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.

PROCESS

"I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process."

-Vincent van Gogh

Right then. Here's the process I used to create Plate 2 of Page 26 of "Who Killed Round Robin?"

Starting with the concept - I wanted to elaborate more on what happens to people who witness the birth of an Outer God without the proper protective eye wear and seized my chance when I noticed that because of Woodrow Phoenix's perception of what I'd drawn earlier he'd drawn a previously faceless character with a face again ... and from that I got my idea. How we perceive one another's contributions is obviously just one part of what shapes the story, with people interpreting what has gone before in ways that a contributor might not have imagined in the first place. So I figured I'd find a way to cement the original intention a bit more concretely (excuse the pun).

Also I wanted to reintroduce a concept contributed by Colin Fawcett all the way back on page Page 15 (plate 3). We'll likely catch up with Cockrell and Stone's progress at some point (one would certainly hope), but I quite liked the notion that people could be used like trained circus fleas. So I started sketching. And as with most of my WKRR? contributions I just have time for one shot at it, so pretty much what you see is more or less what you get. Straight out of the tin, as 'they*' say.

Once I got the general idea down I then inked it thus ...

.... using Manga studio for the nice big brush lines. Manga Studio is all levels of awesomeness. Try it out. Took me about fifteen minutes to ink fully then on to the crosshatching.

Basically, creating a new layer I went Robert Crumb Crazy. Manga Studio organizes your work into layers... much like photoshop, which is handy as I'll explain in a minute. I then worked into the cross hatching with an erase tool and erased small ember like dots. more on that cross hatched layer in a mo...

I then exported the file into photoshop (you can export your work, layers intact, straight out of Manga Studio... did I mention how marvelous Manga Studio is?) and did a quick color rough which, when I'm doing round robin work is finished colors... but I do probably take a little while longer coloring than I do inking. It's the bulk of the work in fact. I basically color the whole thing quite baddly, with only a rough idea in my head of the contrast I want. So the colors will be quite primary to begin with. Then I isolate areas of the color and tweak them using 'photo filter' in photoshop. Which washes colors through with either a uniform warm or coldness etc. Cyan photofilter is great for deadening flesh tones if you're doing a zombie comic etc. I then pass the whole thing through a photo filter tonal wash to ensure the color is equally distributed. So the over all image feels either warm or cold or dead even. I enjoy this process way to much. It's my favorite part out of the entire coloring process. No idea why but its totally my bag. In the previous panel Penney has set the alien on fire so we loose the usual colors for this environment.

And then I take my cross hatched layer, remember that? Hopefully I haven't lost you by now with all my talk about photo filters... anyway, I switch that to an overlay channel and it burns over the image quite nicely. Then, on a layer over the original inks I drop the oppacity and work glow into the eyes of the damned and the lighting.

I add two additional layers, one with a texture over it which I put on a soft light with high contrast... it's basically a mottled texture that actually makes any overlap in the color seemingly bleed, so it gives everything a marker effect or water color effect giving the color a pinch more depth. I also have like an old newspaper texture which I drop over the whole thing on a multiply channel, which means that anything white is now creamy colored, like aged paper, and pulls the image together a bit more in terms of tone and depth and all those bells and whistles.

And lastly I add lettering, returning once more to the log entry of the previous page, describing in some detail what happens to the skin of a 'witness' who is unfortunate enough to see an Outer God being born (or to even meet one at all). I also use words of Yiddish origin for sound effects, quite specifically choosing schmaltz (which you may know as being used for 'excessive sentimentality' but is also the word for melted chicken fat, which I thought quite appropriate for the sound of someone's face falling off) and schlub (which is a clumsy, stupid, or unattractive person ... not very nice, I know).

For the finished thing, click here.

*more about 'them' later.

TELLING NOT SHOWING

Much of this post won't make sense unless you're reading the critically acclaimed (it's had some criticism and some acclaim, so technically speaking it's critically acclaimed*) "Who Killed Round Robin?" so either get yourself over there and start reading, or nod knowingly and pretend you know what I'm talking about.

Here's the inks for my new WKRR? plate (click here to see the full color version).

Riffing off of Woodrow Phoenix's opening plate for that page I decided not to stray too far from the designs Woods had laid down of the Lickey End House guests. After all, if it ain't broke...

I decided here not to show the Outer God - we've had glimpses of it so far, nothing too detailed, and I thought it more horrid at this point in the page to show the effects of looking at it rather than showing it. And of course the introduction of journal notes... although who's journal notes remains to be seen.

I named the burgeoning regenerating aliens "Dren". As in 'children', because they've always looked quite eerily childlike.

