History and That Preview

Ok, i've taken a couple of days off from the Story a Day in order to get my History and That submission in for the Paper Jam Comics Collective. Technically, it's a story, but for some masochistic reason I'm not including it as part of my story a day. Hmm. I'll get back on that tomorrow.

Anyway, it's all about German/Polish folklore surrounding the presence of nightmares, particularly those nasty sleep paralysis beasties that squat on your chest. Here's the first few panels:

The drawing was done really quick just before the deadline, and is very scribbly. It's my first go at drawing entirely with the wacom tablet. Because you can draw in white on black as well as black on white in photoshop, parts of it come out looking a bit like an etching or woodblock print, which is nice. I've also gone for proper case, basic serif fonts rather than comic ones, and let photoshop handle the caption bubbles as a style. It seems to fit quite nicely I think, different looking and somehow 'right' for subject.

Folks at the PJCC meeting this evening seemed to find the monster disturbing and cute in equal parts, so that's a victory in my book.

What else can we expect to see in History ...and That, then? Preview images can be seen on these here blogs:

• Gary Bainbridge
• Jack Fallows
• Christian Kerr
• Andy Waugh

And many more! It's going to be proper good this one.

The Naked Head - covers for nonexistent comics.

A good few years ago now, I used to run a website called 'unfocused.net' which I occasionally think about restarting. The idea was photoshop tennis - people post images on a theme, then others manipulate and evolve.

On the whole, the site was a success, in that it generated some cool ideas and people enjoyed themselves. No points scoring, no winners or quality control: a communal sketch pad.

Anyway, i'll probably be posting some of the images on this here blog, for my own nostalgia more than owt else. All authorship is communal. It's getting on towards halloween, so here's a couple of fake comic covers that turned up:

Part of what made it interesting for me was that image size and download time was much more of an issue than it is these days, so the war against the constant introduction JPG artifacts and decay of image quality became a part of the game and part of the aesthetic.

Space Monkey - from Paper Jam

Space Monkey is the latest anthology from the Paper Jam Comics Collective based in the Travelling Man store in Newcastle. It's the second one i've had anything to do with and the first with a colour cover.
The full title is, as you see above: Space Monkey, featuring: Squids, Bicycles, Cowboys, Skeletons, Bogeys, Dinosaurs, UFOs, Galleons, Loners, Emos, Aliens, Accidents, Bulls, Electricians, Pizza Pirates, Missing Heads, Secret Codes, Astronauts, Cheese, Massive Plants, Toilets, Tortoises and Bob ...And That

It features some pretty cool strips. Mine is ok, though more of an experiment for me than a strip, so i'm cool with it if you think it doesn't work. My personal favourites are Oscillating Brow's "Dinosaur Nigel", Bainbridge and Waugh's "Dog/Pipe" and Clifford and Fallows magnificent "Biancas Bicycle", though there's nothing in there that you won't like. Really.

The cover illustration of Bosko the worlds greatest space monkey is by Dan Gilmore and is quite, quite splendid, as you can see. I did the design/lettering and put the damn thing together. I did ok :-)

Anyway, you should buy that - three of your english quid from Travelling Man for the time being though other places soon.