Toughest Street in Town

...although ironically the toughest town I know IS Street. And it's a village.

Happy 2011 everyone - !! I'll be doing a YEAR REVIEW of 2010 in a bit and will be tap-dancing throughout using MY SPECIAL SKILLS.

New years was beautiful and I spent it with good humans staring at Glastonbury going nuts whilst chuckling into scrumpy. Christmas was a little subdued but as cosy as you could wish for without actually hugging a large rabbit in a warm cottage. All-in-all it makes return to the lonely cold of this empty house a little jarring - but I'll get by. I've still got some scrumpy after all!

Enough of this noise, on with the art!

..and this is the first page of the third part of Crabcake. It'll be a fictional nostalgia-filled part this month with lots of flashbacks to SHIT YOU NEVER DONE SEEN BEFORE. Also tons of continuity with things that NOBODY EVEN KNOWS ABOUT. I find that kind of stuff intensely orgasmic. Watch this space. Also go here - the bigger page is there.

A bit of an experiment this - I wanted to draw something a reminiscent of an eighteenth century painting where there's a gorgeous landscape and always some little bugger in there pointing or duelling or some shit. I've been assured this is because landowners wanted to show off their land although I always thought it was simply antiquarian-style hobby painters who felt sheepish about doing pure landscape. Anyway - far from gorgeous is my landscape - and pretty far off the original brief which was to portray these characters:

- The Blueshift Bombadier - Doctor Damastes

in any way that I fancied. This is how I fancied. Also it attracted some constructive criticism on Deviant Art which is pretty much the highest compliment you can get because it means people are paying attention. So I'm chuffed about that. Right all up in my face. Go here to see the big thing (oo err).

Now here's an odd one - this was for the superlative Mr Dirk Van Dom; a wordsmith of no small renown who put together a MASSIVE choose-your-own-adventure blog featuring this image and a ton of others for (and by) the forever-gorgeous folk over at 2000ad online. See the bigger thing here. Do give the game a go and give some love to those artists you find within!

A placemat done for a FAKEMAS (there was a hashtag on Twitter for it) meal at my place. Then I scanned it in and coloured it over the festive period whilst my sparkly girlfriend sat on my shoulder like a dove dropping bits of cheesy straw into my mouth. See the bigger thing here.

This duo of images are drawn for my main man Mr Roberto 'La Barba Hermosa' Phillips who turned ANCIENT the day before yesterday. Lawdy lawdy. The first was drawn by my good friend Sir Richard 'Subarashii' Denham and coloured by me - the second was done ENTIRELY by me and my soft doghands.

Right. Time for a little summary of my good bits and my new bits. I had two very proud moments this year -

The first is that I graduated in spectacular purple after a RELATIVELY inexpensive three years studying archaeology at Sheffield. I had a wonderful experience there and met some truly brilliant humans - and it was immensely sad and tremendously rewarding to finish it all.

The second is the image I drew and the subsequent goings on related to the Get Well Carlos Project. In which the colossally excellent Mark Howard put together AN ENORMOUS anthology of artists and writers to pay tribute to the one of the most influential artists in British comics - Mr Carlos Ezquerra - co-creator of Judge Dredd and easily the hardest-working comic creative in existence. Carlos had been diagnosed with lung cancer and motivated by his plight the comic was put together to remind him just how much we all respected him. Bizarrely we are now Facebook friends and I'm supremely glad to report that he's recovering - you can download the comic for free here or simply gaze apon his joyful Spanish face reading the comic.

I'm just one of several hundred creators in it, but to see how happy it made him made more satisfied than a dog in a big cake. NOM NOM NOM CAKEY DOGGY CAKE.

Where was I?

Oh yes. SO THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2011.

- Dr WTF?! (An anthology that'll sound a bit like this "BLAM WOOOO YEAAHHHH" in your head)

Also I now have a glorious script to draw courtesy of Mr Christov Cronin and the whole thing is sealed and buckled down and ready for a Spring appearance. VERY EXCITING.

- Flaubert St Cloud (A comic by me and milady about a GOAT THAT FUCKING TRAVELS THROUGH HELL SAY WHAAAAT)

- THE ARM OF ENGON FALGRAX which will surface soon like a kraken from the depths. A story about two fellows and their quest to ... follow a disembodied arm. Glory be.

