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!

The Complete Charlatan Tales

From 2012 to 2014 I created and self-published three issues of anthology-style comic 'Charlatan Tales'. The title was a clear indication that I was largely making things up as I went along. The collected material is now available through Comixology Submit and can be found here. It's 80+ pages of material for only 99c.

Charlatan Tales no.1 - released 2012 - blog post here.

Charlatan Tales no.2 - released 2013 - blog post here.

Charlatan Tales no.3 - released 2014 - blog post here.

The material varied from one-page humour pieces to full-length full-colour sci-fi satire adventures, taking in dystopian poetry and kitchen sink supernatural shenanigans along the way.

I rambled at a bit more length about my experiences creating material for 'Charlatan Tales' over at a guest post on Colin Smith's fantastic 'Too Busy Thinking About My Comics' blog.

It feels good drawing a line under this, collecting it and pushing it down the river in a digital Moses basket. It's good to look forward to fresh projects now.

Thanks to all who picked up, stocked and said nice things about these issues as they came out. Big shout outs to Camila in Orbital Comics London, Tony Ezoyeh and Mark Kardwell. It's all good.

Rip it up and start again.

Crouch End Cartoon Arts Festival - 2015

Poster design: Sean Azzopardi

I'm attending CECAF for the second time this saturday, 6th June 2015 at the Earl Haig Hall, Crouch End, North London. The inaugural event was last November, now it's been moved to summertime to appear as part of events in the Crouch End Festival, the area I'm currently living in in London.

The event is curated by Sean Azzopardi. He did a great job last year creating an event that was fun, relaxed, had a great sense of community and was accessible to everyday non-comic book civilians. So I'm looking forward to taking part again.

I'll be selling comics, prints, original art pages and will have comic pages on display of current projects that are either in progress or have yet to see print. Come and say hello y'all!

A link to a review of last years event by Antony Ezoyeh for the Down the Tubes British comics site, which has a mention of myself, can be found here.

Image: Antony Ezoyeh/Down the Tubes

NOTE 08/06/15: It's all done and dusted, good day out, met some great people from first CECAF and some new faces, so all good. Here's a review of the event from Down the Tubes by roving reporter Antony Esmond (including a gormless photo of me).

Behance Portfolios - 2014

A round-up of images and drawing from the year that was, 2014, over at my Behance account.

Have knuckled down since the summer in keeping a sketchbook in my hipster-lite Moleskin sketchbook, it's been overall enjoyable and hopefully beneficial, at very least a good way to kill dead time such as travelling to/from work. Link to my first portfolio dedicated to sketchbook pages.

Illustration link contains a mix of comic book material, including cover and pages from my third and final edition of my 'Charlatan Tales' comic series, and one-off illustrative pieces as well first two pieces from ongoing series illustrating A-Z of personal music heroes.

Let's what's at the end of the line in 2015...

Beardrock - Charlatan Tales - Review and Interview

 

I was chuffed to get a really positive review of my 3 anthology-style comics 'Charlatan Tales' over at the BeardRock site. A lot of the reference points and influences assumed and highlighted are uncannily on the money. Also great to get faults/niggles raised to give me some food for thought moving forward. 

 

The review was followed by artist interview, which was fun to do and to look back and think about what were the big inspirations through the years. Though I feel I let myself ramp up the waffle-factor a bit too much.

 

The reviewer/interviewer Tony Esmond was a really hassle-free guy to have a correspondence with and he really seems to know his apples when it comes to comics. He can be followed on Twitter @Ezohyez

Charlatan Tales... The End

It's time to play the music, it's time to light the lights...

The third issue of my self-published comic material 'Charlatan Tales' is now out there in the big bad world. I've decided that this will be the final issue of material under the 'Charlatan Tales' banner. As the title hints, this was an open-planned vehicle for me to make things up as I went along and to have an outlet for producing pages of material. The first issue contained 5 self-contained pieces, ranging from a 1-pager to 6 pages. The second issue contained two longer tales at 9 pages and 18 pages respectively and now the third issue contains a single 28-page story in full colour. So I feel, it's served its purpose in giving me the outlet to stretch myself and limber up for doing more (semi) polished long-form work. And also, to be frank, it's been a bit of an indulgence which is getting less and less tenable to throw money at.

Below are the first 6 pages of issue three's story ' The Cosmic Plectrum'. My initial idea was to try and cram loads of fun/daft imagery, concepts and set ups into one story that would be fun and engaging to flesh out, without too much over-thinking or picking apart. The likes of Gilbert Shelton's 'Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers' adventures, specifically 'Idiots Abroad', where it careens from one crazy set-up to the next with a bit of sloppy satire thrown in to the mix, was a main point of fuzzy reference. Along the way, some genuine sentiment and my own half-baked world view crept into proceedings, hopefully fleshing things out a bit.

A lot of the stuff going on in this issue stems from interests and passions going back to my teens; hoary old rock references, psychedelia, dystopian sci-fi satire. Even the character of Spaceman first appeared in a school copy doodle going back roughly to maybe aged 17, and to be honest he hasn't developed much farther from that in the meantime, so this is definitely going to be the last time he appears on the page. Hopefully I can move on to fresh work putting new ideas, outlooks and ways of working into the toybox.

I'm really glad I committed to doing this in full colour, even though this took far longer than I initially considered, it's really made me appreciate the sheer scale of work a colourist has to do in modern comics. Where possible I wanted to ramp up old school garish comic book colouring and contrasts. Prior to beginning colouring, as a main point of reference and influence, I took in and soaked up a cherished, battered copy of Captain America 111 by Steranko. In future, I'd like to display more confidence in using more extreme colour choices and contrasts to ramp up the stylized possibilities of comic book visuals.

It can be picked up in the following outlets, who've all gratefully carried previous copies of Charlatan Tales:

Mega City Comics, 18 Inverness Street, London NW1 7HJ

Orbital Comics, 8 Great Newport Street, London WC2H 7J
Sub City, 62 Dame St, Dublin 2, Dublin
Universal Books, Church Lane, Letterkenny, Co.Donegal

It can be bought online via my Etsy shop and also on Comicsy. Charlatan Tales no. 2 & 3 can be bought together for only £5 (+p&p).

All original ink pages are for sale at very reasonable prices, please inquire if interested.

I'm hoping to consider working on something more structured and more long-form, maybe a 48-page one off or a 3/4 issue series, or potentially working with a like-minded writer.

To the future...

Alternative Press Fair

I'll have a table at the Alternative Press Fair on Saturday 1st June 2013 in North West London, see website link for full details and address info. It's in conjunction with 'No Dark Places' DIY music festival.

I'll be selling comics, prints and original work. It's free entry so no excuses!

London Super Comic Convention

I'll be involved with the London Super Comic Convention for the first time, this coming weekend 23/24th February. I'll have a table in the Artist's Alley section.

I'll be selling comics, prints and other stuff, including a new edition of my self-published material 'Charlatan Tales'. Hope to see you there.

Alternative Press Fair - 4th/5th August 2012

I'm taking part in the Alternative Press fair at Conway Hall in Holborn, Central London. This is a part of the International Alternative Press Festival.

I'll have a table on Saturday 4th August selling comics and prints.