A watercolour drawing that actually wasn't bad from 2008, some badge designs, a Beatles tshirt which I never put on sale (no idea why - it's pretty good, I suspect I was unhappy with Ringo), a Christmas card design, and a leaflet that came through my door long ago.
2022-12-09 12:28:48 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm still not really drawing outside of making the comics, and trying not to beat myself up about it. But it leaves me with a shortage of Patreon-ready stuff. So here are some sketches and notes from the spring, before the year became more challenging.
They include:
A couple of Solver notes pages, including the first primitive sketches of Glenn Durgan. This story came together quickly after I abandoned the second NEMS comic. I put together some simple ideas in a sho...
2022-12-08 17:28:51 +0000 UTC View PostPrecious little sketching has gone on in the last five months but in early summer I did think up a video game idea, where Shelley Winters has to solve a lot of problems with a yellow rubber washing up glove on her way to a job interview. Very high concept. I cannot make a video game for I do not have the skill. But these are some fun drawings. God willing I will sketch again.
Joanna Castellon writes:
"You dabble a lot in the quasi-paranormal across all your comics over the years where characters just kind of acknowledge it as a thing. On that point:
1) Have you decided that a monster of the volume was just too much paranormal for your comics and
2) How do you come up with your ideas for what the monsters will be/do, so essentially how are you influenced on them?...
2022-11-23 18:05:51 +0000 UTC View PostWilliam Cole writes:
"Can you finally reveal who WOULD win in a fight between a living carpet, giant sloth, and automated one-man band?"
It's a trick question. Living carpet envelops giant sloth, giant sloth subdues automated one-man band, automated one-man band incinerates living carpet.
--
Jeremy Impson writes:
"What are you reading/ watching/ listening to that you really like and or really dislike?" 2022-11-18 17:21:29 +0000 UTC View Post
Carlo Condo asks:
"Have you ever thought of having your work translated in another language? Do you think that the way you play with English, that I find quite impressive, might transfer well enough for the comics to be at (almost) the same level as the original?"
Many of my comics have been translated to other languages. Steeple is in Spanish, By Night is in French and Spanish, and Giant Days ha...
2022-11-11 16:39:54 +0000 UTC View PostAaron Cloutier writes:
"My son is an aspiring illustrator (in college) and has been drawing every day since he was around 4. Is there any bit of wisdom you wish you'd had as an artist just at the beginning of your career?"
I'm in the process of packing up my house to move, and I've been looking at some of my artwork from 1995-1997, comics I made in the summer breaks between finishing school and finishing university. There aren't a lot of th...
2022-11-09 17:35:51 +0000 UTC View PostNumber nine... number nice... number nine. This might not be the final cover but it was fun enough to share. What on earth could this issue be about?
And below, the cover for the project I will spending the last forty years of my life working on. I've decided to "do a Ditko". Now, I've not read any Ayn Rand yet but I figure her books are a bit like David Eddings' Belgariad series but...
2022-11-04 16:01:10 +0000 UTC View PostAs alluded to in previous posts, it's been a tough year, which has meant less of the fun sketches and daft comics that usually fill the Patreon. But I enjoy answering questions and talking through the creative process, so if you have any creative (or other) areas you'd like me to tackle, please put your query in the comments below. I usually get to most of them.
You can see all the previous...
2022-11-03 11:25:28 +0000 UTC View PostYour PDF is linked under the cover image - please let me know if you enjoyed it in the comments. And thank you for supporting the making of these comics.
For new $3+ Patrons, your Solver stories so far (links are to the PDF download posts)
Issues 1 & 2 - Circus Windows part 1 & 2022-10-23 23:01:02 +0000 UTC
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It's my birthday today! Happy birthday to me. Happy... birthday. Here's the last of the rejected Bobbins strips.
You may be wondering what made these strips any worse than the ones that have run in the past. I'm not sure they are any worse, and I was going on okay until I got to this point and tried to work out what would happen next.
I tried plotting out a few different op...
2022-10-19 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
This is another quite good-looking one. Drawing-wise, these comics were fine. Bon mots-wise, also fine. I think chopping them into two rows somehow makes them look better than when they're one long row.
2022-10-18 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
This one I was particularly pleased with.
2022-10-13 23:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Some nice drawing in this one, I think.
2022-10-06 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
I do like Polly. She's wan, but pleasant.
2022-10-04 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostI made 12 Bobbins.horse comics a couple of months ago but didn't feel they quite hit the mark. I run them here purely as a curiosity. I've had to cut them up to fit the Patreon layout, which doesn't tolerate a wide strip.
You may not be aware, but copyright on the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, "Steamboat Willie", expires in 2024. And I will be taking advantage, with a major new wave of releases starring everybody's favourite mouse boy. I think you're going to enjoy these comics...
As Bad Machinery went on, and I was working on it in tandem with writing Giant Days, I started to struggle to write two "cases" a year, so I began to alternate them with lighter, easier to put together material. In 2016, between cases 9 and 10 I did a story called the Big Hiatus, where I tried to work exclusively in the Japanese yonkoma format. It's a format built for formulaic gag strips but I pushed it as hard as I could to be more visually sophisticated, as ...
2022-09-22 17:05:05 +0000 UTC View PostI'll start running the 12 Bobbins strips I made recently here next week, but in the meantime, rest assured that I am back in business and 1/3 of the way through drawing Solver 8 ("The Urn"). It will run here on October 24th as a PDF and on the website up to a couple of weeks before Christmas (where I always take a week off), so my next jobs are to decide what to run in those two weeks (I don't like to split stories), and what will kick off 2023. It might be more Solver, or I may work on a pro...
2022-09-20 16:14:22 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm trying to get myself back in shape by inking some old pencils. It's hard to find pro pencil pages online that aren't super tightly rendered, ie, no fun to mess with. It's more about getting my problem solving brain to work than trying to get lovely lines.
These pencils are Ken Lashley on The Flash in the mid oughts, I think. Not a strong page by any means - I don't think Ken was hired for his quiet, emotional pages, but rather his action stuff. He zooms in here, I think when he shou...
2022-09-08 16:05:38 +0000 UTC View PostIt's been a tricky summer for me, and it will be a tricky autumn. In August I drew three weeks-worth of so-so Bobbins comics, trying to keep going just to have something to do, then I ran out of steam altogether. Events finally caught up with me.
It's going to take me a while to get back on track, though today was the first day in several weeks where I actually wanted to write and draw, which is a good sign. But progress is much slower than my usual brisk clip, and there are going...
2022-09-05 17:10:18 +0000 UTC View Post
Just a few She Hulks I drew quickly. I’m enjoying the TV show so far. Always a favourite character of mine.
I’ve not felt much like sketching recently. I’ve been making some Bobbins.horse strips and it’s kept me out of mischief and started to take the rust off my drawing after my month of only writing, but it’s not particularly creatively edifying compared to making Solver and Steeple. I’ve ended up drawing a lot of conversations, which gets old quite quickly. Still, ...
2022-08-24 16:56:54 +0000 UTC View Post
