Capricorn

My Life - My Heart - Black Night - Dark Star

This is the last ever blog I shall write from my Sheffield abode. It's a little sad - but I can feel the future rushing up to bite me on the face. Ouch! Thanks future - thanks for biting me on the face.

The last fortnight has been replete with adventuring - across the wide seas and through mysterious jungle I have been. Trekked the deserts and strode over mountains. Actually I went to London. That was it. Saw the astounding Chrome Hoof launch their new album from a sweaty Hackney warehouse. Much vodka was consumed and many lols were had. I encourage you absolutely to seek out their music and observe their forms - it gets no better than that.

What you see above is the first page of the SECOND PART of my all-consuming space saga Crabcake. The crew find themselves captured by the Volian Supercones and Waned THINKS THAT THEY ARE PRICKS. He may be righter than he knows. Look out for the second page. Or take a gander at the full page over at this link here.

This image is my attempt at a Rube Goldberg machine - "A small person watches the TARDIS on a hover telly/stool - inconveniencing a bobbing bird of some description - whose movement encourages affixed cheese to arouse the attentions of a nearby conveyormouse who runs and runs but ends up - with affixed fluffsticks bothering a cat below". Is what I said about it over here where the big picture is.

This remarkably specialist image was for a 2000ad board competition wherein the 'middle page' of a story had to be summarized. The page portrayed here was the fiftieth page of 'The Southampton Sharks' - an interesting tale in the canon of 'The Mean Arena' which was created by Tom Tully and John Richardson back IN THE DAWN OF TIME. It took me a time to do and I quite like it. You can see the bigger version here.

Finally - this is a promotional image for my new audio adventure which can be heard over here. It's a rollcoaster of a tale crammed with sizzling elves and much use of the phrase 'douche' and lots of snazzy special effects and stolen foley. Go on. Check it out. What's the worst that could happen? Copyright infringement?! A big thank-you to regular Runeshaw Chris Nolan-Rennie and special guests Jazz, Adam and Alan as the numerous douchelves. DELVES?

Well this is it then - keep your eye on my Facebook for the coming days will see the return of my ALPHABET ROCK summary of great music. Hopefully there will be undiscovered gems galore. Or just a fuckton of commercial bollocks depending on your obscurity level.

I will write again after... well after Glastonbury festival. Farewell Sheffield - !

ART IS HERE
AUDIO IS HERE

THE GREATEST MAN LIVING IS HERE

O - x

The Trooper

- wohohohoho woaho -

That's right. I've done it - my dissertation, my degree - I bloody did it. Over and done with - and now sweeps over me a massive tide of EVERYTHING ELSE. The drawing and the gigging and the sitting down. Afore I begin to whine on about art and such; TAKE A HARK AT MY NEW BANNER UP THERE! Cor innit lovely? Despite making me look like a woman. I am not a woman. Sorry.

That lovely man just above is the guitar legend Joe Bonamassa - this is not a drawing but I did purple up the background - HOW SWANKY. Last night I went to see this sprightly fella over at the ROTHERAM MAGNA CENTRE which was equipped for maybe five hundred. Shame thirty thousand showed up. It was sweaty and claustrophobic but much boogying was had by all and Joe was classy throughout. Referring to the awkward location as "the Sheffield area" which was met with much muttering from non-Sheffielders. Northern gigs are always good fun - and no matter who's playing there will always be guttural shouts from all about.

"G'WAN JOOO"

Support was from Sandi Thom and I remain unconvinced by her blues credentials. She has a good voice, but her pouting session band and plodding pseudo-standards were about as blues as a Guardian supplement on the blues. Joe however had a tight band behind him and remains a beacon for everything groovy - thoroughly lovely and with a voice and guitar skill that FLATTENS THE MIND. By the time he widdly widdly widdled to a climax after an excellent cover of ZZ Top's Just Got Paid I found myself hooting like those around me. GWAN JOO.

I re-lettered the first part of Crabcake whilst doing dissertation activities. The outstanding Jim Campbell did a lettering tutorilla and I'd always intended to learn how to do it properly-like so I used it and BINGO; Crabcake doesnae look so shite anymore. We live in marvellous times. The full thing can be seen here.

This piece is for Feral-Gargantua's "Reverse Anthro" jam. I get so sick and tired of anthro on Deviant Art so personally this was an opportunity for me to strike back. With Lassie. LASSIE STRIKES - ! I drew and inked this on a train - much to the confusion of fellow passengers, who would walk past and pull that kind of jerky movement like "oh he's drawing - oh it's not good". Then they all died. True story. The big picture is here. The original background is here. The photo that inspired me to draw that background is here.

