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The Corner of Some Foreign Field

Available to view online, eight-page folk horror creepiness The Corner of Some Foreign Field.

This project came about from myself and Martin Hayes kicking over and back a few things to best maximise our venn diagram of interests and to hopefully create a little story that would engage both of us creatively. I've worked previously with Martin on the Aces Weekly serial 'The Gentlemen Ghouls', had a blast on that and was keen to tinker on something else with him. I threw at him random points such; nature taking over, Swamp Thing Moore/Bissette/Totleben era, rural folk weirdness, Alan Garner, Nicolas Roeg films... All a real scattershot of points. He did sterling work coming up with this tight weird little chiller.

After script and inked linework was completed we were fortunate to get the colouring services of Chris O'Halloran, who did a great job I think of depicting the sharp clear unnnerving quiet of a bright warm sunny day in the countryside. Chris is steaming ahead with professional colouring work with titles for Dynamite etc.

And finally Bram Meehan came along to do final lettering on the project, have worked with him before on Gentlemen Ghouls, he comes in, does tidy, solid professional work with little if any issues raised. All in all the creative team were just great to deal with; diligent, down to earth, hassle-free, job done.

Enjoy this little trip in to folk horror rural weirdness...

EIR on Kickstarter

EIR – All Ages Sci-Fi One-shot – Available on Kickstarter from November 1^st 2016

Ryan K Lindsay got in touch with me some time ago to see if I was interested in doing an all-ages one-shot comic. Had a read of the script and saw the potential to have a lot of fun on this project. And I was right, it’s been a blast working initially with Ryan then seeing my linework coloured by Triona Farrell.

Having grown up reading kids comics such as the Beano then the Eagle for a bit before moving on to other more adult-orientated stuff and now also seeing my nieces and nephews growing up devouring reading material, really think it’s important that the comics industry as a whole can offer material to younger readers, to get them on the first step of reading comics and getting them potentially (unfortunately) hooked for life and creating the next generation of adult comic buyers and supporters. If it’s just a case of pulling up the ladder and offering only adult/cool/gritty material for knowing older readers then things are just going to wither on the vine. Well, that’s my take on it anyway.

With EIR itself, had a lot of fun creating the character designs and getting to know the character of the little girl Sasha, a perfect balance of strength and vulnerability. To counterpoint Sasha had a blast creating weird and wonderful cosmic creatures and landscapes.

Once linework was finished, myself and Ryan cast the net out to find a suitable colourist. I saw Triona’s work samples on Twitter and thought her fizzing, popping colour palette would be a great fit for the alien environments. She didn’t disappoint, she really took ownership of the job in hand and brought some really strong concepts and ideas to the project. Have to say I’ve really enjoyed seeing my clean black and white linework just completely explode into outer space with her colouring applied. Since working on these pages Triona has powered on to become a full time colourist working at companies such as Boom Studios.

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It’s been a real joy working with Ryan. He’s just so diligent and hard-working and seeing how much he gets done around work/family life has been an inspiration. He just keeps mining ideas and coming up with leftfield things that really benefit the project. Great to see gears turning for him when it comes to comics writing in the industry now.

Special mention to Ryan Ferrier who just knocked the lettering out of the gate in practically one pass. Love how he designed the helmet’s speech bubble. It’s just great seeing creative solutions from others that you would never have thought of yourself. The guy’s a real hard working pro.

Along with working on the comic pages themselves, I’ve also done a large amount of other stuff for the Kickstarter project; I created the animated promo video above, page designs for the additional material PDF, artwork for additional material such as pin-up and creator shots as well as design and artwork for other pledge level surprises.

Will also be offering on Kickstarter pledge levels of original pages and original cover/pin up artwork as well as the chance to get your hands on original inked artwork of Sasha as well as original inked artwork of whatever the hell you want.

Further details over on Ryan's site, HERE, HERE and HERE.

Get on board!

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Kickstarter: Latin Drawn & Quartered

South American & Cuban Sketchbook project. 

Live on Kickstarter from 26th September 2016...

From the start of May to the end of August 2016 my wife and I threw everything up in the air, pressed the reset button on our lives and went travelling around South America and Cuba. It’s been an experience I’ve been very fortunate to have had, taking in such a range of sights, wildlife, cultures, beliefs, mythologies, everyday lives lived and food and drink.

]From urban sprawls to odd out of the way pagan monuments, it’s been fascinating to realise that wherever you go, decent people are decent people and culturally we all tie back to the same roots of a fascination with the sun, moon and the lengthening of shadows. And maybe the most important realisation: if it can ferment it can get you drunk.

I took a sketchbook with me and along the way, it got battered, bent, damp and nearly ended up at the bottom of the sea but fortunately it got back in one piece. It’s been filled in with pages of impressions, inspirations, in situ sketches and random brain farts which seemingly have nothing to do with the trip. The pages range from very quick loose work to more tightened up pieces.

