Back On The Horse.

Well, I made my annual trip to my towns only (as far as I know) and very out of the way artshop to stock on Bristol Board and Ink this weekend. I’m heading back into the sequential wilderness. In fact if I get my arse in gear, hopefully I’ll have the first page inked and finished tonight. It’s been fun getting to do a few pin-ups lately, but now I need to get some comic pages done.

Speaking of which… here another new panel. I left the lettering on this shot as I made a big song and dance about my new font, then never really showed it off. So here it is in action. Also the Cover can now be seen on my DA page.

Like a lot of people, been trying to keep up with The Walking Dead TV Show lately. I just hope a UK channel picks it up when it finally gets put out. Even with loads of new channels created by digital TV they’re still crap at it. Been a nightmare trying to figure out if and when certain shows are going to be shown. Plus with every website blurting out spoilers.

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Cover.

I haven’t drawn a proper cover in years. I was trying to figure it out the other day, and it probably close to three years… maybe even more. I’ve done plenty of Pin-ups lately, so I didn’t feel rusty or anything. But this is my first one for a while.

To be honest it looks a lot better with the title on it, as all that unused space at the top tends to be a bit much. It’s like a third of this image is darkness.

When I was designing this shot, I was going for a much different feel. I was looking at old pulp comic covers and B-movie posters. I bought this great book on video-covers for video nasty’s called The Art Of The Nasty. I was really aiming for something gruesome. Something blood soaked, that screamed horror. Something that might catch the eye of your common gore-hound looking for splatter. But, as you can see, that wasn’t the end result. While thumb-nailing I came up with the above design and kind of feel in love with it. Not the gory throw back to old EC comics I was going for. But it felt the most right out of all my rough thumbnails. It reminds me more of that scene from The Birds, when they’re walking to the car at the end and all the birds are just watching them.

This heat is a bastard to work in. I don’t know how great comic book artist can come out of boiling hot county’s like Spain or Brazil? I’m finding it really hard to get down to drawing lately. Usually my fan and a cold drink keep me sane in the summer months. But this summer…

Liquid Crystal Display.

This wasn’t actually what I was hoping to post today (that’ll have to wait until next week.) But it’s a good shot and hopefully a little bit funny, too.

Wow… has today been in fast-forward? I can’t believe it’s all ready over. Is time being sucked into a phantom black-hole or something? I want my Sunday back! Anyone else notice that or is it just me?

Smile!

This panel is a bit of a nod to one of my favourite comics of all time. Well, the cover of it anyway. The Killing Joke had a big impact on me when I first read it years ago. It’s still a comic I’m always pulling off my bookshelf to read. In fact I think I have about three copies of it. My old beat up copy from when I was a kid, a newer copy I bought when I left home for college and the Bolland coloured edition they put out last year. So in this panel, I just wanted to do a bit of a tip of the hat to it. This shot also has a tiny bit of lettering done in my new font, if you look hard enough.

Here something weird that happen to me today that says bad things about my life… I woke up today to find myself ‘air double clicking.’ Like when a dog lays on its side and runs in its sleep. I was dreaming that I was on the computer (that how shit and boring my dreams are!) and woke to find my finger twitching in a double click motion. I found this both hilarious and deeply upsetting at the same time. I really need to spend less time on computers.

Really wishing it was August the 9th already. Look how lovely that Cybermen boxset looks. With this, that kick-ass scene of the headless Cyberman from The Pandorica Opens and the new BBC game they’ve just put out, it’s a good time to be a Cybermen fan.

America’s Doctor Who.

It’s funny because it’ll probably be true soon. I do like the Punky sidekicks though.

Dirty Look.

For anyone who’s been missing the lazy eye action that’s been lacking from this blog lately. Enjoy.

I’m keeping this post short as I spent the whole of last week re-lettering all 24 pages of Project B.O.B. and designing a logo for the comic. At the moment the sight of a computer or keyboard makes me feel sick, so I’m going to be avoiding them for a couple of days at least. Let the headaches die down a bit and hope my eyes stop burning. Plus it’s the summer and I live in a seaside town and I need to start taking advantage of that. My sunburn should be a lot redder.

Spoilers.

This joke might be a little lost on you if you’ve never read Watchmen, or if you’ve never seen those old Twinkies ad in the back of American comics. But it made me laugh. I’m not sure who it’s by? I couldn’t spot a name, I just found it on someone’s Tumblr. But I had to post it.

Also spotted another online gallery of old pulp covers this week.

Been spending my week trying to avoid spoilers for the end of season Doctor Who episode this weekend. Avoiding certain website and so on. Six years ago, having Doctor Who back on TV sounded like a joke and now we’re three new Doctors in, and every paper, website, podcast and magazine are Doctor Who mad and have spoilers. I’m doing pretty well so far, just two more days. I’ve had a couple of near misses. Aren’t spoilers just a modern day pain in the arse?

Blimey, it’s just gone pass 11pm and I’ve got my window open and I’m still going to have to put the fan on because it’s too hot. I guess Summer has finally kicked in.