PJ Holden's Blog

That’s the preview you can read everywhere online, and now, here’s my layouts (exclusivly to you guys!)

So you can see what magic McCrea has wrought over my layouts!

Well, I’ve done as much of Soul Plumber issue 4 as I might need to do – John’s got three pages to ink and about 9 days to do it in, so hoping covid stays at bay and he can get those done, leaving me to pour myself into doing some WWII stuff

By my count today, that means I’ve drawn 13 pages of Soul Plumber (plus a further 7 pages of pencils for it) and 12 completed pages of Time Before Time, so 25 pages in 21 days. Good lord. Anyway, I need another 10 to get back on schedule…!

Finished this earlier than I expected, but my issue of Time Before Time is now Done.

This is probably my best/favourite page. Tried to lean hard into scifi/heavy noir, so we’ll see how that looks in colour. Sometimes what I have in my head is a disappointment when I get it drawn, this page I think worked.

Or at least, release the books!

Two big announcements, one totally expeted: Lion and the Eagle Announced. Here’s some preview pages

AND THEN… Yesterday DC announnced that I was drawing issue 3 of Soul Plumber (I was helping John out from issue 1 and by issue 3 I’d ended up doing all of the layouts and about half the inks, still waiting to see what’s happening on issue 4)

DC’s announcement feels vaguely like a sea change in my career – it’s very front and centre, the headline THE TERROR CONTINUES WITH SOUL PLUMBER #3 with the subheading: Artist PJ Holden to Draw Issue #3 of DC HORROR’S Hit Series with John McCrea.

John is ok, but suffering with long covid, making work hard to do, especially the grinding work of monthly comics. I’ll be honest, John’s pages are a load better than mine (even when I’ve done the layouts John has made those pages sing) so I’ve been placated by the fact that well, I was only helping out, but finding my name in the sub heading there feels weird.

BUT – I suppose, DC comics pushing my name out in the header of press release (on the third issue of a comic) I think is them getting ahead of “why isn’t John McCrea drawing issue 3” (so making a feature out of a bug) but also I think it suggests my profile has raised a bit.

Anyway here’s some pages from this:

Soul Plumber is absolutely bonkers. 

Wow, people liked this dracula image. So it’s gonna be the cover for my October Monster Sketchbook I’m putting together.

Been a mad month October, by my count I’ve done 18 pages pencils and inks, a further 15 pages of pencils and 19 pages of layouts/pencils (though really, they’re pretty much layouts) which means (if you add the pencils to the inks, that’s 18+15 = 33 completed pages, plus 4 layouts, plus a sketch every single day. Mental.

I’ve had to take on a fair amount of the work on Soul Plumber, while John recovers from covid, wasn’t the plan but we are were we are. I think in a few days by big War thing with Garth will be announced, I’ve STILL 60 pages of that to go – terrifying. Plus 12 pages of time before time to do this month. Mental.

Anyway. Enjoy dracula.

Like an idiot, after doing some one per day sketches this month – and one page per week in 2019, I thought, could I do a daily comic like this?

I mean, the answer is a very clear and obvious no.

But … if I COULD do a comic like this, what form would it take.

I mean, I’ve flirted with the idea – dozens of times – of doing a digest sized commando comic (because I THINK I could draw on page per day of that quite easily – and when  I say one page per day, I REALLY mean one page in an hour  – a morning sketch).

In theory I *could* draw that, but reading scripts is a bit of a pain and I wouldn’t want to work with someone for fear of cocking it up or choking and picking a thing up and doing it weekly is harder than it looks, but a daily strip…? would it be easier or harder. Probably harder… but maybe easier ? I’m not sure.

Anyway. I need to write something myself, and I’d need to draw it myself. That’s a given. So it isn’t going to happen.

