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. 

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.

Me And The Rest Of The Internet Went To Thought Bubble...

... and it was simply brilliant and I'm going to ramble on about how much fun I had. For the easily bored, there will be pictures, and oh... what pictures!

Now, I am not one for crowded spaces full of people. As such, I would like to congratulate the organisers for making it feel less packed than last year. I am going to assume this is because they spaced the tables a bit wider apart, that was a brilliant idea. If the space was in fact created by lower attendance, then, er, just forget I said anything. I do not believe this could be possible though, last year was good fun, who wouldn't come back? And this year was even better!

First point of call was the Zarjaz stand, for which we were waved down by Bolt and Owen Watts. If you like 2000ad, then you will like Zarjaz and its sister publications. I will need to wax lyrical about these at some point, but I feel that is a post for another day. The stand also had some copies of Dr WTF?! for sale, which was pretty cool as I haven't seen these in the flesh before. Here is a picture of me with my art!

We met the Planet Replica people, and Matt Booker and Ian Edington, and that was all wonderful. Then it was time to head back over and see what was happening at the 2000ad stall.

Simon Davis was doing sketches, that was what was happening. I hesitate to call them sketches though, for despite considering the sketch to be a proud and noble art-form, such a term falls short of describing what was happening. At several points I thought he was finished, but then he just kept on going, and, well, look at this, just look at it.

Simon Davis's Sky Ripping Elder Horror

He charged me nothing for this, and as he handed it over to me he said, "I'm sorry, the paint is still wet." He was apologising for giving me this thing of beauty. I felt humbled.

This feeling continued as I headed over to see Mick Mcmahon. He was giving away free sketches too. I got a Hammerstein for myself and a Deadlock for my wonderful lady friend. Mick was also the very definition of lovely.

Mick Mcmahon's Deadlock

Mick Mcmahon's Hammerstein

So was Henry Flint, who, it would seem, looks just like his avatar! He has released a book of non-comic art that he claims are 'doodles,' and this was the launch day! The people who sold me this book told me that Henry would "be along shortly to give me a 'personalised doodle'," and so I was expecting a quick scrawl that would none-the-less be pretty awesome. I love a good doodle I do.

So anyway, I wasn't expecting this.

Henry Flint's Nemesis

He also did that thing where every time I thought he was finished, he just kept on going. Once again he wasn't charging anything! There was another person who had stood beside us while Simon Davis was working our magic, and she ended up with us here as well, due to having similar exquisite taste. Henry drew her a Shakara, and my friend Jenny got... well, Jenny got what I consider to be a somewhat Christmassy picture, so I'm going to ask her if I can scan it in and post it up here as we reach the festive season.

That was my time at Thought Bubble. In a mildly intrusive moment of My Other Life (the life I live when I'm not on the internet or drawing comics), I haven't been overly well recently. This day has cheered me up no end. If I ever need reminding of the fact that there are good people in this world, I'm going to look up at these pictures as they hang from the wall, and think back to meeting all these brilliant people. It will help me, so thanks all, and if you've got this far in reading the post, I thank you for that as well.

Goodnight all, see ya next time.

Return To The Crystal Temple Of The The Lost Vault of Kor-Avul-Thaa

By which I mean it is once again time to look through the Ancient Portable Hard-Drive Of Mystery!

These images represent some of my first experiments with GIMP, even more so than my previous archive post. The first two pictures are entries into old 2000ad Forum Art Competitions. To give you an idea of how old they are, this was back in the day when the 2000ad Forum was just a white screen with a blue margin and a big long list of threads arranged in order of recent additional posts. Which, if you don't know the 2000ad Forum, is probably more recently than you are thinking.

This one was for the prompt Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun! 

Next up we have Mega-City 1. Those few words do not fully convey the difficulty one would face in approaching such a topic. The world of Judge Dredd has had some spectacular artists work on it in the past, and trying to even come close to emulating their work only made me appreciate it more.

As a warning before clicking, this image is a little on the big side.

This final one is not from an art comp. In fact, I'm not even going to try and elaborate on this one; if you know, you know, and if not then it is a little bit difficult to explain...

I'm Back!

Phew, February was a bit dead here wasn't it? Some (one) readers of this blog that I know in the "Real World" have expressed admonishment over my recent lack of posts. This has largely come about because I have been working exclusively on Van Dom's super-duper secret project, and am as such unable to reveal the rightly guarded mysteries of Vandemonium . I did find some other stuff in those archives I have mentioned, but filling my blog with embarrassing relics didn't seem like a wise thing to do without newer work to go alongside it.

Then lo! A solution came from that lovecraftian chaos realm that is... The Web! Over on the 2000ad forum, Chris Askham presented the idea of an Art Blog. Such a concept will be familiar to all those who have studied the "Pass-Around-Mobiliary-Art" discovered beneath the previously hidden city of Commoriom; but for those who have not kept up to date with recent developments in Pseudo-Crypto-Paleo-Hyperborean-Art-History, I shall provide a brief summary.

