A Footnote in History

Based on an extended conversation with my son while he was studying for his GCSE history, discussing the history of medicine, as we walked across the Cotswolds one day. Individually, all of the events in here are factual, to the best of my knowledge, I've just woven them together.

This was a testing ground for a lot of the techniques that I'd like to use in the graphic novel I'll be improvising at LICAF in Kendal, October 18th this year. If you're attending the festival, do drop by on Saturday, and picture yourself in the place of the old bearded fellow on the bottom half of each page - and you too could become a footnote in comic-book history!

LICAF Improvisations

I will be in Kendal at the Lakes International Comics Art Festival, on October 18th 2014, running/directing a photo-shoot for an improvised Graphic Novel. I will write the script and create the illustrations afterwards.

I will be ably assisted by people who know what they are doing - Chris Taylor and the Kendal Community Theatre group, local photographer Paul Want, and the organisers of the festival.

This may take some time! I'll be blogging the whole process as I go. This is where you can watch the story take shape, as well as getting samples of my other comics work.

In the run up to LICAF, I'll be blogging twice weekly.

• A short comic strip every Tuesday
• A story, or ingredient that may end up in the finished work, every Friday.
• and probably a whole lot more as and when I can...

If you are going to the festival, do drop by and join us. And if you're not, say hello in the comments or on twitter, and join in the conversation.

Words and pictures can combine in unusual and interesting ways - that's the whole magic of comics. What has this dog and his chaperone got to do with my announcement above? Goodness only knows!

Planetary Dynamics

Digitally painted backgrounds for a 4-page strip about planetary physics (Tidal Locking in particular!)

Page 2 isn't ready yet (or, at least, I'm not happy with it!)

Myths of this World

I'm putting the finishing touches to my first published anthology of comic book work "Myths of this World", which will be available via Lulu in time for LICAF this year.

I'll post more info shortly. Here are a couple of variant cover designs, for the hardback and paperback editions. I'll also be making it available as an e-book, for readers dwelling in the 21st Century.

Improvisation

I woke up one morning, a few month back, and thought "wouldn't it be a cool idea to take a camera up to the Lakes Comic Art Festival, video a few people in conversation, and use stills taken from the video to put together some comic strips, loosely based on the things that we'd talked about".

I'm sure you've all done the same - but foolishly, I forgot about the bit where I lie down until the urge goes away, and one theatre company, a photographer, and several wild-eyed conversations later, we're set to take the town by storm on Saturday 18th and go on to create a comic strip (or "graphic novel", if I'm feeling posh!) unlike anything you've seen before.

Unlike some hardy souls, I won't be creating the whole thing on the day, but I'll be blogging the process as I go along, right here, so sign up for email updates, or visit me on twitter if you want to watch it all happen.

Vive la (whatever the French is for doing something crazy and expansive that one ought to know better about!)

Dancers, Light

Freehand sketches from a youtube video, using a Pocket Brush.  Pleased with this lot, mostly.

Improvisation

It's time to lift the lid off something that I've been planning for some time...