Saturday, August 27, 2005

The best news in ages

Yesterday (Saturday) I did not go to the cinema to see Primer because the train was cancelled, I burned myself quite badly on the steam iron, and I went on a night out wherein I took a taxi all the way to my destination, received a text message, then told the driver to turn the car around and take me home.

But today is Sunday and the news is good for the Inglese:

Channel 4 Buys The Daily Show

This means no more CNN Daily Show Global Edition oops we replaced it with Design 360 this week plus four commercial breaks in a half hour advertising "The Kuwait Fund" plus four news tickers and five competing channel ident stamps. A victory for common sense.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

He knows woe

This was going to be a new tshirt but now I think it's a bit too weird. Or R Stevens said it was too weird. Do you think it's too weird?



Maybe it is too weird. I just thought it was fun. Here's another that I like but I don't know if anyone would actually buy:

Monday, August 22, 2005

My album cover

When I make my album, this is roughly what the cover will look like. Before you ask, yes I will have the bubble perm.



Tracklisting
1. Just Havin' Fun
2. The Wildest Time
3. Party! Party! Party!
4. Get On That Dancefloor
5. She's The Nicest Lady
6. Moving In The Night
7. Susan
8. Pains In My Heart
9. Dying Inside (Where Did She Go?)

(bonus track)
10. Enter Sandman (Metallica cover)

My internal artistic debate is now over, I have made decisions.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

For God's sake burn it down

I am away for a week a month from now, so I'm going to run a step by step breakdown of how I make the comic rather than actual comics. Is that the sort of thing people might like? If it sounds boring or niche I'll do something else. I'll try to write some fun words to go with it, you know the kind of deal by now!

I realise that this might in some way destroy the mystique of computer-made Illustrator comics, but if I can get some kid to stop sniffing glue and make a comic about a wisecrackin' hog living in a wooded glade, we all win. Right? Right.

Friday, August 19, 2005

Experiments desk returns

I am still contemplating the artistic process but people have written some very kind and supportive things. I'll just do whatever I feel like and let my freak flag fly, things should be okay.

I redrew an old Bobbins strip from 2001 just for practice, I post it here purely for curiosity's sake.

Monday, August 15, 2005

Magic Christian Music

The best and worst idea I ever had during my seven years of comic making was switching from drawing with a pen to drawing with Illustrator. If I'd been drawing five comics a week by hand for the last four-and-a-half years, I'd be pretty good at drawing by now. I do get better at drawing even working in Illustrator, but not very fast.

It was a good idea because I was worn out on the old ways, stuck in a rut, and anything that makes you think in a different way is helpful. But now it's a bit boring, and vector art is so ubiquitous that it'll be passe in a year or two. A man of the future has to move on. Every couple of months now I suffer a powerful urge to permanently go back to the pen and ink, and here is the thought process that follows:

YES
1. Drawing is more fun than computerin'
2. Sitting in front of the computer is horrible
3. Faces, feet and hands so much easier to do well with the old pencil stick thing

NO
1. Colouring on the computer takes ages
2. I am no good at drawing backgrounds compared to, say, other top comic makers of the day
3. No access to the hilarious world of typography (when all else fails)
4. Worried about what the proles will think (leading to bankruptcy)
5. I am no good at all at drawing cars compared to, say, a 5 year old
6. Stage fright means things drawn on purpose only 50% as good as sketchbook jottings
7. I will mess up my book collections in a way that makes people feel weird

It's tricky, because I'm probably looking now at the same stagnation I was scared of in 2001 - in terms of what I'm doing, I've peaked. I may solve this problem by retiring from comics and becoming a shepherd, bookmaker or owl groom.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

The weeping continues, then stops

It feels very decadent to bury a project like my pack of cards after working considerable Englishman-hours on it but I think it is kind of dead. Now I think about it, maybe it was a bit ambitious. Or expensive. Expensively ambitious, or ambitiously expensive.

What I have really been putting off is another Scareodeleria book. I'd meant to do four of those a year, and I've managed - oh! - one since January 2004. And four pages in the Skellington book. That's kind of embarrassing, but Scary Go Round is so much more involved artistically (and physically 50% bigger) now than it was in late 2003, so there isn't as much time for side-projects. It's almost impossible to write them, let alone sit down and churn out additional several pages a week.

Part of my brain thinks I should drop to 4 or even 3 comics a week so I can work on the Heavy Metal Hearts/Scareodeleria-style projects. Another part of my brain knows that people would be very unhappy and punch me (via emails). What is best? I do not know what is best.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Disaster

The cards are post-poned because I have to pay Les the builder to fix the kitchen floor. If I'd put away £10 every week for the five and a half years that I've been putting off having the floor levelled, I could have paid for it twice over. He's going to pour concrete into a hole, it is extremely exciting. Also there will be "screeds". There may be ghosts in the hole, I don't know.

The playing cards are a pricy business to make because I have to produce them in a large number (unlike the tea towels and other such gewgaws). The art is all done, I just have to steady the money ship.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

I have been busy

Sorry for the lack of blog posts, but I've been working on the playing cards. Now I've made it to 47 (of 54), the psychological process of choosing really does reveal who I like drawing the least. Any fule can do an Amy or an Esther (I've done a few of both along the way), but nothing seems to be able to make my clawlike hands scrawl out a Bentley Quorn for posterity.

Here are a couple of previews (all final ratings for characters remain secret until you buy the set).

 

The other thing I realised along the way is that I don't remember some of the characters' names. Things are pretty tragic in my brain.