Monday 31 October 2011

Hallowscream: Storage

This cheerful chap is Mark. He likes surfing and quad-biking. He enjoys a good night down the pub, but also relishes the quiet solitude of the open countryside. His favourite book is The Beach, though he didn't think much of the film.

Mark works at a storage warehouse. It's Saturday evening, and he was just getting ready to lock up when the inevitable happened. Because there's always one isn't there? Someone who turns up mere minutes before you head off home. But you grin and bare it, because that's just good customer service. 

And then they start messing about...
  


Find out what happens next in this year's Hallowscream. Over one hundred pages of horror themed comics, all at the super cheap price of Absolutely Free! The story you are looking for is Storage, the second story in, page 9 according to the contents. It's written by one Lizzie Boyle, drawn by myself, and lettered by someone who appears to be uncredited, sorry mysterious letterer! Previous editions of Hallowscream are still available, also for free! Why not check them all out?

Friday 14 October 2011

Some More Reviews!

Some of you may remember a few months back when I posted some reviews of my work. Well, I'm back to do more shameless self promotion, on this blog that is almost entirely shameless self promotion! Go me!

To start with, my work for the next Dr WTF?! is already getting good feedback, and I'm not even past the preliminary sketch stage. Greg Meldrum seems happy with the work so far, while over on Facebook  Owen Watts claimed that "This is easily going to be the MOST INSANE story in Dr WTF?! 2012." So while editor, writer, and artist all stand around slapping each other on the back and marvelling at their own brilliance, let's anchor this post to the ground before it disappears up our collective backsides. 



Forbidden Planet International has a less glowing review of Vanguard. It's not a completely bad review, but is certainly the least positive we've had so far. Here's what it says about my work;
The art by Louis Carter starts out so strongly, that very first page above of really nice, almost abstracted shapes as the Halo makes planetfall. But after it gets too damn busy, panels just so full of detail, with everything a mass of lines and shading. It’s not bad, not at all, but if it were stripped back just a little, to what we saw on the opening couple of pages it would be so much better. But the potential here is huge.



Not to worry though, for if that was our least positive review, this next one is the most positive! Comics Bulletin has seen some cutting reviews in its time, and I think many of us were waiting for this one with nervous anticipation. It all turned out well though, take a look at this;
"Halo and the Gryphon" feels like an underground comix adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix; the big selling point for me is the art of Louis Carter, a strange and evocative mix of fine detail on the characters and a far more blocky, abstract approach to backgrounds. It looks like nothing else I've ever seen -- aside from perhaps David C. Sutherland's artwork in the early days of Dungeons and Dragons, and even that's not quite the same -- but it's stunning work.


Amusingly, the page that they picked to illustrate the Comics Bulletin review was the one that I find the most crowded, while the Forbidden Planet one chose a page in which only one of the six panels has a background to distract you.

Still, I welcome constructive criticism, and I will be considering my strengths and weaknesses as I continue working on part two of Halo and the Gryphon. As such, I would like to offer my thanks to Richard and Kelvin, and all those who have taken the time to offer their opinions elsewhere. The next few weeks should see me posting some sketches of some new characters, so don't forget to drop by again!