"Sorry to have kept you waiting"

I haven't been to the supermarket lately, or rather, when I have, I've used the self check-out. But today I used a normal checkout. There was a short queue, it was busy. And as each person reached the cashier, she said "sorry to have kept you waiting". As she had doubtless been told to do.

CORPORATE OVERLORDS, LISTEN TO ME.

If you wish to imbue the grocery shopping experience with something approaching courtesy and grace, do not inform your members of staff to robotically repeat the same phrases, unless you wish to create - and I suggest you note this down - the impression that the cashier hates each and every customer. Nothing says "I'm not sorry" better than the exact circumstances you have created.

The self-checkout is a kind of robot. It generally works well. But that doesn't mean you should extend the brand values of this worthy automaton to your entire workforce, particularly - and I suggest you also note this down - the customer-facing part of your operation. Believe it or not, human beings can tell when human beings are behaving inauthentically.

I have finished now.

My tempestuous past

Few are aware of my spell in the mid-90s as a "hot" artist. Profiled for Wizard magazine, I was described as "the new Whilce Portacio", in an article that memorably warned, "watch out, Trent Kaniuga!"

Hired to create an incendiary new spin on Miss Marvel by incoming ed-in-chief Bob Harras, I was run out of town on a rail when I submitted my first pages. Harras, a strong man when riled, picked me up by my coat collar and cast me into the New York foot traffic, where I was trampled for some minutes. I was so badly damaged by the shoes of the disinterested locals that when I returned, with "Bobbins", in 1998, it appeared that I could barely draw at all.

Little of this formative work remains intact, due to the rending it received in editorial hands, but here's a panel that shows you how my "no fighting, no crossovers" technique might have revolutionised the industry. Enjoy!

Man versus machine versus competence

I'm always tinkering with the way I work to see if I can do better. Working purely digitally has vastly improved the finished standard of my comics, as I was never a great draughtsman and my composition was weak when I started working that way. But there are downsides to it - I have no originals to sell (an important part of many cartoonists' income), and I have to rely on a lot of expensive equipment. The trade-offs are worth it in terms of time saved and the knowledge that errors made in ink aren't fatal (the latter took a lot of stiffness out of how I draw, on or off the computer).

But I thought I'd have a go at inking some of my Manga Studio "pencils" traditionally and the results were very interesting!

I made a "blueline" out of my Manga studio page and printed it out at A3 portrait size (about 29cm high). I probably made it a bit pale, which created a few extra problems.

I had a go at inking with a Sailor variable-width nib fountain pen and a 0.3 graphic pen.

Now, bearing in mind that I had printed the panels out at twice the height and width I used to draw them at in the old pen and ink days; it was very hard to achieve the accuracy and detail I get on the Cintiq, and I mangled a lot of details on the first page I tried. The page was full of tiny figures that I suppose I have become very used to zooming in on to ink on-screen. I had no idea. I'm not sure that I could have accurately finished their features with a pin, let alone a pen.

I pretty much got to grips with this panel, but I was very aware as I worked on it that I couldn't really do any decision-making as I inked, something I've got very used to. It's not like I spend my time deleting a lot of things and re-doing them (inks only take me about an hour) but I really felt like I was missing things as I went around. Probably because I could barely see what I was doing.

This is the original panel as-was. If you compare this to the pencils and my quick inked version, you can see how much of the final brain-work is done in this stage.

Neither of these techniques is a panacea. I enjoy the level of precise-ness I can achieve with the computer, but I can never achieve the spontaneous, exciting shapes I can get with ease using traditional means. All those precise tiny lines come after I do the hard work of composition with a pencil and paper in thumbnails. It's just a style that does a job on the sort of comics I do. If I'm trying to make a point here, it's that once you've mastered the basics, just do whatever works best. But try to keep your hand in with everything.

Take A Break

At the end of this current story (from Monday May 16th) Bad Machinery will be taking a break for a couple of weeks. For the first week I'll be on holiday, for the second week I'll be doing pages every day but not my standard comics, I'm going to draw whatever I fancy at the time. At the end of this two-week festival of messing about, I will return to my normal duties with a new Bad Machinery case.

During "holiday week", there will be nothing to entertain you but the sound of breeze through the twigs. I'd like to showcase exclusively newer, less well-known (to me at least) comic artists as I did Rebecca Head, Jamie Littler and Emily Ryan during the last guest fortnight.