Also I was rather curious as to why Penney wore tinted specs. Well now we know.

(*next week I'll be calling it The New York Times Best Seller, and the week after that we're going for the Pulitzer)

THE ANGEL OF MONS AND ALL ...

With this week's Who Killed Round Robin? I snatched up the opportunity to follow myself again after poor Dave Taylor had to bow out at the last minute. Got to play around with the legend of the Angel of Mons, in which angels supposedly protected the British army during the Battle of Mons at the start of The Great War. Arthur Machen (an interesting chap - member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn) had a hand in creating the legend when he wrote The Bowmen (published in the Evening News a month after the battle), inspired by accounts he'd heard from the front line. In the story phantom bowmen from the Battle of Agincourt are summoned by a British soldier calling on the spirit of St. George.

The Battle of Agincourt again is of notable significance. It's incorrectly associated with 'flipping the bird', that most popular of obscene hand gestures. Apparently the French wanted to cut off the middle fingers of English bowmen so they could not use their bows (a cunning plan!). When the English won they displayed their middle fingers to show they still had them. Nonsense of course, but then so was the Angel of Mons. I thought it interesting though that bodkin point's (the arrows used by longbowmen at the Battle of Agincourt), were fired in sun blotting volleys at the French and yet St. George in Machen's story sent the very same bowmen to be allied with the French in order to defeat the Germans.

ALLONS-Y!!!

Who Killed Round Robin? has been going for six months now as we round the corner at 23 pages with no end in sight just yet. It's something that allows me to try something new - or rather hone a direction for my work. Of late I've been cross hatching like crazy which you may notice if you look very closely (click on the image above for a closer look). WKRR? also allows me to practice my use of color. Odd to also think that at Page 1, Plate 1, which I'd drawn last new years eve, I'd only drawn 5 pages of Dorian. I've contributed a total of 14 'plates' to WKRR?, over which time I've completed a 119 page graphic novel and have tentatively started work on another. These last 6 months have proved the most educational, I've learned a tremendous amount and am absolutely ravenous for more. Over the next couple of days or so I'm preparing my pitch for Zuda, something I've been talking about doing for ages (and not exactly been putting off either) where I'll hopefully be able to put some of those lessons to good use.

MUSIC NIGHT ON STRANGE PLANET

Sigur Rós – Inní mér syngur vitleysingur

Sigur Rós – Gobbledigook

DON'T MAKE ME ANGRY ...

I cannot wait to see the new Incredible Hulk film out later this month. I missed Iron Man when it screened, but I'm setting a date with the big green guy. I LOVE the Hulk and I cannot recommend enough Peter David's run on the The Incredible Hulk from Marvel comics back in the nineties. Truly amazing series. I was more than a little disappointed by Ang Lee's effort, so I'm hoping this new version doesn't Mister MgGee me. Speaking of Mister MgGee, I love the inclusion of the theme tune from the glorious Bixby tv series at the end of the trailer. Awesome.

OH MY GOLLY GOSH!

CLOSING TIME

I love my Pulp and Noir.

A fictional cover for a fictional book. A work of fiction in every sense of the word. Frank Solomon's my chosen pen name if ever I become a 10,000 word a day pulp novelist. Jack Tallahasse's someone I'm going to have to work with some day. Just playing around here with textures and light really as my work seems to be increasingly moving in this direction as can be seen in my latest Round Robin contribution (I got pretty obsessed with the number 3 while I was working on it, see how many references to three you can spot and what they all mean).

It's funny. The way I work just leads and I follow. I've no idea where it will end up but that's all part of the fun. Walt Simonson gave a talk at the Bristol comics expo this year about the X and Y axis of creativity and how your work changes over time and you're in constant pursuit of getting it right. There's certainly an importance in never attaining that goal. It's all about the journey. As I was working on Dorian, I learned a heck of a lot about myself as an artist over the course of 119 pages. I'm sure anyone would. And the next project Edginton and I are hopefully doing with SelfMadeHero will certainly reflect all that.

Got a lot of work to do over the coming week or so. Pitches galore.

PLAY THAT MUSIC!

The Bristol Comic Expo was a great way to wind down after Dorian Gray. Finally met with Dorian's publishers for the first time. Working remotely as I do, I don't always get to meet the people I work for. So it was nice to meet the good people at SelfMadeHero at long last. Conversation has already started moving on to the next big project and I'm currently doing some preparatory work for that along with Ian Edginton. Hopefully work on that will start proper soon.

