Damn him!

Sean Phillips will be seen as the Alex Toth of our generation. Accept that fact now.

Go and have a look at Sean's site, right here



Sean's new book, CRIMINAL is out now. Haven't seen it all yet... but the previews look amazing.

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Comic strip artists traditionally greet eachother with the question: "What you working on at the moment?" (which usually translates as " Is your current job more high-profile than mine?"). What is truly annoying is when you're barred from talking about your current project by the publisher. Y'see, nowadays publicity is just as important as the quality of the artwork, and the company will usually have some clever strategy to maximise the coverage your book gets on the comic websites. As ever, timing is paramount, so they want to be the ones who control the release of the information. All this basically boils down to is: stop the artist from blabbing about the book within Rich Johnston's earshot.

So what am I working on at the moment? Can't say.

Crimson Commando

You may have seen this post before, but bear with me, because there's been an interesting turn of events that involves the following subject matter.

Major Minor & the Machine Marines
Posted by: chrisweston.

Occasionly, I won't be able to resist coming up with my own ideas for series I want to draw. Here's a design I came up with for my very own Golden age comic strip characters: the kid in the army outfit is Major Minor... a genius, juvenile military-strategist given the rink of Major during WW2, and equipped with his very own platoon of remote-controlled robot soldiers, The Machine Marines. His muscly sidekick is, of course, The Crimson Commando.

Now, I can't reveal too many of the details, but I'm excited to report that at least one of these characters may soon see print in a way I hadn't expected. That's all I'm saying...

Storm in wine glass.

This is one of the strangest tasks I've had for a while. Rob Van Bavel, publisher of Don Lawrence's Storm and Trigan books recently put out a Limited Edition wine to commemorate the life of don Lawrence. They needed a Wine-themed image and Rob had a pencil sketch by Don that fitted the bill. I was brought in to provide some Don Lawrence-style paint daubs over a copy of the pencil art. I really didn't have enough time to do a job I was satisfied with, but Rob seemed happy with the results. Personally, given the time, I would have had another go at it, but c'est la vie.



The wine is availible in red, white and rosé, but I couldn't begin to tell you what its like, as I have yet to crack open my free samples. I'm saving them for a special occasion. Should you want to sample the beverage for yourself, they are availible at:
http://www.donlawrence.co.uk/shop/index.php?hg=5&sg=28




Also, of note is the latest Trigan Collection, Book 6, for which I provided a certain amount of proof-reading.
Yeah, I know I'm biased but these expensive Trigan books are worth every single penny... and the reproduction from Don's original artwork is breathtaking. The modern scanning techniques that Rob has access to means that Don's work has literally never looked as good as this.

Check them out at:
http://www.donlawrence.co.uk/shop/index.php?hg=2&sg=21

TOM FRAME 1931-2006

Veteran comic-strip letterer, Tom Frame, whose work has graced the page of many a British comic, died on 14 July, having lost his battle with cancer.
His contribution to 2000 AD spans over two and a half decades, not including his work on the Megazine and sundry other titles, and he was as much a part of the comic as its characters.

Always friendly and professional, Tom's great talent for lettering ensured that every strip his work appeared on was always an effortless pleasure to read. Although letterers are rarely praised, their contribution remains invaluable, and proves that comics is a collaborative medium, each component part essential to the construction of the story. Tom always made sure that his lettering aided the storytelling, never hindered it.

In addition to his lettering work, which included Transformers, Frame coloured the covers and centre-spread of 2000AD in the early 1980s.

I've been asked by Rufus Dayglo and Garry Leach to provide an illustration of the Indigo Prime characters for a memorial CentreSpread to appear in 2000AD. This will feature the work of many artists whose strips Tom had lettered over the years. Here's my contribution to the piece:

Better Betty

With the rough finally approved I then produced the full-colour version:


and then used elements from it to compose the CD cover. Job done!

Return of the Dragons!

The Tokyo Dragons are back with a new EP, entitled "Come On Baby", and once I again I got the gig to produce the CD cover and promo-poster. Here's my initial rough which got rejected for being too "Camden Market Goth"... which , I concede, she definitely is!



I was asked to remove the mausoleum and make her more "Betty Page-like", and introduce some snow to match the imagery that was used in the "Come On Baby" video (which I haven't seen yet):



The snow was deemed too "Christmassy" so that was removed, and I decided she wasn't sexy enough, so I gave her body a make-over:

Valentine's Day Massacre

Here's a little oddity for you: a gruesome Valentine's Day Card I designed for East Magazine. Couldn't think of anything romantic to draw so I decided to take the opposite approach and come up with something 'orrible.

Done and dusted...

Finally, here's Rich's initial mock-up of the finished cover.

"There will be blood..."

For the first time ever in my career, a publisher didn't think my work was GOREY enough, and insisted I add more blood! Usually it's the other way around... and I couldn't be happier! Here's version 2 of the coloured art, now with extra claret!

Full colour.

Here's the first coloured version I presented to Richard:

Monochrome Pachyderm

Here's something you might find interesting: although I do colour my art in photoshop, some elements of the art are traditinally hand-painted in gouache. I print out the black and white art in a feint grey and then paint over it. That is then scanned in and dropped onto the coloured art in photoshop.

I do this because one of the things I hate about photoshop-coloured art is the mechanical / flat quality to the art. It's just too smooth. I've got this theory that the human eye doesn't like looking at smooth objects 'cos we're hardwired to look for textures and patterns (probably some kind of primitive predator-recognition gene... or possibly a "hand-hold" thing). On the other hand, traditionally painted art, even when it's applied flat and by airbrush always has tiny little particles of paint visible, as they collect in the uneven paper surface.

Anyway, here's the painted section of the "Elephantmen" art:

INKORPORATED

Rich loved the second version, so I then blew it up and inked it on a lightbox.

Back to the drawing board.

Richard Starkings liked my Elephantmen cover rough,thank god, but he thought I needed to beef the Elephant-man up a bit... make him a bit more 'Hulk-like'. Ever willing to oblige, I then provided this rough: