Aubrey Beardsley's Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga is a strange confection, I'm really not sure what point she is making at all. Visually she is fascinating but her music and her odd message about "little monsters" don't pack quite the same punch. I did enjoy myself drawing this though.

I drew it as a style exercise, trying to come up with some new print/teatowel ideas. Beardsley's line is fascinating, it is a very simple fixed width, often used consistently throughout the whole page. His use of black and white is so masterful, incredible balance of form and shade. A longtime favourite of mine! I love art nouveau.

Not ultimately sure if I will use this drawing, so let me know if you like it.

Sketch Fiesta 11 is up

It's been a few months since the last one, so I've posted a new Sketch Fiesta featuring lots of Giant Days sketches, the "Sea Bros", umpteen shady characters, and much, much more. Looking at it will make you feel like a king/queen/baron/baroness.

Bonus comic: Whatever Happened To Jive Bunny

I know that a lot of people have been wondering what Jive Bunny has been up to since the last of his three chart-toppers. Here's the answer.

The case of the moustache umbrella

Yesterday I did something rather embarrassing that I hoped you would never see. I drew one of my moustache umbrellas.

As a top artist of today, I like to render objects in a manner that is, if not photorealistic, semi-competent. When asked to draw a house, a small child draws a square with a triangle roof. However I rotate that box with a triangle on top to a slight angle, giving it that "professional sheen".

The one weakness in my visual arsenal is umbrellas, which, if I do not stop myself, I still draw as if I was 4. Which is to say, I draw them like a mad moustache or (a headless bat). It's not that I don't KNOW that an umbrella is a dome shape. I have a wire loose. I have a feeling that I've only ever drawn four or five of them in my life.

Anyway, below, I have put it right. Please forgive me. I've been working very hard.

Tote design 1: RAINDROPS

I'm working on some new tote designs. I want some classy ones to start with. Or as classy as a straw-sucking yokel like me knows how to be. Let me know if you enjoy these!

Giant Days is coming

This makes it look a bit glum! I have written down what happens on every page and it's not glum at all. Once it gets going, it's bananas.

New concepts

On the post where I mentioned my Esther mini-series, one innocent commenter said that perhaps I should do "something else afterwards". Well, I didn't really have any ideas beyond, you know, more of the same, so this lunchtime I sat myself down and created the forward-thinking, tomorrow minded comic plans that will take the Scary Go Round empire into a rosy future. Let me know what you think! The most popular one will debut on the site very soon*!

"Todd Feathers' Journey Into Joy"


Rotund, urbane bird Todd Feathers moves to the big city and discovers that there's almost no one he doesn't get along with!

"Wickid Charly And McGuffle"



Homely office worker Charly discovers that life has a little more "spice" when you team up with a cheerful bird-pig!

"The Agonies Of Patrice Lecourt"



Au pair and pessimist Patrice Lecourt discovers that it's not much of a life when you take a job as a eel farmer.

"Willy Barker's World Of Pain"



Cursed from birth with numerous issues, Willy Barker further muddies the existential waters by being quite repellent in every way.

"Tommy Radickle"



What won't Tommy Radickle do? He's the dude with 'tude who can be a bit rude but is essentially shrewd! Aimed at imaginary tweens.

YOU DECIDE!

* Never

Art watch

I've become a bit frustrated with Twitter of late, it's a quick way to get a lot of attention to something, but they're blips of attention and noteworthy items soon get lost. I've decided to return to the gentler pleasures of the old(er) ways, and the art discovery posts I've been making on Twitter will move to this general area.

First up, a wonderful illustrator from France, Aurore Damant! Fantastic work with kind of a John K feel.

Even though I don't really like cats, I like her cats. Cats!

Post Achtung Baby

When I was mere stripling, U2 released an album called "Achtung Baby". The sole differentiating feature of this record was that Bono sang all the songs wearing a ludicrous pair of bug-eyed sunglasses (to indicate "ironic detatchment") that he has not removed in the 19 years thereafter.



