ComicMarts

Issue 6/Me UPDATE!

2012-01-05T09:08:00.000-08:00

Blimey I haven’t ‘posted’ anything for a while, have I? Oops! I guess I do a lot on the Facebook page and Twitter. Well anyway, here is what I’ve been up to, if anyone is interested!
Spandex 6 is coming along frighteningly well (touch wood) despite my only-one-year-old scanner playing up like a bastard. If I have to uninstall and then reinstall it once more I will not be happy! (Actually I seem to have to do it every day, so I will probably 'be not happy' tonight!)
But yes, the issue is coming along well, mainly because I have my new computerised font and I’ve tweaked the one I used in issue 5, so now I don’t have to do any extra work to it, hooray!
Yet again, the cover has been a bit tricky, and the cover idea I was going to go with – a design which had been planned for a couple of years now – has been dumped at the last minute by something I came up with on Boxing Day and which I prefer (it's actually based on a portrait of the musician St Vincent!). I’ll be ‘revealing all’ soon!
I should also say that I am very nervous about this issue. It contains one of the series’ biggest twists, and I think it might shock a lot of people. Honestly, I am bracing myself for the reaction - but I am standing by my story.
I can also reveal that this issue will come with THREE MINI-COMICS!! Yes, I decided to give the issue a little something extra, and I think the mini-comics will be fun to sell at conventions too. So basically, I picked three characters and three artists I wanted to work with, and I wrote the stories – and the mini-comics will be in different shapes and sizes. It feels a little bit weird ‘giving away’ my characters to other people as I am quite precious about them, but I don’t mind with this project, to be honest, and it frees me up a bit, not having to draw. So anyway, the mini-comics are:
BEAR-MAN & TWINKLE with art by Rob Wells (his comics are so funny, I only recently discovered him! And Rob always gives Spandex a good review on his website, so I guess it’ll be awkward if/when he comes to review this one!). This mini-comic will be a kind of 3-panel gag strip format thing and should be fun! You can see a preview pic above!
HAG by Garry McLaughlin. This will be a nasty little horror story, and Garry likes doing those!
CHERRY BLOSSOM GIRL with art by T’sao Wei. This will be a kind of poetic/haiku thingy, exploring how Cherry Blossom Girl came to be.

In other news, I’m working on pages for the 3rd issue of Rol Hirst’s excellent Too Much Sex & Violence series, and will also be contributing to Grant Springford’s Abnormals Anthology (Abthology).
I think that’s it, other than plans to release a ‘Complete O Men’ collection – well volume one (of 5) anyway! It’ll probably be around 300 pages, and I’m currently scanning the pages! I’m not going to change any of the art (which was pretty bad in places) but annoyingly I will have to do a bit more work on it than I’d have liked – there are lots of white and black spots on the art that need to be tidied up. I really wanted it to just be a case of scanning the art in and that's it, but ah well. I will also be creating a new cover for it – should be cool!
Oh and I'll also be doing a few cons - the first one is the London Superhero Con on 25/26 Feb (the one with me and someone called Stan Lee as the top guests!) (Kidding about me lol)
Ooohhhh and finally - is anyone still reading this? - Eagle Award nominations are open so if you fancy voting for Spandex as Favourite British Colour Comic, I'd be eternally grateful!!

All of the trading cards, revealed (spoiler ban lifted!)

2011-11-17T08:53:00.001-08:00

Now that a fair few people have read Spandex 5 (in particular, most of the people I didn't want to see spoilers), here's a pic of ALL the trading cards available with issue 5! I think it's quite fun to read the issue and put names to faces (I didn't have room to name everyone in the issue!)

Spandex trading cards

2011-10-24T03:55:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't seen 'em, here are the Spandex trading cards! I'm giving one away free with every copy of Spandex 5 - which is on sale on Saturday 29 Oct, launching at the MCM Expo! I'm also giving away a free J-Team mini-manga comic with the issue.
There are 64 trading cards in all, but I'm only showing 48 cards here, for spoilery reasons.

O Men piccie

2011-10-24T03:53:00.000-07:00

Ooh, Stephen Newbold did this lovely O Men pic on his blog! Very cool!

Spandex 5 UPDATE!

2011-10-03T09:20:00.001-07:00

Hey guess what guys – I’ve just sent Spandex 5 to the printers (for a proof copy, I’ll print a couple of weeks later).
Normally, I aim to get an issue done for the Thought Bubble convention in late November, so I’m dead early!! And thank god for that, because every issue seems to get delivered on the day I need to get my train to the con, and it’s always right down to the wire!
It’s so weird, maybe I’m getting quicker – I’ve actually been going out socialising more, so I’m surprised I got it done so quickly (especially as the issue features about 80 characters).
One thing that helped was making my own font. Normally I hand-letter, scan and then do major tidying-up, but it was proving time-consuming, so I tried a different method. The font took me a couple of months to make, and I’m under no illusion that it’s perfect – I think the jury will be out... But hopefully it just about does the job and I will be making tweaks on it for issue 6.
So anyway, issue 5 is all about Liberty and we get to learn her origin, and we follow her as she investigates what happened to her team-mates in issue 4. She ends up fighting just about every villain in the Spandex universe, plus gets a bit of help from some of the good guys too (that was so exciting to do). I think it’s a fun way of exploring the universe, and a slight homage (/piss-take?) of comic crossovers. Will Liberty find out where the team are... And will there be a shock ending...? My lips are sealed lol...
I think, after the shocks of issue 4, people will find this one a bit different. Generally it’s a bit lighter in tone, with a bit of a dark subtext, and the shocks are more story-related instead of issue 4’s out-and-out shockers. For me, though, it’s all about experimenting, and if you don’t like this issue, just stay tuned for issue 6, which will turn everything on its head (and it’s pretty much what the series has been leading up to).
I’m not going to do an official announcement of the issue just yet, as I’m still working on my little free ‘extras’ that come with the issue - I’m making a manga style J-Team mini-comic and 70+ mini-trading cards. The manga story, to be honest, is just me experimenting and having fun and seeing if I can do it (ie, tell a story in Japanese comic style, which is the reverse of how we do it), and hopefully the trading cards are just nice and attractive.
I've popped a rejected cover for this issue up above (it was based on a James Bond novel book, but I felt it was too much of a rip-off!)
Anyway, please stay tuned!
(Oh, and I’ve already started drawing issue 6 – I’ve made a start on about 10 pages woo hoo!)

Melancholia

2011-10-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

I saw this movie on Sunday. I can’t believe Empire gave it 5 out of 5!!!
Maybe it’s just one of those movies you need to be in the right mood to watch.
I could sum the movie up fairly quickly – in fact I’ll do it now, obviously spoilers ahead:
Kirsten Dunst gets married but throws a wobbler and ruins it all, then a blue planet is heading towards Earth, but then it seems to go away again, but no then it comes back!, Charlotte Rampling throws a big wobbler and rides around on golf cart, then Kirsten Dunst gets naked, Kiefer Sutherland wimps out and kills himself in a horse stable, and well, I won’t spoil the ending, but the arty end-scenes they showed at the start of the movie were better.

Okay, no more spoilers from here.
I think what this movie was trying to do was quite clever – Kirsten’s character couldn’t handle her life, but then when the planet was heading towards catastrophe she was fine – unlike her more level-headed sister who lost the plot. But did it really need two hours to say this? Two very drawn-out hours?
And the science seemed really dodgy. There was a planet hiding behind the Sun? Really? Wouldn’t a planet heading towards Earth have more of an impact – wouldn’t the sea go crazy? Even I know that, and I’m not a scientist.

Still, it was very ‘brave’ of Kirsten to go naked, and she does have large bosoms. I was shocked to see her full-nude scene in the trailer... And I’m sure you ‘saw more’ in the actual film...

Hello world!

2011-08-26T05:52:00.000-07:00

Gosh I haven’t updated for a while! Been pretty busy!
Thought I’d do mini reviews of some movies I’ve seen!

Poetry
I saw the trailer for this a while ago and it was very emotional, all about a woman who gets Alzheimer’s.
I went to see the film with much trepidation, expecting a weep-fest – but no! So disappointing. Almost all of the Alzheimer’s stuff is in the trailer, it’s not really touched upon in the movie. Instead, it’s a rambling movie about a lady in her 60s who starts taking poetry classes and who has to deal with the fact that her schoolkid grandson has a link to the suicide of a schoolgirl (no not a spoiler, it happens at the start of the movie).
The movie just didn’t do it for me – didn’t grab me – and it was too wishy washy. And I hate to say it, but there’s a scene in it where the lady has sex with a disabled old man, and it’s just a bit too much... I’m sure the critics say that it is ‘brave’ but I could have done without seeing that... It just didn't work.
5 out of 10

Akunin (aka, Villain)
This was more like it. I went in, not knowing anything about it, and I was stunned. It’s about a young adult with behavioural problems who is seeing a young woman – and she is soon discovered murdered. Then the guy starts seeing another lady, and it’s all very fucked-up... And many confessions and decisions ensue...
The film might be a tad long, but at the heart of it is just pure epic romance. It really caught me unawares and made me cry a lot!!
Such a great Japanese movie.
9 out of 10.

Super 8
Urrgh hated this!! The creators are capable of so much better – I felt they sold out! That train explosion – so over the top! My friend liked it and said that I missed the point – that it is a pure homage to 80s movies. I dunno – I still feel like they should have offered something new or original in between all that. So the driver who rammed his car into the train survived – really? How? It was so obvious he was going to be suddenly come alive – is that a homage then? Zzzz! The kids really got on my nerves, especially the braces kid and the fat kid – and I don’t know why JJ Abrams likes that bland actor so much – the one who plays the main kid’s father. They seem to use him a lot.
2 out of 10

Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Not a huge fan of the original (too slow and too many court scenes), but this was a nice surprise, pretty engaging.
8 out of 10

Love Exposure
This is a four hour Japanese movie that I had to watch over several days lol. I don’t know why it has to be 4 hours long, but it still works. It’s a rambling epic movie about a young directionless guy who gets in with a weird crowd, starts dressing up as a warrior woman and falls in love with his step-sister – and then it all goes tits up when a nasty young girl and a religious cult get involved.
This film is so much fun and so absorbing. There’s the nastiest scene ever, containing a horrible thing happening to an erect penis lol. And some of the acting is stunning.
I felt the denouement was a little weak, and the lady villain didn’t quite get the comeuppance she deserved, but the ultimate ending does pay off.
It's more of an experience than a film.
9 out of 10

Captain America
I don’t know what it is, but a lot of the Marvel movie – Hulk, Iron Man – have just washed over me. Maybe it’s cos I grew up as a Marvel Zombie, so I’m so close to the characters. Cap A pretty much did the same – I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t really love it. Chris Evans did a decent enough job, but I felt the Red Skull’s mask didn’t quite work – you could tell it was a mask and you could even see the actor’s nose a bit!
I also wish it hadn’t been a total flashback movie, and maybe it could have just interspersed flashbacks in with modern day stuff. All in all – a bit meh...
6 out of 10

Good Article on Spandex Comic!

2011-07-04T08:50:00.000-07:00

Enough about nose-picking colleagues, check THIS out! Spandex makes it to Bleeding Cool again, and it's a nice, in-depth feature woooo!
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/07/04/look-it-moves-105-by-adi-tantimedh-superheroes-

Sorry this is gross but...

2011-07-04T02:50:00.000-07:00

One of my colleagues picks his nose ALL day. Honestly, he's doing it right now. He's a nice guy, so I don't want to upset him, but I really can't stand much more of it!!! Can he not comprehend that people can see him?? I've been thinking about leaving an anonymous note on his desk lol... What can I do? what would you do?

Spandex issue 5!

2011-06-29T05:18:00.000-07:00

I haven’t posted much on here recently, so I thought I’d do a Spandex update!
Issue 5 is going well, I’ve been working hard on it and feel like I’m making good progress (check out a rough pencilled page above!). It’s going to be a lot of work, as always, but it should be ready for the Leeds Thought Bubble in November.
I will exclusively reveal that the issue is called ‘Big Secret Crisis’ and focuses on Liberty – but also features just about every superhero and villain in the Spandex universe! Liberty will be trying to find out what has happened to her team-mates, and we’ll also be finding out all about her origin.
If that isn’t exciting enough, the issue will come with a free trading card AND a free manga-style comic (ie, you read it back to front!) featuring my Japanese superteam, The J-Team! I’ll also be working on a set of postcards to be ready at Thought Bubble – I’m very excited about the designs! Plus, to celebrate the fact that Liberty is taking centre-stage, I will be launching LibARTy, featuring fun Liberty art from all sorts of contributors! (Please drop me a line at martrpeden@yahoo.co.uk if you'd like to take part!)
I’ve also been beavering away on creating my own font, which will hopefully knock weeks of work off. It’s really tricky, and I’m not entirely sure it’s working, but we’ll give it a go. I really need to sort out how I letter, because it’s too time-consuming at the moment (I letter, scan it, and then tidy up every single letter in Photoshop, and it takes bloody ages). I’m also beavering away on the cover – as usual, my first idea didn’t pan out, and then I tried a couple of other things which didn’t pan out either – but I think I’m onto a winner now.
So it’s all go at Spandex Towers!! Stay tuned to spandexcomic.com for more details!

Smallville!

2011-06-29T05:17:00.000-07:00

I need to get this off my chest...
I’m really enjoying Smallville at the moment!
:-O
Yes it’s true! Smallville is a funny old show, isn’t it? I watched most of the first five seasons, and it was very by-the-numbers and pedestrian, not exactly brian-taxing. I actually edited the official magazine for it, but stopped watching it when I left the magazine. There was just so much other stuff to watch!
However, a friend told me that he was watching it last year, so I felt less embarrassed, and I started watching it, and it’s actually not bad.
And then, the final season started on E4, and I stored them on my BT box to watch...and I really couldn’t be bothered...But I started watching and now I’m hooked!!!
Yes, it’s still quite lame – the dialogue can be hammy and the music is so dour – but the effects are amazing, and there’s a real pace to it now – more of an ongoing storyline.
It’s actually a real shame that no one has been watching it, because the show features its own takes on characters such as Deadshot, Darkseid and Suicide Squad. And Supergirl just returned, but she sounded like she was from Canada more than from Krypton...
So yes, Smallville is a bit lame and rubbish – but I think once you’ve accepted that, it’s quite watchable. I’m hooked!

