Wednesday 20 March 2013

Post Demoncon

OH CRIKEY THE 2000AD FORUM ART COMPETITION HAS EXPLODED.



With talent. Sorry if that was misleading. Yes, we've had ANOTHER world-beating month and are due to go to the vote at midnight on Sunday 24th. Should be a tight vote - the picture above is the latest by Bob Molesworth a hugely talented gentleman - but it's only one of the many amazing entries we've had this month... http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,38075.0.html

Dredging up this old Wet Nuns picture because Geoffery and I went to see them in Bristol recently - a review was written up by the aforementioned Crescent and posted up on Kid Vinyl here -- > http://www.kidvinyl.co.uk/2013/03/08/live-review-wet-nuns-the-croft-bristol-3rd-march-2013/. I really do love those chaps, I really do.
This is a cover I did for Sarah and Richard a jazztacular duo from Glastonbury way who I adore. Their page is here ---> http://www.facebook.com/SarahAndRichardClassicJazz and the full list of people featured is: a manic end of the world protestor, a pearly king, a dementor (Harry Potter), Brian Butterfield, Ray Winstone, Vision, The Fat Controller, a bad Nicholas Cage in a wig, John Prescott, Father Christmas, an astronaut, Picard having his bald bit chewed on by a tiny Klingon, Flaubert St Cloud (Goat), a Chickenman, Marmalad, Me and Geoffery, Marc Bolan, Judge Dredd, Nightcrawler, a chap, a pirate, Marvin the Paranoid Android, a creepy vampire thing, Gollum, a Clint Eastwood style character, a pipe smoking stove hat fellow, a monocled zombie, a mustachioed dungaree wearer, a happy man, the caterpillar from Labyrinth.
Then this happened.
...and this. Walter here, my entry for the art competition (and the sole exception in the wall-to-wall amazing entries this month) - it's Walter the War Wobot and his pile of skulls. Not sure where this came from, it just fell out of my head. ALL I KNEW, is that I wanted to draw Walter sitting. Then... then this. Oh the huge manatee.
THEN DEMONCON HAPPENED. We went orf to Kent, bolted down with the lovely David Frankum and sold stuff in Maidstone. It was a rather marvellous event, got me a copy of Porcelain by Benjamin Read & Christian Wildgoose. Had been desperate to do so since the free promo handed out at Thought Bubble last year. Truly beautiful looking book. Not sure who won the raffle prizes depicted above but Grinning Demon's heroic Graham Beadle who put the show together lost out by getting this weird Destro sketch from me:
Dude's got a metal head. Me, the Geoffery, the Sammy, the Frankum and the Boyles went for a drink at Ye Olde Thirsty Pig afterward. You have to see it, it was the most amazing building.
Wow. Also there's a video of the event where I refer to it as "Grinning Demon" rather than DemonCon and utterly fail to market my time travel comic:
Ahem.

Anyway before all that happened we had the Bristol Comic Creators March meeting - where such things were drawn:
The first by Jordan Collver, the second by me - the comic by everyone. An unabridged version of events can be found here http://www.facebook.com/BristolComicCreators and April's mind-bending expedition into the world of cider-fuelled drawing will happen on the NINTH. More Details here - http://www.facebook.com/events/363665293747885
Finally - Crabcake had another bit. The whole caboodle is collected here ...

O

Wednesday 6 March 2013

Post Cardiff

Where to start... where to start...

