BIRMINGHAM INTERNATIONAL COMICS SHOW SIGNING

I'm going to be signing copies of Dorian Gray along with Ian Edginton (I won't be signing copies of Ian Edginton - that would be weird) at 1pm on Saturday in Birmingham at the Birmingham International Comic Show.

Also, 'War Canary' a story written by Selina Lock and drawn by me, will be appearing in the latest issue of 'The Girly Comic' and will be on sale at the show, so make sure you pick up a copy while you're there.

Meanwhile ... I've done yet another 'plate' for WKRR? As the Astral team take on an Outer God, Mars Mesmer steps up to the plate ...

AICN GIVES "OVER THE HILL" A MENTION

Just a quick note. It's been all comic news of late but here's a teeny bit of animation news; remember that film I co-produced with Split-Second Films last year? Called "Over the Hill" directed by Peter Baynton? I co-produced it, mentored Pete as a director and even did a teeny weeny bit of animation on it.... well it gets a favorable mention over at AICN along with the news that its been entered for Oscar consideration for 2009. Exciting stuff.

CREEPY

A very quick brush, texture and typeface test for nothing in particular.

More news on something in particular forthcoming as Edginton and I will be producing a story for 2000AD in the very near future. My adventures in comics continue.

WASTED

Wasted- Matthew Bryan by Raymond Prado from Raymond Prado on Vimeo.

Great music video. Comics related round about the 02.30 mark.

ALAN MOORE KNOWS THE SCORE

This is just part 10. Check out the rest here.

LADIES FIRST (UPDATED: includes inks)

BEFORE: Drawn using a Col-Erase 20044 Blue pencil (which I always draw with) and inked using a Pentel brush pen.

AFTER: Scanned into photoshop, nuked with 'adjustments>threshold' then colored using numerous, glorious effect filters. Notably 'pixelate>Color Halftone' which I love using (turned all the way up to 11... the default is 8 but them dots is too small for that exaggerated four-color look).

WKRR? seems to be getting back on track after a two week long hiatus. Had to scratch out my effort as quick as Quentin because I've not got very much time to contribute to the WKRR? at the moment what with all the work I'm doing on Holmes. More on that in a bit.

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

The Picture of Dorian Gray © 2008 SelfMadeHero

The Picture of Dorian Gray is out this October. I got my proof copy just the other day and am pleased as punch. Smells gorgeous (a good quality printing ink is like catnip to me) and looks and feels gorgeous too (SelfMadeHero pulling out all the stops as they always do with their books).

The Picture of Dorian Gray will be available from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon .com and Play.com as well as all good bookstores.

THE GAME IS AFOOT...

Right. Big news. I've started work on my next graphic novel for SelfMadeHero and their Eye Classics imprint. I'm rather excited to be working once again with Ian Edginton who's recent book "Stickleback: England's Glory" was described by SFX magazine as a "modern-day Victorian classic". Over the coming months I'll be updating this blog with sneak peaks, probably a few tutorials and the like, all pertaining to the production of this book. The name of the author who's book we are adapting is my favorite author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And the title of the book is The Hound of the Baskervilles. But that's not all. We're adapting The Hound of the Baskervilles with a view to adapting all the books. We're doing the lot. The Hound of the Baskervilles is just the first in a series which if all goes according to plan will be released semiannually from 2009.

The game is afoot.

DEATH STAR OVER SAN FRANCISCO

Thanks to Col for the heads up.

IT'S NOT POLITE TO HIT A LADY

This has 'epic' and 'kick ass' stamped all over it:

37, 42, 6, 2.

More numerical homage on the WKRR? Going from The Mothman Prophecies Number 37 to The Prisoner AND Battlestar Galactica's Number 6 right the way across to the end of the universe with The Hitch hiker's Guide to the Galaxy's meaning of life the universe and everything with 42 and finally back to The Prisoner again with Number 2. Numerical nonsense aside, "Dickie Bird" is slang in this neck of the woods for "word" (so she's saying 'not a word' basically, for those not up on their cockney rhyming slang and not of the British Isles) and a reference to the fact that all the characters in this scene when they're not referring to one another as numbers are actually named after birds.

I wanted to keep the inking effects very 'in camera' as they'd say in the film business, with regard to this plate. Basically, the frantic cross hatched shading level has moved from being something I would normally have dropped over the background on an overlay channel to being part of the actual finished inks (likewise speech balloons).

THE KIRKMAN CRUSADE

A call to arms.

MWIP

I need to do more black and white work.

Following Nigel Parkinson's wonderful curve ball on the WKRR? I stumbled upon this idea just as I was waking up this morning with an somewhat unexpected and quite ferocious hangover. 'Wake up, Number 37' is a pop culture reference type thing (pertaining to "The Mothman Prophecies" wherein a character called "Indrid Cold" (aka The Mothman) who seemingly exists out of time, says it as a warning to one of the characters in the film. It must have got lodged in my brain because as I was waking up this morning it sort of popped into my head like a booming voice. Like the echo of a dream that somehow overlaps into the first few seconds of the waking day.