X-Men Second Class

2011-06-05T15:25:00.000-07:00

I saw X-Men First Class at a special preview the other week, and I - and pretty much the whole audience - seemed generally underwhelmed...
On the morning I was going to see it, my chum asked me if I was excited... To be honest, I wasn't! You see, I really hate the way they dick around with continuity in the X-Men movies. Yeah I know, it's a different set-up etc, but in my opinion, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And I wouldn't mind either, if some of the changes weren't so brainless and ill-considered (see below)
So now it's really surprising me that a lot of friends and people - and even comic fans - seem to be loving X-Men First Class... Really?? I think it's pretty insulting to comic fans, to be honest, the way they've pointlessly changed so many things.
Overall, I felt the movie dragged in places, felt like a Thunderbirds movie in other places, and in all the other places it was really uneven (c'mon, where did Emma go??). But this is supposed to be the start of a trilogy, so hopefully when its all found its feet, things will improve (let's face it, X-Men 1 was good but not amazing either. But I preferred that to this mess.)
Maybe the best way to look at it is to look at each character:
Prof X - stop putting your finger by the side of your head, it's really boring. And stop over-acting. I liked seeing how he lost the use of his legs - I wasn't expecting that - I was waiting for him to lose his hair!
Magneto - James Bond.
Mystique - She seemed to do a lot of screaming! What a wimp. C'mon, Raven's not a wimp! And why does she have to have those stupid scales?
Beast - very good, but a shame the transformation is spoiled by the trailer.
Darwin - was promising!
Angel - I quite liked her, altho her end fight got a bit monotonous. It'd be nice if the fact she's called Angel ties in with Warren Worthington.
Moira - A cool character... but aaargh! Why is she an American CIA agent? Why? She's a Scottish scientist in XMen 3. Och lordy! Moira will be spinning in her grave!
Emma - Oh January... You are very sexy, even if you don't have massive hooters, but put a little effort in hon! I mean in the comics, Emma is FIERCE, but here, she was just ...dull. And why confuse things with the diamond form thing? This could have been a true break-out role for some up-and-coming actress... And if this was Twilight, they'd probably change the actress for the next movie.
Shaw - Well yes, one of the best superhero movie villains ever, I reckon. However... Now don't all laugh at once... A) I didn't realise it was Kevin Bacon (there are so many lookalike actors these days and I feel a bit left behind!)... so B) I didn't realise Shaw was the Nazi guy... Yes, looking back there was that photo thing, but I guess I just zoned out... The whole moustache thing threw me... And at the end of the day, I wasn't particularly expecting Shaw (the guy I know from the comics) to have worked in a Nazi camp. I mean, why would he be?
Azazel - shit make-up, and over-use of the teleportation stuff. I mean, we wanted more of Nightcrawler's powers in X2, but I wanted less of Azazel.
Riptide - yes, that was Riptide! From the Marauders! But Mr Vaughn and Ms Goldman, how can you have a prominent character in a movie and not even say who he is, why he's there, and what he's doing? I gotta say, I think this movie's creators are over-rated. I sat twiddling my thumbs thru half of Kickass, but that just seems to be me.
Banshee - why can't he be Irish?
Havok - Please don't tell me he's gonna turn out to be Cyclops' FATHER...
The two special cameos - brilliant!
That's all I have to say...

Spirit of Hope book

2011-05-31T11:20:00.000-07:00

After the terrible events in Japan in March, the Comic Book Alliance started putting together the Spirit of Hope, a unique anthology of short stories from a massive selection of comic creators, dealing with the impact of disasters on people’s everyday lives.
A lot of people know about my love for Japan and all things Japanese, so you can only imagine how honoured and excited I was to be asked to contribute a story. I came up with a special stand-alone Spandex story, featuring Neon, Prowler and some little surprises.
The book is on sale very soon, and it can be pre-ordered for £14.99 + £3.00 p&p. Anyone ordering should state their preference of cover, both can be seen on the CBA website where you can also place your order online. (One is by Jimmy Broxton and the other by Michael Allred). The website is here: http://www.comicbookalliance.co.uk/
All proceeds go to charity.

I've seen a copy and it's breathtaking.

Full credits/contributor list:
Edited by Alan Cowsill and Tim Pilcher, Spirit of Hope is being offered in two alternate covers - one by Jimmy Broxton, the other by Mike Allred.
Creators involved include Natalie Abadzis, Nick Abadzis, Adrian Bamforth, Jasper Bark, Donna Barr, Jordie Bellaire, Paul H Birch, Bolt-01, Dan Boultwood, Mark Buckingham, Jim Campbell, Richmond Clements, Jason Cobley, Simon Coleby, Mike Collins, Martin Conaghan, Gary Crutchley, Glenn Dakin, Al Davison, Brandon DeStefano, Benjamin Dickson, Martin Eden, Mats Engesten, Gary Erskine, Al Ewing, Glenn B Flemming, Emma Flint, Henry Flint, Leigh Gallagher, Matt Gibbs, Gary Gilbert, Alan Grant, Jon Haward, Peter Hogan, Kev Hopgood, Graeme Howard, Inko, Rich Johnston, Ant Jones, GM Jordan, Jessica Kemp, David Leach, Tony Lee, Nigel Lowrey, Ciaran Lucas, Paul McLaren, Gary Spencer Millidge, Michiru Morikawa, Alex Moore, Leonie O’Moore, Michiru Morkawa, Eva Perkins, Grant Perkins, Martyn Pick, Maria Pickering, David Pugh, James Reekie, Regan, Neil Roberts, Darick Roberston, John Robbins, John Ross, Declan Shalvey, Liam Sharp, Akiko Shimojima, Si Spencer, Vicky Stonebridge, Lew Stringer, Steve Tanner, Archie Templar, S Thompson, Geoffrey D. Wessel, Chris Western, Andrew Wildman, WJC, Ant Williams, Rob Williams, Sean Michael Wilson and Yel Zamor.

My thoughts on Bristol 2011!

2011-05-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

Well, after the dullsville that was Bristol 2010, Bristol 2011 was a lot better! I think a lot of it was down to a re-organisation of the halls, so it worked much better – hurrah! In fact, last year’s popular room (Hall 1, the first room you come to) this year apparently became known as ‘the Tumbleweed Room’ (I think because there were a few empty tables – people who dropped out at the last minute?).

I really enjoyed chatting to all my regular punters/friends, met some new punters/friends, and made a bit of money, but then blew it all on other comics anyway. I’m still feeling that my li’l A5 colour comic is sometimes ignored in favour of other US-sized comics, but there’s not much I can do about that, I ain’t made of money!
I also wonder if I could do better if I approached it differently – I really am not a born salesman, but I do my best. It’s hard to know whether to be ‘aggressive’ or just keep your head down and wait for people to come to you. Maybe I need Mary Portas to come in and advise me!

Thanks also to my good friend Daniel Clifford, who was my Table Buddy. We had a good laugh, helped each other out a lot, and it was so nice that he and his girlf Lily made sandwiches for me on both days. Daniel writes Sugar Glider and put Sugar Glider Stories together, and he is definitely a name to watch.

It was also so nice to get really quick feedback on my new issue, particularly from Selina Lock (who was a bit annoyed she has to wait 6 months to know what happens next) and my ex-penpal (!) Andrew Williams who is definitely on the same wavelength as my comic and picked up on the things I really wanted people to pick up on (like the silliness of Gayzilla etc).

The Ramada bar on Saturday seemed a bit quieter than usual, but I did have a nice few beers with the aforementioned Andrew and also Seb Antoniou, a very good rising star artist. It was also surreal to have the bizarre movie Black Sheep on the screens as we all slowly got more and more pissed...

Anyway, I thought I’d share some random thoughts:
- Prices! Blimey! You can go to Bristol with about 20 quid, and these days that’ll maybe get you 2 comics! Everyone seems to be doing colour graphic novels (which seem to be a lot more affordable these days), which look really professional... But I kinda missed seeing people’s actual mini-comics and regular comics.
I am a firm believer that you should make comics affordable. My old O Men comic used to be £1, and now I put out a 28 to 40 page Spandex comic, A5, full colour, at £3, and there were some similar black and white comics on sale for the same price or more! I mean, I guess now, some people try to make an income from all this, whereas ‘in my day’ it was more of a hobby. Is it really possible to make a living out of indie comics anyway? I don’t know.
Let’s look at it this way – one indie person sells their comic for £8. It’s black and white, around 30 pages, a very quick read, nice, glossy cover. Maybe they need to charge so much because of the Production costs – but maybe they could look at making it cheaper to produce, and thereby a bit fairer on their readers...
And there’s another problem...
- ...Production values might be very high, but there is still the same indie comic problem in some of the comics – really bad grammar and typos... I looked at a lot of stuff on my way home from Bristol and my heart sank at some of the errors and mistakes in about half of them. Since so many people have got their act together to produce some really impressive products, it really was a shock to see that this kind of sloppiness is still happening.

People, recommendations, and other stuff...
- I think some of my favourite people are fast becoming the Underfire Comics chaps. They are SO friendly and they produce some really excellent, solid comics. They come to each and every con, and I know some cons are a bit hit and miss, but they keep smiling through it. I think they’ve grasped the true spirit of indie comics, which others seem to have missed. Please do check them out.
- Also friendly are the Cinebook crew. They produce some really lush European graphic novels, and they do ‘deadly deals’ where you end up buying 10 for the price of 2 or something. Arrgh! They are so nice too! They have a very good sales method!!
- The Abnormals by my chum Grant Springford. He’s been off the ‘scene’ for a while, but he’s now put together a one-shot all-ages full colour comic, which is amaaazing! Every character has so much depth to them. Forget the X-Men, buy this!
- Chums round-up: Other friends that are doing some amazing comics things are Graham 'Mike Battle' Pearce, with another solid issue, Nich Angell, my friends at Ariel Press, and T’Sao Wei – who I may well be producing a new comic with next year! Also, Ben Womack, who keeps plugging away at every con, and he creates some really solid indie comics. Nice one, Ben, keep doing what you’re doing. John Short’s Armageddon Patrol is also an excellent, solid product. Also, John Riordan's Hitsville UK is finally out - I know how hard he's worked on it, and it's obviously a labour of love - quality pours out of every panel.
- I met this lovely chap for the first time. He produces his own LGBT webcomic and he knows what he’s doing! Nice.
And a smiliar webcomic is this one – she’s soooo lovely. I haven’t read it yet, but it seems to be about lesbian foxes!
- Matthew Craig: I’ve known about Matthew’s comics for ages, but never really read them. I was going to work with Matthew on Bostin Heroes, but I was doing Spandex at the same time and couldn’t do both so I had to pull out. Anyway, I grabbed some of his stuff off him, and also had a lovely chat to him. Really nice, genuine chap and sooo enthusiastic.
- Stephen Downey is definitely a rising star – his art is very solid! Check out Slaughterman’s Creed and Cancertown for now, and I think he will be going onto big things.
- Two other publishers worth a mention are Timebomb Comics, who produce an excellent range of titles. Their love of the medium is obvious, and the Timebomb boss always has his lovely wife with him – and their beautiful little daughter. And good old Shane Chebsey (I call him ‘Chebbo’, I don’t know if he knows that), who always has some great books on sale. He’s just reprinted Roger Mason’s excellent ‘Mice’! Nice one, Chebbo.
- I picked up a copy of The Pride preview – The Pride is about an all-gay superteam...! It seems, on the surface, to be doing similar things to Spandex, but I think The Pride is more all-ages (whereas Spandex most definitely is not!) The art in The Pride is lush and the story seems solid and kinda worthy. The main gay superhero guy needs to stop saying ‘sweetie’ and ‘darling’ so often, though.
- Two ladies who seem to be doing really impressive things are Kate Brown and Emma Viecili – both had some top quality books on sale. Emma’s (Dragon’s Heir) looks like a very solid read (although I’m 10 pages in and come across a few typos already... But what the hell, maybe I’m being unfair – none of us are big corporate businesses or anything – we’re just doing our best.)
Kate Brown has a really luscious art style and I think I would have enjoyed the book, but the final story (of 3) was really graphic and disturbing and made me feel a bit nauseous! (Let’s just say there is an unbelivable amount of female nudity and more than a little blood – and maggots.) I’m not sure how she got arts council funding for it considering how extreme it is, but still, the first two stories are great.
- Final thought of the day: Cosplayers should be banned!

One More Thing: Just to say, sorry if I forgot to mention someone. I’ll add you in if I remember!

Spandex 4 cover(s)

2011-05-04T12:57:00.001-07:00

I thought I'd do a little write-up about the new Spandex cover, as it's gone thru a lot of changes!
So issue 4 kicks off the big OMFG/Les Girlz storyline, and I had the idea for this cover (the one just below here) back at Bristol 2010. I was struggling a bit to shift Spandex 2 - a very pink cover - and I thought Spandex needed a sexy lady cover, so the image of what the cover should be popped into my head - full body shot of 'Pussy' with Spandex reflected in the glasses. But it wasn't working! You couldn't really see Spandex in the sunglasses and I was worried Pussy looked like a giant (lesbian).

So, fail! In fact, to be honest, the initial ideas for my covers often don't end up to be the final ones. I do find covers quite hard, but I enjoy the challenge and I always get there in the end.
Next, I thought let's do all of Les Girlz in a cool line-up with Spandex in the glasses again. Sadly, it just really wasn't working, so abandon tools on that one.

Then, the final idea popped into my head and I'm pleased with it. It's not booby, but it's still sexy I think. It evolved a lot over time, and I kept adding and adding things which really helped it, such as the shadow behind Pussy.
The biggest dilemma here was the cover background cover - pink, green or white. The green was pretty knock-out and I really struggled over it, but in the end, I wasn't confident that the green's brightness would translate in print - plus I thought the green took away a bit from Spandex in the glasses, so white it was. (And then a small dilemma over whether to make the speech balloon green or pink, but I got there in the end!).

So this is the one!

New cover

2011-05-02T22:57:00.000-07:00

The new Spandex 4 cover had made its debut on the Forbidden Planet International blog!
Check it out here:
http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2011/hello-kitty-new-spandex/

Spandex 4 - almost ready!

2011-05-02T02:17:00.000-07:00

Spandex 4 progress

2011-04-25T13:42:00.001-07:00

What a strange weekend - 4 days off work - it was so surreal! So nice lol...
And I've done soooo much on Spandex 4 - in fact, I probably should have taken more breaks. I'll probably regret that later.
So anyway, I'm almost there, I think. I need to send it to the printers a week before Bristol (mid May). The bulk of it is done, so I'm now just tidying up bits and pieces.
One thing I've learned - I'm going to create my own font for issue 4. The amount of time it's taken to letter all this has been crazy. I hand letter it, scan it, but I'm rarely happy with how it looks, so I go over every single letter in Photoshop, tidying it up. I reckon if I create my font I can cut off about 2 months of work! The hardest part is sorting out all the layers - sometimes, a page will have around 200 layers, so it's hard to keep track of what's what!
And naturally, I usually leave the hardest parts of the comic til last, and a lot of today has been taken up doing background scenes - but I've actually really really enjoyed it. I came up with some cool ideas today for most of the pages I wasn't looking forward to doing, and had a lot of fun drawing in different styles.
Anyway, I've attached here a little teaser of some of the fun background extras I've been working on. None of them are big story points, and almost all of them are probably unnoticeable in the issue, but I had a lot of fun doing them anyway.

