Monday, November 27, 2006

Goats 2000

Today is the 2000th Goats comic at goats.com, on the internet! Jon Rosenberg gave me my big break in "web comics" when I was just a callow youth on Geocities with 47 hits a day. He even came to England in 1999 to teach me the secret "web comics" lore and I reciprocated by introducing him to a drink that is now considered socially unacceptable by many in my land! It was a cultural exchange of ideas that has continued to this day.

In many ways Jon is the grandfather of popular comics on the internet. He opened what some might describe as a MAGIC DOOR. Now he can't close it, no matter how hard he tries. Congratulations Jon Rosenberg, congratulations on this thing that you have done.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Kind of an old school machine

I made some Machine Man wallpaper to pay tribute to the 1980s Marvel robot guy. You can download it if you want to make it your desktop!

I don't make wallpapers for public consumption any more because there are so many different screen sizes, so you will be on your own when it comes to resizing it. Just be brave.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Bristles

I thought it might be nice to ink with a brush pen, for a side project. You know, for fun! Of a whole test page, here's the part I deem acceptable for public consumption. The rest was a mess. But it was quite late.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Dancing about architecture

Please may I continue to apologise for the sparse updates on my blog. In the second half of the year I have been short of spare mental energy, mostly due to concentrating very hard on drawing comics. No matter how many years I spend drawing, it seldom feels like a beautiful and natural process to me.

I had a fine dream the other day where I managed to make another one of my stand-alone books for people, unchained to the exhausting meter of daily comics. But dream it will have to remain because while I would start on page one declaring this a thing of simple beauty and a joy forever, by page six it would be punk rock mayhem, every panel a mess of cross-hatching and intemperate haiku. I may have to attend some kind of retreat in order to remember how not to fill every page up with madness.

As the end of the year looms, thoughts turn to my end of year charts. This year I must must must remember not to elect something baroque and virtually unlistenable to the top slot. The year I stated that "Blueberry Boat" by the Fiery Furnaces was the best release of the year remains a critical low point. You could easily argue that there were about 6 very very good minutes among the 77 on that particular long-player, though ascertaining which ones they were took an awful lot of effort.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Changing course

Well, I did enjoy those US mid-term elections. Nothing fills me with excitement like the sound of FREEDOM across the Atlantic. I saw the mighty eagle on the wing this morning and smelled change in the air.

To celebrate all this unbridled freedom, I had a photo-shoot to produce a new publicity photo for upcoming interviews, profile pieces etc. This was my first session with a professional photographer but I'm quietly pleased with the results (below).

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Rival Schools - United By Fate

In a sense this is wretched, but I was so pleased by the generic city centre tones and barely veiled sentiment that it simply could not be stopped. Ten seconds after I drew it I was clapping like a big baby.



I remember back in '00 when emo was duking it out with crustcore to be number one*. That was a scene. These days crustcore has to hang out in the kitchen at parties with math rock and "drones".

* Number one hardcore punk offshoot enjoyed by people not wearing shirts slamming into one another.