January - widely reported to be the first month of the year...

HELLO.

It's 2012, when did that happen?! I hope each and every one of you had a wondrous new year - and no one fell down a well and got trapped in a subterranean terror world full of white-eyed millipede people whose thousand scratchety legs caused multiple abrasions.

Because that would be shit.

In no particular order here are some things that have happened this month thus far -

I got a new laptop. It's made everything basically much quicker and small things I never realised I missed (have buttons on the keyboard, being able to use the CD drive, not having it overheat every hour) came flurrying back into my life like a load of cotton bears.

I bought back Owen in Rock - which I did on the radio in Sheffield and Glastonbury in the distant past - it goes up once a week on Mixcloud and there's an accompanying blog that you can follow. There's no talking and no time travel shenanigans but it is a dissection of the music I listen to and bloody love - so go and give it at least a quarter of your ear - ! Also each decade I've superimposed myself onto an album cover, because I'm avoiding doing more important things and I expect I've got some sort of problem.

The quite extraordinary Neil McClements overjoyed the hell out of me by randomly drawing Gastleas; a character from Crabcake. Neil seems to have more talent and time in his little finger than I have in my entire body - he's drawn what will surely be one of the MANY HIGHLIGHTS of Dr WTF (see the Dr WTF Corner) and after this, he's on my fictional Christmas card list which is fictional. He's got the seal of approval to say the least, and I hesitate to remind him that the sealife centre will probably want it back.

I saw two things quite recently - one of which was the The Artist a wonderful silent film that is not-nearly-as-niche as I assumed it was and is winning all sorts of awards left-right-and-centre. Brilliantly deserved and quite preposterously beautiful. With John Goodman. What more do want? TALKING?!

Secondly - I went to watch The Fallen Apples in the depths of Bristol the last weekend and I recommend seeing them if you spot 'em in your corner of the universe. It's furious rural folk at it's most danceable and even without the considerable amount of scrump I would be spellbound with joy.

ART

Bit more Jamella for y'all. Written - of course - by the mysterious (I've not seen her face ever and we've been going out for like, seven billion years, what's the DEAL with that) Jasmine Woods  

Also - Flaubert page 8 - the writing on the paper at the top there is from the original layout page by the enigmatic Jasmine. So it's her writing - so SHE loves Flaubert. The final three panels are a little rushed - I hope it's not obvious but now I've said it you'll look at it and go "oh yeah it IS rushed" and you'll hate it forever.

Here's a page sampler of my colouring for Steve & Chris Denton's Massacre for Boys comic - I've since got rid of the annoying glowy-light effect on panels 2 & 3 - I'm building up a colour portfolio and it was amazing working on Steve's lines as he himself is an absolutely dynamite colourizerist (that's the word I've been assured). See the original story and investigate more on the Massacre for Boys blog - !

I did this for the Weekly Themed Art Blog - it was a theme I chose because Ronald Searle died recently and his artwork was a staple of my childhood - we had absolutely tons of his stuff around the house. Lots of cats. Cats in tiny stilettos. Dancing they tended to be. Brilliant and very visionary artist. This cat is drinking champagne as he loved it - "I love to drink it - the bubbles give you ideas"

A fantastic couple of weeks for Dr WTF - the deadline is rushing forward and we've got thirty or so finished pages - ! FEAST YOUR FACE on our latest clutch of teasers...

This one from the amazing (and aforementioned) Neil McClements - a breathtakingly drawn story - written by Chris Cronin who wrote the one I drew for Dr WTF 2011. So he's definitely gone up in the world since then! 

Here's one for a short story by Gavin Mitchell - winner of the 2000ad Dragon's Den competition at Thought Bubble and SHIT HOT ARTIST extraordinare!

David Broughton - ! Adam Page - !!! A tale I'm extremely pleased with, David was the last artist in and one of the first to finish and therefore he deserves THE BIGGEST MEDAL THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO GIVE ANYONE. However I cannot find nor afford such an item. So he will just have to accept my eternal thanks - !

Cheers for reading any-the-how and I will see you soooooOOO (oo) n

O