The pages have been scanned, tidied up and formatted into a nicely designed package. With accompanying notes to shed light on the where, when and why of the illustrations within.

This is my first Kickstarter campaign so have a very modest funding goal and with the way I've priced things I'm going to have a very close race breaking even if this meets it's funding goal and beyond. So, not in this for wealth and fame, just to get it out there. From self-financing my three issues of Charlatan Tales I know it's a serious hit stumping up for printing costs so I hope that there's enough people out there interested in this to see it and support it and help get it out there. All interest and support greatly appreciated.

Special mention to old-timey friend Ciaran McDevitt for supplying the original music that accompanies promo video. Much appreciated.

60 pages

Full colour cover - Perfect bound
Interior pages - B&W/Greyscale

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Deer Editor 2: Fearless - Pin-up

Ryan K Lindsay and artist Sami Kivela have been really successful on their Kickstarter campaign of the second edition of their unique 'antler-noir' project Deer Editor. Great solid product, great fair pricing, a sure-fire thing.

Really enjoyed the first one, it's obvious that Ryan really loves his crime-noir and Sami is just so solid on the art, great characterisations, great environments, just great solid comic book art. I'm sure this one is going to be a cracker.

Here's a pin-up I did for the campaign...

Hopefully there's news down the line regarding a project I've worked on with Ryan and colourist Triona Farrell. To the future!

The Gentlemen Ghouls - Leper Messiah

In October 2015 writer Martin Hayes got in touch with me after seeing a piece I did for Inktober titled 'Pungent'. He gave me a brief low-down for a serial story to be created for Aces Weekly. The boiled down pitch was essentially 'Hammer House of Horror meets The Sweeney'. I was immediately sold as I do enjoy so much stuff from that time period that would intersect with this, movies like 'Get Carter', 'Performance', 'The Wicker Man', 'The Devil Rides Out', grimy crime and grimier occult horror.

It was obvious from the start that Martin had a great knowledge and affection for all this stuff and it really came across in the scripts, reverential and irreverant in equal measure, sharp and funny. All in all I had a blast working on these pages, and I can only hope that comes across to some degree.

I had real fun depicting the time period, naff browns, turquoises and oranges, naffer cuffs and collars. There's something I find alluring about this early 70s time period, the shiny plastic space age dream of the 60s starts to rot and becomes a bit seedier and grimier, and in a lot of ways, all the more interesting for it. Although it's probably better to look back at this time period than to have lived through it.

As I'm living in London, where the story is set, I was able to visit specific streets, specific pubs that were mentioned in Martin's script for references and shots, this really added to me engaging with this project.

Had a lot of fun depicting these characters, especially Detective Inspector Jack Pike and Detective Sergeant Paddy Roach, they can be right arseholes but that just adds to the fun of depicting them.

Special mention goes to Bram Meehan, the letterer and logo designer, who really nailed the look and feel that's just right for this project. It was so good to see the final skin of lettering applied to the pages and for it all to sync in with the project so well. All in all, been a pleasure working with Martin and Bram on this, down to earth but also diligent when comes to hitting marks and aiming for the bullseye.

I'm a big fan of a lot of hoary old music from this period, Hawkwind, Thin Lizzy, T-Rex, Black Sabbath... so was excited to see possibly the greatest musical star of that period making a small appearance early on in the script. He was someone who not just reflected these times but also defined them. When I started drawing these pages in November 2015 he was among us, only to pass away in January 2016. So what began as a playful piss-take is after the fact, a clumsy tribute of sorts. But hopefully it's evident that Martin and myself have great affection for the artist, specifically this incarnation of him.

Hopefully, I have the opportunity in the near future to return to this world of seedy crime and scary monsters and it's main cast of characters.

You can subscribe now to Aces Weekly to receive weekly downloads of Volume 21 which contains this serial of 'Gentlemen Ghouls' which runs over a 7 week period, the volume will also include other work from other great creatives and teams, all of which, I'm really proud to be a part of.

Various Artists - The Beast in Me

Recently, created this page for Tim Bird's 'Various Artists - Pop and Rock' project. Artists do a one-page comic focusing on a song that had some impact on them at some point in their life. Nice to do a little rough and ready autobiographical thing.

Check out more over at the Various Artists - Rock and Pop page.

Awesome Podcast-A-Go-Go

I'm guest on the 35th Episode of the Awesome Comics Podcast. A great fun podcast that focuses on all things small press helmed by Vince Hunt, Dan Butcher and Tony Ezoyeh.

They're really passionate and supportive about all things small press and up and coming creators.

I talk about childhood influences, working methods, my Charlatan Tales series. And work with writers Lee Robson, Ryan K Lindsay and Martin Hayes, of whom there should be more news soon of our 'Gentlemen Ghouls' project in Aces Weekly.

First time I did a podcast so was bit jittery/waffley but they treated me gently.