This is a cartoon tribute to one of my favourite artists, Quentin Blake (crossword spoiler oops) and all those happy Christmases that included the gift of a book illustrated by him. When I look at all the different illustrated books I read or was read as a child (I kept them all and begrudgingly occasionally share them with my youngest family members) it is no wonder at all that I wanted to be an artist. I think Christmas is a particularly visual time of year; its dark and cold outside but everywhere, thanks to people's amazing respect for tradition, glimmers of light and colour remind you of the potential in things, even apparently gloomy things, like the empty night sky only concealing the moon which will shine again another day. It is a season for warm greetings to remind you of the love, so I hope you are cosying up wherever you are.
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For those not in the know here is an article discussing Coleshill's status as friskiest in the land, and this discussion on buried elephants. From my research into this month's comic, I note that we may be a sleepy town but that not everything about us is sleepy.
That is my news. Weeeeeeeeeee. Bereft of a role in life I am scouting about for other useful things to do like rearranging the contents of my garage. Ugh. I loved drawing Longship I hope you will love reading it. I have yet to meet up with Steve and Lawrence so there could still be changes but I am hopeful that it will be printed soon and readable by people other than me and my cat. It was a nice feeling to read it, I printed it out and concertinaed the pages together and got happy. Here is a picture of me doing that. I didn't actually think about it becoming a book and that is the fun part now, out of my hands, off it goes. I think I will do some painting! O yes. When I said the last preview was the LAST preview, I was once again incorrect. THIS IS the LAST Preview. If you saw the earlier ones now you can play spot the difference! (That is what all adults do for fun is it not?)
This is a little ahead of schedule print-wise, but if you are proactive enough to check out my site based on last week's Vert I think you deserve a little reward. Note the answers to the crossword. I am all for social and progressive living (see my blog post about Adair Turner who lectures, to paraphrase "after you have what you need the rest is relative wealth and doesn't increase happiness". I am sure we will move on from Capitalism but let us value peace and quiet, natural places, rural enclaves and not go tearing up the land in such a way it will be spoilt forever. Cities are wonderful and human rich places but one big city would be a nightmare. It looks like HS2 may never happen, which would restore our faith in cost benefit analysis and human collective decision making. Also DEFRA is doing a good job with things like farmers 'subsidies for meadow planting. The EU ban on Neonicotinoids is a logical necessity (we need Bees). So the world may not be in PERIL (for now) and yet we still have to play our part, there is always the next episode.
Longship may or may not have one or two familiar faces hidden in the background. It's probably just my imagination.
Here is an updated preview of the comic I am drawing for Steve Tanner (TIMEBOMB comics) and Lawrence Rider (BEARDED writer). It has been through a fair few iterations which I could post here, though it's a bit like looking at frogspawn and watching it grow into a vertebrate creature which is kind of amazing but then the jelly stage is a little disconcerting. Longship is a 52 page graphic novel about a Viking burial. It will cost around the £6 mark and it will be costing you that very very soon, so start saving your pocket money. Here is a link to six full size pages of Longship: IAMTHELINKCLICKME I reached page 26 in my pencils the other day and decided to go back and consolidate my progress so far. I draw pretty much every day now and am improving all the time, finding better ways of doing things. I'm getting to know the lead characters better and the ship too, so it's evolved. It feels like the lens on the camera in my head has been focusing, and just recently I got the Longship in sharp relief. I found that in order to draw 52 pages of story I can't be colouring every page like a painting before its all finished so I have temporarily done away with colour. It is quite refreshing to be working in black and white, it makes it easier to concentrate on the forms and proportions.
So if you'd like to see, I have updated the 6 page preview. The link is just here. Becs. I have been hanging out in a train shed looking at art -not a bad way to spend a day. I actually went to meet my lovely publisher as I have finished my six page preview and I took the first four hand bound copies (sewn on the train in green yarn) to give to him and the writer of the script I am drawing, Lawrence Rider.
The convention was guarded by three storm troopers and a baby, and it was sunny and great. The very first person I spoke to for any length of time was an incredibly nice man - Sydney Jordan who drew the classic science fiction - Jeff Hawke for the Daily Express in the sixties. Interestingly he had left his original job as an aeronautical engineer to become a cartoonist. He was very kind indeed and encouraging! I will read his work with interest as it is so tightly drafted it's as though his training as an engineer actually prepared him for communicating what was a new imaginative frontier, made real with men on the moon for the first time, it was no coincidence then that all of his strips were about astronauts and aliens. I caught up with the Comic Book Alliance posse, GM Jordan, Kalie Stanton my peer and a writer called Jasper Bark whose website speaks for itself. I saw Andrew Wildman who was selling his book Frontier with the writer Jason Cobley. I met an interesting artist whose portfolio is over at the Welsh El Doro. I stood and stared as Roger Langridge casually produced an incredible sketch, he resides at Hotel Fred. And Lastly I met Simon Bisley, who I think might have made me laugh quite a lot not least because of a small gun he was wielding. It was actually about 1cm long and he was quoting something about a colt 45. It was funny, I forget, he liked my preview, seems to know a lot about Vikings. That made me happy. It was a good day, I was a bit nervous showing my work for the first time but I needn't have been. I'll post it online tomorrow for you to see it too. Well I don't know how often you come here but if it's often and for a while, you might remember last summer I said I was working on a project that I would share soon...
