Cry Baby.

It all ends in tears in this latest shot. I’ve tried to make every issue a little darker then the one before it, so this being issue #3, I’m currently setting up the really dark stuff for the forth and final issue and getting to draw some pretty gruesome stuff.

I really wanna see The Theatre Bizarre. I love a good horror-anthology (be it books, films or comics.) They’ve been out of vogue for a while now, but I can see them making a come back. What with a new Stephen King anthology in the works, I think their time is due. This is probably the one I most want to see at the moment.



I’d love to put together, or at least be part of a comic-book horror-anthology one day. I keep meaning to get around to doing something digital on the side. Something as either a PDF or print-on-demand comic, that I can put together with other fellow horror artists\writers. Maybe get some short-stories, pin-ups and photos in there, too. At moment though, however, sadly I don’t think I have the contacts or my fingers in the right horror-community pies to make that happen. I need to make some new morbid friends. Maybe think up a theme and good title for it.

Soulless Voodoo Guy Sketch.

It was a nice treat when an old college friend got in contact a year or two back and it turned out we were both just starting out on doing an original graphic-novel each. Mine a 96-page modern horror story. His a 100-page story based on a character he had created during college. It was nice to know someone else was in the same (or at least very similar) boat. It’s been nice swapping pages back-and-forth and checking in to see how it was going since then. Chatting about how far we’d each got and the different processes we were both using. At one point during one of these chats, I said if his book was going to have a pin-up section (I love a good pin-up section in a graphic-novel) then I’d happily do a page for it. I’ve not really had any free time this year just gone to follow up on that offer. These pass several months have been spent doing Issue #3 (or pages 48-72 if we’re sticking with the idea of a 96-page graphic-novel.) Also my friend’s style is very unique, and I did start to wonder more and more if I could pull off drawing his character in my art-style. It’s something that’s been dogging me for a few months now. When I found I had a bit of free time this weekend, and an urge to do a bit of sketching in my sketch-book, I came to the decision that rather then jump right into doing a big pin-up, I’d maybe test the waters first by doing a sketch, to see if it could be done. I have to say I was pretty pleased with the result. It came out a lot better then I thought it was going to. It’s only a head-shot, but it did clear up in my mind how his character worked drawn in my style. I found doing this sketch a big help. It was a big relief to know I could do a take on his work. It was also nice to draw someone else’s character, something I rarely do and wish I had the chance to do more.

I hope to get a proper pin-up done at some point during 2012, but for now here’s a tastier. My friend’s (Dave A.K.A Otis P Jive Funk) deviant-art page can be found HERE. Why not check it out for some of his great artwork, and to see how good or bad you think my take on his character (who’s called Soulless Voodoo Guy) is. Dave’s style is coming from a lot of different places. There’s a bit of Dave Cooper in there. Bit of Matt Groening. Bit of Tim Burton. His art also reminds me of LEGO at times for some reason. It’s great stuff and worth a look.

Thanks For The Nightmares, Internet.

Wow… Beavis And Butt-head ‘untooned’ is freaky. Don’t get me wrong, they look great… but just a tad creepy.

Audio-Squatters.

Remember when approaching birthdays were met with excitement and joy? Now I’m turning 30... it’s all dread from here on. At least a forthcoming birthday will be a good excuse to order the latest box-set of Dexter. God, I love that show. I hope they do turn it into a movie.

I’ll take my mind off my impending birthday by posting this latest panel. If you do horror comics, doing people with frighten faces is kind of a big deal. Personally, I think it’s as important as how big and scary your monster are. I think readers channel any emotion (hopefully, that emotion being fear) through the reaction of the character it’s happening to. Here’s my latest stab at trying to do a good fright shot. I hope it hits the mark (or at least dents the mark.)

The bad news is I still can’t get the theme from Tenebre out of my head. In fact it gets worse, as now this theme has also claimed audio-squatter’s-rights in my brain and keeps going around, constantly playing in the back of my head.



The good news is I’ve downloaded them off iTunes and plan to play them both into submission over the weekend. I find the only way to get a tune out of your head is to play it until your brain gets bored of it and moves on to something else.

Disco Of The Dead.

Lately I just can’t get the theme from Tenebre out of my head. It’s strange that Disco music could have made such a good soundtrack to a horror movie. They’re two things you wouldn’t think would mix, but they totally do. It’s fast becoming one of my favourite soundtracks of all time. I need to get round to checking out more music from Goblin. The DVD to Tenebre has as a nice extra of Goblin doing a live performance of this song.

Watch Out!

Wow… end of the week already? Dreaded Monday fast approaching.

The good news is I’ve just finished what I think is the longest scene I’ve ever had to draw. A whopping seven pages. Sure… seven pages doesn’t sound much, but if you read comics, you’d know that’s a hefty scene, coming in at nearly a third of a normal issue. Very few scenes go on that long without cutting to something else or moving the action somewhere else. It’s a scene I’ve been working towards for a while now, and will hopefully make or break the third issue. The bad news is rereading the scene, I release one of the pages isn’t up to scratch and will probably need to be redrawn. Being such an important part of the plot, I can’t really include such a crappy page. It was drawn just before Xmas and probably at a point when I really needed a rest. I was trying something new with the layout of the page that didn’t really work. Plus the art itself leans more towards looking like it was drawn by a retarded chimp. So I know what I’ll be redrawing this coming week.

