The Name's... Bondish... James sort of Bondish...

Twenty years ago I drew a series of black and white spreads for Egmont's Know How! Magazine intended for readers to colour. A slightly different style for me, as they were action scenes. This one had a James Bond style theme. I'm selling the original artwork of this one now (it's A3 size) so if you're interested head over to this link...
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204555816505?hash=item2fa07a0e39:g:V18AAOSwQjhlY4fH

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Original CHRISTMAS comic art and MORE in this week's auction!

 This week's auction of my original comic art includes Christmas strips, a Viz page, a Robo-Capers strip, a Snail-Man strip and an action illustration. Here we go... click on each link to see the description and more photos of each item...

My original art for the Christmas with Tom Thug page from Buster (1991)...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204555767550?hash=item2fa0794efe:g:LPAAAOSwp5llY3v3

 

The art for the festive Pete and His Pimple page from the first Christmas issue of Oink! (1986)...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204555824659?hash=item2fa07a2e13:g:Xt8AAOSwWallY4mL

 

The original art for the Christmas Vampire Brats page from Buster (1990)...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204555776415?hash=item2fa079719f:g:eNgAAOSwAUFlY36N

A page of original art from Viz No.66 (1994) featuring my one off creation Streetcorner Sid "Three Lighters For A Quid"... (Mature readers only.)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204555784945?hash=item2fa07992f1:g:VAsAAOSwZo9lY4BL

 

One of my earliest strips, original art of Snail-Man from Marvel UK's Spider-Man Comic (1985)...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204555790808?hash=item2fa079a9d8:g:ZrsAAOSwTnplY4IQ

 

One of the remaining few Robo-Capers that I have left to sell. This page is from Marvel UK's Transformers (1987)...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204555886736?hash=item2fa07b2090:g:dSUAAOSwxyBlY5a4

 

Original artwork for something different. A James Bond style action scene created as a colouring spread for Egmont's Know How! magazine in 2003...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204555816505?hash=item2fa07a0e39:g:V18AAOSwQjhlY4fH

 

Bidding on these pages ends on Sunday 3rd December! Best of luck!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?item=203554298786&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562&_ssn=graphite47

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Carnival time! (2002)

Click on image to see it larger.

Several years ago I showed you some of the double page spreads I drew for Know How! magazine, and now here's another. This Funny Find-It was done for Know How! No.2 back in 2002. The idea being that the reader has to find the people shown in the sidebar. 

This is the image I submitted so obviously there would be text added in the blank areas when it was published. 

If you want to see more of these illustrations they're in this old blog post at this link:

https://lewstringercomics.blogspot.com/2013/03/know-how.html

 

Funny Find-It (2003)

Back in 2003 I was a regular contributor to a kids' magazine called Know How!, published by Egmont. One of my assignments was to create a double page spread every month for kids to find various characters in a busy picture called Funny Find-It. Here's one of them, that has an appropriately winter theme for the New Year 2003 edition. Social distancing not a problem 18 years ago of course (although we did catch more colds). Click the picture to see it much larger.

Two of the characters in the pictures were based on the editor, Claire Mewett, and the magazine's designer, Kate Merritt, as they both asked to be included. (Kate is the taller of the two.) The dog was based on my own dog, who sadly passed away later that year age 18.

I really enjoyed working for Know How! magazine. There were no comic strips in it though, so comic fans wouldn't have seen my work there, but I was commissioned to draw lots of illustrations. Every issue was different, with various topics, so it kept everything fresh and lively. Sometimes my art was re-used for free stickers, which was fun. This was back when gifts were cover-mounted, not bagged and hiding the magazine...

Know How! was a great mag to work for and I appreciate Claire for putting so much work my way. Not many of today's kids' mags seem to feature much originated material, tending to use and re-use photos and art from press releases instead, which is cheaper for the publisher but it shortchanges the readers somewhat. You can read more about Know How! in this blog post I wrote a few years back:

https://lewstringercomics.blogspot.com/2013/03/know-how.html

For sale: Pimples, Thugs, Bugs Bunny, and a man with three buttocks

I've just uploaded a few new items on eBay for auction if you're interested. Original artwork including Tom Thug, Pete and his Pimple, plus a couple of different pages...

One is a huge A2 size double page spread I did for Know How! magazine. I was given free reign for those spreads and in this instance it's a battle with weird aliens on a distant planet. The spreads would be published in black and white for readers to colour. Most colouring spreads are a bit bland so I hope I managed to bring some humour to the ones I did.

The other unusual item is an A3 pencil sketch of several well known cartoon characters which I was commissioned to do for a Cartoon Network promotion in the UK. The license holders have the finished inked art I provided but this is my initial pencil version. It includes Scooby Doo, Bugs Bunny, Fred Flintstone, Droopy, Tom and Jerry, and others.

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If any items I've mentioned take your fancy, you can find my eBay page here:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/graphite47/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

Know How!

I've been commissioned to draw some odd things in my time and one of the strangest was this robot for Know How! magazine in 2002. 

Know How! was a lighthearted educational / activity magazine for young children which was published by Egmont UK. To appeal to modern kids the tone was cheekier and more irreverent than educational mags of the past and was more like Horrible Histories than Look and Learn. So when the editor wanted a cutaway illustration of how the body works she sent me a rough and asked for the figure to be drawn as a glass robot and for the 'gross' factors to be included. And yes - that meant they wanted the robot to have a willy - but as he was a robot it should be in the form of a water tap. 

This illustration spanned a two page spread in Know How! No.5. This is my art before the text was added. The mag was always great to work for as you'd never know what you'd be asked to draw next!

Know How!

Back in the summer of 2002 Egmont UK launched Know How!, a new monthly activity magazine for children. Contents included various arts and crafts subjects and light educational features. Editor Claire Mewett invited me to contribute quite a few illustrations every issue but my two main assignments for the mag were the Funny Find-It and Crazy Colouring double page spreads.

Funny Find-It consisted of one huge busy picture with a different setting every issue. One month it'd be a beach, the next a shopping centre and so on, with the reader invited to scour the picture in order to find several characters or objects. 

Crazy Colouring was a black and white centrespread in the mag, again with a different topic every issue. The idea being for kids to colour them of course. This gave me the opportunity to illustrate various genres including pirates, sword and sorcery, spies, Western, and more.

I thoroughly enjoyed drawing these spreads as I was able to apply a slightly different and more detailed style than I'd normally use for smaller images. Even today, 11 years later, I still consider these large black and white spreads for Know How! amongst my favourite pages. It was really a pleasure to work for this magazine.

I'm guessing that most comic collectors won't have seen this side of my work (as Know How! wasn't a comic) so here's a selection for you to browse.