The Awesomeness Of Simon Fraser

As of today, our living-room wall looks like this.

The wall paper was chosen by the landlord. Let's not dwell on that. Let's dwell instead on that Simon Fraser commision hanging in the middle.

Oh yes, you read that right.

This was a gift for my Wonderful Lady Friend, who loves both Mr Fraser's art, and the adventures of Nikolai Dante. To say she was happy to receive this today would be to put it lightly.

Here is the request I sent Simon:

Seeing as this is a present for my girlfriend, I think I will try and guess what she would like. I'm thinking Lulu looking sexy and dangerous, Dante looking sexy and roguish, and Dante's mum looking sexy and hard as nails (some tautology going on there, me thinks).  

I sent this at some crazy time of night, just before going to bed. Just a few hours later, I awoke to find this in my inbox.

I quickly sent Simon a reply, pointing out that my WLF would "love the way you have placed Dante's arse in good focus". Then it was time for the Christmas-eve-esque wait while the art was inked, sent from America to England, dispatched to a frame shop, then finally made it home.

It was worth it though. One of the first things my WLF said was "I love that this picture has both Dante's face and Dante's arse; his two best features!" I know my Lady Friend!

 

Many thanks to Simon Fraser for this wonderful work. I feel I must offer particular thanks for putting up with my less than literate emails; the excitement was too much for me to put coherent sentences together. I was going to use this post to extol the virtues of the composition and such like, but such words would be pointless when you can just marvel at the finished art above. 

Dr WTF?! Artists Commentary

This post, I'll be looking at some of the thoughts I had while drawing the adventures of Hauptmann Who. This story was written by Greg Meldrum, and I have to say it is the most inspiring script I've ever worked on. Pretty much every panel had me chuckling, and Greg has been kind enough to let me quote some chunks of the script as I go through the art. In fact, since I wrote this post, Greg has written his own commentary, so check that out here.

Before we get started though, I wish to mention the brilliant work Owen Watts did on the lettering. Owen was kind enough to allow the bouncing back and forth of the lettered art, both of us editing our work till it was just as we wanted it. I'll be looking at the unlettered art in this post, but take a look at that WAAAAOOOOWOOOOH on the first page. Great stuff.

Right then, onto page 1.

The first striking thing for any who have been following my work the past few years is the colour. There are a few jokes in this strip that simply would not work in black and white. I mulled over this choice for quite some time, but eventually decided that I had to crack open the paints. The line art took me just three weeks to do, an advantage of working at A4, but the colour work added months to the work time. The actual watercolours were simple enough, it was the hours of computer tweaking afterwards that slowed me down.

In the end it was worth it. I love the vibrancy of these colours; the pinks and the turquoise and all those stars. Hopefully I kept up the strength of the colours throughout the strip and made them a vital part of the experience.

Lets take a look at the script.

The Asteroid Belt, our Solar System. Long establishing shot of a series of asteroids arcing out into space. In the f/g, materialising on top of a convenient asteroid is Hauptmann Who’s TARDIS, which appears in the form of a large upright missile, patterned after the WWII V-2 rocket but smaller scale (let’s make it the size of a police box.)...

           HAUPTMANN (INSIDE):  WE’RE HERE. I’LL JUST EXTEND THE ARTIFICIAL ATMOSPHERE AROUND THE TARDIS TO CREATE A BIT OF LEBENSRAUM...

Starting off with a Lebensraum joke. This was the first part in the script where I laughed, and I didn't stop for the next five pages. Picture two shows the roundels inside the door, providing one of the few links between this strip and actual Doctor Who. I love the idea that the inside and the outside of the TARDIS doors are entierly different shapes, a feature we sometimes see in the show, but more due to set anomalies rather than the BBC having access to strange, top-secret, time-warping material.

Lets hop forward to the introduction of Jimi Von Hendricks. The script says the guitar... 

looks like the sort of thing Jack Kirby would have come up with if you’d asked him to design a musical instrument – still recognisable as such, but more so, in a chrome-and-steel-and-mad-valves sort of way.

My friend Jenny found this page to help me out with the Jack Kirby reference; I've led a sheltered life of geekdom and so know only a little about the American greats. I modelled the top of the guitar on the most recent sonic screwdriver, for fairly obvious reasons.

Time for page 2.

  

Cut to Brandenburg Gate, Berlin District of Germania, futuristic capital city of Earth. The gate appears much as it does in Berlin in real life, though in the distance and nearby we can see hints of a sci-fi landscape of gleaming technological structures, with the emphasis on grandiose spectacle...

