So excited!

Meet...

This is Bear Man and Twinkle...
They're not on the team. Well actually, they are. You'll find out!

Spandex - meet Glitter!

This is Glitter. I think his real name is Luke (I'm still deciding on most of the team's names). He's kind of a male Dazzler, although he mainly uses his powers just to whiz through the air at light speed and occasionally shoot lasers.
He appeared in The O Men a couple of times, just as a background character, although if you look in O Men 2.5, he gets kind of an origin page. His grand-dad is in Asylum's head. But you don't need to know any of that to enjoy Spandex lol.
Glitter caused me a lot of trouble, because I always intended to do something nasty to him in the first issue, but I just couldn't bring myself to. So I do it to someone else instead.
Glitter is a lively, quirky character, he'll get people's backs up, he's a bit controversial - but hopefully you'll find he's got a heart of gold, and hopefully you'll grow to like him - that's one of the challenges I guess!

One for the Torchwood/Who fans

When I'm not drawing, I have a 9-5 (30) job in magazines, as some of you may know!
I thought I'd mention some stuff I've been doing recently, because I'm quite proud of it!!!
First up, just gone up today is an exclusive Torchwood web-comic on the Watch TV website (Torchwood series two is on there on Saturdays - well there's nowt else on on Saturday nights these days, is there!). This was an epic editing tour de force, where we had like 3 weeks to do it all! Sounds like a long time, but don't say that to my poor excellent artist Adrian Salmon. I think he actually had maybe just over a week to actually do it all, after we'd sorted out various things-to-sort-out. That's 40 panels to pencil, ink and beautifully colour. That's quite a task.
I think it's really neat, and looks absolutely beautiful. Anyway it's here, check it out:
http://uktv.co.uk/watch/gallery/aid/612675
It's written by a Torchwood script editor Brian Minchin, drawn by the aforementioned Adrian, and lettered by John Workman who you may recognise as a letterer who works a lot with Walt Simonson - and he did Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol run too. I actually met up with John W on the next project I'm gonna mention...
You may have seen it in the papers, but in the next issue of Torchwood Magazine you'll find an exclusive strip - story by Mr John Barrowman, scripted by his lovely sis Carole, with art from Tommy Lee Edwards and Trevor Goring, all topped off by letterer John Workman!
I've edited tons and tons of magazines, but this is only my 3rd venture into professional comic-editing, and boy I gotta say this is damn good!!! The art is just breath-taking, it's a neat little story and, well, check it out for yerselves - it's on sale on Thursday 19th February.
This comic strip was another acheivement, because again it was really tight. But it was nice to work with everyone - Carole is a sweetie, Tommy's just so professional, John's been great, and in amongst the madness of deadline pressure, John Workman was always there to share his anecdotal insight into the comic book industry. Such a good bloke, we've set up quite a little e-chat, and I want to use him as much as I can in my future comix.
Oh and a final pointer, I've been sending advance copies out to all the team - and was delighted to send a copy to Carole and John's parents in Florda. Aw.

Spandex - Meet Indigo!

Well this is the first feature in my 'Meet the Spandex characters' notes!
This is Indigo. She's French. She's named after the Indigo Girls. She can teleport. She's quite fun in a sexy Aurora-from-Alpha Flight way. She's the sister of Random who appeared in O Men 2.1 (although I doubt I'll ever refer to that in Spandex. Spandex and O Men exist in the same universe, but there are few crossovers. Although I have actually considered doing an O Men v Spandex crossover!).
I don't want to say too much about the characters, as it will spoil the fun... But let's just say, she has a really innovative use of her teleportation skills...

TV!

no spoilers unless i say so, so don't worry...
Lost is back! I'm up to ep 4... The first 3 seemed quite samey to me, and I'm a bit annoyed how they focus on certain characters, like Daniel, to the detriment of people like Charlotte and Miles, who I'm equally interested in. Ep 4 seemed better to me, because the settings were more varied. But that ending...woah...a blind monkey could see that one coming.

Battlestar - I'm up to Friday's ep - ep 14, so please don't read on if you haven't seen it, as spoiling Battlestar is a criminal offence...
Anyway, it's been a cracking set of episodes so far, made even more cracking by the fact that these are the series' final 10 eps, so people will die (and they are dying!)!
Was very upset by the death at the end of the latest ep - mainly because he wasn't all that bad, and it was so brutal. I think they really wasted two characters on a fairly strange, almost throwaway ending.
As a fan of one of the killed characters - that was so cruel...! I think we were kinda led to believe that his wound was getting infected, so he'd die anyway - but no, even as he faced the firing squad, he said himself, that his would felt better! Nooo! Really hard to stomach.
Oh and - okay, so how come those two guys face that awful fate - and yet Baltar is still alive!!! Baltar helped kill hundreds! Plus Gaeta helped the humans out on that planet in season three.
And I think the writers are manipulating us a bit. The latest storyline pictures the Cylons as saints and the rebel humans as evil. Well come on, the Cylons are still killers - look at Tori, who murdered the Chief's wife.
Final thought on Battlestar - it's a funny old show. Some characters seem to just do nothing! When was the last time Sharon did anything interesting? Baltar has been really dull for ages. Quite a lot of expendable characters, I think.

SPANDEX

So yes, 'tis the year of Spandex. I am working really hard on Issue One. I'd say it's about a third done. Full colour!!! Hopefully it'll be finished by Bristol/May. And then a 120-odd-page book of it all next year...
A lot of it is a bit top secret, but I am so excited by it all that I am going to be introducing some of the characters and concepts slowly on this site.
I thought I would start with this little image. It's a rough pic, for use as a small part of a bigger pic, and I won't say anything about it, but I just think it's a nice crazy, random start to a nice, crazy random comic project...
I wonder if anyone will recognise it hehe

Happy New Year!!!???

Hello hello helloooo!!!
I'm back!
But I plan to waffle less here, and focus more on my comics - which really should be the point of this blog!
So as much as I'd love to talk about the exciting world of Avengers (Dark Avengers - what a great twist, Mighty Avengers - laaaame), some of the crap films I've seen so far this year (Spirit - yuck, Underworld 3 - dear god), and the wonders of having a snow day (best day ever!), I will resist all temptation!!!
So this new world order starts right now.../above