My delicate constitution is just recovering from the trip to Birmingham. I’ll post about it this week and show some pics. Meanwhile
here’s some nonsense from 5 years ago. It was for a sketchbook of Irish artists. I stand by alot of these pieces but a few of them are atrocious!!

Forgot about this one aswell. Drawn a few years ago on an A3 sheet with INK!!! Then I have an absolute crap Korky the Cat page somewhere that I’ll show the world.

I like this one. It’s way more conventional than the last one and the story is good.

Honestly don’t know what the fuck I was thinking with this. I knew that they don’t accept original characters. Ah yeah, now I remember, it was planned as a submission to a few kids comics. Love that crap artwork! Drew this in 2004.

Let the slagging commence…

Yes my peeps it’s that time of year again where I start resenting that I’m not drawing comics full time and submit stuff to The Beano. This is my infamous Dennis the Menace which has been submitted twice now, once in the hand drawn verison and then again in it’s from below where I fixed it up digitally and emulated the gammy way they letter and the nice washy colours they use.
It was of course rejected and I can now see that although it looks okay, it really is a bit crap/stiff.

Neh, I think I should really just stop trying to draw and concentrate on the writing of comics. It’s so easy and 80% of what’s out there is gayer than your gay uncle sending you a facebook invite.

Hey I’m pissing into the wind on this one, The Beano is hanging on by a thread and The Dandy has turned into something like LOOK IN! . Ah at least 2000AD loves me. My goal in life now though is to draw Spy Vs Spy for MAD magazine.

Still too tied up with shit to sit down and pour scorn in rant form. so here’s something I dug up recently for a submission. The 6 page Amperdule story (here) was originally meant to feature this character but he looked too cartoony beside the Lego men, so needing more contrast I replaced Snodule with the ‘Duke. Plus everyone was saying the style was too Jim Woodring which isnt a bad thing really. My first silent comic……

And here’s the best bit, a rendition of Snodule by my favourite artist and inspiration Guy Davis! Fuckin’ ell!! Doesn’t get any better than that. Still havent posted my thesis on Guy Davis and how much discovering him has changed my approach to drawing and storytelling, plus he’s a gentleman and and and he can shoot lasers from his neck and fly and timetravel and he poo’s marzipan. I’m going to fly him over to be my best man if I get married. To him.

Boo-YA!

Saturday was deadly, lashed through the comic and it turned out well. The weather stayed decent for most of the day too. Drew up the panels on Friday and sketched out the idea for the story in the car on the way into town. Here’s the size of the board in relation to a Shiznit.

Here’s some of my pics for the inside of the train. If anybody has a shot of the train before it was graphitized please send it on to me.

And ta da! 5 hours and 10 markers later.

I have tons of pics of the event itself which I’ll add to my Flickr account when I get back from Sweden. Oh yeah, met with a Slovenian lad last week from Stripburger and will post big style about how amazing the comics are. A breath of fresh air and a kick up the arse creatively.

On the last stretch now lads, here’s an inserted sequence from the start to show the scale and atmosphere of Amperville. Still taking ages though with the new job and I don’t know, having a fucking life for the first time in 6 years. Just 10 pages left and thats it.

Hey spunk lumps! Just started work on an animated short of Uncle Spunk Nugget. It’ll take a while as I have no idea what I’m doing but it’s looking promising. Spunk Nugget was the bomb for about a month then I forgot all about him, he even got the cover of issue 1 of the Shiznit. Here are a few gammy looking doodles from a few years ago done while inventing him and Billy.

I hate the way people think you are an animator just because you draw comics, that they are one and the same thing. Completely different shit. I should really be working on Amperduke but I get distracted easily. Well I am working on it but my new day job involves using Flash everyday so at lunch I’m spunking it up with the cartoon. Flash is deadly, allows you make games, cartoons and silly interactive crap. Eventually I plan to wrestle control of clamnuts.com off Frank and turn this into a Flash fest. Have a few things in the works. Here’s a link to my first attempt of a silly game, the speed is all wrong but I’m working on it, fuck it lads, it was my first go early this year. Should have a 20 second snippet up soon

Was talking to Brian last week, bitching and moaning about the hassle of making the Shiznit and that it’s always a surprise to see which stories are hits. ‘Any Bread’ in issue 4 was been a runaway success even though it’s just an old joke retold. Without dumping on the readers I think it’s true that the most straight forward gags go down the best.

We both agree that this one is our favourite yet the least commented on or understood by the kids. It’s a good comic but I think most people have never even heard of the original Count Curly Wee. It’s a SHITE old Black and White 2 panel comic thats been running in the Independent for years. For years I’d glance at it and say ‘Ah…a comic’ and then be left confused and angry with it.

I drew this the first week of discovering the scratchboard tool in Painter 9. Phwoar, nice swooshy ink. Brian squeezed a ton of digs into it too, GAMA, The Slate, Irish Ferries and all. I love this comic. Still haven’t pdf-ed issue 3 so it hasnt been posted online before.

PS. Fuck The Slate. Stop talking about it.

First off a big congrats to Dec and Andy for scooping an Eagle Award for Hero Killers in Bristol over the weekend. Big thanks to you all if you voted through here. Seems like a lifetime ago that he timidly dangled a copy of it at me at the Irish Comic Showcase thing, now we’re bumchums and even going half on adopting a little black kid.

Here’s a page from an upcoming Twisted Tales in full jaysis colour. Still don’t know if they’re running back to back but they’re running and that’s all that matters. I’m moving house tomorrow so prolly no posts for a week or two.