Month: July 2022

Holibobs comics day 7 “The Tall Story”

This was a silly little idea that I had simply from the notion of a hard boiled detective describing some really long legs (you know the sort “she was the kind of dame whose legs had their own zip code” sort of nonsense) believe it nor, page 2, the punchline, didn’t occur until I was describing the story to my son, Thomas (even at age 14 a prolific maker of comics) and then I realised that oh my god, I could make that joke – it was all there! And he literally said “oh my god dad, you can’t do that joke  that’s terrible” (but he was laughing and aghast, the perfect reaction). My describing it as “and that’s how the dream ended” is a bit of a fib, it wasn’t a dream, obviously, just a silly idea – but that sort of justified all of it.

I definitely enjoy cartooning and feel liberated to do so when I’m the central character, almost like it’s a license to be silly – or at least be less precious. Once I’m writing another character I tend to clamp up and over think, but when it’s me its] just flows out (even when it’s super ridiculous).

over The course of the week doing these has been pretty valuable, I think, I went from “i dunno if I can write something bup it doesn’t matter if it’s a bit crap looking” to “actually I think I could write any stupid story I can think of and draw it quickly as a comic and it’ll look decent”. Certainly it’s not something I’d expect to send to 2000ad, but actually if it turned up in the right venue I’d not be offended by it (Laurence Campbell has suggested some of them wouldn’t have looked out of place in deadline)

I know I’m gonna lose momentum though, holidays coming to a close (three days at home) and then Iol be on holiday again in Paris, but I won’t have any opportunity to work then, though I might still bring my sketch pad and some pens in the off chance.

anyway, hope you liked them!

Decided to pare back and try and just enjoy doing something silly again. I don’t think it’s terribly clear in this strip that I’ve been drawing all of the comics in a large A4 sketchbook, so there’s always a sketchy quality to them (I don’t even have a ruler with me, for goodness sake!) and I dunno if it’s obvious that that the big joke here is I’ve shifted perfection away from quality and on to quantity, which is just as unhealthy really. 

Still they’ve been fun to do, and this is the first one that I’ve really liked how I’ve lettered it…

Last day of holidays tomorrow, I have an idea for a strip, it’s a bit silly, and hopefully I’ll have time to do it. But even so, six pages of free comics so far. That’s not bad!

Holiday Comics Day 4

Yes, I’m as surprised as anyone I did more.

So, this comic clearly follows yesterdays, I was thinking “what would I do if someone did come back in time and shout “Buy Apple Shares!” at me, and the reality is… not much really.

Time travel element aside, this is entirely autobiographical – in 2006 I did legitimately think “I should buy apple stock” and then … didn’t. I literally had no idea how to proceed. This unnerring sense of not buying stuff that will go up in value has also stopped me buying shares in Google when it did its IPO (I was using google from university around 95?/96? so had come to really much prefer it over things like Yahoo, and thought “Well, everyone will eventually use google…” oh how little I could know) I did not buy shares in google either.

Somehow, I think I got distracted while writing it “Buy apple shares” became “Buy apple stock” and I’m two minds – do I go back and add in panel three “I should say “BUY APPLE STOCK” – which introduces the idea that I DID go back in time and I’ve got another chance and I think changing the word to “STOCK” will work where “SHARES” didn’t – or do I just replace any errant use of the word “SHARES” with “STOCK” – not sure, a decision for the inevitable non-collection!

Anyway, hope you’re enjoying these. I’m getting a little too caught up in how to make them look good instead of just goofing around. My son (Thomas, now 14 and maker of his own comics) quite likes ’em, and said they remind him of some art I have on the wall – that art, dear reader, is from my first published work – Holy Cross, published by Fantagraphics, that was drawn in a not disimilair style, which makes me wonder have I been lying to myself about how I draw all these decades? 

Holiday Comics Day 5

Script, written in notepad , looked like this:

Panel 1: soldier hacking through jungle

Caption alone

Panel 2: close up of arm. Bubbles around a festering bite mark.

