cream sales were low but we sold out of our lovely black peas, so that was good. No more markets now till the 15th of January so I feel more Christmassy.

'Gin Palace 2' Review

Here's a very nice review of 'Gin Palace 2' up today on Optical Sloth.

Best Comics of the Year 2010

Here's my best (or favourite) comics of the year list, 2010.


'There's No Time Like The Present' by Paul Rainey. Now this 13 part series is finished I am definately putting it on my best comics of the year list. It's great.

'Weathercraft' by Jim Woodring. really enjoyed this. I bought it at TCAF and then got to hear him talk all about it, which added a lot to the enjoyment.

'AX' was a really good anthology of manga. Some I really liked, some didn't do anything for me, but it was all very interesting and made me want to go and draw more comics.

'Make Me a Woman' by Vanessa Davis was my favourite autobiographical comic book of the year.
'Driven by Lemons' by Josh Cotter. This came out last year but I read it on New Years Eve so I'm putting it on this years list. So there.

My favourite film of the year was Robert Rodriguez's 'Machete'. I loved that film, it was like it was made specially for me...

Benjamin Marra - The Incredibly Fantastic Adventures of Maureen Dowd

This is the brilliant new comic from Benjamin Marra. I didn't know who Maureen Dowd was but apparently she works for the New York Times as a columnist. It didn't matter with the story, it was still very funny.
Maureen has to fight off assassins sent by the evil Dick Cheney and try and get her column finished for the next issue of the newspaper, while trying to be on time for her date with George Clooney. Her editor keeps phoning her up and shouting 'Where's that damn column? Wait a minute, Maureen, is that gunshots I can hear in the background, AGAIN?' It is awesome. The author photo and biography on the inside back cover are the best yet, but I'm not going to show it here, you will have to buy a copy from Benjamin Marra's website. Highly recommended.

Garen Ewing - Rainbow Orchid 2

This was very enjoyable. I was going to buy it at Leeds but was too poor so I got a cheap copy off Amazon. Garen draws the action and excitement really well, with very cleverly set up fight scenes. It's all going to finish in the next episode so I'm looking forward to that. I think it will work really well read through all at once, just like a Tintin book. Here's a good review of it from Paul Rainey's excellent new review site Comics on the Ration.

Comical Animal

The first proper issue of 'Comical Animal' is out today. It's very good and there are loads of cartoons! Why not go and have a look at it. I've done a story for it called 'Pandas at Work'.

'As Far Back as I Can Remember I Always Wanted to be a Ventriloquist'

I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote down this one page story. Click on them to see them bigger.

Good Grief

I took some copies of 'Gin Palace 2' and 'Bastards' to the new 'Good Grief' shop yesterday. Why not go and buy some?

Not One For Knocking On #1 Exhibition

Yesterday I went to see Oliver East's exhibition 'Not One For Knocking On #1' It was a very good exhibition with four artists in a room in an interesting old mill.

Warren Craghead was my favourite of the artists. Here are some cubes he has made that you can download on the internet and print out yourself. They are from different times, like one says 1970, one says 2030 and so on and show things from his life at the different times, like being a kid or being very old. He also had some pages from his very interesting books.

Craig Atkinson runs 'Cafe Royal' books. He had some colour pictures in the show. Here's one of them. Reminded me a bit of David Shrigley.

These are Warren Craghead's pages from that 'Abstract Comics' anthology that Fantagraphics brought out.

Malcy Duff had drawn this sequence of pages specially for the show. Some of the pages are drawn on really intricately with clear varnish. They are hard to see unless the light is shining on them right, they are the pages on here that look blank. This was my favourite thing I have seen from Malcy Duff.
I thought I had something by Warren Craghead on my shelves, here's a bit of a story he drew with Ted May that I have in an old SPX Expo 2000 book.

Blaise Lamee had done a funny internet piece called 'Tintin in China' that was on a laptop. Apparently he has given up doing physical work. I liked his pages from the catalogue.

Not One for Knocking On #2 sounds cool too, with Frank Santoro and John Porcellino, so I will go and see that in February. The catalogue for this exhibition is very good, most of the work in it is not in the show so why not buy one from Oliver or from Good Grief.

