Month: February 2024

Couple of pages from the new DC story from the Grifter Got Run Over by a Reindeer Christmas special (it’s a 10 page strip in the special).

So you can have a look if you keep it to yourself 🙂

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!

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)

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? 

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…

So I’m drawing a short for DC about Dr Pyscho – originally a wonderwoman villain but now a supporting character in the Harley Quinn animated series.

Here’s a page of it! Coming shortly…! (please don’t share as I’ll probably get in to enormous trouble…)

Yo Yo and kid Yo Yo are a superhero team I invented when I was about 12 years old. A Father and son team of crimefighters who fight evil with Yo Yos!

Anyway I talked about them in a podcast I did a few years ago and ended up writing a four page short story about them (written with Scott Ferguson one of the people I podcast with)

It appeared in a irish language comic (and the original story was one I cooked up for use with Nanas and Custard, a crimefighting hero and his pet monkey who faught crime in the pages of the magazine Toxic (not the original comic from the 90s, the kids magazine from the 2000s)

One the podcast, I did a quiz called “Hero or Made Up When I was 12” – Yo Yo and kid Yo Yo, obviously I made up at age 12, but also the Red Bee – a superhero who kept a a bee (called Kevin) in his belt buckle. This is a real superhero, one that is now in public domain.

Anyway, I came up with an idea that would throw Yo Yo and kid Yo Yo together with The Red Bee – and here’s all of the script I have of it. 

Yo-yo and kid yo-yo in Killer Queen

Page 1

Giant Killer bees on the loose the human sized queen bee has demanded that central city give her 10 billion gallons of honey (or “liquid gold”) yo and kid yo-yo will go under cover…

Page 2

They’re under cover. Queen bee reveals that if the city doesn’t deliver then she will shrink the whole city to bee size. The queen leaves with her drone army commanding the three of them to move the massive ray in position. Yo yo and kid yo yo are surprised, they turn and see the red bee who is also undercover.

(Yo yo, kid yo yo and the red bee had thought they’d blended in perfectly…)

They’re surprised at each other.

Page 3

The Red Bee reveals he’s been undercover this whole time and yo yo and kid yo yo are here they can help, his plan is to use Kevin his trained bee to tell all the other bees that the queen is cray cray. Yo yo scoffs at this plan, his plan is to use the yo yo to knock out every single bee one at a time.

Kid yo yo looks at the shrink ray and says “i have a plan”

Page 4

Queen bee angry with the city, activates the shrink ray. The red bee, Kevin, yo yo and kid yo yo leap out of the way. It doesn’t appear to work.

Page 5

The queen bee sees in the city, a vast lake of honey! The city has acquiesced to her demands, she flies down, dives into the honey then yo yo puts a cup over her, she’s been shrunk, they’d reversed the polarity of the shrink ray and had shrunk her and army of bees… the end.

I wrote this in 2018 – I suspect I was going through a bit of “I should write” phase. It’s nothing but a plot synopsis, and to be honest I’d forgotten so much about it that the end made me laugh. So I thought I’d pop it up here since it’ll never ever see the light of day otherwise. BTW: I’ve never read a Gwenpool story in my life, I have no idea why Toronto (except i think I once did a deadpool sample that was set in toronto).

Also, this might work for another character, but I’d have to come up with a Lobo like/superhero that’s a bit daft.

26 March 2018

Gwenpool goes to a restaurant in Toronto, downstairs she starts shooting all round here, then slowly it’s revealed that this is an annual event for her, as one by one the patrons die but are replaced by newer/scarier versions of themselves – weird blob like aliens in humanoid form. “I do this every year, if I don’t the little buggers would just take the place over!”. Eventually everything is calmed down, everyone seemingly dead “Oh, they’re not dead. As a matter of fact, they’re a single organism, that splits up, but doing this every year just keeps it at a manageable level. Plus, it’s fun, y’know?”

A Sudden shunt of wind, Gwenpool forced out a hall and a door.

Then through the gap in the door, a gooey alien blob like thing comes out and starts hammering the doorway shut. Gwenpool’s eye’s widen as the alien creature withdraws, and an arm slivers through the gap and draws letters over the doorway “Please leave us alone – we’re just trying to run a nice restaurant”.

Gwenpool “I mean, I assume they’d take over the world. To be honest, I’ve never really asked them”.

I had an odd thought yesterday, lying in bed, and it was this: 10 x 4 page comic strips are 40 pages, or, better, a 20 page comic is only 5 four page strips.

And I like the four page strip format. I realise it’s not to everyone’s taste, but I just love the short story format, you can get in and get out and say something quickly. Doesn’t have to be big doesn’t have to be clever, at four pages it simply has to entertain.

So I’ve written a four pager, and I’ve a couple of ideas of four pagers, and I’ve thought up another – and between it all, I think I probably have at least enough for 20 pages of comics.

So as it stands, it’ll look like this:

ALONE (the one pager about an Astronaut stranded on the moon, expanded into four pages)

The Small Print (silly twisty forthy horror)

Welcome To Earth (working title, The Galactic Federation decides to welcome planet earth in to it’s council – a comedy scifi)

And two more strips I’ve yet to come up with – though given the format just requires a silly idea I can turn into four pages, and I sort of know how to do that – I think it’ll be fine.