AH YES. 
The February 2000ad art comp was amazing - the theme was "masterpieces" and we had a bumload of really beautiful entries. Congrats on our winner Allister Mackrell and Tim West who got "Tharg's Choice". Runners up and that can be seen on this page here. March's theme is "Rise of the Robots" and you can enter here
As Cardiff was rapidly approaching I decided to do up my portfolio cover. Now it bears my gurning resemblance but still contains UNDERWHELMING ARTWORK. There's also a colouring one!
The Blankface/Dreddhead odyssey continues with this charming image of DA (FORMER) POPE. The reason for his evil black and red caped appearance is a reference to the grand continuity cake of Dredd's world. Mark Millar and Mick Austin did a story with "vatican judges" back in... oh... you know when Millar was terrible on a small scale. The nineties. They wore that kind of thing so I Dredd movified it. I look forward to doing it with other judge universe uniforms so far I think we've just got Emerald Isle, Brit Cit and this (not including made-up judge types) - very soon we'll be in Calhab though.... oh yes. 
Short version for non-2000ad readers: LOOK, IT'S BENEDICT XVI
This is the seventh bit of Misery Wizard - a webcomic written by Rob "The Master of Misery" Phillips and drawn by me. And lettered by me. The French naval ghosts' bubbles were a bit of an experiment and given you can barely read them I'd call it - A FAILED ONE. All of Misery Wizard can be seen on Crazy Fox Machine on Facebook here
That there is beautiful glow-in-the-dark print I inadvertently won from the glorious Amala's Blade FB page (http://www.facebook.com/AmalasBlade) and the comic, which I haven't yet read, looks spellbindingly beautiful. Cheers to the wonderful Michael Dialynas - I'll certainly be shouting about this for a while!
This is a picture of Professor Elemental (wot I'm in) and Jamella & Marmalad (wot me and Geoffery created) sitting RIGHT UNDER "proper" comics in Excelsior, Bristol. If you're a local go in and BUY 'EM, support your local comic shop and support your O. He needs food. To the left of us there is Ladies & Gentlemen by local creator Jordan Collver and Richard Worth -- it's a rollicking good comic and Issue 3 is looking for SUBMISSIONS find out more here --> http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ladies-and-Gentlemen/302970856398746
Reflecting my current financial situation my stash from Cardiff is quite minimalistic - but  blimey it's all good some words will follow but I haven't read any yet (still yet to even get into the stuff I got from Thought Bubble!!!). We had a beautiful weekend, I managed to finally see the amazing Judge Minty (which was amazing) and I spoke on my first panel! Kudos to Iz and the team for keeping it together, it was brilliant con full of passionate folk and I'll be at the next one with bells on. Literally. I will wear several bells.
First from the stash is the indisputable, undefeatable, utterly remarkable Lou Scannon by Bampfield, Carter & Harris. Mr Dan Harris spoke on the small press panel I was on (alongside Richmond Clements of Zarjaz & Futurequake, Liz Boyle of Disconnected Press, Ian Sharman of Orang Utan and Monty Nero)  which utterly floored me as Lou Scannon is without a doubt one of the most solid acts at any con. They know exactly what their doing, and what it is is marvellous. http://louscannon.co.uk/blog/
Right next to us I met the amazing Swansea Comics Collective and I had to buy their debut comic because any regionally-based comic enthusiasm troop that can actually put out a solid book and bring it to a con is one worth investigating. It would be marvellous to do something similar with Blam... http://www.sccassemble.co.uk/
I don't at all think I'm alone in anticipating the living balls off of Razarhawk a comic by Dani Abram & Ian Matthews -they debuted Issue 1 at Cardiff and there was a lot of buzz rolling around about it. I got it, I stashed it, and I ran off. http://kittyhawkkicksass.blogspot.co.uk/ 
In my opinion, the finest small press anthology in existence - the glorious Zarjaz had it's new issue debut at Cardiff and I was LITERALLY itching to get my hands on it. I WAS ACTUALLY ITCHING. As usual it contains the finest in small press talent all paying tribute to the MOTHERPROG. Highly recommended - buy it from here: http://www.futurequake.co.uk/shop.php

The sketches up there in the stashphoto were drawn by co-editor Bolt-01 also!

....and what of The Psychedelic Journal....? 

Well - you can find out all about our Cardiff over on the official blog: http://thepsychedelicjournal.blogspot.co.uk/ ...in a bit. Not now. In a bit.

O