Bruce Lee

As it would have been Bruce Lee's 70th birthday today I thought iId post up the cover of this cool Korean Alternative comic anthology. Cool, eh. It was a good anthology too.

Lots of Comics For Sale in my Shop

Just a reminder that there are lots of comics for sale in my online shop at my website. Such as 'Goblin Hall' £3, 'Gin Palace 1' £2.50 and 'Gin Palace 2' £3. All with free postage in the UK and Europe, or just a pound postage to anywhere else in the world.

New Back Cover for 'The Gods Must Be Bastards'

This is going to be a new back cover for 'The Gods Must be Bastards'. Can you tell I've been watching that series on the Ancient Greeks on the tele? (Actual picture is better than this poor quality scan)

Haul of Stuff from Leeds Thoughtbubble

Here's my haul of stuff from Leeds. I mostly got them by trades, except for the fancy 'Sleepyheads' book from Blank Slate. I haven't read that one yet, I had a flick through and looked at the drawing but it needs closer inspection...

I have Dan Berry's 'Shoulder to Shoulder with Pavlov' which is his comic of his standup comedy routine from 2006. Some of the jokes are very funny. Its weird though to read a standup comedy routine as a comic. I was thinking the other week after reading the Stewart Lee book about the similarities between standup comedy and comics. I think the difference is

the timing (sorry couldn't resist that bad joke), I kept flicking about a bit when reading it as you do with comics, maybe one picture a page would make it more like standup, or some sort of heavy grid pattern. It's very interesting to think about and a good comic.

I also got Thom Ferrier's 'Fear of Failure' about Doctor Lois Pritchard about her having a hard time as a GP in a small Welsh town. I liked the pages with loads of tiny panels to show the days passing with all the hundreds of patients, and I really like the heavy black lines Thom draws round the characters. I'll be interested to see what happens in the next part.

I got Simon M.'s 'Smoo #3' which is the best Smoo Comic yet, I thought. Well worth going and buying.

Lastly I got Nick Soucek's 'To Share is to Divide' which is a cool little comic with nice grey tones. I like his character design too and it's a good story.

Thought Bubble Report - Happy Part

I met a lot of cool people I've been talking to on twitter and by e-mails that I hadn't met before in person such as Simon M, Nick S., Dan Berry, Thom Ferrier and lots of others and traded a pile of comics for some really good looking stuff in return. I'll have a read of it next week. Also it was great to see Colin Mathieson again from Accent UK who I haven't seen for a couple of years.

The after show party was once again very good and a lot of fun. I stayed in the Jurys Inn which was handy and alright. It was a very long day as I had got up at quarter to six and went to bed at half two.

Yesterday I was thinking I won't go to Thought bubble next year, but now I am changing my mind, though I'm not sure about it becoming a two-day festival. I've always liked the fact you don't have to work the day after the party. It is still very well run and organised and a good laugh.

Thought Bubble Report - Moaning Part

Hmmmm. The first thing to say is that my sales were shit. Really bad. The worst sales I have ever had at a convention. I'm not sure why.

It didn't help that Richard 'Elephantmen' Starkings had the table next to mine and at various times his queue of people waiting for signings stood across my entire table. I don't mind this for a bit, but after about 30 minutes I became pissed off. There was literally not enough of a space for even the tiniest of passers by to reach my stall. I asked him to move the queue but he just looked grumpy and said 'Go and get one of the Thought bubble staff to move them'. From this I deduced that Richard 'Elephantmen' Starkings is some kind of a cock. It's your queue, move them out of my way. It would be easy to ask them to move slightly, and it sounds much nicer coming from him instead of me looking mean to them. I went to talk to the staff who were very helpful as usual and then I had to moan at the queue until they moved. It lost me an hour of possible sales. I probably wouldn't have sold any more but it did put me in a bad mood for quite a while. I know there was very limited space at the show and it was very crowded but this kind of thing can easily be avoided by other stall holders being decent and showing some respect, even to small press people.