If you think you're up to that standard (or failing that, the John Allison standard) and you fancy doing a Bad Machinery comic page, drop me an email at john@scarygoround.com with the subject line "Better Than The Breeze Through The Twigs", let me know what you are all about, and we can see if I've got a slot for you. Please don't send any finished artwork unless you are fantastically, precociously brilliant.

Erin watercolour

In response to demand for the last batch of watercolours, I just did another one. Just one mind, I'm not exactly spoiling you. As before, to prevent a spate of refunds, it's available first-come first-served by email reservation. £32.50 including shipping.

Email scaryorders@gmail.com with "watercolour reservation" as your subject line and let me know which picture(s) you would like. I'll then direct you to the payment page. If you haven't paid within 24 hours of my sending you to the payment page, I'll cancel the reservation and put the pic back on sale - easy!

Erin (21 x 25cm, on 300gsm/140lb watercolour board) SOLD!

Owl Desk

Important news from the owl desk; I've got this to you as fast as I can manage. Hot off the press, you might say!

"Fun" for Cintiq owners

The reason I bought my original Cintiq in 2007 was to use to use Manga Studio. Despite 7 years' prior daily use of a "trad" Wacom tablet, I couldn't master freehand drawing with it. The disconnect of eye and hand as you watch the cursor the screen was too much. I was far from accurate, and my shoulder would tense up in agony as I attempted pass after undone pass at long strokes.

I had a go at drawing with that same old Wacom tablet this evening as I had been using it for another job. And strangely, after years of using the Cintiq, I could now draw far more accurately than I could back in 2007. While I would never use an Intuos for all my daily drawing by choice (if the Cintiq broke and I couldn't replace it, I'd probably go back to pen and paper), I couldn't believe how much had improved.

Here's a little sketch I did, it wasn't as fluent as working on the Cintiq, but I got the sense that after a few weeks practice, I could probably get perfectly used to it.

I wonder if any other Cintiq users have had the same experience when they dug out their old tablet?

Bad Machinery wallpapers

It's nearly two years to the day since I registered badmachinery.com and got to work on this new deal. So I've made some wallpapers. The different sizes are below!

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Janelle Monae

I quite like drawing Janelle Monae. She's one of the most compelling performers of our age. No one can sing and dance like she can. Her album didn't quite win me over but I am certain that there are great things to come from Ms. Monae.

Foxhole

When I ended Scary Go Round, I promised a new Shelley Winters project, "Destroy History", would follow. Well, it didn't. I wrote about 13 pages, couldn't see how I could write the character any more (given the direction I'd taken her), tore up what I'd done (I write all my comics longhand, away from the computer) and let the destroyhistory.com domain name lapse.

But I still enjoy drawing Shelley, she's a reasonable piece of very long-term character design. And on Sunday I started, by accident, working on a new thing for her. It's a short story called "Fox Flakes". It's not really a comic, it's all in rhyme, and I'm not sure what to do with it to justify working it up into a finished form. I don't even know what form it would take! And it's not drawn like my normal comics. But if you miss Shelley, she might just come back.

Watercolour sale

I have five watercolour drawings (all on 300gsm/140lb watercolour board) left over from my two-city tour. To prevent a run on them and a spate of refunds, they will be available first-come first-served by email reservation. They're £32.50 each including shipping.

Email scaryorders@gmail.com with "watercolour reservation" as your subject line and let me know which picture(s) you would like. I'll then direct you to the payment page. If you haven't paid within 24 hours of my sending you to the payment page, I'll cancel the reservation and put the pic back on sale - easy!

Charlotte (21cm x 25cm) SOLD!

Daisy (21cm x 25cm) SOLD!

Shelley (21cm x 25cm) SOLD!

Esther (17cm x 25cm) SOLD!

Susan (21cm x 25cm)

Martin & Tracy

I received this leaflet through my door the other day, I thought you might like to see it. Something about it worries me.

Here's Martin, hard at work. No bubbles in that wallpaper, and he's wearing a button-down shirt, lending a confident, stylish air to proceedings.

And here's Tracy. Nice job with those tiles, Tracy. That's a wicked finish too - no chance of cracking.

WHO'S THIS? It's not Tracy, and it's certainly not Martin!

The whole situation just has me feeling a little ill at ease. Until I know who the third party is, I won't be calling on Martin & Tracy for any of my painting and decorating needs. 

Your move, Martin & Tracy.

Forty drawings

Here are forty little drawings, give or take, drawn watching TV last night. Click for a better look!

