"Three lullabys in an ancient tongue..." blah etc. Hey ho. I is listening to King Crimson whilst I doodle GUTSVILLE here in my ivory tower. Which, incidentally, is what the three images above belong to. Yes, due to overwhelming demand (Goran) I decided to add some pix to this rather empty blog, tho the problem is and always has been "what pictures can I add without giving away spoilers?"

Well hopefully these snippets of pages-in-progress will reveal nothing yet suggest MUCH. You can see that there are boobies in this comic now, but just wait to see what OTHER debauched goodies Si Spurrier has got me drawing for the issues following this one.

Issue 4 is almost nailed now...deepest apologies on a Russel Brand scale for the delay, but hey it'll be worth the wait.

Ok, pics uploaded, coffee drunk, Crimson playing. I think I need a walk into town and a visit to the bank to buy me some Euros for my French experience this weekend....

Xoxoxoxo F

O busy Bee...

Well, thanks to an unexpected (and welcome) gig doing some art for advertising I didn't do the 24HR comic. Yet. Yes, it seems that 2008 has been one long exercise in procrastination for one reason or another, but as winter creeps upon me I hope that will all change and I can get back to being the busy busy bee I was back in the mists of time.

As the paying gigs take precedence over all else the 24HR exercise will be done once I get this Ad gig and some tutorials for ImagineFX out of the way, and then I will have to decide if it's actually worth showing online. One idea I had was to film the whole thing on the computer using snapsproX, but then I realised that 24 hours of that would probably kill my processor, so I am looking into alternative ways to document and thus prove my 3rd 24HR experience.

Weekend just gone I was at the MCM Expo in London's Docklands, where I got to hang out with some folks from the Wire and Heroes and Battlestar Galactica which was nice, and I was also witness to the largest gathering of 10-15 year old cosplayers brandishing their "Free Hugs" signs EVER. It was only when I saw the new mutation of "running hugs" where the "Huggee" stands in the center of a large ring of other cosplayers, and the "hugger" takes a running leap at them climaxing in a spinning hug that often went out of control that I realised that if there had been Manga cons when I was a kid my social development would have been distinctly different. That's not to say it would have been BETTER, but I woulda turned out DIFFERENT...

This weekend I do the Lille festival in France. Dunno what it'll be like but as it's only a weekend I reckon it'll fly by before I return to Blighty to resume the scribbling. I'll make art to show this time, otherwise this blog will just be lots of words and that's no good is it?

24 hours from Tulsa

JINGS.

Is it that time of year AGAIN??? Halloween and the 24 hour comic book day are upon me once again, tho this time I'm going to be doing them both on a different continent. I may even dress up for one of 'em and post the photos from the last 3 years to compare.

The 24 hour comic is a different matter tho. The past 2 years I did the whole thing in the allotted time frame BUT the pages looked shite and it was all rushed at the end. Taking into account my current output and attention to detail, this 24 hour splurge of rushed panels may help get the artistic metabolism moving a bit faster. OR it'll drive me properly mental and I'll wake up on sunday in a padded cell drooling like a leaky tap.

The first year I did it I foolishly used real pens and ting, and that meant I could cheat loads and still pretend it was actual comics.

Second year I used my wacom and laptop setup so the art was a little better but i didn't finish the last 6 pages.

THIS year I have my Cintiq and I also have no distractions. And I also have 2 years experience, and as with all things experience counts for a lot. No more full black pages. No more stick figures. Maybe lots of repeat panels this time? How far CAN I take the piss? Unlike the previous 2 years I won't have anyone publishing my efforts in one of those over-phat A5 collections, so if I don't hate it utterly I'll probably put it online meself and let thou judge it with thy critical eyes. And then once that has been done you can all start asking questions like "Hey, if you did 24 of these in a day, where's Gutsville?" and I can return to my misery-pit draped in my Cloak Of Shame to finsih the pages to issue 4. There's some boobs in this one and I like to get them looking right. Research takes ages u know...

For any muppets who live in london and/or are planning to visit the MCM expo in Docklands in a coupla weeks, I'll be there avoiding sketches and flirting shamelessly with any and all attractive females that dare cross my path, and I'm also showing up at the Lille comics festival at the end of the month, which ties in with Halloween so maybe I won't be doing the costume thing afterall. I might post links to both of those events after the 24 hour comic thang has passed.

F

Brum brum brum

Greets peeps. Took me 10 minutes to sign in and get to my blog because the stupid "remember me" button that I click EVERYTIME I USE BLOGGER didn't work this time and all the cookies were gone. Pretty dang useless if it only "remembers" me for a week. New password and all that shit. It's almost as bad as MobileMe, the latest and greatest shame on the face of the interweb.

ANYWAY, I was in Birmingham for the Brum comicon this weekend. It's the first year I've gone cos I have this mortal fear of new cities, but I discovered that apart from the loud drunken jailbait that gets drunk every saturday night in the middle of town dressed up like some dodgy punk-rock rejects, brummies were lovely! Especially the barista in Costa Coffee who showed me where the con centre was on the map cos she was well hot. That accent can sound SO sexy.

Speaking of which, of the usual 3 photos that I take every convention I did pose with the standard cosplaying Harley Quinn on the first morning. I took a shot of her solo, then I decided I should pose with the lass cos it makes for a better memento (and I never take pix of cosplayers at cons normally...I feel like I'm left out somehow) so I gave my camera to whoever it was that was talking to me and then proceeded to accidentally bump Harley's boob with my right hand as I put my arm around her shoulder.

"Oh, terribly sorry" I said. "Thass o-kair" Harley replied in some midlands accent. Now THAT'S the kind cosplayer I LIKE. And dammit if only I'd got a shot of her as Lara Croft cos the costumes were very well done and I only recognised her cos of the shape of her nose.

I may have found a new hobby. Anyway, aside from that all I did was wander around the con and bug people like McKitten at their tables until I got bored. Then we did the whole drinking thing in the evening again and it built up until my good friend Lou (who is currently manager of Forbidden Planet london) got so pie-eyed that she decided to harrass John (Astonishing X-Men) Cassaday and smother him with adulation until she started crying.

This is the only photo where either of them looked vaguely un-wasted. And I care about my friends' vanity.

Now I sit back in my ivory tower, sketching warm-ups before wading back into GUTSVILLE. And if you're good, I may show a sneak peek of some covers I've been doing lately to pay the bills.

Fraze xoxoxo