Once Upon A Time Machine

Ah, it's happening! Check out this lovely looking comics anthology, a selection of classic folk and fairytales re-routed through a sci-fi filter, all wrapped up in packaging by the great Farel Dalrymple - see title page above. I did my own bit for it (artwork for a delightful re-telling of 1001 Nights by Tara Alexander) a good eighteen months back, so it's great to now see the entire collection very nearly finished and officially on the lookout for a potential publisher.

Naturally there's a big online promotional push going on, via the likes of Bleeding Cool and Facebook; do please stop by and have a peek for further info and artwork previews.

Trial and Error

My website's had an extensive rebuild so that it'll more coherently house the avalanche of new illustrations heading its way over the coming months. Have a peek.

It feels good to be giving the old portfolio an overhaul, especially having spent a sizeable chunk of the last twelve months working on a comic strip pitch for The DFC - a pitch which, despite a strong start in the editorial enthusiasm stakes, is presently inert. Such is life. I'd been needing to get away from it for a while, do something else for a bit and go back to it with a fresher head - if anything can take it onto a new level, it's that... plus maybe spending at least a week watching nothing but kids' TV and films, reading nothing but kids' books and eating nothing but sweets. 'Bit of a no-brainer. It's a long time since I was ten, after all. Time to get a re-grounding. Be a sponge - soak it all up and knock it out into new shapes.

I'm happy with the concept of the strip (courtesy of my partner) and the look of it, even if my writing and dialogue have been a bit prosaic so far. It's partly down to aesthetic hesitance - not being entirely sure how you should approach the process, and not being entirely sure who you need to be aiming the results at. I'd like to think I'll be clearer on that front by the time I dive back in... So far, the bits that work best are when it touches on the kind of verbose silliness and surrealism abundant in some of my grown up comics. If I can combine that with a more universal feel, well, we might be onto something.