Caption I think I’ve been bitten.

Panel 3: standing in jungle. Being him statues of ancient Burmese gods.

Caption totally alone.

Panel 4 his face as he looks up skyward. Night.

Caption you can see the star s from here.

Panel 5 amazing sit from the web space telescope.

Caption it’s glorious.

-ENDS-

I wrote this at 5am, It’s only notable because I don’t normally script them at all. Mulling over a few things I wanted to do, one was do something with all the Chindit stuff still floating around my head – I learnt how to draw those bloody hats, so I’m doing more of it, dammit.

Wanted to draw abandoned Burmese statues in the jungle (something I didn’t draw for Lion and the Eagle) and I wanted something to marry that up with all the space Web telescope doing the rounds and … well, that was it.

Sometimes you do these things and you edit and rewrite as it goes, and somehow there’s a few ways to interpret some it and so you end up trying to ease up on some and lean harder on others. As drawn panel 3 caption said “But civilisation is out there” and that could lead you to conclude that the chindit didn’t consider whatever he found in the jungle as civilisation (it wasn’t my intent, but certainly I could see how that could be read as that). “I think I’ve been bitten” felt tonally wrong, but I dunno, it could all do with a rewrite. Somehow the little me talking to camera strips are a lot easier to write the dialogue for as they are me writing letters to myself, more than anything.

Anyway, a slight depature and somehow a companion piece to this other story (which I eventually retitled ALONE)

(Holibobs was a word my mum used a lot for holidays, I’d entirely forgotten about it until there now)

So I’m on hols, one week in Rathmullan – this is our regular escape from it all. We book a little holiday house and the kids get their own room, we get a dish washer and a tumble dryer and day trips with me, typically, squeezing work in between it all.

Here’s the first three, with some notes!

Day 1 – an actual conversation I had with my wife, in the car. When she told me we’d be in france for a week I felt sick. Three days in Disney land, three days in Paris. Then I thought – jesus what’s wrong with me. The truth is I love drawing comics, but I’ve spent most of during covid trying to squeeze as much work in as I can. And I’m not sure how to reset that.

Ok, the little one page comic is also work, but it feels like a different thing. An act of defiance. I had fun doing it. I could only lay my hand on one pen and I thought, let’s just use that.

Day 2

It’s early to start getting into toilet stuff, but here we are, eh. Again, another actual thing that happened – I should’ve gone to the loo when I left, and I found walking on dry sand (collapsing, as it did under my feet) was destablising to my tummy and it was a source of constant danger (next time, I bring immodium). We went out of pizza after this (gluten free for me, because cramps and loo visits are the GOOD options …) and it was pretty much the same thing. Basically if I eat, I need the loo 15 minutes later. Regular as clockwork.

Day 3

A prompt from twitter “If you could travel back in time and only tell yourself three words what would they be…” – my initial thought was “Remember don’t ever…” and just leave it hanging there. Saw quite a lot of the “Buy Apple Stock!” messages but surely that would depend on when you see your younger self and how much your younger self is aware of what apple is. (This has sparked a follow up comic, but you’ll see that tomorrow)

Anyway, this has been a fun exercise. I might even keep it up. Day 3 was a pain for the art though, days 1 and 2 I had no really good tools so used the big thick pen I had, day 3 I found a smaller pen and decided to up the quality but that leads to more thinking and more work that needs rescued, so a stupid idea. Stick with simple.

They’re all drawn in an A4 SAKURA sketchbook, pencilled in HB .5 inked with a Winsor and Newton pigment pen 1.0 (except day 3 which was inked with a 0.5) photographed on my phone using a scan app “Scanner Pro” which ups the contrast, and straightens the image up (even if the camera is at a funny angle). Then pumped over to Procreate on the iPad pro where I use the levels to clean it up and export as a decent sized PNG. 

I suspect I’ll keep it up for the hols at least, even if I am now super tempted to keep going and then collect 30 days worth in a small press comic… that’d be stupid though…