-coming soon - the rest of my report which is a lot better

Thought Bubble on Saturday

I'll be at Thought Bubble this Saturday selling all my comics. I am excited, it's been ages since I've been to a comics convention. The last one was TCAF, back in May! I'll have my new comics (never before sold at a comics convention) 'Goblin Hall' and 'Gin Palace 2' and all of my back catalogue. Hope to see you there!

Also FREE CHEESE

'Gin Palace 2' is here

'Gin Palace 2' is just back from the printers now. It looks great. You can buy it from my website shop here or from me at Leeds Thought Bubble on Saturday. It is £3, with free postage in the UK and Europe. Please add one pound postage for the rest of the world.

I'll send out the contributors copies tomorrow, except for the people who are at Leeds. I'll bring your copies along then, to save a bit of postage.

Thanks everyone! Here's the contributors list again-


Andrew Cheverton
John Robbins
Dave Hughes
Francesca Cassavetti
Jarod Rosello
Pete Batchelor
Barry Cook
Rob Jackson
Paul Rainey
Sin-Cat
Brad Foster

Thank you!

Annie Koyama from the wonderful Koyama Press has just paid for my table at the London Comics and Small Press Expo. I am very touched, how kind is that! Thanks Annie!

A True Story of Inter-dimensional Travel

News

I've finished my 'Correction Robot' space story. It's eleven pages long. I don't know what I'll do with it yet, might try to put it in an anthology.

'Gin Palace 2' should turn up from the printers at the end of this week, so it will be in time for Leeds Thought Bubble.

Manchester Artists' Book Fair Tomorrow

I'm going to be at the Manchester Artists Book Fair tomorrow if anyone is wandering past. I don't know if I'll be there all day, Firecatcher Books have kindly offered me a little bit of their table to sell a few comics. I'll have some 'Bastards 2', 'Goblin Hall' and 'Great Deeds against the Dead' for sale.

'Train to Shanghai' now on Myebook

'Train to Shanghai' has nearly sold out again so I thought I'd put the whole thing up on Myebook so that anyone can read it. I don't think I'll reprint it. The scans aren't cleaned up or anything but it's all readable.

A Few More Panels from 'Correction Robot'

Here's a few more panels from 'Correction Robot', my new space story. I'm up to page 8 now, it's going pretty well.

Vanessa Davis - Make Me a Woman

This was a very nice collection of autobiographical comics by Vanessa Davis. I'd read most of the fancy colour ones on-line as there were lots of links to them as they came out, from the Comics Reporter. They are well worth reading again. The book also has lots of lovely pencil drawing pages from her sketchbooks. I am always a big fan of good pencil drawings and these are great. It's nice to read some autobiography that's more finished for a change and pretty to look at, after all the diary style, done in a hurry, autobiography I've been reading lately. Not that there's anything wrong with that stuff, it's just nice to have a change. It's a very good looking oversized book, very well printed.

Maybe the Front Cover of 'The Gods Must be Bastards'

Any good? I'm not sure. It still needs some work anyhow.

Signs for Thought Bubble

I've made my new signs today for my table at Leeds Thought Bubble. There's one for 'Gin Palace 2' and one for 'Goblin Hall'.

'The Gods Must be Bastards' Back Cover

This is going to be the back cover for 'The Gods Must Be Bastards'. I'm going for something much more subtle for the front cover, but I've finally decided what it'll be now. Once 'Gin Palace 2' is back from the printers and on sale I'll get this one sent off, hopefully it'll come out in January.
Actual colours are much better than this, it's a poor quality scan....

Johnny Ryan - Prison Pit 2

Yay! I'd been looking forward to this and I wasn't disapointed. It's got fancy silver shiny covers too. More brutal violence and scatological goings on in the prison world. It's more of the same from book one but I'm not bored of it yet, at all, if anything it's got funnier. It has a great opening sequence too which I won't spoil by telling what it is in case people haven't seen it yet. If you liked the first one I highly recommend it.

'Goblin Hall'

Garen Ewing liked 'Goblin Hall', he mentions it here on his blog. That's good news as I really like his 'Rainbow Orchid' series. I must get part two at Leeds if he is there. I've still got lots of copies of 'Goblin Hall' for sale if anyone wants one, £3 at my website.

