There's a feature of my website CMS that lets me show a list of the upcoming comic page titles I have queued up. I don't think most people notice it (it's well down the page), but here are all the Steeple comics I currently have waiting for you.
I defy anyone to imagine what happens in these comics. Given that every title is a line of dialogue from the page in question, they appear to cat...
2020-07-21 16:30:39 +0000 UTC View PostI've long been aware of TV chefs "The Hairy Bikers" but have only recently watched their TV show. My interest in them was piqued when I saw the pair of them staring on a street corner in Soho, suited and booted in their trademark apparel, standing as if for a publicity photo - clearly waiting for a car pickup but also very keen that people should be looking at them. No one was looking at them except me, and they looked ridiculous.
This is exactly what they looked like: 2020-07-19 08:22:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Wicked Things issue 3 is available in comic shops (and digitally on Comixology) on July 22nd. In this issue: Charlotte makes a lot of cups of tea and coffee. Other things happen, but that's part of the mystery. Here's the good word from the publisher:
Left in legal limbo with a murder accusation hanging over he...
2020-07-18 07:57:18 +0000 UTC View Post
Five sketches from my sketch dungeon folder.
1. Patsy Walker: Hellcat.
Did you watch Jessica Jones? Patsy wasn't much of a laugh in that. I love the history of the character though - she debuted in 1944! The early issues were drawn by the legendary MAD artist Al Jaffee. I don't think they should have made her into a superhero, that was the coward's way out. But Patsy was created the year my mother was born and Patsy became Hellcat the year I was born so maybe those seasons just have ...
This week I've begun drawing a new Steeple story, "Secret Sentai". It will start running on the Steeple site towards the end of August.
With Steeple on a break for a few months, here's a chance to see how Des is getting on in Tredregyn. I think you can guess how he's getting on.
This is what your Patreon pays for, solid gold exclusive content. Some might say that I didn't pencil this but simply drew it straight out in ink and made up the dialogue as I went along, and those people are under investigation! Big lies, very bad!!!!
STEEPLE VOLUME 1 OUT NOW FROM DARK HORSE COMICS!
2020-07-04 10:54:32 +0000 UTC
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The long gestation of Steeple has lead to a glut of sketch pages, character designs and story ideas, some of which will be used, some not, and some of which will be boiled down or rolled into other things. The sketch pile has a lot of fun stuff in it, here are five I liked from a recent batch.
2020-06-28 14:18:55 +0000 UTC View Post
From today's Destroy History comic. You're going to meet most of these people over the coming weeks.
I did not need to achieve this level of detail on the poster, I just wanted to.
2020-06-25 07:17:58 +0000 UTC View Post
Because it is just you and me talking, I can tell you that of all the Giant Days characters, the only one whose future I have considered, is Esther. The series ends with her fate in doubt. But secretly (remember this is secret), my guess was that she would go and work at the Ministry Of History, having already shown her face there in the 2017 Holiday Special.
I've never drawn what that might look like... until today.
2020-06-23 14:42:25 +0000 UTC View Post
Wicked Things issue 2 is out on Wednesday from Boom! Box, in comic shops and on Comixology. Here's a 6-page preview, plus my variant cover.
Written by me, art by Max Sarin, colours by Whitney Cogar, letters by Jim Campbell.
2020-06-20 15:54:50 +0000 UTC View Post
$3 a month (and up) Patreon members can now read all 36 pages of Destroy History: NEMS in full as a downloadable PDF. This is my first experiment in offering content up front this way so please let me know in the comments if you want more projects delivered like this.
(One request: please don't spoil the story for people reading the daily webcomic. I know you w...
2020-06-19 13:56:42 +0000 UTC View Post
I was asked by David Harper (of the great Off Panel podcast and Sktchd blog) to do an illustration of him as bizarre D-list Marvel character Stiltman. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance, especially when I fond out that the artwork was for a card that would be coloured and designed by the wonderful 2020-06-15 17:16:40 +0000 UTC View Post
I wrote in an earlier post about fixing the first page of Steeple; the first three all needed little fixes, and what greater pleasure is there than flipping backwards and forwards between two versions of the same thing to play "spot the difference"?
Again, the original drawings weren't necessarily bad but they didn't serve the purpose they were meant to. I'd had a few weeks off drawing and a few months off drawing proper comic pages so I wasn't 100% by any means.
Page 2:
The...
2020-06-14 07:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Four sketches from my big sketch dump folder. One's from a convention I probably shouldn't have exhibited at (I certainly had a lot of time to be alone with my thoughts that weekend) , one's from the abandoned Murder She Writes sequel "Yoga She Writes", one's a panel I drew as a warmup from my Giant Days #39 script, the last one is Death's Head drawn with a dying pen. Enjoy your Saturday.
2020-06-13 08:02:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Basic drawing practice for a basic boy this basic week, not all successful but I was working on my knee which doesn't always give you the best line.
2020-06-11 16:49:21 +0000 UTC View Post
Pleased to announce that I, John Allison, am not the new artist on Vampirella, but if Dynamite Comics ever see this drawing I did last week, I will be.