'Soon' became 12 months so I have gone back in the last week to finish working on it (mainly to practice lettering) and as I couldn't post it before, here it is: ALONE. The idea was given to me (along with a few other scripts and ideas) in the form of a short story by GM Jordan. I've taken his dialogue and used that, pretty much verbatim, to go with the panels. This was the first comic I drew where the story was written by someone else. It was a process of understanding the story's nuances and the writers intent and then visualising it to make it something that would work as a comic. I was interested in learning to break it down into key moments in order to convey the action. It was probably a hard one to start with but I liked the challenge and it also has some interesting social comment. Take a look and see what you think. If you haven't already, come and join us for a free comic therapy session - you never know what or who is going to happen with DEATH IN THERAPY. Mondays and Thursdays. Follow this link to join Father Michael as he's opening up... Here is a little taster of the characters in our regular therapy group. Its starting soon... HERE
Settle down people, settle down! I asked GM Jordan for some teaser type worbage for the upcoming DEATH IN THERAPY pages which you will be eating with your eyes in due course, and this is what he sent back!
"It is a wonderful thing to find an artist who has the talent to breathe life into your body of work, Becs has taken a funny short story and turned it into a very funny comic strip. Just what would happen if Death showed up for therapy and is he there for the group session? Bec's work is a joy to read and takes the strips she works on to a whole other level." Sooo, who is death and what is he doing in this group in a stark strip-lit community hall? I am working on a new comic having wrapped up the one I was doing between July-September (which is still to be lettered). Both were written by my excellent friend and agent (!) GM Jordan of the Comic Book Alliance of GB. This is a very early taster as I'll be posting the pages here as I draw them. Any feedback is welcome as I go. So far I have been fleshing out the character designs but can't decide how much work in progress to share or whether to just come out with the first page complete. Hope you'll follow along once it kicks off towards the end of the month! Until then, I better get drawing...
Becs. I drew a little sketch for the team over at AH a while back, but hadn't yet at that stage battled a 15 page story and my graphics pad skills were still a little (more) nascent (than they are now). I think I have improved a little since then but see for yourselves. Here is the original sketch. If you haven't already you should read the AH story from the beginning, it is as its namesake suggests completely and rather awesome. www.AwesomeHospital.com
Here is a sneak preview of the project I've been working on for the last couple of months. Hopefully it will be ready to read fairly soon! I've done my bit, just waiting for the others now.
I find that drawing from life is important for many reasons, like practice, relaxation, observing the world around me, are just a few. My friend reminded me the other day to go and sketch rather than only focusing on the work I am doing which is drawing of a different sort (more on that soon) and so I went straight out to the garden and drew seven flowers. This page is the result. I am constantly thinking of ways of presenting and using my drawings and so this is by way of an experiment. I am also looking to try out different comics styles and not untypically my choice of subject matter is worlds away from the traditional fight scenes and superheroes though at least this one has flying and almost has a fight! Here is a preview but click over to my line art pages, where I have been updating more work recently. If you are interested in the process I went through, I actually started something on this yesterday but decided to scrap it, as I mentioned this was an experiment. I will give you a quick run down on why I ditched my first run through.
I refer to some recent chat regarding the way in which women are clothed or not as the case may be when undertaking their super-heroic duties. My proposal is more egalitarian.
Ok so the real hard work comes in telling the story but I thought I'd just start with the look and feel of the place and the person... I hope you like. I hope it makes you want to know more? Sadly no one flies in this story. Oh well. Don't THINK there is a fight scene either. See what I can do. Maybe that grouse could get drunk? (Ehem, finer borders. - been getting some quite useful advice.)
I went to the comics launch pad today. It was quite something to hear about how it is done in the business first hand and I am exhausted from all the new information I took on board.
I met the Comic Book Alliance of GB who yes, knew all about Comics Alliance US and were (also) some lovely helpful people. I feel all together more at home now that I have gone into Birmingham and surprised myself by still knowing my way around... My favourite talks were by Joey Cavalieri and Klaus Janson (see above working on Ed McGuiness' penciled Hulk). They have been in the business so long that their perspective is quite esoteric and philosophical by now. It was so cool to listen to Mr Janson get all dreamy about lines, watery lines and ones that start thick taper thin, that meet and merge or lines that just end in a blob! I came away inspired and ready to get back to work. |
The ARTIST
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