THOUGHT BUBBLE 2014

I'll be at Thought Bubble comics festival this weekend in Leeds, Saturday 15th to Sunday 16th November .

Dan and I will be on table 62 in the New Dock Hall, along side our fellow Great Beasts Adam Cadwell, Marc Ellerby, Rachael Smith and John Cei Douglas. Here's where we are on the map. Rest assured that we will be much happier to see you than Gwillum looks here.

We'll have copies of Hitsville UK 3 hot off the press as well as copies of 1 & 2.

We'll also have A3 and A4 Hitsville prints and I'll be selling my AOI-award winning graphic poem  Capital City.

Come and say hi if you're about!

COMICA COMIKET

I'm dead chuffed that Capital City features in the book of Comics Unmasked, the current exhibition at The British Library.

The exhibition finishes this weekend, and on Saturday 16 August I'll be taking part in the Comica Comiket, from 10.30 until 4.30 in the public foyer of the British Library itself.

It's a great chance to meet comics creators and buy comics and prints from the artists themselves. I'll be selling and signing Hitsville UK comics and prints as well as copies of Capital City.

Full details on the event here: http://www.comicafestival.com/index.php/comiket/

It is happening… again

Been meaning to put this up for ages. I did this picture of the giant from Twin Peaks for Ryan Humphrey's  Twin Peaks zine, Flesh World.

There's some really great work in there, not least Ryan's own distinctive drawings. You can see Ryan's stuff here and buy the zine here.

My picture contains a photo I took of David Lynch's spooky house that I took in LA last year when we were induing in a little bit of fan behaviour.

Watch out for those owls...

Culture

I've started a new comic strip, Culture, once a week over on Tumblr.

It's an excuse to make silly jokes about the Arts, as seen thought the eyes (I'm not sure they actually have eyes) of two monocellular organisms in a petri dish in a lab.

It's also something of an exercise in minimalism, as a contrast to the time-consuming baroque of Hitsville UK. It's a bit like that John Lennon quote (that I can't be bothered to find properly) about having an idea at the beginning of the week and recording and releasing the song by the end of the week. Wham, bam, get it out there while it's still relevant.

I talked about Culture to Richard Bruton over on the Forbidden Planet International blog and you can read Culture itself here. This week it's on GODZILLA!

What's her name?...

I can finally reveal my sleeve design for this year's Secret 7" show. (In fact I could a few weeks ago but I've only just got round to writing this.)

My sleeve is a comic strip interpretation of Roxy Music's surrealist corker Virginia Plain.

My story draws inspiration from the song's strange lyrics (General E Lee, blue casino floors, pale horizons, a studebaker) and contains a big nod to  the Big Train sketch in which Chairman Mao (played by the legendary Kevin Eldon) revives from his deathbed to give a spot-on imitation of Bryan Ferry on Top of the Tops. 

I was delighted to be included in this year's Secret 7" and even more delighted when I popped in on Record Store Day to see that my sleeve had been sold. You can see lots of the customers posing with their purchases here, including the chap who bought mine.

In the last few days Secret 7" have announced that they raised £41,500 this year for War Child!

Cover me, I'm going in!

I popped down to the Secret 7” exhibition, Downstairs at Mother in Shoreditch. 700 one-off record sleeves interpreting 7 songs by 7 bands/musicians. The twist is you don’t know who the artist is or which song it is until you’ve bought the sleeve.

All the sleeves go on sale on Record Store Day next Saturday 19th, first come first served, £45 each, with all the money going to the brilliant charity War Child. At that point you’ll find out which artist made 

These are some of my favourites (my contribution not included!) but you can see the whole lot on the Secret 7” website.

Think I know who painted this one…

And I have my suspicions about these two…

 

Booze Book

If, like me, you are fond of a tipple, but not so fond of the resulting hangover, then this book could be for you.

I drew about 60 illustrations for How to Drink and Not Look Like an Idiot, written by drinks expert Emily Miles and published by Dog 'n' Bone books.

It was a really fun project and I'm pleased with how the book has turned out.

More spreads below.

Cheers!

Secret 7"

I'm very excited to be part of this year's Secret 7" exhibition, and I'd like to share my design with you.

I'd like to, but that would defeat the object of the project!

My love for visual art is equalled only by my love for its sonic cousin, music (see also my comic Hitsville UK) and Secret 7" is an ingenious way of combining both and raising funds for charity.

The organisers have got 7 artists or bands to release new 7" versions of their songs, and invited artists (a mixture of famous bods and open submissions) to design the record covers. They then print 700 one-off covers (100 for each record) and sell each record for £45 on Record Store Day.

The twist is that the artwork on each cover doesn't explicitly tell you which record it is or who the artist is, so you only find out once you've bought the record.

You can browse all the designs on the Secret 7" website, and peruse them all in person on April 12th and 13th Downstairs at Mother, 10 Redchurch St, London, E2 7DD.

See anything you like? Recognise anyone's style? Mine's up there but I can't tell you which!

You can part with your hard-earned cash on Record Store Day, April 19th and it all goes to the brilliant charity Warchild.

Gosh!, a new Hitsville print

Thanks to everyone who came to the Great Beast spring party at Gosh! Comics last Friday.

Gosh are absolute heroes in supporting new, indy comics in the UK and it was great to hang with the other Beasts and see friends new and old.

Special mention must go to Rich of Comics Printing UK who took it upon himself to donate more beer after the thirsty hordes had drunk Gosh dry in record time.

I produced this new Hitsville UK print for the party. It shows Ruthie of Carrie Nation's Revenge and Horace from the Dreadnoughts getting on down with Gwillum, who has been possessed by THE SONG.

It's A3 (297 x 420 mm) on archival matt paper, and is now available from the Great Beast shop for £15 plus p&p.

Funky Blue Tee!

I decided to submit my depressed funkster to Threadless.

If you fancy wearing this on a t shirt then get over there and vote!
https://www.threadless.com/designs/funk-6

JANUARY FUNK!

I've been struggling with the January (post-birthday) blues, so I decided that rather than (just) sit around sighing in my dressing gown I would channel it into something positive. This is what I came up with.

Strike! exhibition

I have a couple of pieces in an exhibition of illustration from the radical political mag Strike! Here's a crap picture of one of my pieces (on the right of the photo) sharing a wall with Ralph Steadman (on the left). 

The exhibition has been put on to celebrate Strike!'s first year of publication, and there's some really good stuff in it, from well known artists such as Steadman and Stanley Donwood, and lesser known talents. 

One of the things that I like most about Strike!, and which sets it apart from other grassroots political publications, is that it's beautifully designed, with top notch illustration.

You can check it all out until 8th Feb 2014 at the amazingly named Flaxon Ptooch. As walk as a gallery, it's a hairdressing salon, so you may have to work around some 'do's being done, or you could get a cool chop yourself!

My illustration in the picture above is from David Graeber's article 'Bullshit Jobs', originally published in the Summer 2013 issue of Strike! and then online, where it became a bit of a viral phenomenon. http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

Doctor Sax

First finished picture of 2014, this is based on a passage from Jack Kerouac's weird childhood memoir Doctor Sax.

There are some other vivid passages in the book that describe scenes in hues of just one colour. As and when I find the time I'd like to do a few more of these colour mood studies.