Even if I did accidentally come up with an idea and plot out a story. Which, you know, I could write out as a bunch of one line bullet points, which I could use as the basis for jazz drawing a comic page per day. I mean I could do that, but won’t. (I mean, I have written out the first nine bullet points, which are the first nine pages).

I’d like to have a finished book at the end of one month, but it’s more likely, if it were to happen, that it’d be a book after two months, because around 50-60 pages feels better as a read at that size.

But I’m not doing it.

No matter how tempted.

(Oh god, I might do it)

I told Thomas(13) the plot and he very succinctly put me in my place again by saying “yes, but are you going to do it?” the last time he did that to me I ended up pitching, writing and selling a story to 2000ad.

So I dunno. I think I want to do this. Taking a week holiday this week (which means I’ll be working, but in a different location) and maybe will think about it a little more.

Shh! Tell no-one!

Work has been hectic, I’ve been keeping a proper log of my workload since August, and to be honest, I’m a little baffled I’ve done this much. Here’s October (so far)

15 pages of inks on WAR Thing.
11 Pages of Pencils and inks on an issue of Time Before Time (there’s another 13 to go, but will not do that til next month)
22 Pages of layouts (though, really pencils) for Soul Plumber 3 (which is running late)
2 Pages of inks on Soul Plumber (helping John out of a deadline hole, I may end up doing more of this this month)

Running ahead on TBT, running ahead on SP and running behind on WAR thing. So gotta spend this week catching up on war (which is a pain since I’ll be away for a week with just the ipad to work on and I’ve never successfully worked on the ipad aside from colouring stuff in Procreate).

No time to really dig in a make the art better either, you’ve just got to draw it, hope it meets a minimum standard and move on, taking all lessons you shoud’ve learned into the next thing. To be honest, I much prefer this to drawing a half a dozen pages in a month. I love being busy, and I love that they’re all radically different from each other. 

A bit of a green cover…

Here’s a recent character design for a thing.

Don’t be sharing this as it’s still secret!

So, things that have been announced and are coming:

Soul Plumber with John McCrea – I’m doing layouts for issue 3, after doing a couple of pages of pencils on issue 1, a bunch of layouts on issue 2 I’m doing ALL the layouts on issue 3. After that, who knows. Been a real pleasure to watch John take my sort of attempt at McCrea and polish them up to stunning diamonds of the most McCrea it can be. Honestly, even knowing the pages I’ve done it’s hard to spot them. OUT SOON!

(here’s an early mini review  “McCrea and Holden’s art is an Acquired Taste” is a fair point).

Roots – this is the four page terror tale I’ve written and drawn for 2000ad. Simon Bowland over on that there twitter tells me he’s just lettered it up, I’m taking that as a positive sign that it’ll see print sooner rather than later. It’s only four pages, but it’s MY four pages. Really excited to see the reaction to it, too. (Because I’m a fool whose learnt nothing from decades of working for 2000ad – the fanbase can react … harshly). I’ve nothing firm on this, but I’m actually hopeful it’ll come out this side of xmas.

Lion and the Eagle – Ok, cards on table, not been announced yet, it’s been taking up most of this year, it’s a four part 40 page per issue Garth Ennis war story about the Chindits. I think it’s some of the best work of my career. Coming from Aftershock. Not sure when – February? maybe an announcement. (That’ll be almost a year since I started the damn thing!)

And weirdly been asked to do storyboarding for THREE different tv shows this week, my hit rate for shows pitched vs shows that have been made is rubbish though, but it’s decent money for – usually – a day or two’s work. Apparently this is the norm, pitching season is beginning with the hope production can start in the summer.

Anyway, that’s what’s coming. I’m excited about Roots coming out, Soul Plumber is fun to do (even though all you’ll see of me in it is probably my name, but I’ll give you some nice before and after images here at some point) and Lion and the eagle will be a while. Making comics takes time, and weirdly for reasons unknown, they all seem to pop out at the one time.

Oh Shoot! Forgot: Monster FUN – out now, too, I think!