Latter February

HOWDY FOLKS


Goshdurnit I'm a cowboy this weekend. Not sure why, I just be. I mean - am. ANYWAY. On wivvit - !

The Social Smokers, a group I designed a CHAPPING PIG for, are live on Facebook and Twitter. So if you're looking to talk BBQ with some Grillstock competitors then you won't be disappointed. I didn't do the writing on this actually, just the piggie - those were done by Bristol designerman Simon Tandy.

This. This a drawing sent to me by the glorious Matt Soffe - who is doing a PORTRAIT A DAY for the next year - ! Contact him if you want to buy one and I promise you won't be disappointed - they're bloody beautiful. This here is clearly Toshiro Mifune the legendary Japanese actor who is legendary.

That also happened in the last week. Not even sure I remember why exactly now, because being tweet-kissed by a bald grocerjudge is so intoxicating it's removed part of my mind. It was arguably more rewarding to get Ice-cream making advice by Andrew Kojima.

This is a teaser for my upcoming Dredd strip in Zarjaz that was used as a header on my Down the Tubes interview thing about 2000ad's 35th birthday. Highly scary - other contributors included Alan Grant, Conor Boyle, Jim Campbell, Richmond Clements, Boo Cook, Alwyn Talbot, John Higgins, Dave Bishop, Dave Taylor etc etc etc :S Lovely that Mr John Freeman allowed talentless underlings like myself in there :O

Owen in Rock 2012 - 90s I by Owen In Rock on Mixcloud

Owen in Rock 2012 - Now I by Owen In Rock on Mixcloud

Those are me latest rock shows. You can also read up on the tracks on this here blog. However the whole format is changing for the second sixties show. Because for one I'll be talking. I'm up for suggestions and requests and things. Really I'm just doing it for a lark, but if there's anything I can be usefully doing with the format you just let me know. I mean, I've long wanted to do like a small press comics podcast but I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable as some chaps. If you do want an insightful and HIGHLY PLEASANT small press comics podcast you can't do better than Stacey Whittle and Lee Grice's Small Press Big Mouth. Which is bloody good.

A final thing I recommend are the two blogs of m'lass - her first is in reviews (read the comment it's actually hilarious) and her second is in outrage (seriously, check out Sky's sinister targeting strategies in there).

ARTWORK

Parts eleven and twelve of the Jamslug saga - which is drawing to a close very soon - what will be the fate of our sweetspread-themed duo? New stories every Monday on Crazy Fox Machine!

The drinking game begins in earnest in Flaubert - BUT WHERE WILL IT LEAD. See all pages to date here - and rest assured, things are going to get a lot more sinister....

Finished reading Robert Sellers & JAKe's Hellraisers. Very solid book - and the likenesses are just in-bloody-credible. This is my wonky representation of Ollie Reed - which is modelled on Jake's and doesn't work out of context. For which I apologise.

Also there's a tiny Zombo.

Also here's Brian Blessed. I rewatched Flash Gordon with the Jazzer and I must say, isn't it such a bloody good film? Completely bloody nuts. You need more shit like that around in cinemas. I was struck particularly by the psychedelic lava lamp skies and the 1930s plane-like ships that rattled about the place. Also by Brian Blessed - it doesn't get better than that man. The theme was suggest by the ever-lovin' TAB.

This be a Grant Perkins drawing m'lud, inked by the glorious Mike Bunt and coloured by me. Featured in VAMPIRES VS VIKINGS a comic that's FREE and available here.

 This is something I drew on a train and then asked the eternally amazing Jazz to write a story about. Which she duly did and it's fucking immense. I KNOW you're busy, but I really really really REALLY encourage you to read it: IT IS HERE CLICK THESE WORDS.

There. Witness that. It's a 35th anniversary comic written & drawn by (normally a writer) Dirk Van Dom and coloured & lettered by me. I love colouring stuff. It was part of a "collaboration" themed competition over at the 2000ad boards that never really properly worked out... but either way, it's in the spirit of the prog - unusual collaboration! Here's to another 35 years of the Galaxy's greatest!

Finally here is a design I did for the amazing Manuka Root, a jazzfunk style group of extreme excellence that I recommend you voyage towards and experience.

RIGHT. Dr WTF 2012 is IN THE BAG. The strips are in and we are looking at a mammoth 60-page issue of FULL COLOUR PSYCHEDELIC MAYHEM. We've got a cover by a 2000ad legend, we've got strips from my favourite people in small press and we've got a VERY well-designed credits page. It's the nicest looking thing I've ever had the privilege of sticking my face on. That's right, I've stuck a watermark of my face on every page which is intrusive unnecessary and NOT TRUE.

Here's a teaser for a one-page stunner by Oscar Maltby (last year's "Back to the Wreckage" drawn by Louis Carter) and the visionary Ghostpockets.

 ...and this another one pager by Dave Roberts (who wrote my first ever strip in Futurequake and also Hallowscream oddly) and the amazing Dave Thomson who I shared a table with at Bristol last year and am absolutely stoked to have in the comic.

