A few nights ago, on twitter, “inspired” by the number of people offering hints and tips on breaking into the industry, I decided to add to the discordant cacophany with a set of ‘unwritten’ hints and tips. Thanks to Mark Kardwell (who had the foresight to cut and paste most of them) here they are for you non-twitterers.

(As an aside, I’m interested in doing a presentation of these tips along with a running commentary, wherein I describe them as ‘true’/'false’ or ‘maybe’…)

Artists Tips

To understand these fully, you have to remember I started posting them at 2:30AM. and if you read no other, read this one: Marry someone rich.

Comic Artist tips (everyone else is doing it, why not me?) Want to know what it’s like to be a pro comic artist with kids? Punch yourself in the balls 4 times a day, sleep 4 hours per night, eat dinner standing up and… that’s it!

Comic Artist Tips:why not make sure you eek out every last minute of your deadline,filling the time with self loathing and fear of rejection

Comic Artist Tips: remember, when asked how fast you are, the answer is ALWAYS “1 page per day”

Comic Artist Tips: that writer you can’t stand? him? yeah? you’ll end up working with him eventually. Bite your lip.

Comic Artist Tips: the ‘zone’ happens at exactly 10 minutes before you hit the sack. Why not fool yourself by working a full 24 hrs…

Pro Artist Tips: A silhouette looks cool AND is quick to draw.

Pro Artist Tips: Make sure you sneak wolverine into every page – that’ll give you a good secondary income when you sell the pages…

Pro Artist Tips: Writers will buy you drinks. Writers will buy anyone but other writers drinks. Remember this. It will save you a FORTUNE.

#ArtistTips if you find yourself attacking the table at awkward angles-like a snooker player on a trick shot-it may be time to lose weight

@simonfraser find a writer you like DRINKING with. A pro can work with ANYONE…

#ArtistTips find a new, unpublished writer, offer to do a three page strip for them, from that day on – you OWN THEM.

#ArtistsTips do work that excites you or you die a little with every compromise. Do work that pays you or you die of starvation.

#ArtistsTips There IS a magic pen that can make you draw just like Adam Hughes/Mignola/[other] – you just have to find it – now get looking!

#ArtistsTips to misquote Kirby: every time you erase a line you lose money! Remember this!

#ArtistsTips Don’t want to draw that panel? why not photocopy an earlier panel and ENLARGE it. Almost no-one will notice.

#ArtistsTips your mother and your girlfriend are NOT good judges of your talent. But your dad probably is. And he hates you.

#ArtistsTips if you’re too embarrassed to draw nekkid girls in case people think you’re a perve – why not make ‘em superheroes!

#ArtistsTips when an editor tells you what’s wrong with your portfolio – why not disagree with them! They can’t tell you how to draw. Idiots.

#ArtistsTips your portfolio case can handle more than 12 pages! Why not pack it full of stuff, an editor is BOUND to like something in there

#ArtistsTips buy some books on anatomy and drawing and leave them on your drawing table. Osmosis isn’t just for plants.

#ArtistsTips instead of drawing, go to twitter and keep hitting refresh – eventually an editor will spontaneously commission you via a DM.

#ArtistsTips when your wife asks what were you doing til 2:30am – tell her you were drawing.

#artiststips you’re right: it IS about WHO you know, unfortunately, though editors know a LOT people who can draw better than you.

#ArtistsTips the only person you can rely on is yourself. And even then you can only be 50% sure of that.

#artiststips spend at least five minutes a day wistfully remembering what sleeping was like.

#artiststips – just as you’ve suspected, once YOU’VE connected to an editor via a social network everyone abandons it, including the editor.

#artiststips – forget the naysayers, Comic Sans is a GREAT font to letter your samples with. Also: DON’T letter your samples.

#artiststips while you spend your weekend drawing that two page spread of 100s of clones vs x-men, just remember-it took 5 minutes to write.

#artiststips thinking of a career in comics? look at your local newsagents. See that? more magazines about Koi Carp than comics. Think FISH.

#artiststips don’t forget – ‘Leave Behind’ is not only a bunch of photocopies to give an editor, but also the odor peculiar to man sweat

#ArtistsTips – if you’re smart you’ll NEVER have to draw feet.

#artiststips Marry someone rich.

Writers Tips

Goaded into doing the equivalent for writers, here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

#writerstips Your first PAID work is actually a gruelling test of stamina that editors call The Gauntlet-run by interns for amusement

#writerstips that first pitch will resemble the final paid work only in so far as the credits will be the same.You will not tell people this

#writerstips remember, BEFORE you break in QUALITY is important, once you get your first gig QUANTITY is important. Don’t mix them up!

#writerstips remember, the more you write, the less you have to edit. And editing is DULL – ask any editor.

#writerstips if the first thing you wanted to get published WASN’T a 100 page opus, stop now: you’re not a writer.

#writerstips start saving now, remember the first rule of write club is that no-one will work with you unless you buy them drinks.
#writerstips get your artist while they’re young and hungry. Literally hungry; don’t feed ‘em unless they’re drawing.

Just a collection of Dr Who sketches…

I’ve known Jim for years – he’s a good friend of mine, who I’ll often consult if I need a fresh set of eyes on something.

He’s also a fantastic cartoonist and I’d like to show some of his work off (since he doesn’t)

Anyhue, here’s some pretty pictures…

Three part Dredd written by Gordon Rennie and art by me.

