Asteroid Belt, er

So: it's the British Science Festival coming up and it's happening in Newcastle. A bunch of excellent Novocastrian comic-makers have organised an AMAZING comic to teach science to, well, everyone, but it's mainly aimed at 8 to 13 year-olds. The comic is called Asteroid Belter - The Newcastle Science Comic. It's got the work of all kinds of top-drawer comic creators paired up with university scientists within it.

Knowing the good folk behind this endeavour, I was keen to see how it turned out, but felt that I couldn't provide art at the necessary professional level for a publication that was going to get a 10000 copy print-run, so did not initially put myself forward as an artist for the project. HOWEVER: late in the day, due to a few drop outs, I think they were kinda desperate I guess, and I was probably drunk and I agreed to try and do something that made sense and didn't look terrible. I did a one page called 'Astoundishing Science' that is about avoiding the clichés of how science is portrayed in popular culture. Also: it's full of silliness and the clichés of how science is portrayed in popular culture.

Fortunately, I had Paul Thompson on my side to digitally compose my scrawlings, before then colouring and lettering them to make it into something that actually looks pretty dang good.

I also worked with Paul to make some puzzles to fill in a few gaps in the comic. The main one I worked on (and provided artwork for) was a topological puzzle based around finding the best route for a courier around a complex road system. That was fun too and I'm interested to see if people find it easy or tricky.

Anyway, "where is this comic available?" and "how much will it cost?" - it will be available at various events around the Science Festival and will be FREE. If you're interested, you should come to the launch event at Newcastle City Library on Saturday 7th September. There's workshops on the day and an exhibition of art (yes, including mine I'm afraid) that runs until the 21st. Oh, and did I mention the free comic that does the incredible job of making complex science easily digestible and interesting to kids? Yes, yes, I just did.

Here's a bit with me making up silly answers for a contributor profile thing for the comic's blog.

Sugar Glider Issue 3

Time for more fan art! This time: Sugar Glider.

Actually, I've done fan art for Sugar Glider previously, but the challenge of a design-a-cover competition (in celebration of the upcoming third and final issue of the series) enticed me back to this fine comic.

Susie 'Sugar Glider' Sullivan is a Geordie teenage vigilante in a world with superheroes. Writer Daniel Clifford's touch for contrasting the everyday with the extraordinary, combined with artist Gary Bainbridge's distinctive black and white art style and astute eye for Novocastrian architectural detail, creates a story that impresses with earnest enthusiasm for superheroics while still remaining rooted in a recognisable unsensationalist reality.

The main issues have been supplemented by two anthologies and a mini comic - allowing the world to stretch out and breathe.

And now you can read it all online (free) at sugarglidercomics.co.uk

You should go and have a look. And enter the contest!

Here's my idea:

 



As you can see, I decided to focus on the rather iconic costume. I think it warrants it. In fact, I think it was the character design, idly doodled one evening by Gary, that prompted Daniel to pitch him a story idea, and the whole project expanded from there. It's a strong visual that chimes with classic superhero archetypes while still feeling fresh, and I thought it would be geet cool to see how far I could take it towards minimalist abstraction.

Plus of course, I'm lazy and thought I could get away with mucking around with design instead of doing a proper drawing. Always thinking!

UPDATE: Sugar Glider #3, the senses-shattering conclusion, is out now! My design is featured in a little gallery at the back! But don't let that put you off! Grab a copy now!

De/Re-Recontextualisation

Saw this interesting piece from Paul Gravett. There has been a lot of talk about Pop Art and 'recontextualisation' recently - discussing the lines between 'low' comic art and 'high' gallery art and so on, so thought I'd post this piece from a little while back: