On Canny Ex(po), Man

On 10th December, there was this thing, the Canny Comic Con; it was in Newcastle City Library; it was AMAZING. I had my comics on the communal table, manned by the superb Paper Jam Comics Collective crew. I only sold one comic. But that's because most of my comics are stupid awkward prices which would have messed up the float and whatnot so I only put The Device up for sale. Instead, afterwards I gave away my stock to some mates to say thanks for all the effort that they'd put into helping with the festival. In many ways they deserved something better.

Sugar Glider

So, PJCC stalwarts Daniel Clifford and Gary Bainbridge have just released the second issue of their gritty Newcastle-set superhero story Sugar Glider. It's great, you should buy it. A while back, I mentioned that I'd done some fan art, showing gutsy protagonist Suzie (perhaps after dispensing some vigilante justice), for the fan art page. I never posted it here, so here it is:

And much as it was an opportunity to practice and improve upon my neanderthal-level grasp of computery art stuff (it took HOURS to get the transparency on the damn goggles but not the cracks), the original rough sketch is perhaps still a bit better, so in honour of Sugar Glider #2, here it is:

Immateria material

So, Promethea (by Alan Moore, J.H. Williams III et al) is flipping tremendous. I recently re-read it all and wrote a short review for Readers of the Lost Art explaining why it's so tremendous. You should perhaps read this Promethea review now.

The dead may walk but I prefer a pony

Anyway, this was done a while back, I think in response to a comment about how the lead actor in The Walking Dead television series is (for a certain generation of the UK audience) inescapably associated with his his role in 90's twentysomething drama series This Life.

Miscellaneous doodles

Just a few little bits and bobs I got round to scanning. All doodled for no particular reason.

A sort of barbarian fellow with an axe?

Some sort of sports fan bird?

And some sort of rat ogre?

And why not, eh?

Inspired by myth and legend AND CRISPS

Couple of doodles I've finally scanned.

Trolls eh? They're great. Kind of big and weird and melancholy. I like them.



Also, at the last Paper Jam meeting, someone announced that they were transfixed by the picture on the side of a certain tube-based potato snack container. Thinking about it, a strange floating head that claims you will have no will of your own once the seal is broken is kind of intimidating.

Once you pop, you can't stop... THE TERROR!

To the batcave!

Everyone loves drawing Batman. I certainly do. This is probably the last doodle for a little while until I can be bothered to do some more scanning.

He has the power! (Of punching!)

Another doodle, this time with some shoddy digital colouring attempts: the oafish self-proclaimed "most powerful man in the universe" He-Man and incompetent elf-thing assistant Orko. Skeletor was always cooler.

A somewhat stroppy goth chap

A quick doodle with rudimentary computery stuff done to it. Dream from Sandman - he is a bit of a gloomy fellow.

Items of recent newsworthiness

There are several important (well, not that important) items of Oscillating Brow news. Check it, yo:


Numero uno, the Paper Jam Comics Collective are presenting an exhibition at the Made In Newcastle shop/gallery running from the 19th-27th March. It's partly the 'official' launch of the most recent PJCC anthology, History... And That, and partly just a general showcase of PJCC members work - so expect a mix of material with a loose history/comic theme, all of which will be tremendous (I've been hard at work on a mind-blowing piece made specially for the exhibition called The Present And The Future Then The Past And The Present). The exhibition is free and if you like anything you see, there will be many prints and comics (including all of my current publications) for sale, as well as some of the original art itself.


Numbero deux: despite being hampered by hastily composed theme music by me, the unstoppable juggernaut of small press comics reviewing that is the Small Press Big Mouth podcast, hosted by the gorgeous Stacey Whittle and the lovely Lee Grice, has been nominated in the 'Best SF Podcast' category of SFX magazine's Blog Awards. Clearly they recognise excellent theme music when they hear it! And excellent witty talking or whatever it is they do. Vote for it now!


Numero C: There has been drawing going on. North-east superhero comic 'Sugar Glider' by Daniel Clifford and Gary Bainbridge is ruddy good and you should buy both the first issue and the brand new 'Sugar Glider Stories' anthology immediately. The character design is great and a bunch of talented people have been doing fan art. For a bit of a laugh, I did too. You can see all of the fan art, including mine, here.

I really like the comic's semi-realistic tone and just how tough the central character comes across as being - not so much physical toughness (though obviously that's required, being an urban vigilante and all) but mental toughness; she has tremendous grit and determination to keep doing what she's doing without help or support. A lot of the other fan art is amazing and far superior to my own inept efforts, but none of it quite seemed to capture that toughness, so I tried to do something that did. I even had a bit of a play around trying to add digital colour.

Anyway, there might be a few more pictures from me at some point, either posted here or on the PJCC 'Paper Jams' blog (I already have a little bit of stuff up on there), but don't hold your breath.