For future Germania, I went looking for Nazi plans concerning their thousand year Reich. My Wonderful Lady Friend was invaluable here; being an art-historian she was able to guide me in the right direction. Seems that the miracle of concrete would allow them to take their Roman inspiration in far grander directions. That towering building on the far right was designed by Hitler himself, a sketch passed on to Albrecht Speer, from whose mind I pillaged the other buildings. Then I chucked in a few Fliegen-rad to give it that futuristic feel. Nazi anti-gravity technology is an interesting thing, I'm sure you will agree.

I toyed with the idea of doing the picture of World War Minus 1 in sepia tones; but remembered stories of the 'Mud' period of 2000ad history, and so went for the more colourful approach. In the top right of this panel we see my attempt to replicate that famous photo of St Paul's amid the bombing. 

The Flux-Fuhrer was described as having "features warped and migrating across his face like some mad, nightmarish Picasso painting." That's why I went for the green.

Bringing us to Page 3.

Here we hit the pages that needed colour. The script called for "a sort of Rastafarian version of the Soviet Flag, with the hammer and sickle coloured black and the rest of the flag made up of three horizontal stripes of equal size: green, yellow and red." Not something easy to convey in black and white. Then we have Marley Luther Lenin. As I don't normally use colour, I don't attempt to convey any skin pigments. Black ink does not convey dark skin, white paper does not convey a lack of eumelanin. Normally I leave skin 'empty', in an attempt to bring equality to my characters; hence this black character from an earlier comic. 

 

 

Anyway, my thoughts on colour theory in comics are best left for another day. Lets talk about the fact that Baby Hitler has blue eyes and blond hair! Actually, I don't have anything more to say about that. The skull has blue eyes too, and Laika has a nodding Karl Marx on her dashboard! I was going to give her some furry dice as well, but they left the cockpit a little too crowded.

Hurtling into Page 4.

Here is a description for panel 4.

Int. TARDIS. We see the back of Jimi and the Hauptmann’s heads as we go close in on the view-screen to observe the surroundings. They have arrived in the primordial void - a hallucinogenic landscape, full of all manner of bad-trip-style multi-coloured fractals and twisting patterns. Central to the viewscreen is the primal atom, about the size of a house, circled by electrons, which hangs there, throbbing. It will be the source of the Big Bang. Nearby it is Marley Luther Lenin in his techno-coffin, the grabber arms reaching up towards the primal atom. Around and above the coffin, like a fine mist, is his hovering logarithmic soul. 

I changed this a little to get the action going, having them hurtling out of the TARDIS instead of peering at a screen. In doing this I give rise to my one regret for this strip; we don't have room for an internal view of Hauptmann's TARDIS. Ah well, maybe we'll do a sequel one day. Hopefully Greg didn't mind my somewhat tame portrayal of the void before time; fractals are hard to do with watercolours.

And finally Page 5, the Money Shot...

Here we go, the Doctor's wang. Let's have a look at the script for this final panel.

Long shot. Hauptmann Who points commandingly at Jimi, who obliges by jamming on his guitar and singing of his devotion to the Hauptmann. Jimi should be throwing some kind of rock god shapes as he does so, while in the background the primal atom throbs away and the kaleidoscopic primordial void creates hallucinogenic patterns, like some atmospheric sound-to-light programme.

So, not quite what I drew. *Ahem*.  Owen didn't want this script to become known as "The one with the wang", so we censored it so that the rest of the story had room to shine. So that post the other day is the first time that particular penis has been waved about in public.

You see, it is implied here that the forthcoming 'Big Bang' is going to start the universe rolling. Also, Hauptmann is keeping his boots on, due to being classy like that. Being a Time-lord Nazi, he has two willies but only one ball. Finally we have the kiss, because stories like this end with a kiss. This is a comment on the way Doctor Who stories these days end about five to ten minutes before the credits roll, just so they can ladle on the emotional manipulation for the remainder. Also, that final heart shaped panel is lined like an Iron Cross! Isn't that sweet?

So, the guy gets the other guy, true love rules over all. Intellect and romance prevail, but do not replace brute force and cynicism. It is an interpretation of the Who Mythos that is perhaps closer to the truth of the show than many fans would be willing to admit; Who having a whole heap of unfortunate cultural baggage that seems to constantly resist going away. I'm really proud of this story, and I hope you enjoyed it.   

Dr WTF?! UNCUT!!!

I have been forced to promise not to tell you who it was that said "Of course he's uncut, he's not Jewish!"

