Birthday Sketches II

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My memories , well, they’re what Donald Bellisario might call “swiss cheese”. I remember seeing James Shaddock about campus at Oxford Brookes, were he stood in the student’s union elections. I can’t recall if we knew each other by name, but he was always friendly and amiable. I’ve been watching his social media feed for a while and it’s often funny and astute. Glad to have you around James and happy birthday!

Shaddock

After trying to draw an expressionistic Mr Shaddock I came out with a sketch resembling a troll, a sketch I have now eaten, pooped and composted. Above, in a fancy tux from a wedding (James’ wedding maybe?), and a bowtie I added. But it was still too copied from photo, so I went for something earthier, that David Lynch just-out-of-bed look.

Shaddock 2

 

Gonzalo Balderrama added me on Facebook and besides the clues offered up on there, I have never met him, chatted with him, or the like. Oh well. Happy birthday Mr. Balderrama.

Gonzalez test

 

Gonzalo Balderrama

 

Yesterday, I tried to draw Paul Rainey, and as his Book of Lists kept me company through a painful spot on the loo, I figured I’d have another crack (excuse the pun)

Paul Rainey

 

Book of Lists is deceptively small and £11 odd yet packed with so much material t’s entirely worth it. Buy it at Page 45.

Birthday Sketches

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Welcome.

 

I’ve been realising my limitations yesterday. Epilepsy & Hot Weather = Does not want to blog, unable to attain consciousness.

 

It’s very sad. Sometime in 2015 or maybe before, I’m resolved to leaving Northern Ireland. It’s not that long really.I could do with the liberation.

 

I’d an excellent time here last week blogging Late Night Art. 

 

I’m also on the look-out for a Belfast or Northern Irish artist to draw a 7 page zombie comic: back-end payment, photo reference, veteran UK editor.

 

Anyhoo, some friends of mine have birthdays and I thought I’d draw pictures. Yesterday:

James Downey

 

Mercurial comedy sneak, expressionist and socialite. Currently doing the rounds on the NI actors extras acting circuit.

Nigel Lowrey: Illustrative muscle-man responsbile (with others) for The Jock, the long-running British comic of the late 1990s about resistance DJs in a big brother state. A precursor to Phonogram I suppose. Nige was very productive, producing detailed pages, and looks to be annoyingly modest. Happy birthday chum!

Nige Lowrey

 

Today it’s Ashish Arora’s birthday. I’ve met Ashish a half dozen times and it was very hot. I was drunk too. He’s a fun guy.

 

 

Ashish 1

I got annoyed when I felt I hadn’t drawn him well, so I tried it again.
Ashish 3

 

Sketch for Paul Rainey

 

Paul Rainey: Highly prolific UK cartoonist, currently making a long-running easy-going comic that is both Coronation Street and Doctor Who at the same time. Please please treat yourself to some Thunder Brother Soap Division.

The Pub That Richard Forgot

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“I think Andrew dreamt it”, said Stephen. Ten times we’d talked it to the dead end and my claws screamed at the blanked memories. Sure it was dark, it was a pub, its light darkened by lodge brown venetian blins. The tables and the bar were a deep hue. It was Richard took me there: another pint with Adam, here’s to sloshed Lee. Someone’s away for agess: with a girl, a cigarette machine that spun off into a mini-series? Or the bar? The only other area lit.

Richard looks at me and I wonder do these memories even provide these lights. It’s been washed off the map in a flash flood of lager.

“I’m not imagining it!” I plead. “It’s up the Crescent or Botanic…Yeah, I was talking to Dawn and she knew where I meant. The Courtyard or The Vineyard or something.”
Richard integrates the new data, searching, acquiring…”Hmm, I wonder.” In my opinion, he’s getting nowhere.
“Look!” I claim the pen.
“On the outside, it’s a small building..” I scrawl a rectangle for a cottage and the trees on each side. Then a wall in front. The gap for the path is very small, only one to two persons can get through at a time.
“AND IT’S INDEPENDENTLY OWNED TOO!” I assure.
“I can’t say I recall”, says he who has clearly been there four times. “It’s not Garfields is it?”, and in writing I think he knows now were I mean. Garfield’s was a public toilet.
“I think he means a place inside his head. If we were miniaturised and piloted a capsule in there we’d find it.”
“Right! I say we got up to Botanic now!” I have raised my voice. “I can get us there”
“I don’t know that we’d have time.”
All the way across the Corn Market cascade, with the people that zip and shuffle and line shop fronts, the kettled cattle. The cars of Chichester Street, Royal Avenue, traffic lights in front of crossings. There are Cafe Neros and Starbucks in this city. Its a grid, no diagonal cuts: grid, grid, grid between us and the bus station that is only halfway to Botanic’s maybe place.

“We’ll do it another day” we agree and Stephen remains with the book, Richard is out the door, and I’m looking at you.

Arrangements: Underwater Billiards

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Underwater Billiards of the Courageous Mayhem anthology has, our editor Gar tells me, been well received.

Not wishing to spoil it for those who have not bought the book, arrangement is very important in the strip.

