It will soon appear on International Amazon sites and as a digital download here.

Get it here

The Cult of Lego by John Baichtal and Joe Meno is a new book that covers the history of Lego and the many offshoots of the medium. Packed full of photos and details I never knew about our beloved bricks. And they gave Amperduke a full page so it MUST be good!

Get it on Amazon right here

I had the pleasure of working with Terry for about a year, I used to colour and adapt his illustrations for use in the giftware industry. I would constantly be amazed at how many ideas he could knock out on any given theme, subject or brief.

Although we talked regularly on the phone and through mail ( He sent me some gold material for The Shiznit that was just *too good* to use ) I never met him face to face as an adult. I met him as a kid before and even then I was puzzled at how he could draw that fast but still be precise and inject so much life and energy.

Lew Stringer posted some of his older comic work and some more info about his background.

I have a tonne of his original sketches here that I will dig out and scan. But here is my favorite Terry Willers original piece, I found this in my flatbed scanner nearly 2 years after I left the company. What a surprise it was. This is an original and it is so sharp and clean.

Rest in peace Terry. He was a different breed, not found today with all our dopey digital antics, all he needed was a sheet of paper and a pencil to create his magic.

I’m sure I saw them before back in Ireland. I was always a Smurf nut and we would always find similar figures like Astrosniks and those little clowns with the white faces. But obvious cash in aside, the book is actually good. The artwork is great, all the vehicles and space ships are top notch.

They never made it to animation but there appears to be a fair array of figures and books, click here to see an overview, some manufacturer was cheeky enough to run off a few in blue.

The Sniks Smurfette. The masked dude is her boyfriend and currently on his way back from a space mission

A nice shot of the Snik city. Check out the barbed wire and guns!

Here the baddy uses a flame thrower. Papa Smurf just used poncey spells

These are the normal Sniks/Smurfs

And they have dogs...which look the same as the Sniks really

I ripped off the Smurfs too. I designed a series of Leprechaun figurines and I made one Sleepy, one Brainy, one Hefty etc.

The Sniks even go as far to copying the way Smurfs speak, adding “Snik” in place of other words. But as I said, far from being a heartless rip off, the book is good. It’s the only one I’ve read this year.

I’ve scanned some more odd Spanish gems I’ve found.

Check out her not so serious alter ego, Superhilbo here

Be sure to check out Eclectic Micks where this week it’s actually interesting as we’re all posting pictures and info about our studios and workspaces. I’m up tomorrow. Check out Mooney’s one.

I sold out two print runs so decided to use Lulu.com to bridge the gap, this new Extended Edition clocking in at a chunky 184 pages includes:

• Artist Gallery (Dec Shalvey, Guy Davis and all the other big shots)
• The Making of
• Preview of next book
• Bonus story ‘The Big One’

AND…the page I forgot to add the first time around. Yes, I mistakenly omitted a page when I first printed it. Thankfully it’s a page that although action packed, had no effect on the flow of the story but I kept quiet about it. Well now you know.

I also fixed a few parts that really nagged me artwork wise AND sneaked in a couple of revisions of history to tie into the forthcoming TOURIST TRADE prequel. See below for an example, this was a panel that always made me cringe when I saw the book so I fixed it up

The quality and turnaround time from Lulu is unbeatable, it’s actually cheaper for you to buy through them than me, shipping is cheap and if you live in Uk & Ireland you usually receive it within 5 days of ordering. Plus you can choose to get the digital download instead dirt cheap.

For the next week you can get it with 15% percent off by entering this coupon code BEACHREAD305

So that was the end of Bren. I never thought I’d end up talking about this when I started the Landon comic so it’s been a nice surprise for me too.

Well by sheer public demand, here is a pic of me with glasses when I was a kid. This is 3 or 4 years after when the above comic is set, the photo was taken in Canada in some Science Museum. Gotta love that jacket. What am I? Teen Wolf or something?

Note the ‘CHOICE’ shirt in the background, that was my Ma brandishing a pro abortion message. What a lunatic. I don’t know how my Da put up with it. It’s so confrontational. Getting from A to B with a bunch of kids must be hard enough without stopping to get into fights with strangers.

I have more pics so I’ll post another one next week, hopefully we’ll be back on Spazzmoid then