I'm back! After over a month of not throwing stuff onto the net, I return to shamelessly self-promote myself! Seeing as I've been away, lets get stuff off to a flying start by publicly releasing the story I did for Dr WTF?! 2012. This story has been available in paper form for a good long while now, but this is the first time it will be seen for FREE!

Dr WTF?! 2012 isn't just one story, oh no. Many talented people combined to make a colourful explosion of awesome, all under the scrupulous attention of editor Owen Watts. You can find out more about it here.

I'm currently writing up my next blog entry, cramming it full of information about the creative process behind this strip. While you wait, please enjoy this tale of Nazi comeuppance, and spare a thought for the state of mind of we who created it.

What Time Is It?

It's review time!

Oh, go on then, bonus points if you answered either hammer time or adventure time.

Comics Bulletin has posted a review of Vanguard #2. Being a selfish little so and so, I'm going to direct your attention to this bit:

"Halo and the Gryphon" is somewhat less demented, but nonetheless has a hint of the weird about it, due in the most part to Louis Carter's art. It's a blend of bold, thick linework and fine detail, and it should make for an ugly clash, but it somehow works, even if it looks less like what one might expect from a post-2000 AD anthology comic and more like one of those Soviet Bloc cartoons that were used to fill an empty five minutes on BBC2 back in the day. The writing lacks the eccentric feel of the art, but the narrative provides some structure that one might well argue is necessary to prevent things getting too arty and indulgent. "Halo and the Gryphon" was my favourite strip from the first issue, and my favourite it remains; it's unique and odd and so very compelling.

Don't forget, you can read this story here, while I'm working on part three.

Paragon

This weekend, I'm going to be dipping into the latest issue of Paragon. I've just finished the first story, Spencer Nero and the White Spider, by Greg Meldrum, James Corcoran, and John Caliber. Spencer Nero only started one issue previously, but it has fast become my favourite part of the comic. A tightly written story that plays on supernatural themes in a refreshingly original way.

Matt Soffe's cover art.

It would be dishonest of me not to admit that I have a somewhat selfish reason for drawing your attention to Paragon. You see, I also have a story in it; Rise of the Mekkosapiens part 4, written by my regular collaborator Matt Mclaughlin.

So maybe you would like to check out Paragon? You can find out how to get hold of it over at the Paragon Blog. It is available in both super-cheap-digital-format, or much-more-meaty-planet-destroying-paper-format.

More About Lost: Boys!

The other week I talked about the forthcoming release Lost: Boys. Well, now we are in the future, and the forthcoming release has become an unleashed upon the world leaving chaos in its wake release. A few days ago, my copy landed on the door mat and I got to enjoy the fruition of everyone's work. It really is a wonderful little package; quality stories, quality art, quality paper stock. Why not check it out for yourself? They're working on a super swish interweb ordering service, but until then you can find out how to get a copy here.

Lost: Boys cover by Conor Boyle

Viking Family Fun

Following a little bit of a laptop meltdown, I may well be absent from the net for a short while. While I'm away, please enjoy these sketches of an Anglo-Scandinavian family that I have been drawing for a project at work.

Lost: Boys

Disconnected Press is an independent publisher of comics and graphic novels, headed by Lizzie and Conor Boyle. You may remember that I worked with Lizzie last year on Storage, a comic for Hallowscream. This weekend, she's back with not one, but two new comics, both being released at Bristol Comic Expo. You can find out more by following that link at the start of the paragraph, but just to whet the apatite, let's talk about the one that I've drawn some art for.

Remember when you got your first bike? There was something about that first bicycle that mattered. You could go further, faster than ever before. You were free to roam. You lived in a bigger world.

But a bigger world can be daunting, harsh. A bigger world can lead you to things you never expected. In a bigger world, it’s much easier to be lost.

This is Lizzie's introduction to Lost: Boys. The stories all focus on young lads who find themselves wandering from the more oft-trodden paths of life. Lizzie says she wanted to work "with a group of artists who are starting out in comics and whose work merits a wider audience." It feels pretty good to have found a place among such a number. Over on their site, you can learn more about my fellow collaborators, as well as checking out my first ever interview!

If you want a copy, get in touch with Lizzie at lizzie@disconnectedpress.co.uk

Dr WTF?! 2012

Colin MacNeil's cover

Dr WTF?! 2012 is complete, and has already been seen hitting the conventions. Neither time nor space is big enough to contain the awesomeness that is Colin MacNeil's colourtastic cover, and the contents within are pretty good too!