Hey, why not buy the book now? Read it and return. And if you’ve done so, just scroll past this advert.

Buy Courageous Mayhem Euro Link for iPad format eBook  (£2.43) and Deluxe Print Editions (£20+)

Courageous Mayhem (UK Link) – Regular Print Edition, £5 plus 50p postage,

PDF Format – £2.53 / 3 euros – takes you straight to download page.

So yes, I’m glad people said they liked it. Just as well really, as I worked my nuts off on it. I  used photos lifted from Flickr users, guerilla explorers and crap tabloids, and through study managed to approximate a map laying out where each photo went. I then tried to use the map (below) as my main reference so the  first two pages of the story could sit together. The tale didn’t run across the way in print, our editor preferring to offer the pages up as separate steps for turning on the journey around the estate. Check out the similarities with the finished strip.

The House to The Island - Map E

Appearances

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HEAT. DRIVES TO MENTALISM.

Over the next month, I’ll be taking an active part in a few events.

Dublin Zine Fair 2013, 17th-18th August

at The Exchange, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.
I’ll be performing words on mic, and selling a new comic book, beside other independent publishers and artists.
Last year, I interviewed six attendees who may re-appear this year. My turn on the mic at the finale, The Bill Have A Gun Siege At Xmas, has been made into a comic for 30p.

Bounce Arts Festival Weekender with Comics Art Workshop, 30 Aug to 1 Sept 2013

at The Baby Grand, Grand Opera House,
Stephen Downey and I are glad to be presenting a comics workshop on Sunday 1st September for the Arts and Disability Forum at Bounce!
There’s no restrictions on level of talent or ability, as long as you’re willing to make an effort to work with others. Bring your friends and family.
Our event is free, but  there’s a great line-up again this year: a creative writing workshop, a workshop on digital film-making, live music, poetry, sign-singing (which I’m excited about seeing and learning), dance, exhibitions, and theatre, in the form of Wheelchair In My Face. What a great event. [Link to the Festival Portal on Facebook]

It’s £20 for the full weekend pass. You can book these at the Grand Opera House website now.

TitanCon, with Comics Workshop, 6th-8th September

at The Wellington Park Hotel, Belfast

 

TitanCon is a not-for-profit science fiction and fantasy literature, media and gaming convention in Belfast with an emphasis on HBO and George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones. In the previous two years it’s attracted large crowds.

 

This year I’ll be presenting a less-labour intensive version of The Magnificent Factory. There will also be a comics panel featuring Paddy Brown and other comixers who have marked the trails of Irish myth and legend. The event features cast and crew members from GoT, and a number of horror and speculative fiction authors including Peadar O’Guilin, possibly the finest panel host known to cat and dog. [Link: The TitanCon website]

Red Eyes

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“Be!” sounded the cry of The Shadow Men, stood in grid formation.

“All that you can be!” They raised their rifles over their shoulders and waved them in the air.

“In the arm-eee!”

It was a decidedly undisciplined show of loyalty, perhaps more proscribed to children at a water park. There were cheers, and a few shots went off. The Man in The Mask turned his head around, as if addressing The Steel Hyena. There were hundreds of men below him, but enough realised the next few seconds of their bosses whims were crucial and they made a show of marching to the craft. Each ship took a fourteen man crew, weighing towards the forward guns. It was not really strange to their leaders or his soldiers were in the shape of his heads. Yes, forty or fifty foot square heads. Inside eyeholes pilots sat, framed by blast shutters mimicking eyelids were the occasion called for it. This at least had a function. The nose was fairly superfluous. The grinning incisors were particularly ornate and served to intimidate their enemies.

Off the coast of Bermuda, U.S. Captain John Crenshaw engaged the red skull in his F-15 fighter jet. He and the co-pilot Mac called the crew up to see. The men laughed so hard that they slipped upon the controls and the plane ended up in the sea.

“Another successful mission for Count Cameron and the Agents of F.R.E.A.K.” the speakers boomed. The crowds eyes lit up red and they exploded into self-congratulatory cheering.

Catch

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A good day at The Black Box Bazaar with Paddy, selling quite copies of the National Tragedy Mayhem books and John Robbins’ The Well Below. [link] A few of the Belfast Writers Group showed up, including Neill, and afterwards we went to summon up some spirit creatures to help us write.

Here are some pictures of the spirit creatures.

television in canal

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

Weekend Blog

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As described in The Code Is This, I’ve spent the last few days bumming around my newly found beauty spot, writing Half Baked Alaska, a ripping adventure-drama-comedy I’m co-authoring with Neill Stringer. The plan is to try for a long run at this one, so the first part will debut on this weblogsite in about a month’s time.

Today I’ve been building http://theblackpanel.blogspot.co.uk and am happy to report the shop now has sixty comicbook titles from Northern Ireland and the Republic, which you can order at the click of a button.

Just in time for me and Paddy Brown to take the stock back to the re-opening of The Black Box’s Bazaar tomorrow (Sunday)

Come, say hi.  Help me decide what goes up here tomorrow.