- THE PUBLISHING OF CRABCAKE. Oh yes. It will be published. By me.

- THE ACTUAL MANIFESTATION OF CRAZYFOXMACHINE.CO.UK because a splash page saying 'coming soon' can only be exciting for so long.

- VARIOUS OTHER DEALIES AND THINGS THAT ARE FAINTLY UNOFFICIAL AT THE MOMENT. Ooooh vague and mysterious.

Right - That's quite enough. I'll be back to talk Dr WTF with extensive previews - as well as the first part of Flaubert St Cloud in the best part of a couple of weeks. Until then - have beautiful moments and positive thoughts and harsh harsh scrumpy.

ART BE HERE
AUDIO BE HERE

TUMBLR BE HERE (oh yeah that happened as well)

O - x

You Never Know

...when the nibbles will strike - !

Good day. It's been a positively thrilling three weeks since last I called into blog land. I don't want to spoil anything - BUT I DID GIVE BIRTH TO RACCOONS. Seven, whom I haven't yet named but I want to avoid the clichés (like the names of dwarves, deadly sins or base metals).

This is the title page for my new website which is being designed by my VERY OWN HERMANO. When it's complete it'll act as a gallery for all the bog standard art, exceptionally poorly designed audio AND FUCKING HOT COLLABORATIONS that I spew out on a tri-daily basis.

This image is for the centrepage for a new peace-centric newspaper published by positives and good-eggs from Sheffield. To see the bigger thing hop over to my new DevArt. Oh yeah; I have a new Deviant Art account. What was Metal-Truncator all about?! I wasn't called that anywhere else - ! What a loon.

This is for the exceptionally lovely people over at 2000ad online - every year they do an 'advent calender' thread where each day a member puts up amazing shit. It's totally fucking cool. What a lovely bunch. It depicts the good Doctor (or a vague approximation of him) being hijacked by D.R. & Quinch (ultraviolent slackers created by Alan Moore) . Bigger version. Forum version.

This is a bit of early concept stuff for a thing me and my lady are working on. It's about a goat. A goat that traverses the fictional realm of hell. That's his doctor up there. Bigger version.

A Christmas gift for a friend (and his special friend). Disgusting isn't it? YOU CAN'T HOLIDAY IN SPACE - THAT'S LUDICROUS. Full version.

Finally I re-designed Captain Scarlet for the glorious folk at Feral Gargantua (reading this and not involved? Go and get INVOLVED BOY). The topic was just sort of... generally Gerry Anderson's stuff but in the future. He looks horrible it's super rough and I hate it. OH WELL. Full thing here.

Yes it's that time again - ! A Dr WTF update - !!! Wooooooooo. I let you know with NO small lump in my throat that it's going very well and my latest acquisition is a potentially fucking ridiculous image from "snareser" and Simon Gough. Yikes. Below are all our stories (AND SOME MAGICAL PREVIEWS - courtesy of the artists)

Alan Holloway/Darren Stephens

Derek Hammill/Dan Cornwell

What Happens in Amsterdam...

House of Usher/Exilewood

Martin Collins/Dave Candlish

Synaptogenesis

Adam Page/Chris Nolan-Rennie

Dirk Van Dom/Nicholas Bannwath

Chronoleech

Emepror/Mike Bunt

The Secret of Comedy

Greg Meldrum/James Feist

Kitsch 'n' Sink

Jazz Woods/Liam Byrne

Fear of the Dark

John Whiteley/Conor Boyle

Berlin

Matthew McLaughlin/Neil Roche

Cosmic Excrement

Oscar M/Cthulouis

Back to the Wreckage

And that is that. EXCITED YET? I certainly am.

See you.... potentially after that festive thing that's happening. Good luck with that.

ART BE HERE

NOISE BE HERE

FURTIVE LEMON BE HERE

O - x

Call Me the Breeze

"And I ain't hidin' from nobody

Nobody's hidin' from me

Oh, that's the way it's supposed to be."