I went trawling the internet for quotes, and I found that people had the following things to say about it:

"I RATE THIS COMIC 10/10... IT BE AWESOME!" - Alan Lewis

"The Nazi version of the Doctor was my favourite." - Mike Donachie

"Dr WTF is the most psychedelic Doctor Who anthology in existence. Crammed to bursting with amazing artists, glorious writers and RIDICULOUS LETTERING." - Owen Watts (Editor and Letterer)

The next stop in the Dr WTF?! 2012 tour is Bristol Comic Expo on 12-13th of May. Should you wish to beat the crowds, get £4.50 ready, give drwtfcomic@gmail.com a shout, and soon all this shall be yours!

Ron Smith

Ron Smith is an artistic exemplar. Many readers will already be aware of this fact, but I thought I should throw it out there just to be sure we are all on the same page.

Ron has recently retired; compelling comic fans from across the galaxy to rally together in celebration of fifty-five years of brilliance. The ever legendary Mark Howard has defied the difficulties inherent in collaborative artistic endeavour to create a comic expressing our gratitude. It is a comic containing uncontrolled, gushing praise, thoughtful well-wishes, and plenty of pictures of Judge Dredd. It is a comic you can see here, and one that Ron himself has recently received in hard copy.

The other day, Mark Howard sent all the contributors an email, and I feel the following extract speaks for itself:

"I have just received a 'phone call from The Man himself, Mr Ron Smith, and what a lovely gentleman he is to speak to.

He has received the tribute comic we put together for him and is overjoyed with it. He has asked me to pass on to you all his deep and enduring gratitude for putting so much talent, work and love into this project and said he was "overwhelmed" by your generosity and regard. (I must admit to having a little tear in my own eye as I put down the 'phone.) With fifty five years in the comics business under his belt, Mr Smith said that this was one of the highlights of his comic career and was deeply moved by the comic..."

So go follow that earlier link, and check it out for yourself. Here is my contribution to get you started.

Cut Out And Keep Halo

If you have checked out the free online copy of Vanguard 2, you will have seen this page, which I drew to homage the sort of cut out pages that you used to see in 2000ad annuals.

This is the full colour version. I was going to give it different text to justify this internet doubling up, but decided instead to stick with what I originally submitted. This is largely so we can all have a little laugh at my first attempts at mastering Redbat's voice. Dirk Van Dom* changed the first line in the completed edition, probably because "Bat greetings, batlings!" sounded a little too Adam West.

*Oh wow, I have only just realised the full brilliance of the blog title "Van Domain", and the reason for that photo of a van. Jeez, I'm slow!

Halo And The Gryphon And The Salmon of Wisdom

Continuing this month's theme of shouting out for Vanguard, we'll be talking about the free gifts! Everyone loves a postcard right? You might think you are not fussed about postcards, I know, I thought the same about the 2000ad ones. But then you get them in your hands and you think "Oooooh, this is quite nice." Must be something about the high quality gloss finish to the art. Let's all pause a moment to consider high quality gloss finishes on art. Hmmm, sexy!

So now we are probably all really excited for the postcards that accompany the Real Paper Copies of Vanguard issue two! Every story in the comic is represented by a full colour piece of art, and you get the complete set just by buying the one comic! None of that needing to buy lots to complete your collection nonsense! Here is my contribution, and I was pleasantly surprised to find it looks even better in the flesh. Must be the high quality gloss finish.

The next piece was drawn as a birthday present for a friend of mine. I have found that people who have seen it have are compelled to create a story around the picture. Personally, I think young Zephyr is about to eat himself some lunch, but others have been much more imaginative. What do you think is going on?

Lizard People!

Right, let's turn April into Halo and the Gryphon Month. That link takes you to the second issue, all ready and up on the internet for your reading pleasure. If you need to catch up on the fantastic issue 1, that can be found here for the paltry price of a single pound!

The newest episode introduces Lizzah and her Halo. Let's go meet them both!

Oooh, on second thoughts, they look pretty busy. Maybe we should come back when they aren't being attacked by shape-shifting smoke-monsters.

Next we have a few sketches exploring intra-species variation among Lizzah's people. I'm not even sure when we'll be meeting any more of her kind, but I'll be ready for them when they turn up!

I've just recieved the script for episode three, and that has a whole load of new stuff I need to design. Monsters, species, scenery, Halo and the Gryphon likes to mix it up a fair bit, and so do I! That's why next week I'll be giving you a sneak peak at my first venture into colour with these characters. See you then!

Time-And-Space-Rupturing-Super-Violence

This week I am finishing off my work for the next episode of Rise Of The Mekkosapiens. For this first panel I was aiming for a John Blanche vibe; a few heroes fighting off impossible odds, continually missing missiles exploding behind them in such a way as to never obscure the action.