More 4

2011-04-25T13:41:00.001-07:00

Spandex 4...

2011-04-22T07:31:00.001-07:00

Something a bit different

2011-04-05T15:24:00.000-07:00

I've been a busy beaver recently. I did a cover for a cool anthology comic! It's for the chaps who make the Do You Want To Kiss It Better comics, and this issue's theme and title is Play. All proceeds go to the War Child charity, check out more here!
http://dywtkib.blogspot.com/2011/04/its-comic.html
or here:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=136876383019891
I think it's only available in Canada at the moment tho, but contact them if you're interested!

New pic

2011-03-31T02:52:00.000-07:00

This is one for the Matt Smith/Doctor Who fans, a piccie based on his new TV show, Christopher and His Kind
http://blog.zhooshbrighton.co.uk/files/2011/03/christoperandhiskind1.jpg

Norwegian Woe

2011-03-29T15:09:00.000-07:00

Watched Norwegian Wood today. Everything you've heard is true - it's very slow! And depressing - but then what else do you expect from a Murakami novel - jesus, they're novels for manic depressives! I really can't cope with them - I've never got thru a whole one. The author's insecurities seep out and I find it a bit overwhelming.
I think the movie just about works, because you don't feel like you're reading someone's tale-of-woe biography (kinda like one of those near-the-knuckle indie autobiography comics) - you're watching the movie star instead.
I kind of enjoyed it, mainly cos the main guy is cute (jeez, he's doing well for himself - Death Note, Gantz...), and I thought it was unfair of 'Little White Lies Mag's review to call him a 'dullard'. It looked nice too and I was quite surprised by some of the sex scenes.
But it really does get harrowing in points. Let's put it this way, there's one scene where things get way too much for the main guy, so he has to take himself off to a remote area where he spends his time (literally) wailing with his drool blowing in the wind. Good drool though!

Generation No Hope

2011-03-29T15:08:00.000-07:00

I have been on a spending spree this week - I thought I'd treat myself as I rarely spend money! One of the minor purchases I bought was the new issue of Generation Hope, which has the creative team of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. Now I don't know these guys personally, but I have seen them doing their bit on the small press scene over the years, so it's nice to see big things (really BIG THINGS!) happening for them.
But sadly the comic is soooo indicative of what is utterly wrong with comics at the moment. It's a good comic - the characterisation is spot-on, the art is lush but....NOTHING HAPPENS!!! Just like in FF 1. Grear art, great writing but...NOTHING HAPPENS!!!!!!
When are the comic companies gonna realise that we really do need value for money!

Amazon wishlist

2011-03-29T15:06:00.000-07:00

I was about to embark on reading Naoki Urasawa's Monster. Initially Naoki's art style on 20th Century Boys put me off - but his Pluto converted me.
Buying manga is sometimes a big decision - it's a big investment, not just financially, but storage-wise too. That's why I like things like Death Note, which is only 13 parts.
But after hearing so many good things about Monster (just 18 volumes), I had to get it...
But what's this? When I'm about to buy Monster volume 3 on Amazon, it's 60 quid! Apparently it's completely out of print! It's impossible to get, and anywhere you see it, it costs loads! So then, what's the point of that? It kind of makes it pointless for any potential new collector to try that series...
(I've been checking out London bookshops in the hopes that they're not clued up and they've got vol 3, not realising how valuable it is - but no luck!)
Oh well, I hope I have better luck with Urasawa's next series, Billy Bat, when that comes out.
(Oh and of course, I can read all of Monster online if I want to, but i really wanted to own it, d'oh)

Indie Indigo

2011-03-29T14:36:00.001-07:00

Here is a new pic of Indigo I did today (my birthday!). It's less 'polished' than normal and more indie/free!
I also did a Prowler/Neon drawing which Matt Smith fans should like (if there are any Matt Smith fans). I'll put it up tomorrow.

My life in Ballet

2011-03-23T06:19:00.000-07:00

Ha ha i'm kidding - i have no life in Ballet or association with ballet - except for watching the fairly pointless Black Swan - and now I've been watching BBC4's Agony & Ecstasy: A Year with English National Ballet.
It's a three-part documentary, and my god it's depressing. You'd think it would be interesting, insightful and inspirational? No. It focuses on the cost-cutting, the problems with being too old as a dancer, the upset and angst of the dancers... all accompanied with stark music and a grave voice-over.
Who decided to take this direction with the show?? Why couldn't it be a cool insight into the lives of ballerinas? What is wrong with the BBC?? Why is it all doom and gloom? Look at Eastenders - it's not drama, it's misery!
Alas, my poor license fee money...

WE DO NOT ACCEPT UNSOLICITED SUBMISSIONS!

2011-03-16T15:02:00.001-07:00

I'm currently in the process of pitching Spandex to publishers. I worked on my pitch for about 3 months until I was happy with it, and now I'm just steadily sending it out to people. I'm just picking and choosing targets at the moment rather than trying a million publishers at once.
It's been an interesting process, and surprisingly a couple of companies have said they couldn't handle the gay angle...!
Some publishers' submission guidelines are quite shocking too. I won't name names, but at least a couple are quite dismissive, patronising and rude. Now I can kind of see where they're coming from. I did portfolio sessions for my day job at a con once, and a couple of the people I met thought it would be a great idea to phone me every day for 2 weeks afterwards to get work. No, it's not a good idea, whatsoever! So from that, I can see their frustation, and how they might be narked, but still, they should keep being professional.
But the one thing I really don't get is the companies who say WE DO NOT ACCEPT UNSOLICITED SUBMISSIONS. Really?? In this climate, you're that financially stable that you'd turn down a potentially good, money-making project (no I don't mean mine, I mean in general)? I find that a bit baffling, to be honest.

Reactions to the situation in Japan

2011-03-16T05:44:00.000-07:00

Like most of you, I was horrified by recent events in Japan.
Japan has a strong place in my heart. I’ve always been attracted to Japanese culture and especially things like Manga. I decided to start learning the language 2 years ago, and I'm still learning (it's getting more difficult!).
I went to Japan last March (a year ago now), and had the best time of my life. The people are amazing, so friendly. If for one minute, me and Travel Buddy looked like we were lost, people would just run up to us and help.
I don’t actually know many people in Japan – I know a couple of people in Tokyo. The people I know are all fine, but they were very scared. They are now facing food shortages, afterquakes and just general uncertainty.
My heart also goes out to my Japanese friends in London. One of my friends didn’t hear from her family for 3 days after the quake. How awful must that be? And her brother lost his home – all his belongings – but he is okay, thank goodness.
I did a little drawing for the cause, directing people to the Red Cross appeal, and I’m contributing to a charity comic too. I donated to Red Cross but wish I could just go to Japan and take food to people.
I have been angered by a few things UK-related things though.
Firstly the news. Talk about scare-mongering. Yes, it is serious, but the emphasis is always on the worst case scenario, the shock and the negative. I watched events streaming for a day, and the bombardment of images was just too much. Explosions at the power plant over and over again. Psychologically, it’s too much – I can’t see what they are trying to achieve. It just makes my Japanese friends in London, worried about their families, even worse.
Secondly, is the reaction from some of my friends. One of my friends on Facebook did a running commentary on the day it all happened, treating it like a blockbuster movie. ‘Wow, this just happened’ etc. He was actually posting things on my Japanese friends’ pages, and he must have really upset them. 'Woah, this just blew up!' I think it got to the stage where he said ‘could be another big one soon, hold tight people’, that I deleted him off Facebook.
And now we have the ‘jokes’ emerging. One guy was telling jokes on Facebook last night about the whole situation, so I had to delete him. I already confronted him over something and he called me a 'baka gaijin' (stupid foreigner). Jesus, how would he feel if he was affected by this? If he lost his home and all his possessions? Was scared about radiation? Mind you, this is the same guy who has a ‘competition’ with another friend to rush to announce a death on Facebook, so I'm not surprised. What a scumball.

Eagle Award Irony!

2011-03-14T04:17:00.001-07:00

Last year I was stunned to be nominated for an Eagle Award for Spandex for Best British Colour Comic!
The new nominations have just been announced, and sadly Spandex didn't get a nomination in that same category - but guess, what, I still got a nomination! Yes, one of the comics i do in my day job, Torchwood Comic, got a nomination in that same category...
It's a nice tribute to the hard work of some excellent artist, including UK talent Steve Yeowell, Stephen Downey and the Harker boys. Shame about Spandex though - maybe next year! Thanks to everyone who voted for Spandex, and also for the TW comic nominations.
Full nommos here:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/03/14/eagle-awards-nominations-announced-2/

I'm not very familiar with the Futurequake comics, but it does seem a shame to have so many of their titles in the Best Brit B&W category - other great indie comics can't get a look-in. And Doctor Who Magazine as Best British Colour Comic? It's not a comic, it's a magazine. Doctor Who Adventures is more of a comic, but I'd still class it as a magazine.
Oh well, onwards and upwards.

For Japan

2011-03-13T05:20:00.000-07:00

Sketches: Saga

2011-03-09T11:07:00.000-08:00

This is a pencil sketch of Saga, a new member of Les Girlz (now that Chunk is dead). She pops up in Issue 4 and will have a huge impact in the 4-part 'OMFG' story arc!

Sketches: Salary Man

2011-03-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

This is Salary Man from Spandex's J-Team - Japan's national superteam. I love those guys! They'll pop up in Spandex 5 and also appear in a special story free with issue 5. More details to come!

Spandex update!

2011-03-02T03:38:00.001-08:00

Thought I’d provide a Spandex UPDATE for anyone that is interested!
I’m hard at work on Spandex 4! Work has been slightly delayed by having to send my laptop to the ‘PC World Tech Guys’ (my ‘M’ button fell off about a week after I bought the thing) - let’s hope I get it back soon... It’s been nice to concentrate on illustrating the comic though, and lettering. If I had my laptop here, I’d be all in a frenzy and be scanning stuff before it was really ready. I get too excited and carried away, and start Photoshopping things before I really should do!
Anyway, issue 4 is going well, and proving a little bit easier than previous issues. For a start, it’s a bit shorter – I’ve deliberately kept it down to 23 pages of story (rather than spiralling towards 30, as usual). And there are no ‘daunting’ panels to draw (such as St Paul’s pics, huge celebrity gay zombie panels – even the page where Glitter goes home in issue 3 was a lot of work). Issue 4 is much more character driven, so there are some nice talking heads pages!
It’s actually the start of a 4-part arc called ‘OMFG’. Now, I pretty much kicked off The O Men with a 4-part arc and at the time I felt it was a bad idea (readers might lose patience at such an early stage of the series). However, it’s a strong story, and each issue of the arc is very different and compelling, so hopefully people won’t get too put off. I have to say, the cliffhangers for each issue are doozies.
So now I just need to work hard on Spandex 4 for a Bristol/May release – it should be okay. I’ve had a couple of other projects to work on (not paid projects of course – never paid projects!), but now they’re out of the way so I can focus on this.
I’ve storyboarded issues 5 and 7 too. Those are quite key issues, and I was anxious to make sure everything fit into them. Issue 6 is a big issue, and is something I can have fun with and be a bit ‘loose’ with. Maybe tie up all the story strands before issue 7 kicks off.
I love how writing all this comes together. Because it takes such a long time to draw each issue, ideas for future issues come into my head all the time. I now have a huge new plot twist for Pussy in issue 7 – it’s one of the biggest shockers of the series. And I’m also going to address her name and why she’s called it – because even I’m uncomfortable with it!
Finally, here is an early version of the cover for issue 4 (above). I thought this idea up at Bristol last year (when some of the straight punters didn't seem to want to buy a pink colour for some reason) - but it’s not quite working, so I’ve come up with a similar but re-worked idea.

Dead Space 2 - more is sometimes less...