Howdy pardners - it's time for another of my bi-monthly arty warty updatelydoodlies. What I've been drawing and other such exciting/trivial doodly protuberances. For those who are fond of my words I've set up a wordpress page and have uploaded some lengthy scripty story type things that you can browse AT YOUR SUPREME LEISURE.

Just first a little nugget of non-art rambly - tis about a lady called Lisa Robinson who stood in front of a train recently to prove a point about loutish football hooligans and how ordinary people should stand up for their right to go about in peace. It was a bloody lovely tale and it lifted my heart and mind. If you want to hear the details from herself then CLICK ON THESE CAPITALS or just move on and try to be aware that the world is largely populated by glorious individuals and not bloated ignorant shitbagels.

Here is a promotional image for my latest audio adventure. You can hear it over at the Crazyfoxmachine Myspace or on Facebook . Tis a relatively interesting little tale of time travel and the goings and doings of the fellow above. Get a larger look at the picture here.Nice. This image is an obligatory bit of Scott Pilgrim fanart. Although interestingly I haven't seen the thing. Or read the book. Or driven across Poland. This has received a nice bit of recognition from those who see this EXACT SEEN ON A DAILY BASIS PLAYED OUT AROUND THE PARKS OF THIS COUNTRY. No, I'm not trying to make a point about anything beyond the juxtaposition of sparkling pop-culture trendies. GOOD NIGHT.

The world-famous EXTREMELY HARDCORE Axe Cop versus the living exponent of shooting people for mostly justified reasons. Pictures surfaced recently of Mr Karl Urban in his Dredd costume. Some people were annoyed but I took a nice step backwards, had a slice of cake and enjoyed it. They could have made him into a fucking giant turnip or some such balls.

This is a bit of colouring I did FOR NO REASON for Mr Danbo John who didn't specifically ask for it. Gaze into the shining helmet of Dredd! Ooo err.

This one was just a wee re-interpretation of a Nikolai Dante panel in 2000ad. No offence to prolific and beardtacular John Burns who originally drew the character Konstantin's buggered in eye - but I FELT IT NEEDED TO BE AT LEAST FORTY PERCENT MORE BUGGERED. Mr Simon Fraser (Dante co-creator) did me the great honour of giving it a look which had me swollen of noggin for many many hours.

Another one that swelled-up my braincase was this one. Drawn for the influential artgod Mr Carlos Ezquerra - whose birthday it was last week - he was kind enough to COMMENT ON IT on Facebook. Which I'm not saying is a bit deal - it's JUST A MASSIVE FUCKING DEAL. Bless your tasche Mr Ezquerra, may it see a thousand more birthdays - !

This is a little digisketch of milady. Long may she continue being a kooky cat and creepy crab.

Here - drawn for the 2000ad board-type place - where many fine and beautiful artists go to frolic in the glow of enthusiasts, spammers and trolls. Tis Wulf Sterhammer versus Hammerstein. Tis Hammertime.

Of course it's Freddie Mercury as an eighties Hulk Hogan figure. Of course it is.

Here is an affectionate partial stickman parody of the writings of John Smith. Ultra pretentious he is but clearly quite a dude.

Okay - that's your lot. Go on, go away and try and find a piece of happiness in this fragmented morally ambiguous world swirling with madmen and glorypigs. I love all you terrible beautiful people - and will see you again sooner than you think.

ART BE HERE
AUDIO BE HERE
GANGSTADOG BE HERE

O - x

Insignificance

"It's instilled to want to live.

Bombs dropping down.

Please forgive our hometown

in our insignificance."

Now that filthy bit of quoting is out of the way it's time to get on with the SEVERAL DAYS OVERDUE blog. What have I been up to? Where have I been? What travels and exotic sights and glorious things have I seen?

I'm not here to provide you with that information. I'm not here for opinion - just made-up words and sounds and images that spill out of me like so much wretched vomit. ENJOY.

Bender and K9 go out for a stroll in the infinite white of purgatory. This was for the TV Sidekicks challenge on Feral Gargantua - the larger thing can be seen here. The inks of this were given to my lovely pals in Brighton town so they can gaze upon K9's metal doghead forevermore.

Drawn by the astounding and PERSISTENTLY LOVELY Liam GhostPockets - master of the fine cheekbone and the kind-hearted networking. It has been commented that the most right-on part of this is the big purple bit. Which I put in for lols. The larger version is UP IN HERE YO.

This one has become sad for me - as auld Stephen Fry threw a bit of a wobbler and stormed off Twitter. Both him and Mr Ralf "Dunwich" Kahlert are like memories now - sweet whispering internet ghosts that once were so lovely and now are enormous in their absence. May the winds of time bring them back to us. Big here.

A logo for a glamtacular curly-haired metalman and his company. I wish him many epic and metallic travels amongst the spandex-laiden wailing guitar fields of Somerset. The big yowl is hencewards.

This is simply Crazy Fruit on the loose. That is the nature of it. Wholly inspired by the wickedly whacky Mr Bobbymono.

Uh-oh. It's the time of the season! For halloween japery and VERY responsible pisstakes of certain vacuous vampire franchises. Written by the superbly silly Dave Roberts, letters by Malcolm Kirk and the entire comic (featuring work from many right-on dudes of the small press realm) is AVAILABLE FREE FROM THIS SITE - see the BIG THING HERE

Finally a little something colour'd for my dear ally Dr James 'Dark Jimbo' Feist. Lord of the realm, chapper of the chaps. The lines are by him clearly. FEAST YOUR FACE.

Finally - an update on our DOCTOR WTF?! project.

Creators not submitted/matched up

Arron Ferguson

Cathy Smedley

Chilipenguin

Emperor

Exilewood

Flip-R

Mike Bunt

Richmond Clements

Matched up waiting for scripts

Adam Page & Chris Nolan-Rennie

Martin Collins & Davey Cavendish

Rob Phillips & Owen Watts

Art in progress

Dirk Van Dom & Mitahane - "Chronoleech"

Emceehamster & Darren Stephens - Doctor v Davros

The Enigmatic Dr X & Darren Cornwell - "What Happens in Amsterdam..."

Greg M & DarkJimbo - "Kitsch 'n' Sink"

Jazz Woods & GhostPockets - "Fear of the Dark"

J.M. Whiteley & UncleFester - "Berlin"

Locusts of Death & Bhuna - "Cosmic Excrement"

Ozebane & Cthulouis - "Back to the Wreckage"

Other duties

Carl Pearce - Front Cover

Alex Ronald - Potential Back Cover

Colouring Duties - Simon Gough

There. Excited are ye - ? Good. Reading this and haven't finished your script?! Then GO GO GO GO GO GO!

I'll return in a fortnight with more gaudy colouring and extremely unimpressive art -

TA TA

ART BE HERE
NOISE BE HERE

HAMSTER VERSUS GOD BE HERE

O - x

Hot Moves

Alrighty then - y'all ready for a bit of mindless bloggery?

Garrrr it's been a while. So much so I can not for the life of me remember what I've been up to. Shindiggery. Skulldungarees. That kind of lark. Went to Sheffield - very pleasant - saw human beings who I very much love and had many a boogie. ON TO THE ART -

This bewilderingly terrifying thing is two thirds of an Exquisite Corpse composite drawing. The head was my own (see the likeness?!) and the bod was by that titan of graphic art CARL PEARCE who deserves all your attention. The legs will be doodled by the ever-loving Ghostpockets at some point in the future. Bigger bugger be here.

A curious character created by the peerless Zammit - and mucked about with by a tonne of folk. The larger version is over here

These two owls were created for an webcomic of some description which may or may not appear in the future. They are both horned owls and were partially inspired by the good creatures of Hoot's Owl Sanctuary. The larger thing is here. Get it downyerneck. Mmmm Owly.

This curious thing was done for Mr Martin Collins' promotions company 'Errant Tentacles' and it's bloody sinister. Imagine that coming outyer gob of a morning. It'd be repugnant. To get the full effect go here.

Kitty Pantera and her crew are another random set of characters. These are from the meddling mind of genius Ralph Neise and have also been altered on several occasions. The big thing is 'ere.

Finally - it is THE END of the Second part of Crabcake. You can see the whole thing here and the first part here. It looks to me that there will be plenty of temporal shenanigans to keep things interesting. Hoorah.

DID ANYONE SPOT THE FORESHADOW ON THE FIRST PAGE?

