Con-centrating

My variant cover for Black Scorpion featuring the Legion Britannia.

I had to ban myself from all social media for the last week while hunkering down to finish the interiors for the Black Scorpion, which, printer-willing, will be ready for the MCM Expo. I'll be a lot more social next month though as May and June are con heavy and I'll be schmoozing (and boozing?) 4 weekends in a row.

Here's the hefty schedule:


12-13 May Bristol Comic Expo. 

• 11:45 on the Sunday I'll be talking on a panel about Transmedia with Scott Grandison, Barry Nugent and Nic Wilkinson, discussing the differing experiences of working across various media.
• Also, check out the launch of previous collaborator Andrew Croskery's first GN, Kronos City (panel at 11:45 on Saturday) and the Launch of Cy Dethan and Valia Kapadai's White Knuckle at the Markosia Showcase 1:45 on Saturday.

19-20 May Kapow Comic Convention.

• I'll be sharing a table with the uber-talented Dave Strokes at Artist's Ally during the weekend. Come by for sketches, prints, books or just a look at some upcoming stuff.

25-27th May London MCM Expo

• We'll be attending the Eagle Awards on Friday night (did I mention Jennifer Wilde is nominated), then hanging around and sharing a table with Atomic Diner during the show.
• The weekend also debuts the Black Scorpion one-shot and Jennifer Wilde #2. You should pop over for a look at the really awesome books Rob is publishing.

1-2 June 2D Comics festival 

• I'm a guest at the festival in Derry again this year and Friday and Saturday night host the regular panels in Sandino's Bar. I'll be hanging around there, and may even make a guest appearance on a panel.
• Saturday is the festival open day and we'll be in the Crescent Arts Centre sketching, selling books and all the usual shenanigans.

I'm going to have to fit in some drawing during May at some point too.

Black Ops Extreme!

Strip Magazine have announced I'm filling in for PJ Holden on 2 episodes of Black Op Extreme. Created by PJ and writer/editor John Freeman, my first episode also marks Rich Clements coming on as regular writer for the series. I've just finished inking my first 6 page ep so here's a little pre-colour preview of one of my panels.

Troll of Tower Bridge #CreatorOwnedDay

The Troll of Tower Bridge.

"Ever wanted your own troll? The Troll Workshop provides businesses with customised, enhanced Troll Bodyguards (TM) to any group or organisation. A one-time fee buys the best guard dog on the market, under your complete control. And the best thing about Troll Bodyguards (TM); They're guaranteed for 10 years. How's that for a low turnover?"

When the illegal mad science factory, Troll Workshop, was found, shut down and destroyed by a UK government task force, all active Trolls were ordered to be destroyed. Fresh off the operating table, one Troll managed to escape, and with only fragmented memories of his human life, took up residence under Tower Bridge. Spoken of in whispered rumours, he has become known as "The Troll of Tower Bridge".

What will happen when the Troll Workshop financiers feel the need to tidy up loose ends, the organisation that bought him realise their product is still out there, or the government realise there's a Troll on the loose?

Well I don't know really, I only thought this up last night and drew it this morning  for Creator Owned Day. Lots of new characters and art on the Twitter hashtag #CreatorOwnedDay. Still time to join in.

I'd be amiss if I didn't mention you can pick up my creator owned graphic novels with writer Cy Dethan; Cancertown and Slaughterman's Creed direct from our publisher Markosia or digitally via Comixology or Graphic.ly.

Getting out of the house...

Quick update on some upcoming events:

Friday 24th Feb (that's tomorrow). I'll be co-presenting a comicbook creating workshop for ADF alongside my Absence collaborator Andy Luke. It is open to anyone, free of charge. All ages, levels of ability welcome. 11-3pm ADF Belfast; 109-113 Royal Av, Belfast, BT1 1AF.

The following day I'm off to the London Super Comic Convention. I'll be at selling books and custom sketches during the weekend. Keep an eye on the Markosia schedule as Cy Dethan and I will be signing copies of Slaughterman's Creed and Cancertown at their table at points during the weekend.

On the drawing front, Jennifer Wilde #2 is finished, Black Scorpion #1 is over half way and I'm starting a new project this week that I should be able to talk about soon.

The Outsider Games work I've been doing is coming along nicely, but that deserves a post of its own sometime soon.

I think I have my idea for Creator Owned Day. A concept stemming from on mistyped word. Don't all the best ideas come from errors..

Creator Owned Day - March 1st

Creator Owned Day is 1st March 2012.

The challenge:

Create a sketch of an original character or concept and and post it on your blog Thurday 1st March. It should be a concept completely owned by the artist (or co-owned with the writer/collaborators permission to post).

Why? A number of reasons: 

1. A lot of reader and creator focus is on characters owned by larger corporations. Let's bring a little spotlight on creating brand new, creator owned concepts.

2. Bringing a little awareness to the business side of co-creating original content. Take a look at Jeff Parker's article and follow up comments on the subject. Co-creators can take this opportunity as a little trial run, just make sure to have a mutual agreement in advance.

3. Fun! A few creators discussed the idea on Twitter and thought it was a great opportunity to create something entirely new, while bringing attention to these sketches.

The details:

1. Create an sketch of a new character/character you own. We're doing this primarily to get our imaginations running, so a concept specifically created for Creator Owned Day is probably ideal. It should NOT be a character owned by either a company eg. Marvel's Wolverine, OR owned by other creators e.g. Todd McFarlane's Spawn. It also shouldn't take distinct features from characters owned by others e.g. Wolverspawn You must own the character.

2. Post it on your blog, or Facebook, Twitter etc.

3. Share your post using the Twitter hashtag #CreatorOwnedDay.

3. Help us spread the word by retweeting your favourite new characters. 

 

Sound like fun? Let's do it!

Conception

I've been stretching my artistic limbs a little lately and doing a bit of concept work, illustration and game design (I'll blog more about that soon). Today was a bit of character design for a one of the comicbooks I'm working on. This character only plays a small part, but he features on the variant cover I had to make sure his costume was properly designed.

For this all-digital process I experimented with multiple players. When I ended up with something I liked, the figure was copy-merged and pasted to the right hand side, then used as a base to work on top of. My actual Photoshop file looked like the one below:

Click the pic for a better look.

An unusual format for me, but I quite liked the process.

Thought Bubble

At the minute I'm the bus stop at Leeds airport waiting for the bus to bring me to the Thought Bubble Festival. Graham Pearce, creator of the hilarious Sgt Mike Battle comic is sharing his table at the con with me over the weekend, so if you're about, call over to table 179 in Saville Hall and say hello.

I'll be selling copies of Jennifer Wilde #1, as well as Cancertown, Slaughterma's Creed, prints and custom sketches. This weekend will be one of the best times to buy comics off me as collaborators Cy Dethan, Nic Wilkinson, Vicky Stonedbridge and Maura McHugh will be about the con and can sign them for you, or I'm sure.wouldn't mind a chat about the books if you're not one for adding scribbles to your comics.