Comiket Fall 2012

A great time was had at the Bishopsgate institute, Sally Anne and I squished up behind our table with the brilliant Doug 'Strip for me' Noble. A parade of talented individuals live drawing on the podium started with Alison Bechdel followed by Ellen Lindner, both on loan from the USA, and included a very glamorous Stephen Appleby, Line Hoven and her amazing scraperboard, Tobias Tak's nightmarish creatures and many more who are listed here. Jess Cave baked an amazing comic cake to which I contributed the top right hand panel, which was so awesome that my camera actually broke in my attempt to record it. Hence the only picture I have of the whole event.

Drink was taken at the Gun in the excellent company of Tom Oldham, Richy K, Gary Northfield and a host of others. Many thanks to Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury and all the organisers for putting on another successful day. And now a personal message to the person who bought two of my comics and left them behind on my table: please contact me so I can post them to you!

93 years

Dessinators are go

Our intrepid gang of globe-trotting comic artistes shall henceforth be known under the collective name of The Dessinators. Sounds pretty good, eh?

Hello again

I've been somewhat preoccupied for the last few months, and need to refocus. Here is a page from my sketchbook from this summer. Might develop into something, who knows...?

I will be venturing forth to Comiket on November 10.

Can do – should do – will do

Finally finished and sent off my story that will appear in issue 2 of Ink+paper, David O'Connell's wonderful, perfectly-formed comic anthology. Now to get on with my other projects... Whatever life throws at me, I always feel better when I draw, and even betterer after I actually complete something. I like feeling good, therefore I must create more – simple equation!

Winter over

The 'look inside' feature is now up and running on my book in the AMAZON kindle store, so here's hoping sneak peaks might boost my sales.
I forgot to mention this review Rob Clough posted last month of the minicomics I sent him.
I have arisen from my winter torpor and got back to work on my contribution for Ink+Paper while gearing myself up for Comica — less than two weeks away now...


Seems like forever since Angouleme.

E by gum

TMNTITW is now available through Amazon as a Kindle download... How very 21st century!



The 'Look inside' feature apparently takes a bit longer to activate – hopefully it will be up and running soon.
We shall see whether there is any interest in comic books in this format, as the choice on offer appears to be a fairly limited so far. Being black and white and mostly simple line work, this book seems eminently suitable for the medium.
If the reaction is encouraging, now we have cracked the technology, I will no doubt upload some more of my back catalogue.
The digital revolution marches on. I personally prefer good old-fashioned paper and ink, physical tomes with smells to breathe in and textures to fondle. But why ignore a whole world of people who experience their reading in a different way and don't need to clog their lives with objects. All power to them I say.
And I swear I can hear a million trees breathing sighs of relief .

Lloyd Johnson: the modern outfitter

I forgot to mention the totally brilliant opening night at Lloyd Johnson's exhibition at Chelsea Art Space we attended on January 24th. The exhibition runs until until March 3rd, it's free and features some of Nick's and my stuff among all the unbelievably iconic clobber on show.


Nick poses proudly by his boots.




I think I overdid the imbibing a tad, but escaped the country the following day, albeit in a rather fragile state.

So much more I forgot to mention

In December, Nick and I had our very own Christmas outing at the Royal Festival Hall where we caught John Waters' Christmas show which was hoot, and prompted me to book tickets for a family night out for my birthday to see Henry Rollins doing his amazing two-and-a-half-hours-without-drawing-breath feat of holding an audience spellbound. The man has matured like a fine tattooed wine into a rich, well rounded and full bodied (still super-fit) vintage.

Angouleme talks also included a very entertaining Eddie Campbell/Paul Gravett interface, which ended bizarrely with the trailer for an as yet not-made TV sitcom starring Eddie as himself, and I did manage to get a seat at the Menu and Pakito Bolino RAW talk, but had to excuse myself half-way through due to a mystery virus that swept through our group. Chance sightings included Menu (again), Lewis Trondheim, Joe Sacco and Charles Burns, Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly, one of the joys of the festival being the almost rubbing shoulders with so many of one's heroes.
The sense of camaraderie with all our fellow brits, from Paul and Peter, to Dan Berry, Ellen and Steven, Gary and Lauren, Tony Bennett, the Orbitals Camilla, Simon, and Tom and many more, extends to those from further afield, catching up with old faces (hey Abbie and Xavier!) and meeting new ones like our excellent table neighbours, Tom Scioli and Chris Fitzer from Adhouse Books, and even to Jessy and the gang on the other side (pics above by Oliver Lambden, see more here).

This is me with the wonderful Kivi Larmola and Sanna Karvonen whom I met in Angouleme last week ( pic by Sean Azzopardi, check out his report).

Rubberstamp of excellence

So much to catch up on as there have been no postings since well before Christmas.
Well, there was Duckie, a fairly pleasant couple of days of moderate sales in the foyer of the Barbican. The festive season was rounded up with a few days down in Kent for Nick and myself — we spent a couple of nights at the Linen Shed, a fabulous B&B in Boughton under Blean, just outside Faversham, being spoilt rotten gourmet by Vicky Hassan with her gourmet breakfasts and tempura mattresses. New Year's Eve was Nico and the gang at the Anchor for music and good times.

End of January saw Sean, Sally Anne, myself and Oliver heading back to France for our yearly pilgrimage to Angouleme. This time Art Spiegelman, with Françoise Mouly, curated a smorgasbord of talks, exhibitions and events, which managed a perfect balance between French and American comic history. There was a magically dreamlike Fred display at the Hotel St Simon, and Spiegelman's own retrospective showed the man's achievement in the right (gloomy) light; the tinyness of the Maus original artwork a revelation.

Other favourites were the Sardon rubberstamp exhibit, the party at the Maison des Auteurs and the work on show there, while the big disappointments were Chris Ware's no-show, and not managing to get in to the Charles Burns or the Fred talks.




However Sally Anne
and I did get to meet
Aline Kominsky
and her very cool bag!