Weekend friends

The last few days have been super comic-y, starting with Friday night's Gosh event at which Woodrow Phoenix quizzed Darryl Cunningham, Joe Decie and Lizz Lunney about their working processes. I'd arranged to meet fellow cartoonist Jennifer Hayden and family there on a visit from the States. Nick came down and we all repaired for a pint or two down Portobello. How gratifying that Jennifer swears as much as I do.

Saturday saw a long overdue reunion of most of the old LUC gang at Oliver Lambden's groovy gaff. Too long, guys, must do better!

I managed to produce a typical English roast on Sunday to restore Jennifer, Steve and the lovely Charlotte after a gruelling day of sightseeing and dealing with the buggered tube system. Hope they've forgiven me my rudeness about Downton Abbey and Princess Di...

Blinded by the light

Wow. As I was busy cooking Sunday lunch yesterday, unbeknownst to me, I had been spotlighted in the British Comic Month column on the Gosh website!

Instantly lifting my mood from this

to this. Thus proving my craven desperation for attention while cremating the Sunday roast. I feel totally honoured and amazed. I do try to keep up with this blog but haven't updated my actual website for some time. Maybe this will shame me into doing so.

Lets hand it to some top performers

On Wednesday night after our Jaime Hernandez encounter, Sally Anne and I headed on to the Phoenix for Comica Social Club. There I bumped into Alex Potts who happened to be touting his latest Lost Shoe comic, Hand. I am an admirer of the gentleman's work, and this does not disappoint. Thursday Nick and I took in the Bowie exhibit which was well worth the effort — a great use of sound and vision, covering all aspects of his creativity. The songs stand the test of time, and retain the old excitement in the gallery dedicated to his live performance (or maybe I'm just showing my age). Eat your heart out, Madonna. Yesterday, Gary Northfield launched Teenytinosaurs with cake and booze. His whacky little creations frolic exhuberantly in the land before time bringing joy to any age group. If anyone is going to steal Quentin Blake's crown, I put my money on Gary.

From Superheroes to Heroes

Last weekend, Sally Anne and I (wo)manned our table at MCM, having decided to brave the event again. It was not as gruelling as the last time – no drummers or sweltering heat – but still pretty exhausting. We had a great neighbour in the lovely Howard Hardiman, and there was a fair amount of space behind the stalls so it was not as uncomfortable an experience as previously. Check out Sally Anne's blog for more extensive coverage and Sean Azzopardi's for many more photos, but here is our table. And my favourite cosplayer with the bestest costume of the whole weekend... Wednesday evening was mucho fun: I got to (sort of) meet the incredibly amazing Jaime Hernandez at Gosh – well, stand quite close and sketch him anyhoo... and followed that high with winning a prize in the Comica Social Club raffle! Result!

The story so far

The last few months have been a whirlwind of activity after years of furtively drawing my comics on my own with little or no feedback.
Having fortuitously met Gary Northfield at an Indesign course, he encouraged me to put my comics in Gosh! and Orbital where they were picked up by Paul Gravett who invited me to take part in the 24 hour comic event at the ICA.

This summer I also created a strip for the Observer Graphic Short Story competition. I didn't win but was pleased with my effort and the standard of entries was so high that I didn't feel embarrassed

( although slightly baffled by the winning entry).


You can check out some of the other entries here.

















The 24 hour comic thing was a complete blast – very little sleep, warm coca cola and a fantastic bunch of very talented other participants including Sean Azzopardi (Twelve Hour Shift), Takayo Akiyama (Siamese Twins), Richy Chandler (Tempolush), Tom Humberstone(Vented Spleen) and Alex Potts (Lost Shoe Comics) to name a few.

You can read it here

A couple of weeks later I took part in the ICA Comiket small press comic fair. I made up my 24 hour effort into a mini comic to sell along with my other efforts. Again a brilliant day (not from a commercial point of view- spent more on comics and beer than I made).
Not only caught up with Richy and Sean and got a chance to talk to some of my other fellow 24hrers like Richard Peel and Oliver East but met even more great people and did loads of good swaps.
Having finally worked my way through my big pile of swag, I'm still chuckling over the wit and wisdom of Richard's Fights and Wizards, loved Oliver's beautifully observed Trains are...mint 1-3 and the raw miserabilism of Bedsit journal is hilariously drawn by Richard Cowdry (an awful lot of cartoonists seem to be called Richard...)