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177: Slaughterhouse – Behind the scenes..

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I nearly boked a half dozen times while drawing my first zombie for all the people. Sources were Channel 4’s Anatomy for Beginners, and a Graunidad website film-through on abattoirs.
anatomy

slaughterhouse

Incidentally, Reggie Chamberlain-King, the model for the Sir Reggie story was interviewed on BBC Arts Extra yesterday to talk about his work with The Wireless Mystery Theatre.

And I’ve been asked to mention ‘Ghost in the Glass’, a book by the Belfast Writers Group. They’re having a ‘book bomb’, which you’d think would be trouble around here. Great bunch of writers with rome proceeds to Action Cancer. Pitch and ordering details are here.

178: The Super Science of Sir Reginald Part 4

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Last September I began work full-time as a script-writer for visual arts, specifically comics. Placed on the mandatory steps for work scheme for the jobless, I took the option to register as self-employed, formulating business plans, recording balance sheets, sourcing funding…doing everything but creating. Then, I met The Asshole. The Asshole could well exist in every career. I’ve spent many years around, and I’ve met The Comics Industry Asshole one too many times. I loved comics, but I lost compassion for The Asshole.

I’m not attempting a career path with this Sir Reginald piece. If I was working professionally, I’d not want to draw a strip, about a zombie or adventure fiction generally. We can tell it’s not pro quality, I tell you I am not comfortable labelled ‘illustrator’.  What I am doing is co-creating and developing something with a very special friend. Co-working from social relations, it’s what Bernie DeKoven calls fun theory when he talks about playing well together. Ben Stone is a self-made creator with a cult following: that’s probably the bonus that makes this more sense.

You can read Parts 1-3 of the story from this link. End nau, the kan-klu-zen,

sir reginald 4

sir reginald 5

 

Links:

More Sir Reginald at Benjamin Stone’s Livejournal feed, more about Stone Robot Enterprises at Nadja’s, and my thanks again to surprise model, Reggie Chamberlain-King.

179: ALEX JONES MUST FIGHT

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I’m not quite sure how Sontaran/Alex Jones mash-ups came about, except Geoffrey D. Wessel told me to do them.

ALEX AND STRAX

1 for the glory of sontalex false flag-ha 2 false flag-ha for the glory of sontalex

And because it’s all too easy to have a go at him:

neil sontar

“Andrew Neil was one of Fleet Street’s most controversial figures with a hard-won reputation as an abrasive egomaniac.” – The Guardian, 25 April, 2005

You can still buy ‘Hold the Phones, It’s Alex Jones!’  by Geoff, myself and a whole buncha talents.

Sir Reginald continues tomorrow.

181: Sir Reginald and the Zombie Part 2

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You can read Part 1 of this tale here.

Today’s new creation by me is the fab logo I created simply from some sketches I’ve been putting together from autopsy and slaughterhouse films.

sir reginald logo

sir reginald 2

I had been really enjoying the exploration of biro, the confidence in knowing the next pen won’t cost a half day’s income. Biro goes everywhere, can do anything, it’s wilfulness to mercury can help spoil a background page, or pull a Steadman/McKean/Sienkiewicz grace dance. Paddy Brown‘s biro comics convey spontaneity first. Though also the zine-comics movement, which deserts the pretension of blatant-commercialism. Though sell the fecking feck out of this if you’re sufficiently motivated.

184: Joy of Sound

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Joy of Sound is a London-based project made up of volunteers and utilising the pesky emptiness of churches mid-week to provide community fun therapy. I hoped to do a comic based on their methods by first-hand observation last year. I couldn’t secure funding, but while I was thinking about it:
JoS 2

JoS 1

It’s very worthwhile stuff William and his team are doing. If you’re in the London area, call in and play with them.

JoS 3

I’m creating something new each day, and sharing something I create online. 

185: Pants of Lord of Rings

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In March 1993, I was half the age I am now. Half the weight, with a guitar, making tarot cards, and giving readings. Of course, there were comics.

hellblazer-63

In which occult investigator and mucker John Constantine expects a dismal 40th birthday, but finds a surprise party.

Manly friendship, blootered magicians, a Swamp Thing marijuana plant, a perfect shot of sitcom. It’s a great comic.

By the start of his Year 40 apathy, US comics were getting laid low by the speculator boom and bust. The morning after saw both Constantine and US comics generally claw long back to a balanced life.

At the end of this year, I’ll be forty. I don’t know if I’ll be alone, with four friends, or with thirty-seven. In Northern/Ireland, England or Delhi. Probably broke. I’m going to have a not disappointing time. No one who doesn’t want to has to attend. I’ll be on the internet.