It's also come to my attention that there are only NINE physical copies of Dr WTF 2011 left - and there may never be another print run - ! So do give me a shout if you want one, they're a fiver including postage and unfortunately there's no other route but to contact me directly. If you have a better suggestion for distribution I'd genuinely love to hear it because all we have atm is just "e-mail me". Which is a bit lame.

O x

February and the Dust Horse

HELLO!


Just another slightly exhaustive wee round-up of all that's going on in Oville - all wot 'appened in the end of January and at the beginning of Febree-arty.

This is the beginnings of BLAM - A Bristol-based comic creators network. Now, there is a Facebook group but unfortunately I didn't quite realise how much Dr WTF-based work I've set myself so I think I'll push back the main BLAMshove til next month...or the month after. Either way - THERE'S A LOT TO DO. Cheers to Bolt-01 for the logo - !

Owen in Rock 2012 - 80s I by Owen In Rock on Mixcloud

This is the eighties show of Owen in Rock 2012 - still no talking (but I'm working on that) so if you want to know owt about the various tracks thereon go stare at the Owen in Rock blog. What kind of music is it? Well take a look at the picture, that should say more than my feeble typing and annoying overuse of capitals EVER COULD.

THAT also happened. Hilariously. Well, I say hilarious it was actually rather tragic and means I'm stuck with a £15 thing until my contract "can upgrade" next month. What's more tragic is that the £15 thing is generally a lot more functional than that one ever was. Damned kids and their swanky cheap phones...

This Sunday I went to see the seminal MASTODON at Bristol's 02 Academy (nice venue shame about the inevitable £4 pints of cock). I last saw them many moons ago at the Sheffield Corporation and MET THEM beforehand at a pub. Not sure if they could have gotten away with that this time 'round as the Hatchet opposite was RAMMED TO THE GILLS. As was the gig. Mastodon were as frenetic and fabulous as they were then, playing a more varied setlist than before and were generally on TOP CRUNCHY FORM. The were supported by Red Fang, a similarly sludgy Ohiobased outfit that sounded good to my ears and were responsible for that crowd photo up there. I'm not, despite popular opinion, that craggy-haired guy on the left - I was actually lurking with milady at the bar. Unless that IS me from further in the future and I ventured back in time to see the gig again.


GENERAL ART

Here - the newest three parts of Jasmine and I's Jamslug saga. The nineteenth episode being notable (if not for "AIEEEE a being of beautiful jam" and the donut pun) for being drawn faster than I've ever drawn anything!

and here... the ninth page of Flaubert St Cloud... which has been getting some lovely commentary on the 2000ad forums. People are fearing for the goat as WELL THEY MIGHT. Or might they? Jasmine's writing (gloriously free of my tatty art) can be see on Deviantart - she's bloody amazing.

Here are some Kodama from Miyazaki's seminal "Princess Mononoke" which is an absolutely gorgeous film. They're tree spirits and the writing (translated by JAPANESE MASTER Richard Denham) is essentially, I think, the message of the film. Go on, copy and paste that into Google Translate, eh? EH?! yeahhh.

This was my version of "Sherlock" for TAB. I was going to draw Benedict Cumberbatch. I really was. But then, you see, I did not. I'm not terribly good at drawing people who are real you see. Not terribly good at all, and I do like just making armour up. Wik spikey bits.

Here's a birthday picture I drew for the undeniably lovely David Frankum (although I haven't actually met him, he could be THE WORST BASTARD but I feel it's unlikely) - wonderfully he framed it, making him twenty percent more lovely if such a thing IS EVEN FEASIBLE.

Here's another for TAB on the "X-Men" theme - I was going to draw my favourite two mutants from my Marvel-appreciation days (Colossus and Nightcrawler) but instead I didn't. This is Jazz's suggestion as she knows the X-Men well and insists this makes sense, both Thunderbird and Banshee have apparently met their ends whilst ignoring Cyclops. Luckily for them they are characters in a hugely corporate and shallow universe that will resurrect and kill characters at will in a dispassionate bid to get more readers. So if either of them actually are currently dead, you can bet it won't be long until a "universe shattering" event brings them back. ONLY TO KILL THEM AGAIN.

Here's a logo I designed for my mate Paul's band - keep your ear t'ground for those chaps because Paul's as gifted a musician as the day is unreasonably cold. Fans of gritty bluesy rock 'n' roll will NOT be disappointed. Ever.

Well. WELL WELL WELL. The deadline is up for this year's Dr WTF - we've had some bloody gorgeous entries and it's been... well it's been fucking splendid. The comic will appear at Hi-Ex convention and physical copies will be available after that - as well as at Bristol 2012, probably Birmingham, Thought Bubble etc etc. I'm LITERALLY ECSTATIC about selling it. ...and uh, ahem, finishing the lettering.

Here's a teaser for the story I drew in this year's - written by the outstanding Jonathan Whiteley (who wrote Conor Boyle's beautifully drawn "Berlin" from Dr WTF 2011). And below is a taste of Trystan Mitchell and Mike Lynch's Clerical Error. Mike Lynch wrote the strip I drew last year for Zarjaz (published this summer) and Trystan does literally everything - all teasers up to now are viewable on the Dr WTF Facebook page ;)

 - !

O