I know. WOW.
You did not know I had it in me.
2020-06-09 13:59:11 +0000 UTC View Post
The first few pages of the current Steeple story were drawn back in February when I was very feeble following a very bad bout of flu/early COVID-19 (who knows?) so I'm tidying them up for eventual collection. The first page had quite a lot of amends so I thought it might be fun to look at the original and the fixes side-by-side. Someone always likes the original more. But that person is never me.
There were some weak compositions in the original, and I'd not quite got back to grips with...
2020-06-07 07:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Before Clip Studio came out for the iPad, I tried out an app called "Comic Draw". It was a bit buggy and weird and had some odd limitations, but it also had some well thought-out features, quite different to other drawing apps. As soon as Clip Studio came out, I stopped trying to bend it to my will. I only made one strip wholly to my liking with it, and I don't think I ever ran it on the website.
Having worked with one piece of software for 12 years, I can easily get obsessed with littl...
2020-06-06 08:49:34 +0000 UTC View PostI had to entertain myself all day today while our boiler was replaced. Here’s a page of Steeple sketches I did. I particularly like the big face in the corner.
Murder She Writes was the best-selling of the run of mini-comics I made between 2011 and 2016. I had to reprint it three or four times. I wanted to do more issues but other things got in the way. I got halfway to a successor - "Yoga She Writes" - but was never quite in a position to draw it. Wicked Things is meant to be the continuation of this thread, if it does well enough to go to an ongoing series, you should eventually see the yoga story done right. Because I do not have the luxury of wa...
2020-05-31 14:48:31 +0000 UTC View PostI really enjoy the Great British Bake-Off and watch every year. I think I prefer it in its Channel 4 incarnation with Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig to the old BBC version, though Junior Bake-Off with Harry Hill is obviously the best iteration of the show.
In 2017, Desmond Fishman was a contestant on the show. You are perhaps aware of his relationship with Paul Hollywood (below). He would have probably entered again in 2018 , but I couldn't draw and watch TV while wearing the same pair...
2020-05-30 07:31:00 +0000 UTC View PostA number of people have asked me, since Steeple started, with its complex sea monster mythology, if Desmond Fishman would appear in it. I think this was also an inadvertent way of asking if Steeple is part of the Scary Go Round Cinematic Universe. It wouldn't be good for Des to appear in Steeple. It would damage the comic very badly. But Steeple can appear in Des' comic, "Cattywampus", and so he has now moved to the Cornish town of Tredregyn.
Please take the time in the comments t...
2020-05-24 10:16:50 +0000 UTC View Post
Steeple was an unusual project in that I did a full script, as I would for another artist, then roughed it out before pencilling and inking. I don't usually work this way. My usual process these days is to make a full issue/story page-by-page breakdown, then scrawl out the dialogue onto a rough approximation of the panelling, roughly laying out the characters as I go. Something like this:
2020-05-22 14:29:49 +0000 UTC
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I don’t know why but I decided to ink with the thinnest line I could. It sort of reminded me of animator Don Bluth. Or something else? Inexpensive cartoons. I thought it was funny. Or, at least, funny enough for Patreon.
I like drawing with a really thin line - I used to work with a fixed line ...
2020-05-16 15:37:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe collected edition of STEEPLE issues 1-5 will be out from Dark Horse on June 09. To celebrate, here are some behind the scenes sketches from the very early development of the book.
You can read new pages of Steeple until June 12th at Steeple.church!
As a series, Steeple developed slow...
2020-05-15 15:03:52 +0000 UTC View PostDes Fishman has easy listening options for you, EXCLUSIVE to Patreon
There are several more Desmond albums, most of which I concocted in Finland after drinking perhaps three strong cups of coffee too many. I will try to unearth them at a later date.
2020-05-10 07:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostAt the moment I'm working on a new Destroy History series. It's nice to have some time to devote to a project that I've had worked out for a decade, but never had space to work on properly.
I got a huge box of sketchbooks out of the loft this afternoon, and one of the first ones I looked in had the original Destroy History sketches in it. They're from July 2009 - a few months before Bad Machinery started. A few pages lat...
2020-05-09 08:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostDuring a week off in 2013, I posted a series of illustrations entitled "On This Day In History" in lieu of new comics They were deleted when I returned from my week off. I just found them, and since I'd forgotten about them, I imagine you probably have too. It's strong work, powerful and moving.
2020-05-03 09:00:02 +0000 UTC
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While a guest at the Angoulême Festival in France earlier this year, I "delighted" my hosts with a two-part recreation of Victor Hugo/Lord Lloyd-Webber's great collaboration "The Phantom Of The Opera". It is worth noting that I have never read the original book, nor seen the musical, other than a vague acquaintance of the title song and "The Music Of The Night".
Despite these shortcomings, I believe I recreated it exactly, using my skills as a storyteller to "reverse eng...
2020-05-02 08:49:59 +0000 UTC View Post