Pleece Brothers signing Montague Terrace 4th April at Dave’s Comics, Brighton

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To coincide with the publication day of our new graphic novel, Montague Terrace, me and brother Gary will be signing and launching off, Viking-stylee, at the brilliant Dave’s Comics, 5 Sydney St, Brighton BN1 4EN on Thursday the 4th of April from 6-8pm.

Come one and all and delve through the lace curtained cover to discover a world of magic bunnies, nervous magicians, third-rate 60s pop-crooners, Special Ops OAPS and much, much more. What’s more (I told you there was more), each copy bought on the night will be specially defaced by a special limited edition of one doodle-scrawl!

Expect the usual enlightened (?) back-chat from the Pleece’s, original artwork on display, cosy-toed ambience and an endless supply of Ki-ora or other similarly refreshing refreshmentation.

Dandridge, The Copper Conspiracy for 2000AD

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Dandridge by Alec Worley and Warren Pleece © Rebellion A/S

Part 1 of the brand new ‘spook-punk’ series, Dandridge, The Copper Conspiracy, written by Alec Worley and drawn and coloured in by moi for 2000AD is out this week in all good newsagents, comic shops and intergalactic petrol stations!

For more info on this new 8 part weekly series and more Dandridge facts, figures and grooming procedures, check out Alec’s blog.

Montague Terrace, Observer Graphic Novel of the Month

Montague Terrace by Warren and Gary Pleece

Just in case you missed this Sunday’s Observer, Montague Terrace received its first great review in the national press as graphic novel of the month. You can read the review by Rachel Cooke here on the Guardian website. There’s also an offer through the Guardian bookshop to buy the book at the specially reduced price of £11.99 (RRP £14.99).

Montague Terrace is published by Jonathan Cape on the 4th of April

Come on in!

Darren Shan’s Zom B City – More Illustrations

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To celebrate today’s release of Darren Shan’s Zom B City, the third instalment in the twelve book Zom B series from Simon & Shuster, here’s three more pencilled roughs from the interior illustrations, all a little different in composition and approach. With the first one, it’s often good to put the viewer behind the eyes of the main character, especially in this context…

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For this one, the newly acquired clothing seemed to be calling out for a Spaghetti Western style stand-off…

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And finally, with a completely different approach. The description for this brief led me to compose it like some kind of warped renaissance-style adoration. You can even see the steeple of St Martin in the Fields, near the National Gallery in the background. This is one of my favourites.

To see all these and more in their final inked form you can now buy Zom B City form today via the links to Darren Shan’s site, through publishers, Simon & Shuster’s and through Amazon.

Darren Shan’s Zom B City

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Today I’m posting up some of my pencil roughs from the third instalment of Darren Shan’s Zom B series, Zom B City, out tomorrow! Personally, as an artist and a general nosey git, I love to see the different stages of other artists or illustrator’s work in progress. Sometimes things can be improved in the final art and sometimes you lose some of the spontaneity you had in a pencilled sketch. On a practical level for this series, I had to provide pencilled roughs for Darren and the Simon & Shuster team to approve before I went onto produce the final illustrations, so I usually have to include as much in these roughs as you’ll see in the final piece.

Sometimes though, the picture will take on a whole new dimension or direction when you come to ink it. My tendency to let rip with the markers or brush pens when inking and not exactly knowing how things will eventually turn out, gives me a big buzz, seeing it come together in all its inky splattered glory.

As Johnny from the Fast Show would say, ‘Black, paint it black!’

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Darren Shan’s Zom B Underground

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I meant to post this up to coincide with the second release of Darren Shan’s Zom-B books,  Zom-B Underground, back in early January when it was originally released, but I’ve been so busy I’m only just getting round to it. Seeing as the third book in the series, Zom-B City is released from Simon & Shuster this week on the 14th, it’s probably a good time to show some of my artwork for both books, inks and pencil roughs, over the course of the week. Today’s is a final inked piece from Zom-B Underground. Zombies versus soldiers! If anyone had told my fifteen year old self working on my art O level all those years ago that I’d be making a living drawing zombies fighting soldiers in the future, I probably wouldn’t have believed them. Here’s one in your eye, 1980 Careers Advisor!