Now it can be told

A few months ago I promised a sneak peak of a comic I was working on before finding out sneak peaks were not allowed. Well, I'm told the comic's out so I guess I can talk about it. The story is called 'Etc' and it's in Boom Studio's Zombie Tales no. 7, I've not had a copy yet, but you might be able to find it in your local comic shop. The script was written by Shane Oakley and I was happy to find Shane's scripts have the same dark over the top humour as his awesome artwork.
I'm not going to give anything away more than this 1st page shows, if you like it, track down a copy of Zombie tales to find out how it ends.
One extra note, I made a bit of a mistake and missed something from the script, so I've added it in for this post, sorry Shane, hope this makes up for it a bit.

Money Shot by Christa Faust

Been a long time since I posted any sort of review, no idea why, I just stopped. I also stopped reading for a while, a few months in fact. This happens to me every now and then, I can't get inspired by novels, even books I'd normally like. About this time I usually reread a lot of favourite comics.
Anyway, finally felt like reading something, and Hard Case Crime are always worth a look, so I went with Money Shot by Christa Faust, which turned out to be exactly what I needed to get me back into books. Not because it's such a good book, but because it was an easy read. There's very little surprises in the plot and even the characters strike no new notes, but it's perfectly paced and the authors love of the genre and her characters drive the book forward and make up for the straightforward plot.
The setting also helps Money Shot's likability, using the porn industry as a backdrop could've just been an excuse to shock, and then maybe slide into some easy psychology and cheap moralising, instead Faust goes down a similar route to Boogie Nights with the porn industry portrayed as a dysfunctional family, some times it's sordid and depressing, other times it's silly and loving.

Phew

Congratulations to Obama...... now get to work.

Hoo boy

Bit of a shocker art wise this time round. This piece is for the fine chaps at Massacre For Boys, and I decided to be obvious and go for the whole expoitation route. Have to say my initial idea stuck me as all jolly nasty fun, but drawing it became increasingly uncomfortable - but I guess that's the point. The original art minus the book cover style additions feels even more tough to look at, the schlock title and lurid tag-line actually manages to tame it a little by making it look campy and silly I think..... but then I think I've just shown how questionable my taste is.

Ooooh

This is just astonishing.

Copper's back!

Kabu Kibuishi once again takes my breath away here. The Copper strip really made my rethink my approach to comics after I'd decided fairly rigid grids were the way to go. Kibuishi's wonderful layouts really make you see the strip as a whole page, like the best Sunday pages. Weirdly it made me recall an idea I had forgotten about, but now tihnk I can do something with, and even find a home for. Anyway, follow the link for some beautiful artwork.

Western

Here's the final black & white version of my contribution to AccentUK's upcoming Western anthology. Compare it to the different colour version and you'll see that, apart from the horse, I've not really changed anything, mainly just a simplification of the rendering . I'm not sure about the soundfx, Dave, the author, was happy for me to drop them, but I decided they added to the timing and tone of the story. Luckily I think it works fine in B&W, maybe even better than the colour version. I've even added pages 2 and 3 for you, but you'll have to wait until the comic comes out to see the final 3.

BICS

Due to last minute bad luck, a bit of poor planning and a whole lot of 'out side' influences, I couldn't make it to the Birmingham comic convention this weekend. I'm more than a little annoyed as I had hoped to put faces to a couple of internet names. Still, it, and a few other things this last week, has been a valuable lesson, and one one I intend to act upon for the scarily near new year. In my home life I'm not terribly well organized and can lack focus, I've also let various events of the last couple of years weigh far too heavily, and have seen getting over them as a huge obstacle instead of simply putting it all aside and moving on.
Aaaaanyway, pretty pictures to resume soon, the new version of my cowboy comic is coming along and I'll post some of that soon.

Naughty Minx

Edited cos I hit publish instead of save... duh.
Dc's attempt to break into the YA market on the back of the popularity of manga has come to an end with the cancelation of the Minx line. This really is a shame, it sends the message that there isn't a market for that kind of thing, and I think that's far from the truth.
The worst part is that not only did the line not have a chance as there really was not many titles, but as individual books, they really won't be fondly remembered and missed. I don't mean to sound damning, I enjoyed several of the books, but the best were just entertaining and quite fun. Not the most auspicious way to launch a line - as someone has pointed out, DC didn't build Vertigo from scratch, they already had a few popular titles to launch with whilst the imprint grew.
I suppose I'm more sorry for the loss of an avenue of possible good books. That Vertigo comparison is an interesting one, if Sandman hadn't been there (with Doom Patrol, Shade, Hellblazer etc doing their bit) would Vertigo have lasted longer enough to release Preacher, 100 Bullets, Fables, Y, and other hits? I doubt it, there's been some interesting titles that Vertigo have put out, but looking at the recent DK Vertigo encyclopedia reminded me how much filler there was. If there had been even only two titles that carried some sort of recognition for Minx, that brought an established readership, the other titles would have been fine.

Life, lots of it

Well, it's been a sucky time of late with the day job getting strange and unhelpful, so yesterday's drama was wonderfully timed. My little girl took a tumble and managed to bit through her lip, which was bad enough, but having to hold her down whilst she got stitches was just horrible, being the 'having to deal with it' parent is not pleasant. Luckily it was only a couple of stitches and my daughter's Wolverine like resilience and recuperative powers apart from a bit of a trout pout every thing's back to normal, and the sedative kids get also means they don't remember things like needles and thread in their lips.
On the more pleasant side of things I got my advance copy of Best New Manga 3, and it's a cracking looking book, the best volume by far, and gets a big thumbs up for it's beautiful colour reprint of a Skeleton Key one off. It's weird seeing a piece of work I did almost a year ago, luckily the other work in the book makes up my short comings, so you've all got no excuse, go out and buy a copy!

Western

So, after the Eastwood pic, I moved onto the Western comic, and yesterday decided to start again. Bit of a pain, but hopefully for the best, I'm happy enough with the results, but it's a bit too far removed from my normal style and I'm wishing I'd stuck closer to my usual 'look'. It's fun drawing in different ways, but it's important to stick with what you like. Anyway, it's unfinished (there's an element missing from all 3 panels, even if it's not noticable), but I thought I might as well show some of my first crack at it. I''ve done it in colour despite it being for a b&w book (AccentUK's Western, go see Dribb's blog for some ace upcoming work from it), more work for me but nice to have a swanky version.

Eastwood

Ages ago, back when I had more pin up drawing time, I promised I'd draw a Clint Eastwood pic. I still don't have time, but I do have to draw a western comic strip and I fancied doing it in digital paints, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. It's a bit of a mixed bag I'm afraid, the sketch was a quickie as it was the paints I wanted to spend time figuring out, so the basic drawing's off, but what the hell, it's ages since I posted artwork regular like. Sorry it's a pretty obvious Clint ref too, but it's such a cool still I had to go with it.
I did enjoy this technique, it's an extention of my Daversham Rex style, and throws in some other influences, such as animator production art, and vintage covers by the likes of McGinnis and Bonfils - I love Robert Bonfils, the Sin-A-Rama chock full of great work by him and others..... and a lotta skin:)