I spent this afternoon cutting up cheese. It's a nice way to spend the day. Also I could eat all the bits that I cut wonkily.

Look at my Cheese

I bought 10kg of cheese today to try and sell on my stall over the winter. It's lovely stuff. I have Creamy Lancashire, Crumbly Lancashire and Ewes Milk Cheese. Now I am a kind of cheesemonger.

Correction Robot

Here's the first half page of my new space story 'Correction Robot'. It might look like I am only drawing space stories at the moment but the last one I did was in January. I can't decide what to do for the cover of 'The Gods Must Be Bastards' so no news on that yet.

'Bastards 2 - Bastards Score Again' Review

Here's a nice review of 'Bastards 2' from the Forbidden Planet blog.

AX Alternative Manga Vol. 1

I hope that Volume 1 in the title means there are going to be more of these as this is very very good. There's some really great stories in this anthology. 'Love's Bride' by Yoshihiro Tatsumi cracks me up, it's very funny and dark and was my favourite. I also really liked Katsuo Kawai and Kazuichi Hanawa. It's great to finally read full stories in English of all these manga artists I have only ever read about before. I had never heard of Toranusuke Shimada before but I really enjoyed his 'Enrique Kobayashi's Eldorado' about the strange history of a rare motorbike. Some of the other stories didn't do much for me, but they all have interesting and very varied art at least so there is always something to look at. It made me want to go and draw after I'd finished reading it so that's cool.
Highly recommended to everyone.

A 3 Hour Comic

As I was feeling a bit stuck all this week with the drawing, I did this 3 hour comic today. I had to draw as fast as possible and do all the people with my brush pen. Those were the rules... it's nice to make up stupid rules for drawings.

Gin Palace 2 Contributors

Here's the full list of all the 'Gin Palace 2' contributors.

Andrew Cheverton
John Robbins
Dave Hughes
Francesca Cassavetti
Jarod Rosello
Pete Batchelor
Barry Cook
Rob Jackson
Paul Rainey
Sin-Cat
Brad Foster

thanks everyone!

Gin Palace 2

I've just got the last contribution in for 'Gin Palace 2'. It's a brilliant story from Francesca Cassavetti.

It's all done now so tomorrow I'll put them all in order and then send it off to the printers. Thanks everyone! It will be 56 pages long with colour covers.

Gin Palace 2

Today I got a three page story from Andrew Cheverton for 'Gin Palace 2'. It's very cool. Nearly finished now!

Gin Palace 2

Today I got a new 5 page story for 'Gin Palace 2' from John Robbins. Here's the first page, it's very good.

'Bastards 2 - Bastards Score Again'

Look what came in the post today, 10 copies of the new 'Bastards' book. They are a lovely looking book!

The long awaited B.A.S.T.A.R.D.S 2 is now available! Contributions are from Dan Lester, Paul Rainey, Rob Jackson, Oliver Lambden, David Baillie, Sean Azzopardi, Phil Spence, our favourite Norwegian, and on the girl's team Sally-Anne Hickman and Francesca Cassavetti, so get ready for a treat. 208 pages with a spine and that.

I've got 17 pages in this book, about 7 of them have never before seen print. The rest of the stories look great, I've not had a chance to read it yet.

If you would like a copy please e-mail me, they are ten pounds each.

Gin Palace 2

Dave Hughes has done an excellent 5 page story for 'Gin Palace 2'. Here's a link to his website.

Gin Palace 2

Just got a 9 page story from Jarod Rosello for 'Gin Palace 2'. It's great! Here's the first page. Here's a link to Jarod's website.

Gin Palace 2

Pete Batchelor sent me a 4 page story for 'Gin Palace 2' today. It's cool! Here's a link to his website.

Gin Palace 2

Barry Cook has sent a four page Western themed story for 'Gin Palace 2'. Here's the first page. He has done stories for the anthology 'Eyeball Comics' and is from Bristol. Here's his myspace page with a video of his first issue.