2011-02-28T03:43:00.000-08:00

I loved Dead Space, the Xbox game. It’s just the perfect game. It’s all set on a big spaceship and you have to fight loads of Necromorphs (alien monsters made from dead bodies). Necromorphs are a supposedly different kind of enemy and you’re apparently meant to dismember them to kill them, shoot its limbs off one by one – but you can actually just shoot at it in a terrified frenzy (like I do) and it’s all good. DS1 is just such a neat little game (the only problem being that you can play it again, but you can’t change your difficulty level – d’oh – which is a bit of an oversight. So if you get tons of weapons and ammos and want to save them and try them out on a harder level, you can’t.) In Dead Space 1, you faff around doing all sorts of tasks and then you need to get to the ship’s tram, where you finish the level, and then you whiz about from place to place (different chapters) on the tram – cool.
I was very excited to get Dead Space 2 – I’m not a massive gamer and I rarely buy games when they first come out – just wait til the price goes down. I had to get this one though.
It’s a great game – very long and epic (in a way that Resident Evil 4 was long and epic and had many layers), and there are some interesting new monsters – the ‘Puker’ who pukes acid at you, Velociraptor-style aliens who corner you and run at you, and weird wall-hanging pus blob-monsters who spit acid-pus at you if you don’t see them. Worst of all, there are little demon kids who come at you in hordes and slash at you with nasty claws. Oh wait, actually there is something worse – the wailing necromorph babies, who pulsate and crawl at you and then explode…
Everyone seems to be saying that it is the perfect game and giving it rave reviews, but I have to say, I was a bit disappointed by it. I’ll tell you what happened – I saw a picture of it online – a pic of the main guy, Isaac, on a bright, neon-y train, and I thought ‘cool! So it’s gonna have a different setting – maybe a planet city or something’. But no! That photo was just a brief moment of the game, really unrepresentational – d’oh! DS2 pretty much has the same setting as the last game, hmmm.
So the settings are pretty samey – although there are some nice variations towards the end. There are so many cool different locations and set pieces in the first game – the medical bay, gardening area, etc – but most of the DS2 locations seem very similar thoughout. One level is set back on the ship from the first game. And this is one of the main problems of this game – you spend ages running around the Ishimura ship, just running down corridors – and nothing happens for ages! It’s very suspenseful when you first play it - anything could jump out at you - but on the 2nd time, you do twiddle your thumbs a bit – and that’s quite typical of DS2. You wonder if they could have been a bit more inventive with it.
Another thing I noticed is that the puzzles and set pieces are very disappointing. There really isn’t much to them – most of them just involve putting a fire extinguisher thing onto a surface and shooting it to gain access to somewhere. The games and set pieces of the first game seemed so much more fun and complex! Also, there’s a slightly annoying regular puzzle – you have to spin a wheel on a device and press down when it turns blue three times – it’s just not that difficult! Also the final challenge slightly fizzles out – it’s not that hard when you know what to do.
Another disappointment is the lack of tram from point to point – it’s not in this game! It was always really cute, plus the good thing was that it gave you a clear ‘break’ in the game. There aren’t really any breaks in DS2, it’s just one big rollercoaster.
Even the new outfits you can buy in the Shop aren’t that exciting…
It’s also interesting how they try to develop the main guy, Isaac, and the situation with Nicole, his dead girlfriend. It’s okay, I guess, but didn’t really blow me away. I like the new character Ellie, though, and hopefully she’ll be in the next game.
There are some cool new elements though. There’s a new detonator weapon, which is great fun – and very effective against the Velicoraptor style aliens. You can either plant a mine on the floor, or put a mine-line between walls, so a monster will explode when it runs at you. Or you can just fire it at an enemy and make it explode! Also great is the fact you can fly in zero gravity with thrusters – that is so cool! Some people say the Javelin Gun is good too – although I didn’t really use it.
There are a couple of nasty shocks too. The Regenerator monster from DS1 returns near the end – and that is just horrible! Seriously, I had to stop playing the game for a week, because I just couldn’t face it! And there’s a nasty surprise after you take an optional trip into one store-room – when you come out, one of the most HORRIBLE monsters from the first game comes at you… (he just comes at you non-stop, and when you kill him, these horrible skull creatures detach from him and attack you…) In fact, in general, there are tons and tons of monsters, and often they’ll attack you all in one go, relentlessly, one after another – making the game really hard. It’s intense and can be difficult – but I’m not sure it makes the game better than the creepy first version. DS2 is bigger and louder and nastier than the first game, but I don’t think that necessarily makes it better. DS1 was Alien, and DS2 is Aliens (and Alien is my favourite movie of all time!).
It sounds like I hated this game – I didn’t hate it, but I was definitely a bit disappointed by it (but not as disappointed as I was by Resident Evil 5). I hope they do a DS3 and I really hope they set it on a planet or colony or something. One thing the game did make me want to do, was play the first game again – shame I couldn’t find it, d’oh…
Oh one final thing – the start of this game is horrific! So unsettling, as you run thru the ship in a straightjacket – being chased by aliens – no weapons or anything – arrgh!

Confessions

2011-02-24T02:37:00.001-08:00

Every so often you get a film that really clicks with you... You go and see it at the flicks and then you just have to go and see it again. I think it happened to a lot of people with Inception.
Last Saturday, on the back of some great reviews and my general love for all things Japanese (plus I enjoy my little weekend jaunts to the ICA), I popped along to watch the new Japanese movie Confessions. It is soooo good. Everything about it is amazing, from the structure to the casting down to the soundtrack, which I downloaded immediately. I just had to go and see it again last night, and I enjoyed it just as much – and I’d love to go and see it again, but I’m not rich lol.
I won’t spoil it, but basically it’s about a female teacher who discovers that 2 of her students are wrong ‘uns and they’ve done something pretty bad to her, and she decides to take revenge on them. The story then takes tons of twists and turns, weaves in and out of characters, and basically it’s all a bit of a mind-fuck. It’s a masterpiece of storytelling, with several things going on at the same time from different viewpoints, and new revelations being made every few minutes.
The style is stunning. The colours, the motion, and there are some really breathtaking shots and set pieces. It was like watching a two-hour Radiohead video (but not one of the ones with Thom Yorke dancing). Some scenes on the school roof and some of the climatic scenes with one of the Bad Students (it’s like something out of a Japanese sci-fi movie) will stay in my mind for a long time to come.
The darkness of the story is staggering, and all the actors are superb. It’s actually quite a brave movie, and yet it has moments of laugh-out loud humour too. You rarely see a movie where you think ‘these actors were born to play these roles’. Particularly good is the kid who plays the nastier of the Bad Students – yes he’s a wrong ‘un, but you also occasionally feel very sorry for him, and he plays the anguish perfectly. I think he is set for big things.
The only slight downside is that the film does stray into outrageousness sometimes – some of the plot twists go a bit too over the top, and some of it relies a bit too much on chance and coincidence. But it’s okay, you forgive it that, and it’s all part of the fun.
The soundtrack is stunning too, including some tracks by far-out J-rockers Boris, a new Radiohead track, some beautiful Japanese folk music, and my absolute favourite, Peculiarites by Curly Giraffe.
On the downside, I watched some of Memories of Matsuko by the same director – and thought it really sucked. It’s obviously massivly inspired by Amelie, but in all the wrong ways. I haven’t watched it all yet, but it just seems very silly - too much.
And such a shame that the trailer for Confessions is the typical piano-led montage, and not the cool cutting edge style we get in the movie. If you wanna see a good representation of it, try this - it's in Japanese but it really conveys the style of the movie - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfEhS7fCKYk

Finder

2011-02-17T03:27:00.001-08:00

I'm so excited!
Dark Horse are re-releasing 'Finder' by the amazing Carla Speed McNeil!
Finder was a fantastic indie book from the 90s/00s in the Golden Age of indie (you know, when Tomine, Abel, Clowes etc were releasing tons of stuff). I love Carla's art - it's my kinda stuff - very back to basics illustration - like Jill Thompson too. The story was very involved and I did get a bit lost as I didn't have all the issues - but I'm gonna give it another shot!
So today, Dark Horse release a new Finder book called Voice, and in March they release the first part of an ultimate Finder collection - 600 pages! Can't wait.
So off to FP tonight - actually excited for a change - and will hopefully get Bakuman 3 as well.
Incidentally, Carla has written the most amazing post about creating indie comics. It's on her blog and it's truly inspirational. It really rings true to me, about the amount of hard work it is, and having to get the balance right (which I never have been able to do, in all my 20 years of making comics!).
You can read it here, take a look:
http://www.findercomics.com/2011/02/09/try-this/

21st Century Boys!

2011-02-14T04:55:00.001-08:00

I finished watching the 20th Century Boys trilogy of movies at the weekend.
I’d seen the first movie a couple of years ago, and was unimpressed (I don’t think my mind could cope with everything that was going on). I’d also bought the first manga volume and hadn’t been able to get into it, and wasn’t keen on the art.
Then, after reading Pluto, by the same author, which really impressed me, I decided to give it another chance, and I soon became addicted, as I mentioned in a previous post, and I read it all online (cos they've only released 12 volumes over here, and there are about 22!).
So this weekend I finished watching the trilogy of movies. I think I’ve mentioned before, that I wasn’t amazingly impressed by the first movie – it had a cheap feel to it, and I really didn’t like some of the acting, especially the guy who played Kenji. (Although I must say I thought all the kids were superb).
The second movie was a lot better, but still a little low budget. The third movie pretty much sucked, and the concert ending was pretty bad... And then the credits finished rolling and there’s a 10-minute-or-so epilogue which blew my little socks off. It’s beautifully done, very moody, very stylish – and explains so much. It pretty much makes the entire 6-hour trilogy worth watching.
And I was chatting to a clued-up workmate about it, and jeeez I had no idea there was an epilogue to the manga!!! I’d read all of 20th Century Boys, but I had no idea there was a 21st Century Boys epilogue – d’oh! Time to jump online I think...

Eagle Awards fun

2011-02-08T07:45:00.000-08:00

The Eagle Awards nominations are OPEN!
You can go here to vote. http://www.eagleawards.co.uk/nominations/
Last year I was stunned that my Spandex comic was nominated in the Best British Colour Comic category, but it eventually lost out to 2000AD.
There’s some funny stuff going on in these nominations. If you suggest your own nomination, it appears in the drop down menu... So I have been nominated as Best Editor lol – for my day job! Presumably it’s one of my freelancer chums who I worked with, but it’d be hilarious if it was just some random Torchwood Comic fan or something.
It’s so much fun to see all the random names in the nominations – including loads of my Titan colleagues! I voted for a couple in the Editor-type categories.

A li'l leaving pic I did for a friend

2011-02-05T03:10:00.000-08:00

One of my bessie mates, Marcus, left work this week - we've worked together for over 10 years, so I'm very sad to see him leave. I did him this li'l pic of everyone - past and present - at Titan - although I did miss some people off by accident!

Haterz!

2011-02-01T02:49:00.000-08:00

I generally get two kinds of 'comments' on my Spandex website - one type is from people who really like Spandex and the other is from people who hate it (and their comments always include the word 'offensive'). Have a look at this latest one:

…..are you SERIOUS!!
Dont get me wrong, im not homophobic, i am the least homophobic person you will ever meet. but SERIOUSLY!#
Seagull man? james bend, PUSSY????
these characters are so stereotypically gay this is almost offensive!!
having a superhero who is gay is one thing, but this is just one step too far. please dial it down a little

****
I mean, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but you have to bear in mind that this person probably hasn't read or seen the actual comic.
Then - Pussy - okay, it's a silly name, but it's fun and it plays with the word - and you know, Pussy Galore beat me to it 50 years ago!
But I do agree - Seagull Man is really homophobic isn't it. I don't know what I was thinking there...
And you can also guarantee, that if I tried to discuss this with the guy/gal, i wouldn't get a response! So best to just leave it.
I do have the option of whether to approve or trash these comments, but i generally approve them, just to show how worked up people can get - although I get a bit alarmed when my friends start to defend me and get into a bit of an e-fight!

Prophecy?

2011-01-31T08:21:00.000-08:00

Check this out! I was googling the death of that FF character who died last week (because I couldn't find a copy of the issue anywhere), and I found this - drawn back in 2009!
It's like one of those prophecies you hear about!
I got it from here.
http://comicbooks.tumblr.com/post/272447448/death-the-human-torch-alicante-comic-con-08

Discovering Skins

2011-01-30T07:34:00.001-08:00

Do any of you watch Skins?
I had kind of avoided it, because I thought it was just an in-your-face yoof drama, and maybe I’m too old for that kind of thing now. Plus I generally avoid UK drama series, as they can be downbeat, dull, not as sophisticated and slick as US shows, and generally the actors in UK dramas are ugly!
However, I wish someone had told me how good Skins is.
I was intrigued by the trailer for series 5 – it is so cool – and I discovered that BT Vision were showing series 1 to 4, so I thought I’d check it out. I’m so glad I did. I’ve only watched series 3 and 4 so far (as they are going off BT soon) and I get the impression that series 1 and 2 are classics, so I’m looking forward to those too.
Series 3 introduces the ‘second generation’ of characters, a whole new cast, apart from Effy, the sister of Tony (Nicholas Holt) from series 1 and 2. I have to admit, series 3 is a bit of a scene-setter, where we just get to know the characters. There’s utter thug Cook, autistic JJ, young lesbians Naomi and Emily, Emily’s bitchy twin Katy and scatty, alluring Effy. The characters are introduced and we learn what makes them tick. It’s a little lightweight, and only really steps into gear towards the end, particularly in the slightly silly drug-fuelled camping trip episode and the finale, which completely shifts the setting and focuses on the love triangle between good-looking Freddie, and runaway lovers Cook and Effy.
Series 4 is another story, however. I wasn’t prepared for how EPIC it is. It starts off shockingly and gets heavier and heavier. The series opens with a teenage girl stumbling through a club (she bumps into each member of the cast on her way), and she climbs to the top of the club and leaps to her death. It turns out that some of the main cast are involved in supplying the drugs that led to her death, and the truth and consequences unfurl over the series.
Bitchy twin Katy gets her own stunning episode early on, where we learn that she is infertile (she’s had a premature menopause) and then we learn that her family is bankrupt and are evicted. It’s a stunning episode with great guest performances by Ronnie Ancona and John Bishop as Katie’s parents (in the series, actors like Harry Enfield, MacKenzie Crook and Jenny Éclair all have fun grown-up roles), and it delves into the hugely emotional family relationships (the family had disowned daughter Emily for being a lesbian – and they are forced to reunite with her). The moving ending had me in tears!
Things get even heavier from here on in, and we delve headfirst into the relationship between Effy and Freddie – and it soon becomes quite clear that Effy isn’t just an out-of-control teenager, she’s actually suffering from psychotic depression. The storylines all come to a head here, and we get a great character study of Freddie. Freddie’s mother suffered from depression, and the focus quickly turns on his desperate efforts to save his girlfriend from the same fate – and the harrowing realisation that he can’t.
Effy is sectioned and stays in a psychiatric institute for weeks – and when she leaves, the production of the episodes is utterly stunning. You can ‘feel’ her recovery in the episode, you get a true sense of it, you’re right there with the character – it’s extraordinary. You have to see it to believe it. It’s powerful acting and powerful writing. Wow.
A final shout-out to actress Lily Loveless, who plays ‘Naomi Campbell’. With a weaker connection between other characters, the character could have got lost in the storylines, and I think it’s the strength and vulnerability of Lily’s acting that really makes her shine, creating a compelling performance and turning her into my absolute favourite character. She’s in a new lesbian relationship with Emily, and it’s not without it’s huge ups and downs, but the writers make it clear that they love the character and the actress as much as we do. Check out this series – and Naomi’s stunning series finale speech – you won’t regret it.
Oh, and give me Skins over Glee any day.

Whatever happened to comics? Part 502

2011-01-30T07:32:00.000-08:00

Just caught up on a couple of recent Uncanny X-Men issues. You know, on the surface, they’re okay. I think I’m the only person in the world who doesn’t have a problem with Greg Land’s art – it’s solid and slick. The stories are okay – nice characterisation, stuff happening, nothing ground-breaking…
But…the content is the problem. It’s just not satisfying. Sebastian Shaw goes to hit Emma at the end – you call that a cliffhanger? And in my day, you could fill about 3 pages of an issue with what happens in these two issues…
And pleeease – stop making Emma Frost a slut! She’s not a tart – she’s sexy and sophisticated. She is not a bimbo!!!
Oh, and while I’m at it, I also caught up with Uncanny X-Force 3 and 4. Well they’re not bad – the new Horsemen are a bit weird, but they’re quite inventive and different. I think the problem here is the art – yeah it’s nice and imaginative, but it’s also quite hard to tell what’s happening sometimes. The storytelling is a bit too ‘off’. I mean, I guess I’d rather have this artist than the dreaded Humberto Ramos, but still, it’s really unclear what’s happening sometimes…

GANTZ!!!!!

