Ahoy! Customary apology for lack of blogtivity.
The reason for this is that I have been busy finishing my project for my Illustration MA. Today I held the proof copy of my little book in my trembling hands and should get the final version from the printer tomorrow. More on that then...
The
other thing that I have neglected to shout about recently is the publication of issue 2 of
Ink + Paper, the new comics anthology from
David O'Connell.
I've got an 8-page story in there called
The Inventor of Colour. It's based on an assumption I briefly made as a kid that the world actually used to be black & white, you know like you see on the telly and in old photos. I imagined that colour must have been cooked up in a lab somewhere by a scientist and then released into the world.
In my story, the scientist is Prof Anthony Benetton, an Italian-American whose family fled Mussolini's black shirts in the thirties. Here he is as an old man...
...and here he is as a young lad in pre-colour flashback.
And here's a bonus sketch of the good professor that gives you a clue as to what happens next.
This was a really fun project and it was great to get out something that's been rattling around my head for over twenty years, but what I'm really chuffed about is to be published alongside some
seriously impressive talent. Issue 1 of
Ink + Paper was stuffed to the gills with great stuff (my favourite being
Hugh Raine's heart-breaking
Iris) and issue 2 similarly delivers the goods.
Andy Poyiadgi delivers an eerie mediation on mirrors and imagines what it would be like to meet your reflection. His artwork is simply stunning, so much detail, texture and mood, I must ask him about his techniques. Can you believe he's new to this comics lark? He's only being doing it for a couple of years or something. The swine!
Talking of beautiful artwork,
Will Morris' watercolour style always makes my jaw hit the floor. He has a five-page story called
The Hairlet, which despite being nothing like Hugh's afore-mentioned
Iris is similarly surreal and touching in equal measure.
Will's book
The Silver Darlings seems to have been on the verge of coming out from Blank Slate forever, but I think it may really be imminent now. And he started the book on last year's Camberwell MA Illustration, same course as I'm about to finish, don't you know.
Horn-rimmed comics and kids' books legend
Sarah McIntyre has a lovely strip about an inquisitive reindeer who finds herself in a somewhat surprising situation. I love the colour scheme she's gone for with this and the way that she manages to get so much facial expression across with the minimum of marks, reminds me of Gromit, so it does.
Our esteemed editor David has his own tale in there, also in a lovely muted orange colour scheme. He's been too modest to put up an extract from this on the I+P website, so I don't have an image to steal for that one, but rest assured it's a corker.
But there is an extract I can show you from
Andrew Waugh's strip
Old Lady Vs Nosferatu. I don't want to give the gag away but it's clever and brilliant, and I think that this strip and the Old Lady's later encounters with Werewolf and Creature from the Blue Lagoon are probably my favourites in the whole issue.
Sounds good, right? Well, those are just my faves. There are loads more comics and articles in there from names including Francesca Cassavetti, Rich Eades, Sarah Gordon, Paul Harrison-Davies and Sean Michael Wilson.
So yeah, I'm biased, but I reckon this is a cracking mag and I hope that David is able to keep on publishing it long into the future. Did I say that it's only £8 for 100 pages? Head on over to the
Ink + Paper website and get yourself a copy already...