Maybe that's why villains never hit the goodies in these stories. Perhaps they would have more luck if they used hitiles rather than missiles.   

Vanguard 2 Is Here!

The previously promised preview of the next Mekkosapiens...

Will not be seen this week, because Vanguard 2 has erupted onto the net!

Demonic editor Redbats is back, bringing with him the fruits of many months of torturing creators in a dark room without food or light, and with music, too loud music, and big buckets of water, and...

*Ahem,* anyway, as has already been reported on Down The Tubes, Vanguard issue two not only continues the exciting adventures of all your favourite Vanguard characters, but also cuts a violent swathe into the land of digital distribution!

Yes, you can read Vanguard 2 right now, just by clicking on this biased link! Did I mention it's absolutely free? You can buy a physical copy here should you like it, and buying a copy will get you free gifts!

I'll be pimping this a few more times over the next few weeks, but first of all it's back to Rise Of The Mekkosapiens, more on that next week!

Melting Robots And Other Such Delights

Things are going from bad to worse for G-127! Anyone paying close attention will be able to see how this is a bit of a cheat as far as artistic captions go, but to find out the full story, you'll have to check out the forthcoming 10th issue of Paragon. More details on that soon!

In other news, I have recently received the contributor's copy of Dr WTF?! 2012. This will be going on sale at the Inverness comic and sci-fi convention  Hi-Ex, which takes place at the end of this very month! If you can't make it to such far flung Arctic tundra, I'm sure editor Owen Watts would love to help get a copy into your grasping hands, so hop over to his blog and drop him a line. The price will be around the £4.50 mark.

'Tis the season for chronologically confused celebration, for fresh on the heals of Christmas wishes comes a whole heap of Halloween! Indie horror comic Hallowscream has now been released in tree-terrorising printed glory! Don't worry if you still find your soul wracked with existential uncertainty though; you can still download all three issues, absolutely free!

That's all the signal boosting for this week. I must now return to finishing my work for Paragon; tune in next week for more previews of what I've been drawing!

Billy And His Bike

This is Billy. If he looks like he's not having a good time of it, then you should see the other guy.

You can find out what's troubling Billy in the forthcoming anthology from Disconnected Press. You may remember I worked with Lizzie Boyle on a strip for the last Hallowscream. This one is even better! More news to come...

End Of February Miscellany

This week I have been joining various other Paragon contributors in getting possibly a little too excited about our recent Comic Heroes review. I must confess that each issue of Comic Heroes would cost me more than I earn in an hour, so I can't justify the expense, but that Nikolai Dante badge does almost swing it for me.

I'm particularly invested in this as they used a little of my art to help decorate the page. Mine is the stuff on the top right, the rest being the fine work of Dave Candlish, Steven Denton, and James Corcoran.

In other news, I believe I have completely neglected to mention that I've seen the fully lettered pages for Dr WTF?! and they are looking super sweet! In fact, have a preview, you know you want one:

"Enough wallowing in the past," I hear you cry. "What about the future?"

Well, this month I have been experimenting with tracing paper and found that I like it. A lot. The smooth texture, the fluid pen marks, the reusable pencils, all leads me to think I have a new favourite way of working. At least, until I find some other way I prefer over the next few weeks. I choose to see my flitting tastes as a positive aspect of my work!

Here is a picture of a boy riding a bike. Why have I drawn a boy riding a bike? It's all part of a comic I am currently putting the finishing touches onto, so there will be more news of that over the coming month. 

There will also be news of the other project I am working on. The great cyclic nature of blog posts leads me once more to Paragon's Rise of the Mekkosapiens, for which I am drawing yet more 'time-and-space-rupturing-super-violence'. Well, there will be robots and guns at any rate.

Bikes, robots, and guns. That's the shape of March to come. See you there!

Free Archaeologist Art

A few years back I was approached by an archaeologist of my acquaintance who completely fits the "Ready To Fight Giant Ants At Any Moment" academic stereotype.

"I am organising a community archaeology project," said the Professor. "And I need my literature to be accessible to all humans. Would you be willing to draw me some child friendly pictures of archaeologists engaging in various fieldwork activities?"

Now, there was something about the way that the Professor said "all humans" that made me deeply suspect that he didn't count himself as human. I was so busy internally debating whether he was a disguised robot/lizard-person/super-evolved-floating-brain-from-the-future, that I said "yes" without first asking for any money.

Anyway, the project didn't get quite as much interest as he needed and the pictures languished unused; that is until I decided to put them here! Should any archaeologists pass by, happening to need some child friendly doodles, feel free to make use of my pictures. If it is possible to credit me, so much the better!