Finally - this is something I coloured for the outstanding Joe "OOOL" Richards who drew it as an amalgam between

- LOST

- THE APPRENTICE

- THE MOLE

- that's it

Making it the LOSTAPPRENTICEMOLE - catchy eh? The big picture is here, of course.

I will see y'all on the 14th June - my last blog written from the hallowed hills of Sheffield - ! *Sob* Watch out for the features of ALPHABETROCK - summat I do in June that is my yearly vent of all the albums that makes my mind tick along. DO LOOK OUT FOR THAT.

ART BE HERE
AUDIO BE HERE
DINGO WARRIOR BE HERE

O - x

Freedom Run

...but not yet, not yet.

'Allo - you're witnessing me cautiously optimistic at the beginning of a dissertation writin' frenzy (although obviously I'd be more optimistic if I were actually writing it rather than this blog). BUT I MUST ART - I SIMPLY MUST. The frantic workload recently has taught me this - no matter how busy things get there is always time for drawing - and there ALWAYS WILL BE.

So, as per the stories of this last fortnight will be told through the medium of my fairly average art -

That then, is a picture of Cosmic Ray - editor of the superlative (and dead) small press title Solar Wind, which I was priviliged to be part of in the past. Stories published were The Whistle of Alfie Smith - a disgracefully drawn one back in like... 2004 - and The Last Blokes in the final issue 'bout two years back. So I coloured this for Paul Scott, editor and kindly comissionman - an image that was originally in the front of that final issue as a 'reader's letter' type thing. Long live Solar Wind! The bigger one is here.

That is obviously a dalek. A lecture sketch gaudily coloured-up as a tribute to the new Doctor who I'm enjoying greatly (aside from the occasional companionspaz, THANKS AMY) All of the Day and All of the Night. The dalek episode wasn't particularly good but I love Mark Gatiss and Bill Paterson so that was enough for me. The big picture here.

This is MY HILARIOUS INTERPRETATION of the 'Day the Music Died' where three talented young rock 'n' roll troubadours were tragically killed in a plane crash. I thought, only naturally, that this should be immortalised through the medium of a toddler's toy. It was part of a Feral-Gargantua jam about 'dead celebrity action figures' and it's larger form (complete with a story about Space Goblins) can be found here.

- this is a piece of art I did to justify a Crabcake fanart request from the amazing Carl 'jimoakley666' Pearce. It is clearly the Toxic Avenger, I'm quite fond of it and you can see all the details at this location.

This is an APPALLINGLY ROUGH sketch of the first page of the second part of the Crabcake epic. I felt the need to scan it because, flailing with heavy workload as I am, I wanted to prove that the Crabcake fires were still burning. During lectures I constructed a full sketch for the next part and now all it needs is a bit of light FULL-ON COMPLETION. Which I'm greatly looking forward to doing.

Lastly I rejiggered THIS OLD IRON MAN PICTURE to fit in with a new Feral Gargantua jam on Iron Man - If you are an artist reading this who's on DevArt but not in Feral Gargantua give us a shout and join in - it's A RIGHT LARK.

That's it folks - I will be back after I've written an appalling dissertation and finished my degree - when that will be I do not know, but I'll not be back without some art to justify my absence - !

ART BE HERE

AUDIO BE HERE
TWELVE HORSES BE HERE

O - x

When

...will I be out of this quagmire of work and nonwork?

The answer is May 20th. Then who knows WHAT will go down. Chrome Hoof hopefully.

Anyway, still I've managed to squeeze out some artworks and things between the last post and this one - so I'll take you through them. ONE BY ONE. Afore I do though, I'll just mention that me and Jazz's radio shows are back on air - that be Owen in Rock and Soon I Will Be Invincible. So tune in Saturdays from three for various chunks of rock majesty from throughout the years!

That image there is to celebrate my purchase of Ghostpocket's outstanding GHST annual which unleashes possibly the greatest canon of comic characters since the big ones. You know the ones I mean - The Glass Menagerie. You won't be disappointed. You can see the larger version of this on my DeviantArt page (one of the only left that doesn't have a Lady Gaga reference on it).

I decided to resurrect this slightly-old Who image for Feral-Gargantua's eleventh doctor jam. It's re-emergence was greeted with the rapturous silence that it possibly deserves - it's a bit shitty anyway. I like the last panel - but the first four are really quite amateur. Plus it's marred with the terrible truth that this could never happened. GROW SOME BALLS MOFFAT. I do like the new Doctor though - he's a dedicated follower of fashion.

Oh hohoho - for the Feral Gargantua TMNT jam - and literally the last thing that came into my mind in terms of an idea. So I went for it - even though it makes no sense and the scanner didn't work and all that other beautiful shit. That turtle's dynamite!