2011-01-18T05:48:00.000-08:00

I was in FP on Saturday and picked up Shonen Jump (a Japanese manga title that I sometimes buy and never read lol). On the back page was an ad - for an live action movie of Gantz!!! Wow!!! I had no idea they were even making one!!! It's like they made it just for me! Cool!
Gantz is about a group of people who suddenly find themselves in a weird room, dressed in weird costumes, and they have to perform a series of missions - it's veeery gory. I hope they don't eff it up like they did 20th Century Boys (well I only saw the first one, but I didn't like the main actor guy), but the trailer looks beyond awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvNmJp2BJ3o

A nice discovery

2011-01-17T11:22:00.000-08:00

There's a really lovely bookshop in the little town I live in, Gipsy Hill - it's called the Bookseller Crow, and it's really cosy and they have a very nice range of books. The owner is obviously a comic fan as he sells a lot of graphic novels - mainly indie.
So last year, I popped in there and asked if he wanted to sell some Spandex Comics and he took some off me - and I also gave him a nice Attack of the 50 Foot Lesbian art card. However, I have this weird selective shyness, which makes me feel a bit embarrassed to go back into a shop where they sell Spandex Comic, as I feel bad if they haven't sold any (like I've wasted their time).
However, I popped in there on Saturday and got a lovely surprise - the owner had put my Attack of the 50 Foot Lesbian right by the door, so it's the first thing you see! It had obviously been there for ages as it had caught the sun.
How cool!
Check out the shop here:
http://www.booksellercrow.co.uk/

My First 3d movie

2011-01-15T10:29:00.000-08:00

As most of my friends know, I can’t see 3d movies. Barely anyone believes me, but it’s true. I can see just like everyone else, but because I have a weak right eye, I can’t see 3d (you need to use both eyes to see 3d). My colleagues made me sit through part of a 3d movie one lunchtime and they still didn’t believe me. I checked with my optician and it’s quite common, but still no one believes me. I can’t see the latest 3d movies with the colourless glasses either, and no one still believes me. I even checked it out in the Sony Building when I went to Tokyo – trying but failing to use the latest in 3d technology. You can't get much more high tech than that.
Today, I went to see Green Hornet at the Apollo Cinema in London. Green Hornet is being shown in 3 and 2d in cinemas, but this showing didn’t mention 3d. I asked if it was definitely in 2d and the ticket guy said yes. I chuckled and said, that’s good because I can’t see 3d (he ignored me).
So me and my mate settled down, and suddenly some signs came up saying ‘now put on your 3d glasses’… Surely not… Surely it’s just the trailers…? But no! After several 3d trailers, the screening turned out to be in 3d, and me and my mate seemed to be the only ones who didn’t know this and were not given glasses!
So we stormed out, ready for a showdown and to give up on seeing it (because there's no point if it's all blurry for me), but I said ‘hang on’, and grabbed a couple of glasses out of the recycled 3d glasses bin, and we went back in to see if I really couldn’t see it (self-doubt often creeps in). Well, I’m happy to report that I could actually see the movie with the glasses on (it’s a shame it wasn’t as colourful as it could have been) but no I couldn’t see the effects. My mate saw the effects and said it was one of those movies where the 3d is just tacked on at the end and it doesn’t really need it.
Incidentally, the film was really shit. (Reviewed below)

Full Dark No Stars Review

2011-01-15T10:23:00.000-08:00

I’ve often admitted on this blog that Stephen King is the only modern author I really enjoy, and to be honest, the only one I can read these days! It surprises even me, to be honest. I mean, I read and enjoy James Patterson too, but most other modern authors’ books are left half-unread. I struggled through the Girl with Dragon Tattoo books (I tried so hard) for instance, and I actually find most modern books to be fairly plotless and unexciting and style over substance. (I know it's just me.)
Yes, I do think Stephen King has gone off the boil a bit. I think he’s still trying (needlessly) to be accepted, and he’s trying to be more ‘serious’, so some of his books have become a bit too abstract.
I’ve just finished ‘Full Dark, No Stars’, and he’s done it again. I devoured it in less than a week. Now that’s the sign of a good book. Absolutely stunning.
It’s a series of 4 short-ish stories, and it starts with ‘1922’. I couldn’t stop reading this story - just couldn't put the book down. (Please note, I won’t spoil things, but I will mention things that might sound like spoilers, but they happen really early on in each story, and I won’t spoil the really juicy stuff). 1922 is about a farmer who lives with his awful wife and his young son, and the farmer and the son commit a murder and try to live with that and get away with it. It’s absolutely delicious. It’s great to watch the farmer get into all sorts of scrapes and get questioned and see how he copes with it etc. And you just don’t know which direction the story is gonna go in. I was wrong in my guesses, but the events were no less nasty and horrific – in fact, there really is a lot of nastiness in this story and a lot of disturbing things going on. The best thing though, is that the main narrator, the farmer, is actually pretty stupid, and he doesn’t realise it. He does some very silly things, and makes some very wrong judgements, and he has some very wrong opinions – and he has no idea. It’s a fascinating character study.
Next up is ‘Big Driver’, possibly my favourite of the stories. It starts up about a middle-aged female, a gentle soul, who writes tame murder mysteries. You immediately get a sense that something nasty is going to happen, and you think ‘gosh, how can it happen to this woman?’. But happen it does, and wow, again, utterly impossible to put down. And I definitely don’t agree with some of the decisions the protagonist makes, and it’s actually a bit frustrating for that reason, too, but it’s another very juicy, shocking, meaty, satisfying story.
‘Fair Extension’ is the shortest of the stories, but doesn’t feel like it, as so much is packed in. It’s about a terminally ill guy who makes a deal to save himself – and it looks at the ramifications of that. It’s very nasty indeed, but it’s so much fun!!
Finally, there’s ‘A Good Marriage’, which, again, showcases a ‘nice’ middle-aged woman, who makes some shocking discoveries about her husband. Again, it’s another story where you just keep guessing where the hell it’s gonna go – and even when it doesn’t take the turns you expect it to, you still love King for the whole thing. And what I like about this one (and the others) is the humour – the silliness, the fun, the attention to detail which shouldn’t be funny but it is.
I love Stephen King. I actually think I want to marry him. He has a God-given gift. He’s a pure storyteller, and that is very rare in this day and age. To be able to get inside people’s heads, to create a psychology, to make you interested in the story, to be utterly gripped – that is so powerful. And the other amazing thing – these stories are so simple. They’re almost obvious. They make you think ‘why didn’t I come up with that?’.
Good old King.

The Green Hor-not

2011-01-15T10:17:00.000-08:00

Saw Green Hornet today. I had wanted to see the King’s Speech but my friend didn't want to see it. My expectations were low – and I should have set them lower…
It’s Hollywood at its very worst. It’s awful – I mean, not awful in a ‘Spirit’ way – I have to admit that I wasn’t bored or anything – but it’s just illogical and it’s stupid and pointless.
Who financed this movie? Where the hell did they get all that money from? It allowed them to pay for Cameron Diaz to get involved, even though it’s a role far, far beneath her. Any up and coming dollybird could have done her role. There is pointless, expensive-looking destruction all the way through. Green Hornet takes a memory flash drive all the way to his big expensive office so he can download it (and so we can see the entire place being destroyed), but wouldn’t any old internet café have done the job?
And what are the Green Hornet’s motivations? He seems happy – very happy! – to murder people left right and centre, often in the goriest way possible! So he’s not a superhero then? He's happy to be branded a vicious killer? And where do the ‘powers’ come from? Yes, we can just about accept Kato’s ‘powers’, but when Green Hornet starts to do weird things….there is no explanation, no logic. It's shocking that so many people can be involved in making a movie and no one sat down and said 'this doesn't make sense' or 'this is rubbish'.
And poor Jay Chou as Kato… Now I have a bit of a soft spot for Asian guys, and yes, Jay is easy on the eye, but ….my god he’s bad!!! I mean, he is sweet and everything, and it’s a fun, unusual role in places, but you can barely hear a word he’s saying… His speaking role really should have been reduced…
The saddest thing about this movie, though, is that it could so easily have worked. If only they’d decided to make it more of a kids’ movie (one of those movies that throws a knowing wink to the parents from time to time). It could have been huge and I probably would have liked it. Kato would have been loveable, the kids would have loved Green Hornet… It could have been a heap of fun.
Instead it’s just yet another brainless Hollywood failure. Such a shame.
(And one more thing - you have an amazing theme song which you can use, but you don't use it??? Well except for a brief 10-second spurt. Gah.)

My Fantagraphic Books experience in full! (For Kelvin lol)

2011-01-07T08:27:00.000-08:00

This is such a 'fascinating' story, that I thought i'd tell it all in one go, rather than it be in bits and pieces all over my blog - for my tale is now over.
I ordered 6 Love and Rockets comics off Fantagraphic Books back on 3rd October, to complete my collection. All good. Nice prices. Customer Services were a bit odd and stand-offish with a query I had, but never mind...
Then I got a round-robin email off them saying any comics ordered between the 8th and 20th of October would be delayed by a couple of weeks because of warehouse restructuring.
I thought well I'm fine then... But nothing came by the end of Oct so I contacted them and of course, they said my package was affected but it went out last week, so I should just keep an eye on the post.
Mid-November, nothing, emailed them again, response: we sent it last week, please keep an eye on the post. I emailed them to say 'so when did it go out then?' they said keep an eye on the post.
Mid-December comes and still nothing. My mates say I should give up on the package. I'm a bit upset, as it's pretty much ruined my reading experience.
Then i happen to be in a London comic shop, and they've got a load of Love and Rockets back issues just in - including several of the ones I ordered from FB. After a bit of oohing and ahing (during which a couple of issues got bought already) I decided to buy the issues I had ordered - a bird in the hand... Which just left me with 3 missing issues, so if the package did turn up, it wouldn't be a complete waste of time.
Three days later, a package turns up from Fantagraphics. Get this. It contains the three issues I bought at the comic shop but nothing else. They had sold out of the others. You'd think they could effing tell me by email or soemthing? So I was still missing three issues.
Plus I had to chase FB for a refund on the missing comics.
So anyway, I looked online for my missing issues, but could only see them in America. Trying to figure out what is in each L&R trade is very difficult, but i did it in the end, and bought the trades which had my missing issues (they contained new material too, so it wasn't a complete waste of money).
All in all, I kind of regretted my initial impulse online purchase buy (I didn't even consider shopping in town for them!) but I'm glad I got to read them, as it is a beyond-excellent series... But jeez, Fantagraphics, sort yourselves out.

Reviews!

2011-01-04T12:31:00.000-08:00

I was pretty stunned to see this review of Spandex 3 on the Forbidden Planet International website today:
http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2011/a-technicolour-ray-of-light-in-the-grey-spandex-issue-3/
Wowsers.
I love the FPI Blog, it really fills a hole that Comics International and other UK comics mags left. Check it out!

Website Success...?

2011-01-04T12:14:00.000-08:00

I had an email from the 'wordpress' people who host my Spandex website, and they had some interesting and somewhat strange stats for me.
First up, they said that the Spandex Comic website had 42,000 visitors in 2010! But then they said the maximum number of visitors I had in one day was 2. So how does that work out??
And then they said that the most frequent searches done which led to my site were 'Pussy', 'Spandex Pussy' and 'Pussy in Spandex'
:-o

Lovely Spandex 3 review here

2010-12-06T08:26:00.001-08:00

I almost completely missed this very cool review of Spandex 3 here, by Sir Rol Hirst, creator of Pjang and many other excellent comics: http://rolhirst.co.uk/
Rol calls issue 3, "an emotional action horror rollercoaster that deals quite wonderfully with the thorny subject of depression, and how we handle it" The review is halfway down here:
http://rolhirst.blogspot.com/2010/11/read-these-comics-now.html
My fave review so far, thanks Rol!

Sp-hand-ex 3 review

2010-12-06T07:19:00.000-08:00

There's a lovely review of Spandex 3 here, by Kelvin Green.
http://www.comicsbulletin.com/reviews/12914878177694.htm
Kelvin has been reviewing my comics since the O Men days, and I always look forward to hearing what he says about them. I think we are on a similar wavelength, so if he 'gets it', I know I've done something right. I think Kelvin was the guy who gave me the famous 10 out of 10 for O Men 24 in Comics International, which Dez Skinn reduced to a 9.
Kelvin doesn't mince his words though, and he will criticise things where criticism is due. His latest one points out problems with my hand-drawing and perspective.
I've always known these things are problems for me (and feet!) and I hope I've improved a bit over the years, but also, for me, my 'policy' is that the story is the most important thing, and the drawing has a style, and I hope the readers just 'goes with the flow'.
But one thing that the review has made me do is actually make a conscious decision to study drawing hands (and feet!) because, for some reason, it's something I've never done - so maybe it's time to sort out where I'm going wrong.
(Incidentally, I am seethingly jealous of the way Jaime Hernandez draws hands. How does he do it?? Is there nothing the guy can't draw??)

Caped Crusaid

2010-12-06T07:14:00.000-08:00

There's a really cool exhibition on at the moment in Orbital Comics - Caped Crusaid, which is a bunch of postcards drawn by various comic artists and celebrities. It's highly recommended and you can check out the cards here:
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/capedcrusaid/m.html
You can bid to own them!
I contributed two, although no one ever bids on mine :-(
You can see mine above!

No Love and Rockets

2010-12-06T06:55:00.000-08:00

All I'm reading at the moment is Love and Rockets! My concentration span at the moment, doesn't seem to allow me to read novels (I've got a lot on my mind!), so I'm now just reading graphic novels - and that includes the entire run of Love and Rockets. I'm kind of reading them in a funny order - I'm reading the original Volume One books (the bigger versions), plus the various Volume Two series simultaneously (mainly because the start of the Vol 1 stories are quite hard-going in places).
However, there is a snag. I don't have all the Volume 2 stuff, and I got excited when I saw you could order them direct from the publishers, Fantagraphics. I didn't even think of just heading into town to see if Gosh/Orbital had them, I just ordered them immediately (they were doing a good deal). That was 3 October... It should have taken two to three weeks... I'm still waiting!
The thing is, I ordered them, and then a week later I got a round-robin email from them saying any comics ordered between 8 October and 20 October would be delayed because of stock management. But it's okay, cos I ordered the comics before then? No, of course not, as they explained to me when I double checked a couple of weeks later...
So then I checked mid-November to see when they were sent out - vague response - 'it went out last week'.
Checked again start of December - 'it went out last week'! So which week did it go out then??
So I'm basically regretting ordering them and I think their customer service sucks somewhat - not very helpful, slow and slightly sarky too.
And the kicker is, I was in Orbital on Saturday and saw they had a complete run of Love and Rockets Volume 2 - including the ones I'm missing. Well fuck it, I want to read it, not having them is spoiling my experience, so I bought them lol (and I managed to buy one I'd alrady got d'oh). (I was very excited that Orbital had Whoa Nellie 2, which is an issue that even Fantagraphics didn't have)
So now I'm just missing issue 1 and the final 2 issues of Luba's Comics and Stories - so who knows, maybe the package will turn up this year so I can read them??
And the final kicker is, I was reading Love and Rockets volume 2, issue 13, and there's a big printing error - 3 4-page sections are repeated, so I think I'm missing bits of the story. Darn.
Mind you, my Book Two of volume 1 has about 20 pages missing - I only discovered that when re-reading it! No wonder it never made sense...