The colouring on the strip is by Eva De La Cruz, who’s coloured a bunch of my Dredds (and, I think, all of my 86ers. I’ve never met her, but she does great work, so I’m happy that the mighty Tharg has seen fit to partner us on a number of occasions…)

Having said that, my friend, Ryan Brown (colourist on The Dead, as well as one of the guys behind Beserker Comics, Norn Iron’s premier comic publisher) wants to take a stab at working for the House O’ Tharg, so I sent him some b&w’s from Bea Arthur. This is the first page, and I thought, it’d be kinda fun to do a little annotation on it.

Panel 1 – big space port scene. Sadly, there’s quiet a lot of fun stuff covered (by necessity) by the lettering. Starting with the background, there’s the big statue of a Judge. Wiped out by a caption. Then, trimmed out of existance, on the left of the panel is one of the cast of a Pixar film (see if you can spot ‘em). Alf, some Jawas, Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent, David Bailie (not the photographer, the writer/comics guy), a couple of punks with ‘No Future’ written on their back (Gordon assures me this has some meaning to someone) – as if to usurp that, though, I gave them some pets – figuring they’re not all down on the future if they have pets. Next up, a little robot on a ball mount – which may or may not be ro-jaws. If Pat Mills is reading – it’s NOT ro-jaws.

BTW, Dredd is on post number ‘13′. Unlucky for some.

Leon Lutz, is modelled (very loosely) on David. Though, to be fair, as described by Gordon – he would have still looked like this whether I’d ever met David. But it was kinda fun to picture someone I know in that role. Acting out the part. Panel 3 – may or may not have one of the cast of In the Night Garden in the background. Depending on the BBC’s legal department.

Not a great deal to say about the rest of the page – except, I thought it’d be really funny to pair Leon up with a gorgeous blonde. She would’ve been more gorgeous but my drawing tends to the more ugly end of the spectrum (ideally, Dylan Teague would have drawn just her…)

Anyhue, page 2 when I get it. (Nice colouring though, eh?)

UPDATE: I’ve just bunged panel 1 into a desktop background – feel free to resize it to fit your screen.

UPDATE: GORDON says:

“a couple of punks with ‘No Future’ written on their back (Gordon assures me this has some meaning to someone)”
What on earth are you talking about, you strange little man?  There was nothing in the script at all about them.

I say: It may have happened during one of those phone conversations that you always deny, when I give you some great idea for Dredd that, you swat away as nonsense, which then, mysteriously, turns up in your notebooks several months later with a cry of ‘This is GREAT!’ (you always suggested Alf, during a similair call…)

Two things I’ve been sitting on (and working on) The first:

Interagents by Dwight L. McPherson. A short (six page) strip about super hero intrigue set during WWII here’s a couple of pages:

(The art style starts morphing around page 2 – I went from using a brush to using a Pilot V5 tech Point – a simple pen that I’d normally use to pencil, this was partially down to my losing a little confidence with a brush and finding myself with a couple of hours to kill and no inking tools but the pen. Since the pen was the first tool I ever drew a comic with – in 1988 – I was fairly comfortable with it.)

The second thing is a new iPhone comic, called Captain Kan. It’s a kids educational comic all about diet. Here’s the first few pages of the first episode.

I draw the iPhone comic as a single page, which I’ve set up to slice up into quarters and each panel becomes a full screen on the iPhone.

Hey, today should see the first part of “It Came From Bea Arthur Block” the three part Dredd tale written by Gordon Rennie and drawn by me, to celebrate I’m running a silly little competition. See that wig? use it in a comedy manner and make me laugh. The louder I laugh the more likely you are to win (you can make multiple entries).

Competition closes three weeks from today. And the decision will be announced here, at the eclectic micks website, the 2000AD message board and my twitter feed.

Ok, this whole ‘comic career’ thing isn’t easy. At least not with two kids. I’m still trying to find a pattern for working that lets me get as much work as I need/want to do – somedays, I don’t get the opportunity to do any drawing until past 9pm, and, even then, I’m too bloody knackered to do anything other than fire up the internet and just veg out to whatever boing boing or slashdot or whoever is displaying.

Oddly, I was getting more done when I was at college, working part time and had one kid.

Anyhue, enough whining; next week sees the first part of the three part ‘It came from Bea Arthur Block’ – written by Gordon Rennie. I’ll not spoil the plot – but it’s a very fun little story with a lot of fun gags in it, and, happily, part 3 also features my first 2000AD cover (pencils, inks and colours by me) – which, harks back to the old days of 2000AD (and see if you can guess which cover it harks back to specifically).

Anyhue, as of right now, I’ve nothing lined up with 2000AD – I need to fix that (assuming they’ll give me more work).

There we go, I’ll try and figure out a better way of using this blog – it’s kind of dying a slow death right now…

These are smaller pieces then anything I’ve done previously.

Leela and Tom Baker Dr Who. (Actually two paintings, but I’ve bunged them up as one picture).

I think I’d like to start working on smoother board – not sure where to start, do I buy that? do I make it? I’ve seen the word ‘gesso’ bandied about, does that help? It’s times like this you realise how little you know – being self taught is ok up to a point…

Out tomorrow, claw-fans. Here’s a Wolvie painting. This was done before the Doc Who, less happy with this, done from a photo – though not really like it enough. Still, if you want a print of it, seem deal as the good doc (£15 incl p+p)

Contact me (hit the link at the top of the page…)

UPDATE: (btw, if you’re keeping score, this was painted BEFORE the Dr Who – I just blogged it after wards…)

Hey gang, I think I’m getting better at this painting lark. This is, roughly, A4. Painted in Acrylic on canvas board. I’m selling A3 prints of this (there’ll be a white border around the print – and the www.pauljholden.com will NOT be on the print) which I’ll sign and do a little doodle (tardis/dalek/whatever) for £15 incl p+p (art will be rolled up and posted in a tube).

Just fire me off an email if you’d like one!