Here it is - the final page of the first part of Crabcake - fairly spectacular and leaving them on quite an EPIC CLIFFHANGER. What will become of the audacious crew and their spectacularly cruddy vessel, the eponymous Crabcake? You'll have to wait til June to find out :O

Oh - and finally here's the whole bally thing - you can see the larger version here and bask in it's time-consuming glow. I hope it leaves you slavering for the next part - of which I can say nothing but ALL HAIL PRESIDENT GARY!

See you on *gulp* the Second of May where hopefully I've done

- loads of work

- at least two pictures (maybe, but it would be unwise)

Yikes.

ART BE HERE

AUDIO BE HERE

TETRIS CAKE BE HERE

O - x

Paranoid

wouldn't you be? -

another fortnight another big ramp of shit that occurred. It's all good though. TERRIFYING AND GOOD.

I hope everyone has had a marvellous Eggday and received many eggs which you then MASTICATED AND DIGESTED. That's it - I'm done with that. Time for the bi-monthly update on art and all that other shite that's not proper work but is more important than proper work - and is therefore proper work. Confused? I wouldn't be. Although I am.

Before I launch into a picture-by-picture breakdown of my fortnight I want to A: Congratulate my dear friends the married Burleys on their marriage and the glorious party wot followed and B: Thank Mr Martin Collins for hanging around my ravaged self when alone last week. THANKS MARTIN COLLINS AND THE BURLEYS.

Oh additionally I did my first bit of audio drama in, like, forever last week which you can listen to over at Crazy Fox Machine on Myspace - it's all good and cheers to whomever listened to it 9 times ;)

Alright - what you can see above (and bigger here with full person list) is the most popular picture I've ever done. ELEVEN FAVOURITES?! I feel like someone who does Bleach fanart! Thank you to all the numerous progheads and friendfaces that took a shine to it. I mean - Robert Johnson and B.B. King have white streaks through their faces, Angus Young has a truncated hat and Dimebag Darrell looks like a white George Clinton (copyright R.J. Phillips 2010) but you like it, you really like it! So that's okay.

This is a picture of The Mekon who was Dan Dare's greatest foe - here we can see him hovering forlornly over the cruel malformed volcanoes of Venus which I was inspired to draw by Professor Brian Cox WHO IS THE MOST HANDSOMEST AND LOVELIEST MAN ON TELEVISION WHO ISN'T MICHAEL PALIN. Although in the next episode it was made clear that Venus' volcanoes had never been seen to have erupted. UNTIL NOW.

This was for Feral-Gargantua's monthly art thing themed around a three-panel wordless comics. I know they're not in panels but IT'S FUNNY ANYWAY. Right? Hundreds would disagree maybe - but I had fun drawing it and colouring it and surely that's the point. The enormous one is here.

All those popular men up there were drawn for this image which is portraying 'The Invention of Rock' via B.B. King's glowing guitar shining and getting in the eyes of the great and the good and the long-dead-by-the-time-B.B. King-used-it. It was for Bobbymono's enormous colab comic thing and I hope it sits well alongside artists who are clearly better than me. The full thing, as always, is here.

Finally yes - here it is, the fourth page of the first beautiful adventure of the Crabcake crew. There's one more to go before I do an annoying 'anthology' image of all five and then go on to claim that I'm a worthwhile artist. As you can see, in this page they've stepped out onto the planets surface and are generally dicking about. Those silly fools - the full thing (with links to pages 1 - 3) is here.

Thank you very much for reading when you're so busy nomming it down on various eggs - I'm sorry this wasn't exciting and cynical like the blogs so many others write but I'm choosing not to be a douchebag. It's a choice would you believe, even though so many people make it look natural.

I'll return on the 18th of April with more goings-on and potentially either NO MIND or a portion of a finished dissertation. Shotgun the former.

ART HERE

AUDIO HERE

MASSIVE PIG HERE

O - x

You Are Your Enemy

...so get over it and stop puncturing your own tyres -

Hello again - it's been a FULL-ON NERVESHREDDINGLY HORRENDOUS two weeks since last I updated - and the break has been a very fruitful one. It's all art so I won't bother with the colour-coding as life just isn't worth commenting on. Sorry - it's just not. All dull dissertation work and severe anxiety - about as interesting as Slash's guitarwork.

TALKING ABOUT overrated instrumentalists, why don't you indulge yourselves (if you haven't already) by investigated critically acclaimed new 15-minute album by Dan Shandy and the Shambling Dandies? They've been working hard at it all week and it certainly is a spiffing record - you can pick it up FREE by clicking on this sentence. It's free. I've heard tantalising rumours that they're planning a sequel WITHIN THE NEXT YEAR. Aren't we lucky pups?