(The funny thing is, some comic fans might actually find this interesting - wheraes I probably lost the non-comic fans at 'hello'.)

Radio Spandex repeated!

2010-11-25T14:48:00.000-08:00

If you missed me on the radio today, you can listen to the podcast if you like - I sounded dead hot.

The podcast is online now at:
http://panelborders.wordpress.com/2010/11/25/panel-borders-spandex
and
http://podcasts.resonancefm.com/archives/5030
which both point to:
http://www.archive.org/details/PanelBordersSpandex
where the podcast is actually housed.

It should turn up on iTunes - http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/id390974029 - in a day or so...

Radio Spandex!

2010-11-25T06:16:00.000-08:00

I'm on Resonance FM at 5 today, discussing Spandex and The O Men! The interview will also be available as a longer podcast at a later date.
More details here!
http://panelborders.wordpress.com/2010/11/25/todays-show-spandex/

I did the interview on Saturday in the middle of Thought Bubble. My voice was dying, but it was great and Alex is brilliant (I think he was ill too). I hope I didn't say anything untoward lol!!

Time for Something Different...

2010-11-23T13:37:00.001-08:00

A little pic I did for someone else!
http://daventerprojects.blogspot.com/2010/11/neon-loneliness-drawing-by-martin-eden.html

Issue 3 review

2010-11-22T09:57:00.000-08:00

Cool review of Issue 3 here, by Sir Paul Rainey
http://comicsontheration.blogspot.com/2010/11/review-spandex-3.html

Liberty by T'Sao Wei

2010-11-22T09:44:00.000-08:00

One of the many (many!) amazing, friendly and inspirational people I met at Thought Bubble was T'Sao Wei, an artist who has a new comic out called Neon Loneliness and has created a couple of other comics too - you can check out his wares here:
http://daventer.yokaboo.com/
We had a nice chat, and it turns out he is an old reader of O Men!
I was inspired by Neon Loneliness to do a doodle for him and he also did a Liberty pic for me! I like his style a lot - it reminds me of a cross between Tomer Hanuka and Lenil Francis Yu. His art has something 'peaceful' and calming about it, and I really recommend his work. I'm glad he did a pic for me, as I was going to ask him to anyway - I was intrigued to see what he would do with my characters!
Anyway, I have posted the picture here!

Stuff that's going on

2010-11-21T01:05:00.001-08:00

There's so much going on at the moment, that I just wanted to get it all down on the Blog, and out of my head!
Spandex 3 is finally out, and seems to be going down well.
I launched it at the Thought Bubble convention in Leeds and it was such a great day. How can everyone be so nice? I can't believe how lovely everyone I spoke to was, and I'm still buzzing. I sold a few copies, got a few laughs for my 'attack of the 50 foot lesbian' standee, bought some truly imaginative comics, meeting some of the contributors to Japandex and generally had a whale of a time. Every con is a learning curve, and it's funny when different things happen - such as just deciding to put my Spandex badges out (I wasn't even going to bother) and selling loads of them! (I didn't even have a price for them, I just made it up on the spot). I can't wait to make more for next year!
Apologies to anyone if i seemed a bit 'away with the pixies' - I do find cons a bit overwhelming and I try my best to remain calm but it doesn't always work lol. I was also mega tired and it was a very long day - up at 6 to get to Leeds, and I have no idea how my table buddy managed to do the same things as I did, but with the addition of driving to and from Leeds.
I also did an interview with Alex Fitch at Panel Borders - what a nice guy, and very professional - and how sweet, he'd brought along a copy of the Metro Spandex article! Unfortunately, when he was interviewing me, I could barely speak lol, and I kept seeing mates out of the corner of my eye which distracted me from the questions oops!
This week will be a busy one as I need to get Spandex 3 and my 'Spandex Packs' (issues 1 to 3) into the comic shops, and I'm also working on my Spandex publishing pitch. I also want to make a start on creating new O Men collections (proper books!) and starting Spandex 4 (it's all written, just needs to get out there).
And somehow i need to also cram in work, a date, Japanese homework and getting my boiler fixed (which I only had installed a couple of months ago...)
It's all go!!

Issue Three trailer!

2010-11-10T06:39:00.000-08:00

Look what my friend made for me!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZbJ1EjLTc0

The Walking Dead!!!

2010-10-23T03:55:00.001-07:00

Wooo I was lucky enough to see the first episode of the Walking Dead last night.
I had a few initial reservations - the slowness of it, not being convinced about Andrew Lincoln, and not being able to understand a single word the Shane actor was saying - but it definitely won me over. The ending was just genius, a fantastic, cheeky, unique final five minutes.
It was actually quite a strange experience for me, having read the comic from the start. I knew a lot of what was going to happen, but there are some nice surprises along the way too - some neat additional moments.
Just a few small reservations.
First up, I sooo wish it had been in black and white. Some of the scenes don't really leap out, and making it black and white might have given it a touch of class. I wonder if it was considered by the producers at some point? Ah well, i can always adjust my colour lol.
(Minor spoiler in this paragraph) I loved the little subplot about Rick's neighbour's wife being a zombie (even though her goldfish impression was a bit weird). However, at one point, we see the zombie wife try to come home.... Nooo - that's not right! Zombies don't have any kind of memory, do they? I don't think that has been explored in the comic at all.
I'm dying to see Glenn and Andrea - they'll probably turn up in episode 2. Glenn makes a kind-of appearance in the first episode, and this is what actually concerns me. On the one hand, he sounds fun and cocky, but on the other hand, what if he becomes irritating - or what if we start to hate Lori? This is one of the things about Walking Dead, the comic - as unique as it is, it's very much all about Rick, and as likeable as some of the other characters are, they aren't very fleshed out. Everyone else in the comic seems to be a B-character. So what if the TV show fleshes them out too much, or the actors evolve them in a different direction?
On that note - how different will it become? I'm sure they'll keep certain key plotpoints, like the prison and the Governor, but I'm sure it'll evolve in different directions. And actually, that's probably for the best, because the comic has really gone off the boil since they left the prison.
All in all, I'm looking forward to seeing more, and can't wait to see what they do with it all.
And in a way, I almost wish I'd never read it, so I could buy that awesome compendium which collects the first 48 issues - amazing!

Paranormal Activity 2

2010-10-23T03:54:00.001-07:00

Last year I watched Paranormal Activity with my good chum Marcus at his gaff, and it scared the bloody life out of me. I was hiding behind about 6 pillows. We watched a download with a different ending to the official one (the one where the police come into the house). Still, I enjoyed it and was hoping to repeat the experience this year. However, we couldn't find a decent download so we had to go to the cinema - shit!!! I was bricking myself.
Well, to be honest, it wasn't too bad. It's one of those films where you expect things will happen and they don't - so a second viewing wouldn't be scary at all. It takes an absolute age to get going, and one of the most annoying things is how they repeat most of the scares from the first film. Except they overdo it a bit, and it just gets really silly. There is one new 'scare' (spoiler: wifey sitting in the kitchen and then suddenly all the cupboard doors crash open at once), but I think it would have been so much more effective in silence.
Another problem is that this film is kind of a prequel to the first. I'm not a huge fan of prequels - I'd rather see where a story goes - but it is quite clever.
However, the film does still has a very creepy edge to it - the transformation of the wife is unsettling - and it's still fairly effective. Put it this way, I didn't sleep very well last night!!!

Spandex UPDATE!

2010-10-23T03:52:00.001-07:00

I went to BICS (Birmingham con) last weekend, and it was cool - met some lovely people. Didn't do an amazing amount sales-wise, but maybe people are put off by the theme of the comic - let's face it, a straight guy may not think a comic about gay superheroes is for him - but I hope over time to show that it is a really accessible comic. I will not be defeated! (And also, I have some great ideas on how to make my stand more exciting - no, not involving me dressing up).
One other thing that occurred to me, was that maybe the format is putting people off. I do love my dinky little a5 comic, but maybe people just want US-size. But alas, I checked with my printer, and going US-size (36 pages, full colour) would cost me £2.80 a copy (and that's at a cheap printers - Lulu would probably cost 6 quid per copy), which makes it undoable (considering places like FP take a 50% cut, so I'd have to charge over a fiver to break even!). So sadly it's not do-able, but I definitely have some plans on how to make issue 3 look great.
In other news, I'm doing three cons in November! There's the Comiket on Sunday 7 November (although I'll have to leave early to go to my Sensei's Soprano concert), the Thought Bubble in Leeds on 20 November, and a Showmasters thingy in the last weekend of November in Olympia. I want to get Spandex 3 ready for Thought Bubble, and I found out that it's a week earlier than I thought - disaster! - so I've lost a week on my Spandex 3 deadline d'oh. Working frantically on it now.
And in final news, next Friday I'm going to the Eagle Awards winner announcement ceremony/dinner where I'll find out if Spandex has won the award for Best British Comic! I'm not holding my breath, but I'm definitely crossing my fingers!!

Loving Love and Rockets

2010-10-23T03:51:00.001-07:00

I'm still thoroughly loving reading my old Love and Rockets books. I'm reading the classic old books, but also the volume 2 spin-offs at the same time. I'm just waiting for Fantagraphics to send the issues I'm missing and then I'm all set - I'll have everything except for Woah Nellie 2.
The vol 2 stuff just didn't work for me on original release - I completely lost track of what was going on - but it's all good now, and I'm really enjoying it. I'm looking forward to getting through the early L+R books, as they are a bit ropey, and there's some great stuff ahead. In fact, I noticed that there are about 20 pages missing from my Fantagraphics book two - no wonder it didn't make much sense to me the first time round lol.
But really, it's amazing stuff. Jaimes' art is sumptuous and Gilbert's storytelling is second to none - the pacing is addictive, like a drug!
Loving it.

The Non-Event

2010-10-23T03:50:00.000-07:00

What do you get if you cross 24, Lost, The X-Files and pretty much every single other US sci-fi/drama show you can think of? The Event...
Did they run out of ideas or something?
And what with most US shows getting cancelled before they get a chance to hit their stride and what with the utter letdown of Lost, does anyone have faith in this new, depressingly by-the-numbers seen-it-all-before show?

Love and Rockets!!

2010-10-05T10:59:00.000-07:00

I have a funny old history with Love and Rockets. I came to it quite late, reading old graphic novels from Titan. It takes a while until the artists/writers find their feet, but once they get there – wowsers. Some of the middle stories from the first volume are stunning and near the end it has a huge impact, really pushing the boundaries of storytelling.
Jaime has got to be one of my all-time favourite artists. Every panel looks like it’s come straight from a life-drawing class – each character just moves in a realistic way. Gilbert is a bit more cartoony, but has an appealing style and he’s a great storyteller – although a bit surreal sometimes.
After volume one of L&R, the Hernandez brothers created some spin-off series and one-shots, and occasionally it felt a bit monotonous – it was all extremely well told, but maybe due to the frequency of the comic, it was easy to lose track of what was going on. I definitely lost track of which of Luba’s young relatives was a lesbian, they seemed to all be coming out left right and centre!
Overall, I felt like the guys needed to do something new...
Then, the brothers began an annual Love and Rockets comic. It's kind of a good idea, pooling the work into one annual book - such a shame it's not in colour. The first couple of issues didn’t really wow me, to be honest. Gilbert got even more surreal, and Jaime kind-of went off in a tangent, telling tales about superhero versions of characters.
And then the latest L&R book came along, issue three. Blimey. It just shows the strength of both brothers. Gilbert’s story is kind of surreal, but clever and a great read. And Jaime. Wow. I don’t even know where to start.
Jaime goes back to telling a more normal story about Maggie, and the volume kicks off with a tale about her going on a date with old flame Ray. Then later in the book, we get Browntown, a centre-piece focusing on young Maggie and her siblings. It’s a real shocker, very strong. It shows what happens to her young brother (who has never appeared in the series before) when he comes into contact with some of the local boys. It’s a really brave story and I’ve never read anything like it. It just shows how we’ve all done weird things as kids – but this takes it to the extreme. Congrats to Jaime for having the courage to tell it.
And it doesn’t end there. There’s one final story – told in the present day – and the final-page revelation is jaw-dropping and very clever indeed.
Very rare these days to get a comic that makes you want to re-read the entire series – which is exactly what I’m doing! I think I will probably enjoy those middle spin-off comics a lot more now!
(The cover above is from issue 1 - gorgeous eh? But if you wanna check it out, try the new issue 3)

Powers...

2010-10-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna talk about a really good comic in a minute...
But first, I want to mention a fairly bad one...
What the hell happened to Powers? It was so good at Image, and ever since it's been at Icon/Marvel it's been so lacklustre.
I just bought issue 6 last week, and I think it will probably be my last 'floppy'. I'll shift to trades now - if I can be bothered with Powers!!
Another bad point - jeez, the self-promotion and egotism on show in the letters section of Powers! Look at this amazing interview with me! Look at this incredible feature about my stunning new comic Scarlet! Look at how amazing I am!!! Jeez! I used to like the Powers letters section mainly for the 'No LIfe' section (fun to read Bendis' recommendations) but I think enough is enough...
It did make me laugh though, when Bendis sought sympathy and thanked all the people who'd defended his current shit work on the Avengers - tee hee! Mr BMB, it's really not good...

I finished 20th Century Boys! My review...