I’m going to create something new each day, and share something I create online. Today, a comic I drew in a webcam chat room, about some friends of mine and a weinermeister user-named ‘LordOfRings.

lord of rings

Colm Wood – Countdown to Dublin Zine Fair (3)

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The Dublin Zine Fair takes place at the Scooby-Doo SupaFast building this weekend in Great Strand Street (just off Capel Street)
It’s a weird looking place going by the exterior photo. I imagine it as being in an alcho alley, painted with wet smoked tobacco. Inside though, bright open spaces, the essential scenesters, an accumulation of entrepreneurial energies in their crossings, trailing in distantly observed alien cultures to create a patchwork planet. With complimentary olives.This week I’m talking to those comic creators attending the Fair, and today I sat down with London visual artist, Colm Wood.

Andy:
Hi Colm,  You’re an English  comixer crossing the Irish Sea to Dublin for The 2012 Zine Fair. That sounds like a big deal.  How would you introduce yourself and your work to someone at next weekend’s event in the Smithfield area, who has never heard of you before?
Colm:
Im not sure, actually. My comics dont tend to be long stories, just short, often rude bursts of nothing, which often make no sense to others, so I try to make them look nice. I find I enjoy illustrating, and comics is one way of doing that, so I try and vary what I draw on or what I make. I would tell people to expect a mess that they will hopefully like.
Colm-Wood-Twitter
Andy:
What sort of relationship do you have with your punters and fans?
Colm:
Not really anything to be honest! Im very bad at keeping up with people, I tend to involve myself alot with work, most of which never sees the light of day. Im hoping to improve on that.
Andy:
What are you looking forward to most about the event?
 Colm:
Well, I’ve been working on other projects not relating to comic work, so I’m just looking forward to being at an event again! Also its meant I’ve forced myself to spend more time working on illustrations, and that’s always nice.
Colm-Wood-300x203
Colm-Wood-Donkey-Boy
Andy:
Anything you’re dreading?

 

 Colm:
Honestly, it’s hard to dread an event filled with great artists and attended by great people!
 Andy:
And finally – any message for the people out there, reading this, wishing that they too were a smooth, relevant and attractive comics creator?
 Colm:
Kind of you to say, I’m probably not the one to ask! But most people I know that illustrate or produce work tend to illustrate or produce work for its own sake. There’s a chance they don’t realise that they too are smooth, relevant and attractive.
Colm Wood – The Scientist

Colm Wood – The Scientist

 You can view more of Colm’s shapes at http://kidgorgeous.com/ and check out his comics and illustrations at http://www.colmwood.com/
Dublin-Zine-Fair

Click through for website.

The questions in this interview were built from models
supplied by London’s bounciest superhero, David Baillie.

Writing Over The Hump

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I’ve been in talks lately with a progressive London arts movement about a month long residency and comic. More details in months.

Around the site, I’ve linked up the “Writer” section to my old Comics Village articles on The Wayback Machine. Verbose in nature, they’re nonetheless a fascinating insight into the BritComix revolution of 2008. Brimming with energy and a forerunner to Matthew Badham’s also excellent ‘Matters of Convention’ pieces.

I’d an mail from  a keen young illustrator friend called Ethan this evening,

Hey, Andy, ever since the 2d fest, I’ve been trying my damnest to find a story to illustrate. I was wondering as a writer yourself, how do you struggle with writers block?

Here’s how I responded,

Hi Ethan,

I heard a really good one. Fuzzy on how it starts and what comes next, but at the end it turns out that writer’s block is an urban myth, no different or additional than the block suffered by any other working person. Here’s a few suggestions story also made,

READ books/articles – this is the bones of any story, the imagination the flesh from which it is allowed to flex it’s muscles.

STEAL from research or lift other people’s stories – perform a ‘cover version’, translate a chat you heard in a cafe.

BORROW – Comics writers apparently face a harder time than illustrators, so why not get someone to write for you. Pick a friend you respect for their talent and work up an “energy” with them. If they’re half-good and publically unproven, they’ll be eager to deliver the goods with you. Heck, I’ll work you up a script. If you’re unsure, a collaborative story-building may delivers more success than a cold, inflexible (however competent) script.

BEG for someone to get you (or just BUY) “Becoming a Writer”, by Dorothea Brande, published by Penguin. It’s slim, quite readable and you could get it online for under £3. What’s different there, is that it offers a holistic approach to writing. Encouraging, positive, with practical exercises. It’s individually tailored. There are even four pages relating to the writer’s use of coffee.

WRITE
Just do it.
Brande recommends (and does Gaiman and many others and me), writing as habit. First thing when you get up in the morning. Keep a dream journal. Or around afternoon, writing down one other story that someone else has told you.
Every day.

EDIT
Like a mad thing. Comix are all about being concise. Mike Collins recommends you write out a sentence and then go back and cross out every other line word. Oddly, this works and very well. When you’re working out the alongside visuals, you may find you don’t have to use words. Better yet, you have a whole new layer of story you can provide.