Achtung Baby reinvented rock in a way that every band endangered by the American chart behemoths R.E.M and Nirvana could understand. Late-80s pop monsters took their cue, one by one, from U2, abandoned any individual features they possessed, and dropped singles whose defining characteristic was to be as close as they could possibly get to "The Fly".

INXS - Taste It



Of course, being INXS, someone parps on a ruddy saxophone whenever possible, also this is quite a pervy video which might explain why I never saw it at the time.

Bon Jovi - Keep The Faith



A man will thingy, a man will fall, from the sheer face of love, um, KEEP THE FAITH.

Deacon Blue - Your Town



Formerly chipper Scotch popsters Deacon Blue did their absolute best Bono here, they even got the sunglasses. Sadly thereafter, they didn't have a career. They should have stuck to the songs about sandwiches and that.

Depeche Mode - I Feel You



SYNTH POP IS OUT. SUNGLASSES ARE IN, SUNGLASSES LIKE BONO WEARS. VIOLATOR WAS BRILLIANT, THIS IS AWFUL &etc

These were the main four unit-shifters implicated in the movement, but can you remember any more Baby Achtung Babies from 1992-93? I remember there being a new one almost every week!

Courage, courage

There are some changes coming up on the Scary Go Round site over the next couple of months.

Bad Machinery / The Case Of The Good Boy ends at the end of September, after which Bad Machinery will be going on a break for a little while. While it's been about as successful as I thought it would be on the web, given its long, long story arcs (only long when taken day by day, admittedly) and child cast, it's struggled to build an audience and after a year, I need to look carefully at what to do next.

So, I will be looking to find a publisher who can perhaps take it where it needs to be (into young, impressionable hands). I love writing these characters and the third story is all worked out, so I hope to bring it back as soon as possible.

In the meantime, following a couple of guest weeks where I will attempt to "relax", I have a nice month-long fill-in for you, the pilot of "Giant Days", the comic that shows you what Esther de Groot did immediately after this comic. You'll even get comics on a Friday again.

I did try to write a Shelley story but my heart wasn't it it at all. It felt horrible. I think you will enjoy the alternative a lot more, I have been working on the mechanics it for weeks. Thinking extremely hard... about how to rock your WORLD.

FILL-IN BRITAIN

I've been working on Bad Machinery for about a year straight without a break and need a couple of weeks off, so I would like to ask if anyone wants to do a guest strip for me. This isn't a blind call for entries, as if I don't know your work I can't just say go for it, you know, in case of problems. But drop me a line at john@scarygoround.com if you have a plan for the empty space and hopefully I can fill two weeks with ease.

* Strip can be Bad Machinery or Scary Go Round based
* 880px wide max, 662px high minimum
* Deadline September 25th
* Any questions, post a comment!


The only certain recompense is a link back to your work, and my gratitude, but if you meet me in person I will shower you with rewards.

Influence Map

UPDATE: I have filled two weeks' worth of comics, so entries for this are now closed.

This is a great meme that I came to via Aaron Diaz's Indistinguishable From Magic blog. It's my influence map! Click on the graphic for a closer look.

Lois & Clark sadly not pictured

I love Smallville. I can't believe it's run for nine seasons. Anything that runs for so long will have its ups and downs but I still enjoy it. Here's a comic... about SMALLVILLE.

Monday is treat day

In a recent exchange of ideas in a secluded internet zone (maybe a newsgroup or a BBS, not sure), Aaron Diaz of Dresden Codak fame used his powers on the original pencils of this panel...

...and made this!

Obviously I was very excited about this and did a kind of ungainly victory dance. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! If you want to have a go with the same panel, you can download the pencils for it by clicking on the picture below.

Why not post your efforts in the comments for this thread? Do you have the skills of a powerful wizard? Or just want to practice? Have a go, Joe! Here's the original comic as it ran on June 30th.

Ms Tackleford Beauty Pageant

After a brief survey of whether it was "sexy" or "sexist", you can now get my Ms Tackleford Beauty Pageant poster. £7.50, as close to daylight robbery as the law will currently allow.



