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.
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!
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…
For this one, the newly acquired clothing seemed to be calling out for a Spaghetti Western style stand-off…
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.
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!’
I’ll be signing copies of the exclusive, elusive, infusive (?) new (ish) Pleece Brothers graphic novel, The Great Unwashed, published by Escape Books this Saturday the 8th of December at Gosh Comics, 1 Berwick St, London W1F 0DR, from 5-6 pm.
Also, those crazy fools at Gosh have given me permission to scribble all over their windows in celebration of this momentous event.
Come early to take advantage of the best signature doodles!
If you’re going up the Charing Cross road in London sometime soon, check out the Comica festival billboard exhibition, in association with Foyles at the site of the soon to be extended bookshop, formerly St Martins Art College. I’ve got a couple of people sized panels up there, based on a true Liz Taylor and Richard Burton story from the 60s, when the Hollywood ledge swiped a book for hubby during a photo-shoot in the famous London bookshop.
Its been up for nearly a month now (ever on the ball, eh?), but it should still be there for the next couple of months. So when you’re getting hassled by your last minute Chrimbo shopping, why not take a peek and get in the way of all the other hassled consumers? There’s some great quirky stories about Foyles, its history and its characters, drawn by some amazing comics talent (and, er, me…), including John Miers, Steven Appleby, JAKe, Karrie Fransman, Krent Able, Bryan Talbot, Hunt Emerson, Woodrow Phoenix, Oliver East, Hannah Berry, Rob Davis, Donya Todd and Rian Hughes.
If you can’t make it to London, you can also see the whole exhibition online here @ http://www.johnmiers.com/Foylescomic/
This week’s Alby Figgs episode sees Alby in ‘Day of the Dead’. Will there be zombies, skeletal automatons emerging from the graveyard, ghoulish apparitions scaring 50 shades of shite out of us? Or, just a man with a handy hankie to hand? It doesn’t get much more rock ‘n’ roll than this! No, honest, it doesn’t!