Finally - Dr WTF?! is in it's third spankingly naughty month and is shaping up to be something rather special. Writers have mostly done their beavering and it is the artists turn to MUCK ABOUT. Last fortnight's blog carries the dirty details - but I'm pleased to announce the involvement of the Engimatic Dr X who is as enigmatic as he is tall - and he's so enigmatic I don't even know how tall he is. So make of that what you will.

Further updates in two weeks - may your late October days pass with pleasant smells and warm things to touch.

ART BE HERE
SOUND BE HERE

RESURRECTION RABBIT BE HERE

O - x

Get Back Into Rockin'

...IT'S YOUR ONLY WAY OUT.

You find me a week late. Sorry about that - You know how it is. Hanging about, going to beautiful places with beautiful women and generally buggering about.

It's been one hell of a three week period though. Thrills, spills and A HELL OF A LOT OF ILLUSTRATION. Man I'm slow - there's barely owt to show for it. Toward the end there'll also be an anthology update where I tell all you lovely folks what the deal is with my pet project DOCTOR WTF?!

Anywhom.

Yes - the jolly Crabcake crew are back in town. Unfortunately the Emperor Gary is forced to sentence them to death. This is the kind of hijink that can accidentally lead to death. Although not in all cases - for instance I was once torn apart by rabid dogs and here I sit as plain as the day on my face. Curious. A good place to catch up on Crabcake is at THIS LOCATION. Alternatively just glare at the obnoxiously patchy colours at THIS LOCATION

Those two images were doodled by me in a local jazz cafe whilst watching people improvise. It was bleeding lovely to do some freehand scrawling for once - maybe that shows. You can oggle at larger versions here and here. Also pay some mind to my one link into that wonderful world - Mr Richard "I'm Quite Lovely" Jenkins.

- This is possibly (not to oversell it) the most important thing I've ever drawn up to this point. The full details of it lie at the deviant art page but it's basically a tribute to Carlos Ezquerra. Co-creator of Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog - cancer survivor and the most inspirational and hardworking comic artist in the modern history of comics. I fucking love him basically - and I was incredibly chuffed to contribute to a fan comic dedicated to him. The whole thing will show up eventually and I'll make a note to remind you when it does. It blows my mind, featuring some of my favourite artists from the small press scene (mssrs Ghostpockets, Feist, Kevin Levell etc) and also some of my comic heroes (D'Israeli, Bryan Talbot etc). Yikes. I'm not saying much - I'm just saying that it legitimises every drawing I've ever done.

Yep. This is the sound of me selling out. Well - no, not really - it's an advert for a local credit company that my mother works at. If that's selling out then what ISN'T?! Nice to do some proper "freelance" work as it were and I'm grateful for the opportunity. See the full thing here.

Yes glorious children yes. The time is at hand - and do you know what time that is? IT'S SURREALIST DOCTOR WHO BASED COMIC ANTHOLOGY TIME.

I've got together a gorgeous roster of talented artists and glorious writers whom I now owe several pints each. Or will do - when the thing is done. Logo above designed (to a point - still needs an exclamation mark) by Matt Brown.

artists

Cathy Smedley

Chris Nolan-Rennie

Cthulouis/Louis

Davey Cavendish

Filip Roncone/Flip-R

James Feist

Liam Byrne

Mike Bunt

Mitahane

Neil Roche/Bhuna

Me

writers

Adam Page

Arron Ferguson

Derek Hammill/The Enigmatic Doctor X

Emperor

Greg M

Jasmine Woods

The Legendary Shark

Matt Brown/Chilipenguin (Also the logo)

Oscar M/Ozebane

Martin Collins

Matthew McLaughlin/Locusts of Death

Richmond Clements

Rob Phillips

Van Dom

one-offs/other

Alex Ronald (Contributing a picture, back cover?)

Carl Pearce (Contributing a cover)

Simon Gough/Spidermanfan2099 (Potential colour)

Still looking for more artists - who will materialise shortly I'm sure.

Like that spaceship. You know the one.

There should be further updates on the 12th of October. Be lucky - !

ART BE HERE
NOISE BE HERE

LAVA CRAB BE HERE

O - x