Here is an image of what can only be described as a tribute to both Sword in the Stone (which is a good film, despite what my girlfriend would say) and like, those kind of storybook comics that you'd get in the forties that would always be a real PAIN to read. However, often I remember getting quite into them when I could be bothered to read, and they always seemed to be about time travel which is a bonus. The bigger picture is here - and it was part of a larger contest with FeralGargantua (naturally) which can be seen here.

What you see above is the third miraculous page of the first miraculous part of my on-going 'Crabcake' saga. I'm getting the fourth coloured as we speak and it should be good. I must do something with my hands, otherwise they'll be out the door and cutting down trees in minutes AND THEY PROVIDE OXYGEN DAMMIT. The full version (which has links to the first two pages) can be seen at this link right here.
Finally what you see is not a test - it's genuinely Dermot Mulligan of the revolutionary duo Mulligan & O'Hare as well as Det Ken 'Hutch' Hutchinson temporarily relieved from association with ironic slapstick comedies. Oh no, there goes Tokyo. Go go David Soul. The full thing is visible here - and the amazing Ralf "dunwich7" Kahlert of Feralgargantua fame produced a stunning Hardy/Batman image that is BEYOND REPROACH

There - that's it. Over the course of the blog I've decided it'll be far more productive to do these blogs every other week - so I will see you on the 4th of April and you can catch up with my goings on between then on:

Crazy Fox Machine - Facebook

Metal-Truncator - Deviantart

This blog. YOU ARE HERE - don't click on the link

O - x

Shining in the Light

...yet I can't go out in it. It's either this or essays - and I'm inclined towards this at the moment.

I'm also going to use the first half of this post to plug ALL THE BLOGS I FOLLOW, because

a - it's a nice way of wasting time

b - it's a nice way

Artists

Chris Weston - One of the most talented British artists currently working, does tons of commercialwork and occasionally produces knock-out little strips for 2000ad.

D'Blog of D'Israeli - Easily my favourite artist in 2000ad - his work on the War of the Worlds graphic novel never fails to UTTERLY DESTROY MY BRAIN.

Dave Taylor - Producer of incredibly psychedelic Moebius-styled artwork for a weekly comic I'm sure you could probably guess by now.

Dylan Teague's Drawing Board - Some of the finest 'straight' art you'll ever see. "HOW DOES HE GET IT SO CLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAN?" You will find yourself crying.

Have Pencil, Will Scribble - The art of Rufus Dayglo, the mad comic-fan turned super-stylish Hewlett successor on Tank Girl. Inspirational.

Kev Lev's Blog - Kevin Levell, a Bryan Talbot/D'israeli-style talent who I'm watching so I can go "Yeah I was there" when HE SUDDENLY GETS MASSIVE.

Leigh Gallagher - Newish fella who got popular after his co-creation of the 'Defoe' character, pages are stuffed with mad detail - it freaks me out.

Friends

Bob's Blog - Glorious cyncism from two of the most beautiful hands to have ever graced the surface of the Earth.

I Am Dead and Made of Heat - The not-at-all up-to-date and potentially never-visited blog of the superlative surrealist artist Mr GhostPockets - his Deviantart is herreee

In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni - The bitter hateful rantings of a cuddly kitten of an archaeologist; Mr Alex Sotheran.

Paulk Chops - The witty warblings of Paul, a Northern thrashfiend in a cinema in Canada?! Alright then.

Wizard Joe's BLOLg - The monthly observations of one of the minds behind Dan Shandy and the Shambling Dandies. Although he hasn't updated in two months. HE'S A BUSY MAN.

Words - The speech patterns of former RockSoc head, Northern Oak vocalist, grindcore veteran and all-round lovely man Martin Collins.

Institutions

2000ad Covers Uncovered - a regular look at the artists behind each cover of the glorious 2000ad. What else do you need? ...CELERY?!

Judge Minty Fan Film - A 2000ad fan film?! OKAY THEN LOL

Right - enough of that rampant pluggery. I have managed to squeeze out one chunk of art this week - which you can see just below these words.

It's for the 'Medieval Lincoln' contest where anachronistic historical characters roam the highways of time. This in large as well as other, much better, entries can be seen at Feral Gargantua - there's an Aztec Churchill, a caveman Shakespeare and MANY MEDIEVAL LINCOLNS.

Additionally I did a radio show featurin' many a funky sixties tune yesterday, which ye can listen to over at this web address that is behind these words.

...Right *sigh* I've delayed this essay long enough; NOW FOR SOME TOAST!!

See you on the frivolous fourteenth!

Art is Here

Audio is Here

O - x