things in panels

Smoo Comics debuts somewhere other than here!

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:47:00 +0000

Thanks to The Daily Crosshatch for hosting this as their Guest Strip this week, even though I scanned it in all wonky like. Head over to here to see it in all its ‘glory’.

… then some more detailed pencilling

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0000

… then some more detailed pencilling

First, a quick thumbnail sketch…

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0000

First, a quick thumbnail sketch…

(the noise that Cookie Monster makes when he eats)

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:42:00 +0000

My friend Bianca has just started a food blog called …a Pinch of Salt. While I have yet to turn my hand to making any of the recipes listed, we have had the good fortune to try both her cupcakes and her chocolate pecan pie. Three words spring to mind: om, nom and nom.

Sketches for a forthcoming project

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:54:00 +0000

Sketches for a forthcoming project

I know very little about Abraham Lincoln...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:37:00 +0000

… but if I wanted to know more, I am sure that I could do worse than to wait for the arrival of ‘Hypo’, the forthcoming piece about the early life of famous hat-wearing Mr. President by artist Noah Van Sciver. I’m curious about this because, although I will admit to not yet purchasing a copy of his self-published comic ‘Blammo’ (available here), the work of his I have seen elsewhere (like this piece on Top Shelf 2.0) is rather good and has certainly piqued my curiosity. Here’s a page he posted recently on his blog that I re-post here, shamelessly, without permission but with attribution.

I should probably tell him.

Mary Boundy

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:49:00 +0000

“Higher Cemetery at Heavitree was opened in 1866. The cemetery has been expanded on at least three occasions since then. Over 70,000 people are buried in the cemetery and there are currently over 12,000 memorials”

Photo

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:44:00 +0000

Oh, my: progress!

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:44:00 +0000

Yesterday, with the help of my good friend Nick, Issue #2 finally made the journey from dusty folder to the scanner. Nick, who is better at this sort of thing than me, oversaw the long overdue scanning of the originals. I say overdue: I wrote and drew all of the content for this issue over the first half of 2008 (and someone clearly stole the intervening period of 18 months). Anyway, once the scans have been tidied up a little, we will collate them, print them, and then they will be available!

I’m hoping to be able sell these in a variety of different locations and when I know where these are (and if the nice vendors will have me) I will be sure to list them here on my equally dusty blog.

Here are some previews from the issue and a sneak preview of my Review of 2008 that I’m hoping to release as a free mini-comic for those who pick up Issue #2

Photo

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:42:00 +0000

Photo

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:42:00 +0000

Photo

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:40:00 +0000

Photo

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:39:00 +0000

I've finished Issue #2...

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:13:00 +0100

… but I still don’t have a scanner.

Here’s how things are shaping up.

Issue 1 is out of print (I’ll pop some stories on a website one day)
Issue 2 is ready to be scanned and printed (I’ll be sure to advertise that one)
Issue 3 is largely pencilled, bar one story and a couple of pages. In it you will find…
- a story about two boys musing on working for a livin’
- a travelogue from Lisbon and one from Sicily
- my review of the year 2008 (I am dead up to date)
- a poem about a night I spent in Kensington
- maybe something else
Issue 4 is also largely pencilled and is one big long rant.
Issue 5? Your guess is as good as mine.

I’ll try and get a website up soon, but I am working very hard on working hard at my PhD and that eats a great deal of time, and even when it doesn’t, it feels as if it does.

Woke up, made tea.

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:04:00 +0000

When I recently attended a Mount Eerie gig in London, I approached performer Phil Elverum with the imaginative opening gambit of, “I once met you at a show in 2003!” (honestly; do the calculations. I assume Mr Elverum, who tours a great deal, has likely played 100 shows a year, over 5 years: 500 performances. Throw in at least 10 drunken revellers in search of some sort of epiphany-bringing, vicariously-revelatory conversation, and you have a conservative total of around 5,000 faces in which mine would be lost (should we ever be registered – and I’d understand if we weren’t)… and I grew a beard. Don’t blame his blank look). My second move of the night was to talk to him about how “heavy books are to carry”. I know: displaying my aptitude for playing with the English language and deep-seated sense of the splendid and sublime? Again: blank looks.

Elverum’s music has to me always been a document of the mundane in the face of the majestic, and this tendency is of particular pertinence in understanding why silly gingers like me might be inclined to try and find some commonality with a stranger and Dawn, his latest release is no exception. I think you should all go and get it, but get the book version with the CD. Thing is, it is all about context. The songs on the record detail his experiences squirreling his existential nuts away in northern Norway for a winter, and the specific explicit explication of these days that the journal provides reveals that his song-expressed wordsmithery isn’t an affected instance of convoluted posturing about ‘being in the wild’ (which would make the pretty songs standard) but that actually he was in the wild and he was mighty pissed off with his ex-girlfriend in a mighty winter of wildlife and spectacle, against the backdrop of having to still live and eat and drink coffee and break wind (which make the songs honest).

See: mundane, majestic and the bits in between.

Oh: I’ve got a new website coming (in my mind at present) and I’m working away at some more stuff. Soon.

Goodbye, Tony Hart

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 12:55:00 +0000

British artist and children’s television presenter Tony Hart has died at the age of 83. The BBC reports that after suffering two strokes Hart was left unable to draw. He since described this as, “the greatest cross I have to bear”, a sadly eloquent description of the nature of such a tragedy and just what producing art can mean to someone, all pretention left at the door (please).

Visit

Misinterpreted Complications

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:35:00 +0000

Some acutely observed, gently reported, darkly chuckle-worthy strips over at Misinterpreted Complications. I’m a fan!

© Nick 2008

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:32:00 +0000

© Nick 2008

There is something so special about all of this (thanks to B....

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:30:00 +0000

King Cat is King

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:59:00 +0100

Although I’ve read it before, over and over, when I got my copy of King Cat Classix back from a friend, I felt compelled to read it again, over and over. I know, I know everyone who knows knows that John Porcellino’s spare work is sad, hopeful, beautiful and all, but I can’t help wanting to say something. So I say, Balance. It’s all about Balance! Past and present, hopes and fears, lines and (white) space, inside and out - oh and of course, universiality - all in comic form, mundane and majestic, just like us, yes? Oh, stop listening to me. Go buy some (picture link below) and be inspired.

Me, I’m hard at work trying to work hard on all my more pressing responsibilities, so I have been struggling to fit in work on the comic, but BUT I have achieved some things pertaining to Smoo #3: 12 pages pencilled, and a new daily(ish) comic journal to appear online probably in November or December, along with a new website. Oh, and seeing as Smoo # 2 is (all but) ready, I really should probably publish it.