As you will plainly see, Esther has gone for full black metal regalia and good on her. It was fun to draw Natalie and Moon again, characters of the past! And as you can see, Erin is up to no good with her unique brand of bad-tempered hellfire. In case you are interested, Shelley won, with a brutal speech about the plight of the narwhal tipping the scales in her favour.

Everyday Guest Strip

Here's a guest "The Everyday" comic I did for my friend Adam Cadwell. Adam is a great draughtsman who encouraged me to do more closeups in Bad Machinery, something that I think has really paid off. You may struggle to detect any of my professional respect for him in what follows.



(Vimto is a sasparilla-style cordial drink that Adam may be alone in drinking past the age of 15)

Writing For Scary Go Round/Bad Machinery

I received a message the other day through one or other channel (telex perhaps), asking how I go about writing the 100-page stories for Bad Machinery. I was never the most careful plotter in the past, which lead to a lot of Scary Go Round stories that petered out or ended unsatisfactorily.

Of course, such is the nature of expectation that I'm pretty certain that any ending will be unsatisfactory that doesn't definitively terminate every single plotline you have been dealing with, and in a long, ongoing project that was very difficult. It lead to a "drift in/drift out" of stories that I didn't mind, because I enjoyed making little worlds far more than tying things up in the kind of neat bows that don't exist in real life. But I was also a lazy plotter and my best received stories were the ones that started and ended properly, with points mapped out in between.

So for Bad Machinery, I made a strict rule to rein in my bad habits - 100 pages a story, with all plotlines within self-contained enough that they could be read individually. I decided on a three act structure to help me get my timing right. This was a technique I used for my "Heavy Metal Hearts And Flowers" book back in 2004, why I never used it again is a mystery.

Before I start writing I will have had a theme in mind, a central protagonist or a location. I'll do research , draw a lot of sketches of characters, kind of get a feel for the shape of the project and get excited about it before I have to have any structure at all. In the past I would set off in a direction and after a few weeks find that I had set myself up something quite dull to write and draw. By thinking ahead in an abstract way, I can avoid making bad decisions on the spur of the moment or losing enthusiasm quickly.

Once I'm ready to write and have the jist of the story in mind, I write out all the plot points I can manage on lined paper. The first act will be very detailed with everything (narratively) I need for the next 32 comics, there will be loose ideas for the middle third, and a skeletal structure for the final part - really just an idea of the ending and how to possibly resolve conflicts.

I'm meant to write 4 comics a week, to draw the following week, but with a strong structure I can often write more, as the dialogue is the easiest and most fun part to do. During the course of writing I will add things in which occur to me during the drawing of strips and they can be expanded when I come to write acts two and three.

Finishing the plot for part three is the hardest part of the writing because I have to make sure I finish everything and balance plot against dialogue. But it's a problem solving exercise that I've come to enjoy more and more over the years.

By keeping parts two and three loose until I get nearer to them, I get the benefit of both knowing where I'm going, and knowing that I have time to deviate from that path.

Unlike drawing, where I have to sit in one place in peace and quiet, I plot and write dialogue all over the place, often when I'm out and about. Nothing stops that part of my mind like modern distractions so I try to get as far away from the Internet as possible whenever I can. I've done this more and more in the last year and hopefully the results are evident.

I'm always happy to answer writing questions if people need help.

Esther Project colour tests

Still doesn't have a title, but it certainly has HAIRCUTS.

Vector afternoon

I was getting the original Scary Go Round story, "Gas", ready for publication this afternoon. It's eight years old and hard for me to look at now - that's a lot of water under the bridge! But I found when I was making the 6-panel pages into fours that I had to make a couple of extra panels to fill gaps.

What an exercise in finding out where consistency ends and vanity begins! A lot has changed in eight years. You can see the panels below and make your own mind up. I think vanity won.

The first panel is one of the originals. The other two are new.

PIE

I'll be putting this up for sale on Monday after a weekend of sober reflection and crust-gnawing.