Scripting four pages is doable, I’ve done it before. Scripting five x four pagers should be possible. 

Of course, I’ve got to find the time to draw them, then face the harsh realities of making something like that work on kickstarter.

Ideally, I’d raise enough to pay for the books and pay me a page rate of around – let’s say £200 per page (why £200? that’s roughly what commissioning that work would cost) 

That, of course, would be lovely, but it would mean finding £4,000 (assuming I don’t pay myself for the cover) PLUS the cost of printing and distribution. Let’s say that costs £500 for 1000 copies (so per copy is about £1) getting 4500 out of kickstarter … well, it’s not impossible, but it’d be very hard.

Horrible, unrealistic back of the envelope maths suggest £5 per copy is ok to ask for – putting £4 into your pocket after print costs, but to get £4k you’d need to sell 1000 – or your entire print run! yikes (and that’s not even taking into account kickstarter fees and postage which will drain that total more)

So lets say you decide to pay yourself half your page rate – £100 – not great, but that’s doable if I’m doing other things and this is just a fun hobby – then I can make it back selling (obviously) half the print run – 500.

So you really need to figure out ways to get people to pay MORE than a fiver – even selling the original art – let’s say you sell 10 pages at £100 each – £1k, that brings you close. But that’s a lot of pages to sell. Maybe selling sketches (but that becomes additional work) at £50 per sketch with an issue – limit that to 20 – you could raise £1k that way, now you’re up to £2k while only selling 30 comics. Which leaves you 970 to sell, assuming you sell the ENTIRE run (again that’s unlikely, if not impossible) you’ll make £3,880. So a total of £5,880. Actually pretty good amount of money.

But, having looked at Kickstarter and knowing my audience, I suspect the best I’ll be able to do is sell 100-200 copies. From that, maybe I’d sell 10 pages (assuming I HAVE 10 pages to sell, and they’re not all digital) and maybe I’d sell 20 sketches. But even then it’d leave (generously) 170 people – at £4 profit each a total = £680 – or, taking the page sales and sketch sales in to account £2680 – I’d’ve covered the print cost (and left myself around 800 copies in stock) and … uhm… you know, I would probably be content with that.

Ok, I’ve talked myself up and down. I need more research, and to get precise figures. A LOT is gonna depend on whether I could upsell to original art (which – again – may not exist!) and sketches.

But it sure would be nice to have a way top just write and draw comics and know they’d find an audience, that will pay for the work to be done…

Look, I hsouldn’t do this. This is script that hasn’t been edited (and the last script I did write it was so heavily redrafted there was barely anything left from first to last draft) on the other hand I’m at my brother’s house and I can’t do any inking up here and I fancied pencilling the first page, so here it is.

My plan, on Monday is to see if I can get some notes, do another draft (largely around dialogue though unless someone suggests an idea so brilliant that I’d be an idiot not to include it) and then maybe pitch it to some anthology title somewhere – if not 2000ad. I can’t really submit it to 2000ad until I’ve finished the work I’m currently doing for them. Though maybe a second draft will convince me otherwise. If it doesn’t go to 2000ad I‘ll look around for an anthology, I think my preferences are, in no particular order (though I’d have to submit it one at a time, so I’d probably look for who’s paying/whether it’ll see print/what can it do for my career):

Heavy Metal (though I’m not mad keen on their NFT stuff) but I think they’d run the art and let me colour it and I’d probably try and push the art a bit more, more ornate, more HM.

RazorBlades – James Tynion‘s horror anthology – though it’s not quite horrific enough for that (I’d probably have to push the body horror more?) 

Ahoy Comics (their “Snifter of Terror” would be a good fit…) 

Shift Comics – a new UK anthology? cool.

The 77 – a pretty successful kickstarter backed UK comic, also cool.

There’s lots of factors when you’re thinking about submitting work; I like shift and the 77 and I’ve done something for the 77 in the past, but I’m not really expanding who sees my work in these anthologies – they are primarily UK anthologies and it’s likely they’re 2000ad crossover audience is pretty big. Plus the page rate would be pretty low (at a guess – not nothing, and creator owned, and it’s only four pages so it’s not like I’ll get rich doing it) so I think this will be my fallback option (unless I don’t just hoik it up online, but I find stuff sort of disappears when you do that)

AhoyComics would be fun, I like the books they do, it feels in my wheelhouse, though a four pager isn’t going to have much impact, it expands the publishers I’ve worked for  and they can probably pay US my page rates. Not sure about ownership. 

Razorblades would be great, as far as I know it’s creator owned work, so I get to keep the copyright (a thing not true of 2000ad) and it would be good to get in the orbit of Tynion who seems to be going places. Page rate I’m not sure about, but it’s the sort of venue I’d consider not worrying about it for four pages.

And finally Heavy Metal, sort of vague ambition to be published in Heavy Metal, certainly would’ve been a brilliant thing to say in my 20s/30s, now, in my 50s, it’s a little nostaligic notion even as I realise it’s not the magazine of my youth (and nfts? eyeuch)

Anyway, this  is the sort of shit that goes through my head. Hope you like this page 1, it may end up looking nothing this by the time I find a publisher / home for it and it gets an editor inspired rewrite…