The number 37 is of course loaded with meaning as is every number and everything if you chose to follow the white rabbit down the hole. From the number of plays written by Shakespeare to a bad year for Antioch. From the first irregular prime number to the number of the beast (37 is 666 divided by its digits added together [37=666/(6+6+6)] ... and technically speaking, its the 'number of a man' associated with the beast, but that would mess up the lyrics to "The Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden). 37 means everything and nothing at all.

Will be fun to see who or what 37 is, presuming Nigel picks up on that as he's Huzzah'd the next turn.

Watched 'Maestro' for the second time last night. A new 'celebrities making complete asses of themselves' tv show from the BBC but unlike previous 'celebrities making complete asses of themselves' tv shows, I rather enjoyed this one as it was about one of my favorite subjects. Classical Music. And it proved that conducting an orchestra is not unlike driving a ruddy great big tank laden with very large guns. Wonderful stuff.

MAY THE DANCE OFF BE WITH YOU...

I love the Darth Vader Thriller dance. You'd have thought they would have let the Wookie win, right?

Which reminds me...

LAST THREE PLATES FROM WKRR? AND AN EXQUISITE CORPSE!

Here's the last three plates I did for WKRR? which oddly, when put together, even though they're divided by other contributors plates in the actual story, read straight through. Out of context, the three plates still wouldn't make much sense, but I do wonder if I'd tried this from the start if I'd been able to pull it off, having one through line in the story that could be read entirely on its own. Inspired by Dave Taylor pasting his plates together over on his blog.

And whilst on the subject of being inspired ... here's something pretty awesome:

'This is a game. It is inspired by the project "Round Robin" in where a series of professional comic artists join to create an unexpected history'

The work over on Cadaver Exquisito really is quite exquisite, so please do go check it out. I was able quite easily to work my way through the story with a translator widget (that's the glory of comics, not a lot of text).

Their contributors include Bachan, Edgar Clement (both of whom have contributed thus far), Humberto Ramos, José Quintero, Patricio Betteo, Lucas Marangon, Francisco Herrera and Tony Sandoval.

FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK!

Rage incarnate indeed. Love how Hulk makes short work of Asgard's equivalent to the riders of Rohan by flying through the air and punching them off their horses. Nice work. See, you don't need a herd of stampeding Mûmaks after all.

BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD

I'm looking forward to seeing this. Batman's going to be regularly teaming up with the likes of Aquaman, The Atom, Black Canary, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Doctor Fate, Fire, Flash, Green Arrow, The Green Lantern Corps, Huntress, Red Tornado and Plastic Man, with Diedrich Bader providing the voice of the not-so-dark Knight. It's also great to see Jaime Reyes as the Blue Beetle.

LION OH LION

Another Plate for 'Who Killed Round Robin?' This time hopefully further tying the Creature Constabulary and the Magical Hat into Zoctarian origins. This time introducing the not so cute and not so cuddly Kodoradomidion bounty hunters. As I currently see it they ride around the deserts of Zoctar on giant lizards hunting bounty.

Initially I was working on this plate in blue, but I eventually figured that Zoctarian moonlight would be red, as you do, so I washed everything through with red photo filter. Also, dropping the old paper texture over the top (which has a yellowed newspaper look about it) and playing with color burn channels really made the lines around Uncle Tulpa zing.

THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL

With all this talk of Gods and revelations I thought it only fitting to open this next WKRR? plate with writing on the wall (Daniel 5:1–31). Carrying on the unclaimed log entry from the previous two pages, I was sort of wondering when I did those if anyone would associate them with the character Penney or attribute them to somebody else. And I've been wanting to bring "the Detective" back into the story for quite a number of pages now, and suggest perhaps how such a story could have such a thing as a Creature Constabulary and magic hats.

When I first introduced 'the detective' (who has a name of course, Captain Noah Arkright), I actually had planned to introduce three. Basil Rathbone, Margaret Rutherford and Sidney Toler alikes, getting under one another's feet... but that would have been a nightmare so I'm glad I didn't venture further beyond the signs saying 'turn back, that way madness lies'. I settled for a cross between Basil Rathbone and Gregory Peck instead ... sort of.

Oh, one last thing - there's a joke hidden away in this one... it's written in Zoctarian across the ship as it passes overhead in the second panel.

If you've no idea what I'm on about then you've not been reading 'Who Killed Round Robin?' Shame on you.

WATCHMEN TRAILER!

Who watches the Watchmen? Well, pretty soon we'll all be watching the Watchmen as it hits cinemas March, 2009. I don't think I've ever watched a trailer so many times over. Wow. The Doc Manhattan transformation scene is really quite something.

Go and watch the Watchmen trailer for yourselves.... thanks to Apple.