Bowie Odyssey (oddity?)

Was it really back in January that David Bowie released his surprise single 'Where are we now'?

At the time it struck me that despite knowing the hits, and having some Bowie-obsessive friends, I'd never really listened to any Bowie albums. Right, I thought, I'll listen to the classic albums in order and see how far I get. 

Around this point I stumbled upon the amazing blog Pushing Ahead of the Dame (named after a lyric in Queen Bitch), that dwells on each Bowie song more or less in the order that it was recorded, and it got a bit obsessive.

Well, it's the end of May now and I've just started on Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). Not sure how much time I'm going to dwell on some of the 80s albums - my understanding is that it all goes a bit pants after Let's Dance, but it's been a great journey so far.

It's a tough question what my favourite album has been so far, but at a push it's probably the wonderfully unhinged Diamond Dogs, which led me to create this illustration, inspired by the Guy Peellaert album artwork, but with a schoolboy humour, Aladdin Sane twist.

Enjoy!

Ps. David Bowie - Five Years on BBC Two tomorrow sounds like it's going to be dead good.

Strike!

I have a couple of pages in the Spring edition of the brilliantly titled STRIKE! magazine.

These are exerpts from my MA project Capital City, a phantasmagorical take on the City and the financial crisis.

I'm dead keen on STRIKE! This is only their second issue but it's a compelling publication so far. It wears its lefty politics on its sleeve but it's not po-faced about it and it chucks interesting, provocative ideas about rather than preach a party line. It's also wittily and beautifully designed and has attracted an impressive collection of writers and artists so far, including Ralph Steadman, Mark Fisher, Alain de Botton and Stanley Donwood as well as less famous names, myself included.

The Spring edition includes articles and polemics on Blair and Iraq, Indian cotton farming, the Occupy movement and anarchist economics, all accompanied by brilliant illustrations, including this terrifying Tony Blair by Edgarr.

I'm still getting to grips with a lot of the stuff in this issue and this is what I really like about STRIKE! For only a quid an issue you get a hell of a lot of food for thought for your buck.

You can see a list of stockists or order issues 1 & 2 from the STRIKE! website http://www.strikemag.org and find them on Facebook here

Mud, football and Readers Digest

I just illustrated this entertaining piece for Readers Digest by James Brown about the perils of the football pitch in your late forties. I was commissioned by Martin Colyer, who was a pleasure to work with from start to finish.

This commission presented two problems: 1) the unusual shape, across two pages of text, 2) I don't know the first thing about football. However, the closest I ever got to an interest in the beautiful game was reading my brother's Roy of the Rovers comics when I was a kid, so I hit upon the idea of contrasting James' youthful footballing dreams with muddy, squelchy reality.

Thanks to Matt Dooley for the lend of the football comics book.

Below is my original sketch and how the final piece looked in the mag.

Meditato!

World, I give you... Meditato!

S/he is of course a committed Spuddhist.

(This might be my favourite picture that I've done so far!)

GREAT BEAST!

You might have seen last week's very exciting announcement that our comic Hitsville UK is joining the roster of Great Beast comics, home of the UK's best independent comics and creators!

Great Beast is the brainchild of Adam Cadwell (Blood Blokes, The Everyday) and Marc Ellerby, (Chloe Noonan: Monster Hunter, Ellerbisms) and their ethos fits with ours like a sexy, pink glove: "Our comics will be brimming with pop culture, but still retain their heart" and "We don't think pop is a dirty word". Amen to that!

Great Beast will be re-releasing issue 1 of Hitsville UK in July, and publishing brand new issue 2 in November, in time for Thought Bubble comics festival. There will be physical and DIGITAL versions of each issue.

http://www.greatbeastcomics.com/2013/04/new-title-hitsville-uk/

The other artists on the Great Beast roster are Robert Ball and Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, whose amazing Dangeritis will also be published in July. We are in fine, fine company.

To celebrate this great news, here's a picture of the other great beast Aleister Crowley enjoying issue 1. Spooky!

One from the vaults

Far be it from me to jump on the bandwagon that is currently whipping a dead horse, er Prime Minister up and down the street* but here's a vintage William Blake, Taxi Driver strip  that seems relevant again.

This was originally published in Time Out in 2008, when there was a speculative brouhaha about whether Mrs T would get a state funeral. http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2008/07/state-funeral-thatcher-labour

*Apologies for some seriously muddled metaphors

Art, Science, Bacon

I was asked to design the poster for an art exhibition at the Science Museum in London.

The exhibition was a chance for staff at the museum to show off their creative pursuits. I work part-time at the museum and, as a friend of mine pointed out to me, most staff have their own 'slash', as in Exhibition Facilitator / Illustrator or Front of House / Designer.

The exhibition featured all sorts of artsy goings-ons, taking in fashion design, painting, comics, fiction and music, and it was fantastic to find out what my various colleagues get up to in their non-museum hours.

I rather stupidly forgot to take any photos, but here's the poster.

That's Francis Bacon lurking in the bottom right outside the museum. As it happens the next week I went to Dublin and saw his studio, recreated in all its chaotic glory at the Hugh Lane Gallery.
I feel a little bit torn about this. On the one hand they've made Frankie's studio into a really interesting exhibit. On the other hand, I can't help but feel that the act of minutely reassembling an environment that was a testament to bloody minded chaos is supremely missing the point!

Anyway, when I fancifully put Francis in the picture, I hadn't realised that his studio was in fact around the corner from the Science Museum in Reece Mews, South Kensington.

O to be in Beijing!

I am exhibiting four pictures at the O Gallery at Ogilvy Beijing.

This is part of the Image Makers exhibition, all helmed by the amazing Fei Wang, leader of the Flotian collective, mainly but not exclusively made up of artists from my Illustration MA at Camberwell. I'm very happy to be on show in such great company.

I wish I could go see the exhibition in person, it looks suitably swanky. Check out the chandelier!

10 minutes with...

...Moi?

I spoke to Chatham House's current affairs magazine The World Today about my graphic poem Capital City. See below for a (hopefully legible) scan.

Thanks to Agnes Frimston for being interested, asking great questions and making the piece look so nice.

You can buy Capital City at my online shop.

Brave New World

Last week I entered the House of Illustration/Folio Society's competition to illustrate Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I kind of presumed that I'd read the book at school but upon actually reading the novel I realised that we can only have read a chapter or two. It was a good excuse to finally read it, and I was surprised at how early it was written, 1932 if I remember rightly.

Below are my three illustrations and my idea for the cover design. I tried to incorporate an element of 'technical' drawing into each to get across the idea of a society that has become biologically and ideologically mechanised.

Chapter 1. The incubation room.
"The bulging flanks of row on receding row and tier above tier of bottles glinted with innumerable rubies..."

Chapter 2. Fanny and 'Pneumatic' Lenina in their changing room.
"'Perfect!' cried Fanny enthusiastically. She could never resist Lenina's charm for long. 'And what a perfectly sweet Malthusian belt!'"

Chapter 14. The Savage in hospital, at his mother's deathbed.
"The Savage violently started and, uncovering his face, looked round. Five khaki twins... were standing in a row, puggily goggling at him."

Idea for the cover.