Meanwhile I'm putting work together for another five projects, two I'm doing on my todd, one with Jay Eales of Factor Fiction, another with Ian Edginton again, but that'll come after the prep work for the next SelfMadeHero outing, and one of which is with Round Robin collaborator Colin Fawcett. More on that too as it comes in, all I can say right now is it's a corker.

11th HOUR PROMOTIONS!

I'll be attending Bristol International Comic Expo where I'll be handing these flyers out for Who Killed Round Robin? like a mad ... octopus ... handing out .... er ... flyers. Only occurred to me this morning that we should perhaps promote the round robin while we're there, so it is all hasty-hasty-cut-and-pasty (did I just say that? Way too much 'Chorlton and the Wheelies' and 'Rentaghost' when I was a child, waaay too much.)

RETRO ROCKETS GO!

"Great googly-moogly, gear-heads! This' been a race an' a half an' no mistake!"

Retro Rockets Go! is up and running over at the Dark Horse Presents MySpace page. Written by Ian Edginton and drawn by me in a manic four days. A race an' half an' no mistake!

Go Rockets go!

WALKING WOUNDED

Didn't sleep last night. Extreme agony in my left shoulder. Pain killers weren't working - electric blankets weren't working. Really son-of-a-bitch painful. So I went to see the doc this morning and found out I have tendinitis. So I'm on anti-inflammatories for the next ten days and grateful it isn't my right shoulder. If it doesn't calm down by the time I run out of anti-inflammatories then they (the them) are going to inject steroids into my shoulder. Nice.

Ya boo sucks.

STICK A FORK IN ME, I'M DONE

The Picture of Dorian Gray is done! Finished it today!!!

I also bagged an 8 page story for Dark Horse which I did last weekend, with Ian Edginton at the typewriter and me at the drawing board. A short tale of daring do, action and adventure. Should be appearing on Dark Horse Presents (their MySpace page) in a week or so). I had precious little time to do it in, given my Dorian schedule was so close to d-day.

I've spent the last two months working seven days a week. I'm looking forward to the weekend. In fact, tomorrow morning, I'm having the day off. Yay! Something I rarely do.

I'm going to find it pretty weird not working on Dorian again. I'm going to miss the old devil.

'Lover's to bed, tis almost fairy time. I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn ...'

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

Well, according to the good people at Self Made Hero and their imprint Eye Classics, this is that graphic novel I've been working on for the past few months now. ;-)

I can't show any of the work I've done on it here just yet, but you can see from the sidebar of the article one of the paintings I did of Dorian. Only the most famous fictional paintings there is. No pressure. No siree.

Click the title to see the page.

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

A Graphic Adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Novel

“If it were I who was to be forever young and the picture that was to grow old!
...I would give my soul for that!”

This graphic novel rejuvenates Oscar Wilde’s classic The Picture of Dorian Gray, the story of a man who, exhilarated by his friends’ praise of his youth and beauty, asks to be able to retain them eternally. When he discovers that his wish has been granted and that the portrait painted by his friend Basil will age instead of him, Dorian’s naivety turns into narcissism and a feeling of invulnerability. Influenced by the decadent aristocrat Lord Henry, he soon embarks upon a career of selfish hedonism, breaking several lives on the way. But while Dorian thinks himself unaccountable for his sins, the portrait shows him the true darkness of his soul. Ultimately, Dorian will find out that although you can ignore your conscience for a while, it always catches up with you... In this dark tale, the master of provocation Oscar Wilde gives a modern turn to the Gothic genre, fusing the Faustian theme with moral ambiguity and dandy attitude.

In other news, we took a trip a few weeks ago to visit my mother in London. I found stashed away in a cupboard two packs of photocopy paper I used to draw on way back when I used to live at my mum's, so this will be my late teens as I was out by 19 .... so a good chunk of years ago. And it was the very best drawing paper. I've not really been able to find any with quite the same bite. So I was really pleased. Back in the day I used to get through so many 500 sheet packs in like a matter of weeks that trees would quake in fear when I walked past them.
I'm in drawing heaven right now, drawing on these pages with my old Col-Erase 20044 Blue pencils (my weapon of choice). Bliss.

ALMOST THERE!!

Well, I'm almost at a point where I can spill the beans and say what I've been working on for the past few months and why I've not been posting artwork of late. All I can say is it's a graphic novel, Ian Edginton has written it, and it'll be out in the autumn. I can't show any sketches from it, or pages or anything yet. It's been a real education working on the book, it really has, and I hope to be sharing some of that education real soon.

In the meantime, here's an elephant painting a self portrait.



Now all I need to find is a chimpanzee using photoshop.

Oh, wait...