2010-09-29T02:16:00.000-07:00

Some spoilers in this...
Just finished 20th Century Boys. Man that got a bit hard-going!
It's a fantastic story - more like a novel really, as there is so much to it - and it's a fantastic achievement by Naoki Urasawa, but it is slightly flawed, I think. It's like watching the best movie ever, but it's 10 hours long - it's just a bit too much. It really doesn't need to be 22 volumes long!!
It starts to go off in tangents, some good (the new schoolgirl who gets taken to Friend Land) and some a bit boring (Frog's story). One of the worst things is how it 'loses' characters - so Mariah Chan goes missing for sooo long, and (big spoiler in rest of paragraph, just in case you decided to read this) obviously, Kenji, who you know is gonna come back at some point, takes way too long to come back. And having gone in and out of some really tedious events, why don't we see what Kenji got up to - and, more importantly, how he survived the explosion?
As the book was coming to an end, I kept thinking 'how are they gonna wrap this up in just a few chapters?', and i don't really feel it was very satisfying. Having taken several chapters to tell a minor story, going round and round in circles, it was disappointing that the ending was crammed into a handful of chapters. There are some fantastic characters in the story, and I feel they got a bit lost along the way.
The other problem of it being so long is that you start to get ahead of Urasawa a bit. You knooow that certain characters are gonna come back, you start to think 'well why'd he do that that way?' and there are other things, like I was convinced Mariah is Maruo's son, and I was waiting for that revelation that never came.
But all in all, it's a fantastic read, not perfect, but really worth a look. It reminded me of Lost and I think it's actually more satisfying than Lost, in that you get a lot of revelations that make sense - how did Donkey die? what happened in the Science Room? - whereas Lost's revelations (well, the ones they bothered to answer) just come out of nowhere, really.
I give 20th Century Boys an 8 out of 10!

It's not all bad though

2010-09-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

Hmm I still do love comics. Can't forget about all the classic old ones... They'll always be there.
I've been enjoying reading an Alpha Flight forum on Comic Book Resources, where one guy reviews every issue and people then chip in with their thoughts and comments. And my gosh it's a forum with no bitchery or haters!!!
http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=222969
I'm so fond of Alpha Flight, so many good memories. And reading the forum makes it clear how ground-breaking the series was. I really do feel lucky to have been a comic fan in the 80s.
It's funny though - I was looking at a retelling of the Power Pack story - a recent Day One comic - with credits to Louise Simonson and June Brigman. That was another classic, and it's so weird to think they are retelling a story from my youth... Almost as if they've given up on coming up with anything new...?!

The sorry state of comics

2010-09-18T03:55:00.000-07:00

Some news reports this week on how comic sales are plummeting...and some comic creators have also been speaking out on how they think comics are reeeally bad at the moment.
Well I have to agree really. I've got money to buy them, I love comics, and yet there is NOTHING out there which I am compelled to buy. Marvel and DC have made it easy for me to drop all their titles. The only comics that made me go to the comic shops were Walking Dead and Powers. Powers has been off the boil ever since it went to Marvel and Walking Dead has been dull and boring since the characters left the prison in issue 48. i might still collect them in trades, but floppies are dead to me, which is a shame.
So many bad comics out there. I read the latest New Avengers (free at work)and my god, when will Bendis give up on this interminable magic storyline? Who gives a crap? There's a spread in the issue of classic Bendis dialogue between Hellstorm, Strange and Voodoo and I almost lost the will to live...
The new X-Men title is beyond dire. It's like some generic superhero title with the X name slapped on it. And 13 year old Jubilee is now suddenly a busty woman, while Storm has decided to walk around with her tits hanging out of her suddenly slutty costume.
I was really looking forward to the new Zatanna series, but it's more zzzzzZatanna. So dull, no interesting supporting cast, no interesting villains and Zatanna's costume is terrrrible - her huge back-breaking bust jutting out of her costume - jesus.
While I'm moaning about comics, I've got the 'Wolverine and the XMen' series on in the background. It's quite good, but it irks me so much that they've sold out the XMen and titled it that way!!
aaargh!

20th Century Boys

2010-09-09T12:57:00.000-07:00

Am currently plowing through the epic manga 20th Century Boys and blimey it's good.
I'd tried it before and failed to get into it - partly because it's so intricate, and partly because I wasn't too keen on Naoki Urasawa's sketchy art - but after reading and thoroughly enjoying his Pluto book, I'm so glad I gave 20th CB another go.
It follows the story of a group of kids who came up with a fun bunch of end-of-the-world prophecies in the 70s and when they are in their 30s (the story jumps around in time) these prophecies start to come true. Plus there's a nasty cult of 'Friends' and it turns out that the eeevil leader has a connection to the original kids...
I've read the first 10 volumes so far...and it's unbelievably impressive stuff. You get to know some of the characters inside-out and there are some truly shocking developments.
There are a couple of downsides though. I was reeeally shocked to learn that the story lasts for 26 volumes - that's a whole lot of story! In a way it's great, because a lot of the characters are loveable, and you just don't want to leave them (although having said that, some of them do go missing for volumes at a time, which is a shame). But sometimes it feels like the story has peaked and you feel 'where can they go from here'... It's weird to think I'm only a third of the way through... I kind of wish it'd end sooner! I'm starting to feel it's being spun out a little...and getting a bit tired of some of the fake-out revelations of the Friends' leader's identity.
But now that I'm getting very disillusioned with Marvel and DC comics, it's nice to sink your teeth into this kind of manga, which is created by such a talented writer/artist. His talent is absolutely breathtaking.
Oh a couple of related points - there's been a movie of 20CB, but man it's bad!!! Unimaginative and quite badly acted, not recommended at all!
And finally, I'm really glad I haven't come across a spoiler as to the identity of the Friend's leader yet - I'm quite shocked actually! Hope I don't find out before I read it.
Anyway, if you want to check out this amazing story, you can read it online here.
http://www.manga2u.com/20th_Century_Boys/1/00/

Standards are slipping!!

2010-09-09T12:56:00.001-07:00

I'm disturbed to notice that newspaper articles, TV news and internet news have started to quote people's comments from Twitter! What the? I mean, c'monnn, that's hardly top-notch journalism now, is it??
If you write a news-piece, you go for a statement from someone, and that person thinks it through. Twitter is just people's random bullshit ramblings!
And since things like Facebook and Twitter are still relatively new, I think we still don't know how to deal with them. Is it a bit of fun, or is it acceptable to use them as evidence in work sackings or even in police investigations??
I just don't know...
All I know is how much I loathe Twitter. I love Facebook, but Twitter? No! It's as if the whole world suddenly became superstars and we suddenly are expected to give a crap what mundane things people are doing...

Movie review - Mother

2010-09-03T05:33:00.001-07:00

I’ve been really underwhelmed by a lot of movies this year. A-Team was awful. I needed a wee throughout Inception, which ruined it. I wanted to punch Michael Cera throughout the entirety of Scott Pilgrim... But I saw one movie last night which really did blow me away – so much so that I’m actually still reeling from it... Still thinking about it...
It’s Mother, a Korean movie by Joon Ho-Bong, the man behind the very cool Memories of Murder and the amazing The Host.
Mother follows the story of an over-protective single mother in her 50s who looks after her young adult son who has a slight mental handicap. One night, the son goes home from a bar and bumps into a young girl who runs away from him. The next day, the girl is found murdered, and the son is arrested when some circumstantial evidence is found by the body. It’s then up to the mother to find out who really murdered the girl – and this involves delving into the girl’s secret life and into the lives of the towns-people.
After a really really bizarre start (the mother dancing in a large field – which does make sense later on in the film), the movie quickly builds the characters and then becomes immersed in an utterly absorbing murder mystery. There are some truly shocking twists and turns and it turns into an incredibly emotional story. Some of the revelations the characters have to deal with are unbelievably dark and some of the plot developments cause a few ‘oh no, don’t do that’s...! And some of the final revelations – and the way they are revealed – will stay in my mind for a long time to come...
The acting in this movie is breathtaking. I want them all to win Oscars! The mother is captivating, really moving. You feel for her at every twist and turn – even when she does the wrong thing. You understand her and you understand why she's doing it. The young son is brilliant (so convincing – and actually, he’s played by a model-type actor from Korea). And the young son’s reckless friend, who becomes embroiled in the story, has such presence... A force of nature on the screen. Move over Tom Cruise.
All in all, simply brilliant. A really clever movie, and you just don’t see any of the devlopments coming! See it if you can!!!

Spandex interview

2010-09-03T05:27:00.000-07:00

First part of an interview with Martin about Spandex Comic on the Broken Frontier comic website! Enjoy! Part 2 will have exclusive info on the next few issues of Spandex!!

http://www.brokenfrontier.com/lowdown/p/detail/martin-edens-spandex-soap-opera-part-1

Good Comic, Bad Comic

2010-08-16T12:09:00.000-07:00

Bad comic(s)
Urgh. Since X-Men became X-Men Legacy, it has been such a dull, pointless read. And now it’s all just got worse. The latest issue, 238, wow...how the X-mighty have fallen. Boring, nameless characters inexplicably flying to India to meet the Sentinelszzzz. I don’t know who half the characters are (Loa and Indra seem to have the same tattoos – coincidence or bad planning?), and it’s all just a heap of pointless shit. And why are they even on a plane, when they’ve got the Blackbird/jetpacks/teleporters!!!??? And how did Magneto get through customs...?
The X-Men has become one big ol’ uncanny X-Mess. The comic I grew up with is now just written by people who really don’t seem to know the characters whatsoever. I look at Storm and Colossus and they’re just not the same characters I once fell in love with. And why are they all on one island together after what happened on Genosha?What is the point of Namor being an X-Man when he never does anything?
And how bad is the new ‘X-Men’ title? Seems like it’s purely there to cash in on the current vampire trend. What happens after the vampire story finishes?
And why is there gonna be a new team of mutants (‘Hope’s Generation’) when we have enough boring mutants as it is? And who cares about Hope? And is she Jean Grey or what??
Sheesh.

Good comic!

I was in FP at the weekend, and my eye was attracted to a new manga book – Bakuman, by the creators of Death Note. What a lovely cover, and what a great little read. It’s almost as if they wrote it just for me! There are no super-heroics, no fantasy, no fighting – just a beautifully crafted story about two schoolkids wanting to become manga writers (but nowhere near as dull as ‘My Drifting Life’ yawwwn). Can’t wait to read more!!!

Crazy Jane

2010-08-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

Look at this...
Cover to Doom Patrol 13...
This was SO crazy jane... but now it's Rita Farr. I reckon something happened... some rights thing...
I was looking forward to CJ's return to DP, but she has barely done anything! :(

Songs that changed your world

2010-08-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

This one just came up on my ipod shuffle...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hVYDHiInXE
Almost knocked my head off my neck... Haven't listened to it for ages. It's just one of those powerful songs in my life, everyone's got them.
I remember when I was younger and I used to love watching the Chart Show on Channel 4 - all those cool videos! I was the typical Smash Hits reader - and loved pop back in those days. But slowly their 'Indie chart' started to grab my attention. Lush, the Breeders, then Not Too Soon by the Throwing Muses. So I asked for the Throwing Muses album for Christmas.... I remember it well - I can always find where my mom hides my presents really easily lol. I remember she got me the cassette and omg the amount of times I snuck into the present room and grabbed the tape and listened to each song one by one over and over again lol... Counting Backwards blew my little mind...
I bought all the earlier Throwing Muses albums, but they were a bit dodgy in places... but after that the band really upped their game with tighter albums. I remember being in Tower Records (ah, Tower Records) in London, and they were playing a song which sounded like the coolest thing I'd ever heard... I asked what it was and it was Snake from University, the next Throwing Muses album! And that's one of my fave albums of all time.
And then things expanded into solo albums from Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly, plus Belly...
Added to that, there were massive connections between the TMs and Love and Rockets (Gilbert Hernandez provided the cover to one of the TMs later albums) which just made everything in my little life make sense for a few moments...
Funny how the massive changes in music have changed the artists' output - Kristen releases tons of stuff online and it's hard to keep track of it all, for instance. She just released a book to record shops which you buy and then download the tracks with a code! And it's actually a pretty good album.
So anyway, at that moment, it was pretty much bye-bye to pop...
What an impact... Similar to the impact discovering Shade the Changing Man had on my music tastes.

Walking Deeead

2010-07-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

Like most people who will read this, i'm a huge fan of the Walking Dead comic, and very excited about how the tv show is shaping up... (and also feeling weird that people are jumping on our bandwagon!)
I can't help thinking some of it isn't quite right... Andrew Lincoln as Rick... hmm not so sure.. He looks too weird. They guy who plays Shane seems more charismatic and I'd prob want to watch him more...
as much as i like Laurie Holden, i think she's too old to play Andrea... In fact the gal who plays Amy would make a better Andrea - would be great to watch her get all mean and warrior-y.
Bit worried that sarah wayne callies is too likeable for Lori...
can't wait to see Mihconne and Tyreese.
but oh well, i trust them, and it does look cool. reeeally wish they were doing it in black and white though!
a couple of thoughts on the comic - gosh, its' really slow at the moment. in fact the general consensus is that it's been a bit off the boil since they left the prison... it's definitely lost it's edge. i think it's time they killed off rick.

Inception

2010-07-17T14:24:00.001-07:00

I think I’m gonna start getting annoyed!!!
I just saw Inception, and it’s a cool movie…but it’s not perfect by any means… And that’s what’s gonna annoy me, because the lazy 10 out of 10 reviews are already starting to come in…
All I can do is break it down into what I liked and disliked about it…

Likes:
- The cast. Wow… Nolan certainly has an eye for an ensemble that works. I absolutely loved this cast. Ellen Page is always good (will she ever become an adult though?), Tom Hardy is phenomenal, great to see, I want to see him in loooads more films. Nice to see Ken Watanabe in something like this - he just ‘looks’ good (altho I struggled to hear some of his lines). Dileep Rao is a fab character actor, and it’s always good to see him. Marion Cotillard was just beautiful. But my Oscar goes to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who stole every scene he was in - he just fit this movie like a glove. Move over, Leo.
- The music - swooon, just beautiful.
- The effects, of course, although not as many as you’d think.

Dislikes:
- Okay, they try to make it all make sense and some ideas ring true and are clever - such as: you never remember the start of a dream etc. But at the end of the day, dreams are crazy! They don’t make sense! Where was that element in this movie? It was just the Matrix really…
- Too serious! Leonardo’s character was just a bit too serious - I mean, I know he had his ‘issues’, but still - what a downer! And Leo himself is a bit weird now - he’s not fat, but he’s big… I just can‘t figure him out and I found him hard to look at… And I kind of felt some moments were unintentionally funny - like when the gang are all tied up together in the hotel - it just looked silly. It was just all way too serious, and I think that worked against it.
- Exposition! Some stuff was left unexplained as if it was obvious, but sometimes things were explained maybe a bit too much - way too clunky. And I defy anyone to say they didn’t get ‘lost’ at some point in this movie, as they tried to remember which ‘layer’ they were watching, and why Ken Watanabe was suddenly okay, etc etc.

So all in all, I found it a frustrating movie, I can’t say I particularly understood it all, but Nolan really has a knack of hitting the spot in his movies and, damn him, he did make me shed a manly tear here and there (actually, to be honest, I was practically weeping in a couple of scenes featuring Marion Cotillard and Cillian Murphy).
But I really hope the movie doesn’t start getting universal ‘perfect scores’, because a movie with such clunky dialogue and crammed-in exposition and unintentionally funny moments is far from perfect, I think.
Please, reviewers, try to put aside your ‘man crushes’ on Christopher Nolan…

THANK YOU to all the Japandexers!

