Original art for sale! VIZ! ROBO CAPERS! DOCTOR WHO!

I'm selling off a few more pieces of orginal art if you want to treat someone (or yourself) to a Christmas present. Bidding runs until next Sunday evening (5th December). 

Here's the listings...

SCHOOL SPANNER from VIZ No.115 (June 2002). 

This was a one-off character I created for the adult comic Viz and is drawn in black ink and grey wash.  

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203727215485

 ROBO-CAPERS from THE TRANSFORMERS No.134 (1987).

An episode of the ongoing strip I created for Marvel UK in the 1980s. Black ink on Bristol Board.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203727223091 

ROBO-CAPERS from THE TRANSFORMERS No.149 (1988).

Another episode of the strip, this time featuring the recirring character of KING NO-NOSE. Black ink on Bristol Board.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203727225556

 THE DAFT DIMENSION from DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE No.554 (2020).

An episode of my long running strip, this time featuring the ZARBI. Blue pencil and black ink on Bristol Board.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203727230602 

All bids appreciated. Good luck! 

 

 

Thoughts on Biffo the Bear

I really enjoyed doing the Biffo the Bear strips for Beano Annual 2023. They won't be published until August 2022 of course so I can't show any more yet than this glimpse of my original art here. 

When I was commissioned to do eight Biffo mini strips I was a bit apprehensive how I'd tackle it, but then I realised that Biffo can fit into any situation. That was always the strength of the old strips that Dudley Watkins drew in the 1950s and 1960s. Biffo could be a sailor one week, a barber the next, or he could have domestic slapstick doing some wallpapering, or embark on a marathon! Biffo is an everyman, or every bear if you like, albeit with a busier life than most, and a life with limitless possibilities! Through it all he's generally affable, sometimes clumsy, sometimes reckless, but he's mainly a good spirited, well meaning bear.  

Although I got the handle of writing the character, drawing him was another matter. It took me a while to fashion my take on him, whilst also keeping him looking traditionally "Biffo". Doing my research with old copies of The Beano I noticed that even Dudley Watkins and his sucessor David Sutherland made slight changes to the look of the character from week to week. His snout grew longer, his ears shifted from close togerher to further apart, and that sort of thing. All comic characters evolve and change, even in the space of months. 

I was pleased with my results in the end though, and I really hope I get more opportunities to create more new Biffo the Bear strips either for the annual or, hopefully, for the weekly Beano.

It's DOCTOR WHO DAY!

Happy Doctor Who Day! 58 years today since the first episode was broadcast. I think I saw it, but I definitely saw the first appearance of the Daleks that followed a few weeks later. These days I'm happy to be a regular contributor to the official Doctor Who Magazine with my monthly Daft Dimension strip. Here's one from a couple of years ago.

You can subscribe to Doctor Who Magazine at this link...

https://doctorwhomagazine.com/

OiNK! in review

If you were a reader of OINK! comic back in the 1980s you may already be aware that Phil Boyce runs a superb OiNK! BLOG reviewing every issue in "real time". That is, he reviews each issue on the 35th anniversary of the day they were published. So far he's reached issue 15, which was a memorable issue that introduced several new stories. Pete and his Pimple began in that issue (script and art by me), as did Ham Dare, Pig of the Future (script by me, art by Malcolm Douglas). A very busy time back then as I also had my regular Tom Thug strip every issue as well as ocassional one-offs such as How Oink! Is Produced, which I've shown above. 

Oink! was a joy to work for, allowing creators to experiment and be a bit wilder with the humour than other comics of the time. For me, it felt like a natural successor to the old Odhams comics Wham! and Smash! Sadly, it wasn't the 1960s anymore and WH Smiths had a very conservative attitude to Oink!, considering it unsuitable for children. Subsequently it was placed anywhere in the shop except the children's section, which must have damaged sales. 

There wasn't even an adult comic section then as Smiths hadn't begun stocking Viz at that point so Oink! could be placed next to a caravan magazone one week and Nursing Times the next. Nevertheless, Oink! did manage to gain a following and it survived for two and a half years, which was far longer than some other comics of the time! 

