Monday 26 May 2008

GENE COLAN CHARITY AUCTION



I can count on one hand the number of artists that have inspired me. Gene Colan is one such artist.The same day I was reading through his classic black and white Tomb of Dracula, looking for inspiration, I heard that he was suffering from liver failure and urgently needs aid. His friend Cliff Meth has arranged an auction, looking for professional artists and writers to contribute artwork or signed books.


I really wished I had time to do a Dracula picture for this, but unfortunately my deadlines are ridiculous right now. Instead I've contributed the original page 1 of 2000AD's Defoe Book 2:Brethren of the Night (a nice moody zombie page)and also a Justice League Unlimited pencil page. This particular page was requested by DC Licencing to be used as a pitch for promotional comic to help kids who wet the bed(???). The project never went any further than this page featuring the characters who would have appeared in the comic.


More about Gene's situation can be found at Cliff's site HERE.


You can bid for the 2000AD Defoe page HERE.


And you can bid for the Justice League page HERE.


Even if you're not interested in these pages, there's plenty of other cool signed stuff from other pros in the business.


Thanks guys!

Monday 19 May 2008

JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED!!!






Justice League Unlimited is by far THE BEST SUPERHERO CARTOON EVER.I have all the dvd boxsets, and the statues have pride of place in my studio.


A couple of years ago, lovely hippy editor Michael Wright gave me a shot at pencilling the JLU. After I wet myself, I accepted this great honour and proceeded to draw the issue wearing my Superman underpants.


Here's some of my pencilled pages. The colour image is a cover I sumitted, but unfortunately was rejected as they already had a regular cover artist...
And yes, that is a man being held hostage with a STAPLER....

My little sister...


Right, here's a pic I did for my sis, Jade.


We're in direct competition for the affections of our parents--me with my doodles, her with a guitar. She's a very talented musician who's supported the likes of Bryan Adams (!), Westlife, The Sugarbabes, Katie Melua, Hanson, and most recently, The Bee Gees (but don't hold that last one against her...)


You can find her Myspace page HERE, so check out her very cool songs and decide for yourself who's the more talented sibling!


BIONICLE!






Ok....so now we come to my other job, drawing the LEGO BIONICLE comic for DC.


This gig came along as a pleasant suprise this year. Though between you and me, I was a bit hesistant to take it on as I thought I had more than enough on my plate drawing Defoe. What changed my mind was that it's four 17 page issues per year, meaning that I could JUST squeeze it in, though at the expense of sleep, and also at the expense of room to move in my studio as LEGO send me every BIONICLE toy for reference! Seriously, I have NO IDEA where my life sized Iron Man bust is going to go when it arrives....


I've been told it has around a MILLION copy print run, but unfortunately it's only available to foreign members of the LEGO Club.....however, you lucky girls can view it for FREE in a fancy Flash animated format HERE! (My run starts from number 7.)


By the way, drawing BIONICLE is the furthest thing away you could get from DEFOE. It's also coloured beautifully by a chap named Ulises Arreola.


Here's some black and white pages from my first issue anyway.

Saturday 17 May 2008

DEFOE:Brethren of the Night...


As I mentioned earlier, Defoe Book 2, Brethren of the Night, is starting in Prog 1589 of the weekly 2000AD. It's 10 episodes of crunchy zombie goodness! Also a big moment for me as it's my first ever 2000AD cover!

More Defoe!






Bloody hell, if I'd known how easy this bloggy business was, I'd have done it AGES ago!

Here's some more images from Defoe's first book...

Hellooooo...






Hey there! Cheers for visiting my little blog here--don't forget to wipe your feet.


I'll try and update this with bits and pieces whenever I can, but for now I'm just gonna throw a pile of my favourite pieces of work on here as an introduction.


The first of my 2 current gigs is drawing DEFOE for the fantastic British comic, 2000AD. It was created by the legendary writer, Pat Mills and myself, so whether that makes me the "mummy" or the "daddy", I don't know...


DEFOE tells the tale of a 17th century zombie hunter, Titus Defoe, set not long after the Great Fire of London. I LOVE drawing this book. The main reason being that I'm a huge fan of early black and white horror strips, like The Thirteenth Floor, and Tomb of Dracula, and Defoe takes me right back to those times.


DEFOE Book 2, Brethren of the Night is coming back to 2000AD prog 1589 in a couple of weeks. You can see the cover to this following these images from Book 1. Hope you like them!