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who commented on the Super Static Feedback Party post earlier today. I have said it before, but I am always surprised and delighted by the thought and care that you all put into your replies on posts like that. On an internet full of yahoos, crazies, loons, no-goodniks and wrong 'uns, I'm pretty sure that my readers by-and-large represent a calming island of sanity.

Super-static Feedback Party

I've just been looking at the numbers for Bad Machinery and they're going nowhere. Let me tell you, dear readers, never has a project vexed me so. Everyone I speak to about the comic is very enthusiastic about it. They like the setup, the characters. And it's a comic I love making. But I just can't put on new readers. With Bobbins and Scary Go Round, the curve always pointed gently, and sometimes steeply, up. But I can't get any momentum behind my current work. It's infuriating!

When I look at the drawing and the writing, I can't see where I'm going wrong - I work hard at both. But obviously am doing something wrong, as I get very little feedback these days. So at the end of each story, I sit back and think, a. is it worth doing another one for 24 weeks and b. if it is worth it, what could I be doing better?

Here's what I suspect may be wrong

1. Kids are a hard sell
2. The stories, at 100 pages, are too long, or too slowly paced
3. There are too many central characters

In the old days it was easy: I read emails that people wrote, looked at my message board, did more of what people liked. Now I find myself apparently getting something fundamental wrong and not knowing what to do about it. It's not that the sky is falling in - I can survive, just about, at the present level, but I don't want to spend another six months repeating my mistakes.

Special presentation: The Mentalist

I love The Mentalist. It's a program about a wizard, I think? Here's a special episode, just for you.



I apologise that there is a lack of some of the secondary characters in this comic but maybe I will do another one showcasing Van Pelt and that if you're really lucky.

London Small Press Expo review

I have just returned with mixed emotions from the London Small Press Expo, a new event held at Goldsmiths College in our glittering capital.

Firstly, thank you to everyone who came down to see me! It is always a pleasure to meet people who enjoy my work, or who just take an interest in my varied luxury items on the day.

LSPE has in effect replaced the now-defunct, bizarrely named UK Web And Mini Comix Thing, an odd event at Queen Mary University that drew a large crowd every year but had begun to show signs of fatigue. Hopes were high that it would correct some of the faults of that event.

The venue (Goldsmiths' art deco Great Hall) was certainly far nicer, and the organisation on the day far superior. So it was disappointing that, with the doors opening at 10am, I didn't make my first sale until 90 minutes later. There were almost no punters for the first half of the show.

The situation began to improve after two o'clock, but this was in stark contrast to the Thing, where there tended to be a steady stream of people throughout the day. It was difficult to tell whether this was down to a lack of promotion, a poorly signposted, difficult to find venue, "New Cross fear", transportation difficulties or simply an ever-increasing number of similar events in the capital and further afield.

It may just have been the fault of the show's poorly-designed website, which featured ample information but made it very hard to dig out. I would be interested to hear people's opinions.

For all my reservations, it was hard to feel that the event cannot return, lessons learned, stronger next year. I still believe that there is a gap in the calendar for an alternative comics event in the UK (in the vein of Mocca or SPX) that draws talent by reputation rather than proximity. Rightly or wrongly, London is probably the place for that. But I'm still waiting.

For Your Consideration

Here is a seaside special selection of sketches I drew this weekend as a thank you to those who voted for me in the Eagle Awards. It was very sweet of you, my readers are the best!

Here I am pretending to be a great caricaturist and editorial cartoonist. Sadly there are no actual likenesses in the image below. But imagine if any of this was real. IMAGINE!



It's cold underwater. Keep your fish warm with a "fish balaclava"! They love it.



I don't think Daisy is paying proper attention in this candid image. Note: Esther is withdrawing £30, enough for a pretty fun weekend in studentland.



Who is Steve Shields and why do his guitar stylings conjure images of a strange, inadequate Batwoman?



Finally, for KC Green, some BOMERS!

Looks Brains + Everything ebook

As promised, I am slowly getting the out of print Scary Go Round books into the ebooks section of my store as PDFs. I've just put up Looks, Brains & Everything, which now includes the original SGR story, "Gas", and a new introduction all about that story - plus all the extras from the 2006 edition. It now clocks in at 163 pages! At this price, lunacy.

Giant Days 2

Giant Days 2 is lightly pencilled in to run from mid-May - not sure as to its length and schedule yet. We will see! In the meantime, to remind you of this prospect, some wallpapers featuring the image below.

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