Pretend it's Christmas....

...and you're eagerly tearing the wrapping paper off a flat, rectangular object. What could it be? Nope, not a squashed box of Dairy Milk - it's this year's Beano annual! Or maybe the Dandy annual, if that's how your parents roll! WOOO! The excitement of a new Beano or Dandy annual never really diminishes with time, and that's certainly the case for us overgrown children who play a part in filling them. For the second year running I've contributed to both publications, reprising last year's Bully Beef and Chips with three new stories, as well as adding three more pages of another very familiar character...



Noooo, not Our Cilla - it's Keyhole Kate, everyone's favourite peeping lunatic. Did you know she's been around since the comic's start in 1938? This must be at least her fifth or sixth incarnation, I think. Gawrsh! I'm amazed they managed to come up with so many keyhole-looking-through scenarios over the years.



The Dandy annual looks to be a real nostalgia-fest this year, probably to tie in with the comic's 75th anniversary in 2013. Check out the blog of the lovely Wilbur Dawbarn (link on the right) for more sneak prviews.

Over in Beanotown, I've been drawing a whole load of Meebo & Zuky, including a slightly new spin on the characters which I'll be blogging more about in the next few weeks...



And - very excitingly for me - I was asked to produce some new pages for a classic strip that's currently re-running in the weekly Beano. I'll let my teaser image do the rest of the talking;)



It's a fantastic experience to work on characters devised by such greats as Allan Morley and John Geering, and I can honstly say I'm dead chuffed about it. I hope my pages raise the appropriate chuckles.

So there we have it, make sure Santa brings you a copy of each one (or just treat yourself when they come out in July, eh?)

Blue Petaaah

Following on from the previous post, it seems that Zombie Nation didn't quite rise to the occasion in the Toxic poll stakes and therefore won't be appearing in the mag regularly - but, that's what you get for relying on the living dead. Tsk. However, on a more positive note, I'm going to have a piece of work appearing on t'telly next week, so watch out for that. It's a Dennis and Gnasher/Blue Peter crossover and it'll be appearing on said show on Tuesday afternoon (and on the trusty iPlayer thereafter, for those of you not in the house when Blue Peter's on). It's my first ever attempt at drawing a celebrity-based story for the Beano, so I hope it looks OK on screen (although frankly, only people with HD TVs will really know if it doesn't ;))

Heeeere's Johnny!

It's been a long wait, but the new Beano strip I've been working on since March finally makes its debut this week (issue no. 3404, dated 27th October). Yes, ladies and germs, I give you "Johnny Bean from Happy Bunny Green" (preceded with the words "Tales of" in the comic - but you can just call it "Johnny Bean", since we're all mates here). The strip's a bit of a departure in format for The Beano, as the story's almost entirely told using caption boxes, in a "Jackanory" style (it even has its own avuncular narrator). A bold move - will the kids like it? Only time will tell. But anyway, there's more Johnny info and a nice swizzy graphic I created over on my website. Or, of course, you could just buy the comic, eh?

(Interestingly, I noticed the Beano's gone up from 85p to 99p this week - although, ahem, don't let that put you off. That might seem a little steep, but you're getting actual content for your pennies - at least two pages of what were formerly reprints have now been replaced with brand new strips and, quite frankly, The Beano's still one of the cheapest comics you can get. Plus, there's a free glow-in-the-dark skeleton. Really, what more could you ask for?)