2010-07-15T14:04:00.000-07:00

Japandex is finished! And without wishing to sound like an X-Factor contestant - what a journey!!! I can't believe it's been just a month - it feels like years! I started off with only around 5 people involved, and it's incredible and very exciting how it all developed!
I love art and I love people who draw (I... think everyone in the world can draw, to be honest, everyone has a style) - so it's so cool to have so many different styles and to see the reaction to each picture. And some of the reactions have surprised the artists - and that's very exciting.
Some of the artists have been doing this for years, and some are new talents who I asked to take part. It's been so worthwhile doing this and when some of the art came in, I ended up just staring and staring at it, jaw dropped. And I've met some great people along the way too!
So basically, I'd like to thank each and every person for giving up their time to take part in this very special project. It has been so rewarding, and so much fun to see your versions of my characters. So cool, thank you thank you thank you!!

Japandex final day!!!!

2010-07-12T05:59:00.000-07:00

GAYZILLA by Steve White
Steve was the first person I invited to take part in Spandex, so it’s a bit of a full-circle thing that it is the last one I am featuring. Steve loves dinosaurs (and Jaws) so I just had to ask him to draw a pic of my Gayzilla character, who made a cameo in issue 2 of Spandex.
Steve’s been a comics professional for years, working with Marvel UK and now for Titan, and he’s been involved in tons of comics that you will have read. He’s currently editing Transformers and overseeing Clint Magazine!
Steve does a lot of drawing in his spare time, and he loves drawing dinosaurs – he often does art as gifts for people. Gorgeous stuff!!!
Right, that’s it from Japandex, thanks for checking it out!
I’ll put up one more thing later this week, so keep your eyes peeled!

Under the Drone?

2010-07-10T07:28:00.000-07:00

It's a sad world when a new STephen King book comes out and i have no interest in it whatsoever! He's just released a mini-book called Bronco Billy or something - a baseball book. Having read a couple of baseball-themed SK short stories, I think I'll steer clear...
It's funny though, I'd been thinking of re-reading Under the Drone - maybe a 2nd attempt might improve it, now i know where it's going - and to add to this excitement, I just found out they've released the paperback with four covers - and I think they are pretty stunning!!!! So I think I'll deffo get one of those. Can't decide between the li'l girl and the lady hmmm (is anyone gonna buy the old man??)

Japandex Day... Oh I've lost count, but it's almost over lol

2010-06-30T03:45:00.000-07:00

Attack of the 50 Foot Japanese Lesbian by Bridgeen Gillespie

Bridgeen! Hooray! I first met Bridgeen after witnessing a Curb Your Enthusiasm-style email faux pas she made (I won’t embarrass her by revealing the details, but it was one of those mistaken ‘reply to all’ things) – I sent her my sympathies and we had a laugh about it and got chatting and became mates. Her work had actually caught my eye a few years ago, when she made a comic based on the Kate Bush song Rocket’s Tail, which is a great idea.
Bridgeen is one of the friendliest people in the small press, and everyone seems to know Bridgeen! She does comics about her creations Mr Maximo and Rabbit (www.koniption.blogspot.com and you can check out new stuff here http://www.derrywalls.blogspot.com/) and she’s worked on a specially commissioned project called ‘Stranger Danger’ which is a safety comic for kids. You can also see some of her creative writing here: http://www.elephantwords.co.uk/
Bridgeen only came on board Japandex on Sunday, but got this lovely pic together for me nice and quickly! So glad to have her involved!!
Okay, just one more pic to go, might take a couple of days…Plus a little something extra special… Stay tuned!

Japandex Day 24!

2010-06-28T23:28:00.001-07:00

Japandexbot by Mark McKenzie Ray
Mark is another of my colleagues! He sits opposite me and we are both huge comic fans and Mark is an aspiring artist who is starting to draw more and more.
Mark worked on this for me and I absolutely love it - and it's the kind of thing that I could never really draw myself, as I am allergic to rulers an...d technical drawing. I think this pic sums up what I like most about Japandex - it's clever (it's fun working out which limb corresponds to which team-mate), it's good, it's cheeky - it sums up Japandex pretty well.
Thanks Mark!
Okay, I wanted to wrap up Japandex on Wednesday (last day of the month) as I don't want to become a Facebook irritant - but I had a couple of late entries worth waiting for, so it might go on for a couple more days... Stay tuned!!!

Japandex Day 23

2010-06-28T02:22:00.001-07:00

PINK NINJA WAVE by John Riordan
Now this is something else, isn't it? When John sent it to me he said that he's happy to be able to finish drawing Pink Ninjas now - and after Spandex issue 2, I know exactly how he feels lol! But wow, this is amazing - the detail, the idea, the Spandex depictions, the colouring... it's pretty much geniu...s.
John got in touch about Japandex and we chatted about what he could do, and he suggested doing something with the Hosukai wave, and I think he pretty much nailed it!
John's current big project is a new comic with Dan Cox called Hitsville UK. It's available from the etsy shop on John's website http://www.johnriordan.co.uk/ or you can read it here http://issuu.com/johnnyfighters/docs/hitsvilleuk.

Japandex Day 23!

2010-06-27T05:03:00.000-07:00

JAPANDEX by MARTIN EDEN
It's me again! I just wanted to get this out of my system, just a nice black and white pic of the team, with all their names written in Japanese. If you're new to my comics, you won't know that my previous series, The O Men, was all black and white, and with Spandex I'm actually getting used to doing colour comics. So this is me going back to basics! It's also a nice opportunity to show the characters' names in Japanese lettering.

Japandex Day 22!

2010-06-26T02:27:00.000-07:00

Mushishi/Musashi by Jay Faulkner
Jay got in touch after being told about Japandex by Stephen Downey (who he is working on 'stuff' for www.talesofthe.com/). Jay mentioned he might do a Neon Musashi image, and I mentioned to him a gorgeous movie poster for the film Mushishi (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RqFhu7CWo58/SDnQ-Hky9pI/AAAAAAAAA3I/VVE3pxr9D58/s400/MushishiDVD.jpg), which might look good with Glitter in it - and Jay did both! Although instead of the eerieness of Mushishi, Jay went for a nice calmness and cherry blossoms. Jay only wanted me to put Mushishi up, but I've surprised him and put both up - a first for Japandex, a double whammy!

This is the first time that Jay has put paint on paper in form of a water-colour in nearly ten years - as he spends most of his time either writing his own published stories or publishing other people's work in his art inspired online magazine, 'With Painted Words' (www.withpaintedwords.com) - but loved the idea of Japandex so much he dipped his toe back in the water (when that didn't work he used a brush as every sensible artist does!) and has caught the bug again.

To find out more visit www.jayfaulkner.com

I am going to finish Japandex on Wednesday (last day of June) and a couple of people have dropped out (or at least gone quiet on me lol), so I have one slot left to fill, so if you would like to do a pic and have time, I have a couple of great ideas - first come, first served!! martrpeden@yahoo.co.uk

Japandex Day 22

2010-06-25T01:17:00.000-07:00

PAPER PINK NINJAS by PHILIPPA RICE
If you’ve been to any comic cons over the past couple of years, you may have bumped into this talented lady, Philippa Rice. She is a bundle of unbelievable creativity. She does loads of comic projects, but her current main ‘thing’ is My Cardboard Life, which is a strip about a group of paper characters and it’s all put together by hand by Philippa. It’s pretty unique and it’s absolutely adorable and hilarious.
You can check it out here:
http://mycardboardlife.com/
She does a new one every weekday.
I knew Philippa would do a knockout job with the Pink Ninjas idea, and of course what she came up with was super kawaii (cute)!
P.S. ‘Interesting’ (?) anecdote: I actually knew Philippa’s sister, Kate, before I knew Philippa. Kate joined my Japanese class in my second term and was with us for a few more terms. I was at the UK Mini Comics/Web Thing and couldn’t believe it when I bumped into Kate – I thought it’d be the last place she’d be lol! But Kate joins Philippa at loads of comic cons, which is how I discovered My Cardboard Life. Interesting eh hehe?

Japandex Day 21!

2010-06-23T12:53:00.000-07:00

HARAJUKU GIRL AND SALARY MAN by ROGER MASON
I’ve known Roger for a while, since my first Bristol comic con a few years ago. I love his art – it’s very bold, very stylish, very clever. A lot of his work is in black and white, and one of his most well known graphic novels, The Mice, is a great example of this. Roger has also had graphic novels published in Europe (jealous!), done storyboarding for TV and advertising (jealous!!), and most importantly, he drew a lovely cover for an anthology issue of my O Men comic!
You can check out all of Roger’s work at www.looksgoodonpaper.co.uk – go on have a look, it’s awesome.
I invited Roger to do a moody drawing of two of my J-Team characters (I love those guys!) and I was pretty stunned by what he came up with. He nailed them pretty well and makes me want to do a J-Team comic even more!!!

Japandex Day 20!

2010-06-22T12:15:00.001-07:00

TOKYO LIBERTY POLICE by DAVID WITHERS
David contacted me about Japandex, and suggested a couple of ideas, and I really liked his idea to do a take on Tokyo Gore Police, starring Liberty. Lovely, eh?
David’s work can be found on Deviant Art under the name Chaingunchimp. He’s currently working on projects with talesofthe.com and Berserker Comics, and has also written a strip for Zarjaz.
He is currently writing three graphic novels, two of which are horror and one is a ‘twisted superhero’ story, and he’s also working on loads of short stories. Busy guy!!

Japandex Day 19!

2010-06-20T22:59:00.000-07:00

AKIRA STARRING PROWLER by GARRY MCLAUGHLIN
Garry got in touch and we chatted a bit about what pic he could do, and he suggested this one - a take on a famous Akira poster. It's a freaky coincidence as that poster is actually above my bed!! Garry adapted the poster to feature Prowler and the Pink Ninjas - I love it! Love the colours!
Garry creates his own comics, and the best place to find out about them is here:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Laser-Age-Comics/133586496653375?ref=ts
He published a horror comic called The Abortion and is currently creating a 'Year of Fear', with a comic called Yellow coming up! Check 'em out!

Japandex Day 18!

2010-06-17T23:06:00.000-07:00

SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND? by Dan Bell
Dan is another creator who got in touch when he saw a Japandex shout-out, and he put this together for me. Hehe very cute and fun!
Dan has done loads of books with Underfire Comics, check 'em out here: www.underfire-comic.com/online

Japandex Day 17!

2010-06-17T00:21:00.000-07:00

BATTLE ROYALE by MARTIN EDEN
It's me again! I have a couple more pics up my sleeve too lol...
When people get in touch about contributing to Japandex, I am now struggling a bit to think of any more ideas, but there are still probably loads more obvious things out there. Battle Royale is a pretty obvious one, but I didn't think of it until last week. I invited someone to do it who I thought would be peeerfect, but he had something else in mind, so I did it myself!
If you haven't seen Battle Royale, go and watch it now, it's amazing! It's about a bunch of Japanese school-kids who get stuck in a bizarre game on an island. They are each given a weapon and basically have to kill each other until only one of them is left!!
The pic was a good opportunity to draw Diva in a Britney Spears school uniform (as Britney was partly the inspiration for the character!).

Japandex Day 16 (I got my numbers wrong lol)

2010-06-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

BUTCH AND MR MUSCLES by JOHN WORKMAN
Did you ever read Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol? Or Walt Simonson's Thor? How about the new Turf series by Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards? Well if so, you know John Workman, cos he's one of comics' Lettering legends!!!
I worked with John in my day job. When I worked on the John Barrowman comic strip in the Torchwood Magazine a couple of years ago, the artist, Tommy Lee Edwards, wanted to work with John Workman, so we did, and I've used John on every subsequent Torchwood comic strip since!
John's great - we email a lot, and he has soooo many anecdotes about the comic industry. He was also art director of Heavy Metal magazine, and created and drew many of his own comics. After I saw his work, I invited him to do a flashback page in the Torchwood comic, which he did such a good job of, and on the back of that, I invited him to take part in Japandex.
John came up with this image, which is so nice, so striking, and I love the fact it features Butch and Mr Muscles, because they don't get as much attention as some of the other characters.
Thanks John!!!
Tomorrow: Battle Royale...

Japandex Day 14!

2010-06-14T22:34:00.000-07:00

TOKYO STORY by ANDREW CROSKERY
Andrew was another person who got in touch when I put a Japandex shout-out...out. He suggested this take on the movie poster for the classic 1953 movie Tokyo Story (http://www.ukquad.com/tokyo%20story.jpg) and I loved the idea! He submitted a greyscale version - in keeping with the original poster - but also sent this colour version, which I think works so nicely. Thanks Andrew!
Andrew is writing a new graphic novel and you can check it out here http://kronoscity.co.uk and you can check out a showcase for Irish talent, set up by Andrew and Stephen Downey, here: www.talesofthe.com/
He's also doing some illustrations for a new culture magazine which will be launched in Ireland later this year. You can also have a nose at his work here http://andrewcroskery.blogspot.com

Japandex Day 13!

2010-06-13T23:37:00.000-07:00

THE J-TEAM by GRAHAM PEARCE
Graham Pearce has written and drawn his own comic, Sgt Mike Battle, for yeeears, he's part of the backbone of the UK small press scene, and we are occasionally table-mates at comic conventions.
I invited Graham to do a Japandex pic, and thought he should take a stab at the Japanese superteam, The J-Team, who were introduced in Spandex issue 2. I love the team, and hopefully they'll come back into the comic soon. They consist of the leader Salary Man, Harajuku Girl, Mr Tokyo, Facemask, Su Mo, Geisha and Fuji. Graham put together this stunning cover, and PJ Holden did an amazing job with the colours. I'd love to see them do a J-Team comic and have it on the news-stands tomorrow!!
Anyway, you should definitely check out Sgt Mike Battle as it is a hoot, a total parody of comics and a satire on current affairs stuff - have a look here - http://www.sgtmikebattle.co.uk/

Japandex Day 12!

2010-06-13T01:58:00.000-07:00

LIBERTY by MELISSA SELBY
Melissa was one of the first people to get in touch with me about Japandex and we had a lovely chat about manga and anime. She did a li'l Diva pic for me, so sweet, Diva in the rain, and she did this pic for Japandex too - Liberty with a manga twist. Sweet, eh? Melissa is actually doing her GCSEs at the moment, but wants to be an artist when she is older. You go, girl!!!
(Got some DOOZIES coming up this week!!! Stay tuned!)