Anyway, if you haven't seen Phil's blog, you can check out his review of Oink! No.15 here:

https://oink.blog/2021/11/15/oink-15-new-piglets/

As you'll see, Phil also reviews other comics of the 1980s, such as Wildcat and SuperNaturals! It's a good blog so I hope you'll follow it. 

The Suburban Satanists

Between 1997 and 2007 I produced a regular comic strip for Herman Hedning comic, published only in Sweden, Norway, and Finland. The strip I created was The Suburban Satanists, just your ordinary suburban family who just happen to worship the devil.

This is an example of the type of humour involved. I really enjoyed doing the strip but kind of ran out of steam with it after ten years. However, there are a lot of strips and I own the rights so one of these years I’ll collect some of them and publish them for the UK market.

There’s a lot of work to do on them though as I need to dig out my old scripts and re-letter every strip into English, plus colour them all. Maybe next year!

The strip was popular but it received some complaints from Christians for being blasphemous and also from Satanists for not being an accurate portrayal of Satanism! Ya can't please everyone!

Meanwhile... an interview from September

When I was at the Meanwhile comics festival in Coventry on September 18th I was interviewed by students at Coventry University about my career. They've edited out all their questions so it's just me waffling on for ten minutes but if you'd like to watch it you'll find it on their YouTube channel at this link...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1viyeyUR_4Y

Lots of other comics people were interviewed that day too, including Rachael Smith, Marc Jackson, Sonia Leong and more. You can see them at this link...

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmhgGLE_aJkCa7EU_KRN5dg/videos

Festive fun week

I've just sent off the next Daft Dimension strip for the Christmas issue of Doctor Who Magazine. No spoilers, but here's an enlargement of a tiny corner of it. It'll appear in issue 572 of the mag, out in three weeks' time.

Christmas is coming!

I've produced strips for two annuals this year so I thought I'd give them another plug. First up is a brand new one, The77 Annual, based on the popular independent comic and featuring 136 pages of new material. Amongst the contents will be a two pager from me, The Origin of Doctor Plank, expanding on the backstory of Sgt.Shouty, my regular strip for The 77. 

The77 Annual won't be in bookshops but you can order it directly from the publishers. It's just been printed and will be shipping later this month.

https://the77comic.bigcartel.com/ 

The other book is The Dandy Annual 2022, which has been out for a few months now and would of course make an excellent Christmas present. 112 pages of all new material featuring Dandy favourites, including four Keyhole Kate pages from me and a puzzle page. Available from bookshops and some supermarkets and of course directly from the publishers themselves.

https://shop.beano.com/the-dandy-annual-2022 

I must also recommend again The Most Important Comic Book on Earth, the chunky 350 page softback raising awareness of climate change and how it affects animals and the environment. Packed with loads of strips from numerous creators including a new Pedantic Stan strip from writer John Freeman and myself. Available from bookshops everywhere. More info on the Rewriting Extinction Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/RewritingExtinction 

Derek the TROLL still available

A reminder that if you've never read my Derek the Troll and Rock Solid stories then this collection is still available. 32 pages bringing together some of my earliest published strips from the mid 1980s! 

Available to buy exclusively from me on eBay at this link...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203681666160

 

 

Meanwhile, on this day in 2015...

Six years ago today at the 2015 Doctor Who Festival at the ExCel centre. A request by a reader for me to draw Combat Colin meeting Doctor Who. (If the angle looks weird it's because I've rotated the photo 180 degrees so you can see the sketch better.)

I probably drew Combat Colin too short here. For some reason I thought Peter Capaldi was really tall but apparently he's six foot. I always imagined Combat Colin to be about that height too, or 5' 10". Apparently Mr.Capaldi passed by the table that day but I didn't notice him as I was busy drawing him. Irony eh?

Anyway, I thought you might like to see the drawing in progress. I don't have a snap of the completed drawing. The art is with the reader who comissioned it (and who also took the photo). Sorry I've forgotten your name to credit you. 

 

COR!! BUSTER! It'd be perfect for Christmas!

Published a year ago but still available, and now at a discount directly from the publishers, the new Cor!! Buster Bumper Fun Book, is perfect for Christmas. 96 pages featuring your old favourites Buster, Gums, Faceache, Frankie Stein and more revived by today's creators.

