Three months in the life

Wow! It sure did seem like a good idea starting a comic blog last year. That is, it seemed like a good idea until my workload suddenly went into overdrive and the LAST thing I found myself wanting to do when I exited Photoshop for the evening was remain sitting at the computer and think about comics a bit more. However, it seems irresponsible to start a blog and then leave it to rot, so I'm going to take this opportunity to talk just a tiny bit about what I've been working on lately (since I'm now in a position to - a lot of it was hush-hush until recently).

1) A 13-installment (that's nearly 40 pages, folks), full-colour serial for The DFC, a brand new comic from David Fickling books that's launching late May 2008. I'm not able to say too much about the story yet, but it's written by YA author Peadar O Guilin and features images not unlike this:



2) Starting from issue 116 (114 is currently in the shops, so in about three weeks' time), TOXIC magazine will be running an all-new comic strip drawn by me and written by TOXIC regular John A. Short. If I tell you it's called "Robin Hoodie", I think that's all you need to know ;) I'm pleased with how the strip's looking so far, and the writing's been consistently funny, but the best thing about working for TOXIC is having my work in the same publication as one of my all-time Brit-comic heroes, Lew Stringer. Yay! Here's another little something to whet your appetite:



3) The Beano work continues. Johnny Bean is running weekly and, although I'm no longer inking Ratz, I still write it and indeed draw it on the odd occasion when Hunt's indisposed. I've also been writing a few episodes of London B412 lately (still drawn by Barrie Appleby), which should start running within the next week or two.

4) I've just completed a new Gilbert and Sullivan story, which you can find nestling in the pages of Best New Manga 3 in October. In colour, too! (well, I say colour - it's shaded in sepia tones. Close enough.)

5) Oh.... other stuff! I have a Doctor Who illustration appearing in an anthology which should be available at the Bristol Comics Expo on May 9th-10th, but I don't have many details for that at the moment.

And that's it. I'm in serious need of updating my website, but I had a computer meltdown a few weeks ago and still haven't installed an ftp client on the new machine. It's on the to-do list. In the meantime, keep watching this space - I'm determined to get into the habit of regular updates, even if my eyeballs melt from excessive PC usage (actually, no, that would be a very bad career move - I'll just do my best!)