The idea is that an eclectic assortment of adventurers from every walk of life would once a week take time out from their dazzling heists, quests for vengeance, Antarctic expeditions and the like, to bring into one place a small sketch that celebrates the nature of a theme chosen at random by one of their merry band.

Thus was born The Weely Themed Art Blog, or the Weekly TAB for short. The first theme chosen was Exorcism, and following the link will take you to a great many interpretations of that single word, revelling in the flexibility of language and the diversity of human vision.

 
Here is my effort. In case it isn't clear, it's Nemesis dragging the ghost of Torquemada, by the nose, out of a possessed Terminator. I was originally going to do something involving Solomon Kane, having recently been reading The Castle of the Devil which is brilliant. Then my Wonderful Ladyfriend suggested this idea instead, which I instantly went for because I love drawing Nemesis. 

With the Weekly TAB being... er... weekly, I should be able to get a half decent sketch on this blog every seven days. Then I just need to throw up some other work occasionally, and this blog will once again have content. Huzzar, content!

Tattered Remains Of The Holiday Season

Way back at the beginning of December, I made this post about the 2000ad Christmas Calendar.

Well, Christmas has come to an end, and the calendar has been completed. Now, there is a lot of good stuff over there, and everyone involved put a lot of love into the project, but my incredibly biased opinion leads me to pick Party Crash! as my personal favourite piece.

Yes, Party Crash is a Choose Your Own Adventure surrounding a 2000ad office party attended by all your favourite characters. I say "surrounding" the party because, if you are anything like me, it may take you a few goes to actually get in there. It was written by one Van Doom, and illustrated by a whole host of talent

For this gargantuan feat of collaboration, I managed to call shotgun on drawing a picture of Slaine having a bit of a warp spasm. I first encountered Slaine in secondary school, and if they still existed, my English rough books would be full of doodles of twisted Irishmen spurting oil out of their head all over the place. It was this rough sketch quality that I wanted to revisit in this picture; a bit of seasonal nostalgia that only I would feel nostalgic for.

So, that's it for the Christmas posts until next December. All that remains is for me to put up this picture which I made to finish last year's calendar.

Christmas Time Is Here Again!

Due to my recent discovery of the stats page, I realise that people from all over the world check out this blog (thanks all!), and I'm guessing that many of you will be mocking our joy of snow. Here in the Gulf Stream, however, this is a BIG DEAL!
Yet snow is not the only indicator of festivity. Today has seen the start of the 2000ad Advent Calendar 2010. This long standing tradition is now in its second year, and you can catch the collected edition of the first one here!

I haven't put my name down for this year's calendar, as time is pressing against me. However, Dirk Van Dom has come up with a wonderful idea that I will be contributing towards, along with a host of others. The allotted day for this is not until the 22nd, so you will have a bit of a wait before this inevitable masterpiece is unleashed.

Until then, I thought I might as well chuck my entry from last year up here; keep all my work in one place, and the like. This effort was valiantly lettered by Bolt-01 (AKA David Evans), who volunteered to do the job without realising that when I threw out my general lettering request, I hadn't even decided what I was going to do. The result is a story where I drew the art with a vague idea in mind, then wrote the dialogue based on what I thought might fit into the pictures.

I didn't always guess quite right, but Bolt did the job without a negative word. Thanks Bolt!

Project Supersquirrel

Two updates in two days! How rare!

The reason I return so soon is because today saw The Legendary Shark (aka Mark Howard) post a public link to Supersquirrel Undefeated aka The Secret Project.

That last link will take you to where all the action has been happening, but to summarise, after hearing that Carlos Ezquerra (why yes, I am going for the 2010 Most Redundant Link Of The Year Award, thank you for noticing) had undergone an epic lung operation, the Shark thought up the idea of creating the Get Well Card to end all Get Well Cards. It was a Secret Project that truly earned its capital letters, bringing together fans from across the globe to show their appreciation for the great man's work.

Basically, if, after seeing this, you ever receive a get well card yourself, it will not fill you with the warm feeling of being loved, but it will instead act as a reminder that you will never amount to even a fraction of Carlos's lifetime achievements or manliness. Because you are not Carlos Ezquerra. Unless Carlos Ezquerra is reading this. In which case you are Carlos Ezquerra, and can just ignore this paragraph.

Anyway, enough wittering, just go here and look at the thing yourself.

Host 1: http://www.zshare.net/download/8035759096751fc8/

Host 2: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9075096/supersquirrel_undefeated_pblc_cpy.20100903-175749.zip

(Both links lead to the same file, in case you have difficulty with one or the other.)

The final word should go to The Legendary Shark himself, for achieving such an amazing feat. Many have called for him to be awarded the Krill Tro Thargo, and if Tharg was a democracy rather than a brutal, condescending, alien tyrant, then I would add my vote to the heap.

I have recently been trying to get into the habit of drawing comics. This is my first attempt at drawing a script that was written by someone else, and I have decided to use this blog as a place to share my experiments. I know there are loads of mistakes here, but such is the way with the learning process.

The art is based on the script “Old Red”, written by Simon Spurrier, originally drawn by Staz Johnson, and published in 2000ad, Prog 1232.

You can read the script here