Watched SUPER yesterday. Really enjoyed it. It’s a shame Kick Ass came out first and that’s what everyone compared it to. They’re two different movies. SUPER is more like Taxi-Driver meets 60’s Adam West’s Batman. Hell, I think I even like SUPER a bit more then Kick Ass. It funnier for one. I like the Travis Bickle in tights theme. Also female, impish, sexy-psycho sidekicks are cool. I’m not a big fan of sidekicks, but I love Boltie.



Also, I too think people who queue jump should be hit in the head with a wrench.

So Cute She Makes Buttons Feel Ugly.

In this Dragon’s Den age of get-rich-ideas, here’s something I’ve seen of late that I thought was a good idea. Sketchbooks with pre-drawn panels printed in them. You could be living the dream and drawing comics as you go. Also I imagine they would be awesome for sequential sketchbook jams. Passing it around and having different artist fill in their frame, or draw on each others. I did some regular sketchbook jamming yesterday for the first time in ages. To be honest, my sketches sucked, but then I had been up drawing till 2:30am the night before. Then getting up early because they were delivering my new Blu-ray player first thing in the morning. I didn’t bring my A-game to that particular sketchbook jam. Maybe about my C-Game… maybe even D-Game. I’m not a great sketcher on my best days. I don’t rate myself very highly in that regard. I always look at those amazing sketchbook pages Guy Davis and Mike Mignola do in the back of B.P.R.D. graphic novels and just stare in awe.

Below is my new favourite picture off the web. I know you don’t have to look very far online to find photos of cute girls dressed up as Harley Quinn, but it’s only fair I let the internet know we have a winner. It’s a mix of the body-languages and adorable, cheeky face that does it. I have no idea of the context of this photo, but I know cute-as-fuck when I see it. I keep screaming “I love you” at the screen, but she doesn’t seem to be able to hear me. Why have girls on the internet always gotta be like that?

The Offering.

There was a time when it looked like I’d finish Issue #3 about Xmas time. But then a couple of things come up and I didn’t get to start Issue #3 until a month or two later then I had planned. I liked the idea of doing some new artwork in the New Year, so as to ease the pain that is January, so that’s what I did.

I got this great book called Monsters In The Movies by John Landis over Xmas, and after flicking through that, I really had an itch to draw some gruesome creature. Something big, mean and horrible. I was leaning more towards Werewolf… maybe with a punky, grotty, but strangely sexy chick thrown in. These are the elements that were going around in my head when it came time to do thumb-nails. However, as soon as I scribbled down the concept for the above image, I knew I had to do it. Sure… instead of a big, cool monster, I only got to draw an infected looking hand. And instead of a grotty\sexy punk-chick , I ended up drawing some raven-blonde type chick (I always seem to be drawing this type of woman. Must be my type.) But I just fell in love with the design of this shot. Also I’ve been wanting to draw guys in Gas-Masks for ages now. Also got to go off on a bit of an industrial-chic kick with this image. Something else I’ve been wanting to do for ages. There’s something I kind of like about that cold, rundown looking industrial style (maybe it comes from working in a couple of Industrial-estates in my time. Or maybe it’s because I’ve seen Eraserhead too many times.) With all those pipes and wires, they look almost spider-web like. And all those weird machines you’re not used to seeing in real-life, so they look a bit alien and you have no idea what they’re for. It’s something I’d like to return to. It might be a bit Werewolf\Punk-chick light, this image, but I did end up scratching a lot of itches by drawing this shot. I hope it finds some love out there in inter-web land. Anyone with an DeviantArt account can check this image out HERE.

Would it be wrong to date someone just because they looked like someone famous you really fancy? I mean I don’t usually buy into look-a-likes, but even I have to confess this chick looks a lot like Angelina Jolie. Like… really, really like her.

I seem to be going through an alternative Superhero phase this week. I bought Super on Blu-Ray (even though I don’t actually have a Blu-Ray player just yet), and I spent this weekend reading Incognito vol 2. I’ve fallen wayyyyyyyy out-of-sync with the Superhero genre. I need some good tips on what’s good at the moment.

Why Youtube Was Invented.

Have you ever wondered how The Thing would have looked like if it took place in Pingu’s universe? It would look pretty much like this>



I never realized Body-Horror and Plasticine went together so well. It kind of fits. I just had a depressing thought that some people reading this may be too young to remember Pingu.

Skull Ejector.

Soooooo many people making plans for the forthcoming Zombie apocalypse. It’s almost a shame there isn’t going to be one with all the work people are putting in to it. Still, everyone needs a hobby. I keep a baseball-bat by my bed. I tell myself it’s for burglars, but really…

Maybe I should have finished reading that Zombie Survival Guide? I got about halfway through it, but felt the joke had worn a little thin by then. I’ll read the other-half as the apocalypse unfolds. Be nice to have something to read while I’m hiding in some burnt-out shopping-mall eating rat meat.

I get the feeling if there ever really was a Zombie apocalypse, this guy would be fine. At least he better be, if worse-comes-to-worse… can you turn a slingshot on yourself?

2012, Huh?

To celebrate the coming of a new year, my DVD player decided to die on me last night. Looks like someone’s joining the Blu Ray crowd a bit sooner then he thought he would. I thought that DVD player had at least another year in it, yet if you put a DVD in it now, it sounds like it’s grinding up Gerbils or something in there. Maybe it’s God’s way of telling me I need to get back to work. Need to get back to the drawing-board. I just wish my DVD player hadn’t died on the day that my copy of High School Of The Dead came in the post. At least I managed to get through two-and-a-half episodes before it croaked. Maybe it was the animated mix of Zombies and Fan- Services that finished it off.

Also something about a New Year? I don’t know… It kind of passed me by this year. Much like Batman, I need a hug.