You can order it from Rebellion at this link and read a preview of the first six pages there... 

https://shop.treasuryofbritishcomics.com/catalogue/RCA-H0018

This was a great publication to work on, especially as I'd been one of the regular contributors to the original Buster back in the 1980s/90s. I managed to put my old character Tom Thug amongst the crowd scenes too, - as well as loads of other classic charcters. Here's how one panel looked when I was drawing it...

...and how the finished version was published after I'd coloured it and it had been lettered...

Thanks to John Freeman for writing an entertaining script and for Keith Richardson for commissioning it! 

 

 

Digital Biffo

Way-in-advance preview time. I've drawn eight Biffo the Bear mini-strips for Beano Annual 2023 which will be out in August 2022! That's a long way off so I can't show any panels from it yet but I thought you might like to see a section of one panel when it was in progress.

Earlier this year I decided to take advantage of a cheap offer for Clip Studio Paint software and try my hand at digital drawing. I bought a graphic tablet at a reasonable price too, and set to work. 

Frankly, it's all new to me, and it took me longer to draw digitally than it would with pen and ink. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually though, but I was pleased with the results of what I've accomplished so far. I drew two of the Biffo strips entirely digitally, and it took me a while as I'm still learning the techniques, but they turned out well. You can judge for yourselves next Autumn when they're published!

At the moment I've gone back to drawing traditionally, with pencil and ink on Bristol Board. I still colour digitally though (with Photoshop) and have been for about 20 years. I prefer colouring digitally far more than colouring with inks. 

Anyway, at the top of this post you can see part of a panel I've zoomed in on, and my digital vector "inks". I'll use Clip Studio Paint again when I have more time to get used to how everything works! I don't think I'll switch to digital entirely though. I've always enjoyed drawing with daylight on my board, rather than staring intensely at a screen all day, but learning to draw digitally will definitely come in handy! 

ART AUCTION ENDS TONIGHT (TUESDAY 9th NOVEMBER)

A reminder that the auction on two of my original art pieces this evening around 8pm on November 9th.

The two complete strips on offer are...

A Tom Thug half pager from Oink! comic No.20 (January 1987).

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203683333633

A Daft Dimension strip from Doctor Who Magazine No.541 (July 2019).

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203683341341

These are my hand drawn originals, not prints. Black ink on Bristol Board. See the descriptions and photos at the links for more information.

All bids welcome and appreciated. Feel free to check out the comics I have for sale too...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/graphite47/m.html?item=203683333633 

Animal Planet!

Occassionally I contribute to Animal Planet magazine with a comic strip called Bad Pets, written by Nigel Auchterlounie and drawn by me. Two have appeared so far, in issues 4 and 6. (The one from issue 6 is shown above.) They have two more in stock and I've been commissioned to draw another two this week for future issues.

Strips by other artists appear in the issues I'm not in. Sometimes they're mis-credited to me unfortunately but you'd probably spot the difference in styles. (Plus I always sign my strips, so if there isn't my signature on it those aren't by me.)

Animal Planet is an excellent mag, with 68 pages each issue educating kids about the environment and the animals we share our world with. Very proud to be a contributor. I'll let you know when my work appears in it again.

 

 

The next DAFT DIMENSION! Advance Preview of DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE!

Here's an advance preview of my next Daft Dimension strip for Doctor Who Magazine No.571. This is just an enlarged clipping of part of a panel, so you'll see the full version in the magazine when it goes on sale next week on Thursday 11th November! 

There's a choice of not one, not two, but three covers for this issue, and if you don't want to risk your local shops not having the one you want you can order it directly from the publishers at Panini's website. Just follow this link for details...

https://www.panini.co.uk/shp_gbr_en/magazines-comics-books/doctor-who/magazines-and-comics.html 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Original art for sale. Tom Thug! Daleks!

I'm selling some more of my original artwork this week. The auctions run until the evening of Tuesday 9th November. All bids appreciated!

There's a complete Tom Thug half pager that appeared in Oink! No.20 way back in January 1987...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203683333633

...and a complete Daft Dimension mini-strip that appeared in Doctor Who Magazine No.541 in July 2019...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203683341341

Best of luck to everyone who's bidding!  

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