PHONOGRAM:THE SINGLES CLUB #3

Don't you hate it when people have incriminating photos of you with a goat? That's how writer Kieron (no more beard)Gillen and artist Jamie (can't grow a beard)Mckelvie got me to draw a 4 page back up story for issue 3 of PHONOGRAM: THE SINGLES CLUB, out in February!

It's a very clever, witty story for fans of the original series, as well as a great recap for new readers. It involved me using 2 different drawing styles, so I can't wait to see how it's turned out when coloured and lettered...

There's also a SECOND back up strip drawn by Lee O'Connor--God knows what they've got on that guy to make him do this...probably kidnapped his dog or something...

This very cool, imaginative cover is drawn by McKelvie himself. His interior work is even better! Though I would never say that to his face.

So preorder this series at your local comic book shop NOW!

Why are you still reading this??? Go order!!!!
L

LEEDS THOUGHT BUBBLE ROCKED!

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  Wow...what a weekend!

  
  

  Here's what I expected: that me and Niki would be sitting there eating the 10 dozen doughnuts ourselves, watching people walk by, whilst doing a few sketches every now and then, and chatting to whatever artist/writer we'd be lucky enough to sit next to...

  
  

  In reality: I never stopped sketching! 35 sketches! 30-freakin'-5!!! It was great though--the 7 hours just flew by thanks to the incredibly friendly people I met, who patiently waited in line.I took photos of nearly all the sketches I did (shown above, with a few close ups of my favourites).

  
  

  I gotta give a special shoutout to a couple of great kids I met:Dominic and George--these lovely guys actually drew ME a picture in return for their sketches!

  
  

  The most popular requests for sketches were of Hellboy, Batman and Defoe--which put a big smile on my face, so thanks for all the kind comments about mine and Pat Mill's baby.

  
  

  Unfortunately, I didn't see much of the con myself as I was so busy--next time I'll give myself more than one 20 minute break--but EVERYONE has been calling it the best convention ever! So a huge thanks to Lisa and Tamsin for organising a hell of an event.

  
  

  I gotta thank Martin Grund as well--it was all thanks to him that I got an invite in the first place!

  
  

  I was lucky enough to be sat inbetween incredible artist Staz Johnson (who has the best hair EVER), and my old friends, writers Leah Moore and John Reppion.

  
  

  Later that night, we hit the big aftershow party at a fantastic casino venue where we hung out with all our good buddies including the likes of Frazer Irving, Emma Vieceli, Jamie McKelvie and Kieron Gillen (who I've done a 4 page story for in PHONOGRAM : THE SINGLES CLUB--more on that soon!). Just a real shame we only see each other at cons. Though I could've done without an unfortunate "vest" incident, and seeing a ridiculous bum crack on display throught the bash...
  

  I even gushed to Iron Man artist, Adi Granov, about how I'm getting the lifesized Iron Man movie bust he designed...I honestly thought I'd outgrown that type of hero worship, but y'know, caught up in the moment and all that...

  
  

  So yeah, an incredible weekend all round. I can't wait till next year!

  
  

  By the way, also posted above 3 of the finished inked pieces I took along with me (afraid I ran out of time to finish the Halo and Dredd pictures.)

  
  

  L
  
  

MORE WORK IN PROGRESS...

These last two pencils are a bit sketchy as I'm clearly running out of time, and I'm inking them anyway. Bit of a bugger that I don't have time to do a Manga picture as well...ah well...

As you can see, I've had a go at a HALO game image, just for the sake of diversity in genres. No idea whatsover if I'll do it justice as I've never played it before, so if any of you do, feel free to let me know if I ruined your favourite game.

L

WORK IN PROGRESS...

Hey guys,

Just busy doing some original A3 size drawings to sell at this weekend's Leeds Thought Bubble festival found HERE.

Here's a few work-in -progress images for now.I'll be inking them up soon. Planning on doing a few more-- maybe one of HALO, and a Manga character to mix up the genres a bit...

More soon!

L

MY FINAL BIONICLE...

So my final BIONICLE comic, issue 15, is currently flying around the globe (apart from here in Britain--no idea why)!

Obviously it's pretty sad for me, but there's no need to repeat what I said that earlier post and whine like a 6 year old girl. I think I finished my run with a nice looking issue, so here's a selection of my favourite pages --for maximum enjoyment I recommend sitting back in a comfy armchair with an ice cool McDonald's strawberry milkshake and a jacket potato...

Enjoy!

L

(EDIT: As requested, I've added the splash page of Mata Nui rising to this post.)

HE'S BACK!!!

Hellooooooo.....

Well, I'm back from my California road trip refreshed, de-stressed, with absolutely no sun tan whatsover! Me and Niki did so much, that it honestly feels like we've been away for 2 months.

But the alluring scent of my drawing board (I dip it in honey) proved too much, and I've been looking forward to getting back to work (how many people can say that?), and of course I missed all you lovely people.

My only gripe is that I seem to have developed insomnia since getting back! I'm typing this at 3am when I should be in bed dreaming of Gillian Anderson!

Soooo, whilst I was away the LEGO BIONICLE poster I did before I left was shown at a special event with photos posted on the web, meaning that I'm now allowed to post my pencil and ink versions, as shown above! This particular character is a HUGE deal for BIONICLE fans, as they've been waiting literally YEARS to see what he looks like! I hope I didn't let them down.

My final issue for this series is released next month, so more posts from that soon. After that, there should be alot of DEFOE BOOK 3 previews as that's what I'll be concentrating on for the next 7 months or so. I've just had my cover idea approved, so I'll ask Tharg (my 2000AD editor) if I'm allowed to show it early...

Thanks again to everyone who left messages while I was away. If you look at your original comments you should see that I've replied to them.

Catch you soon,

L

APOLOGIES GUYS...

Yeah, sorry guys if anyone's left any messages for me and I've not replied. I'm currently on a road trip around California with limited net access, so I promise to get back to everyone shortly!

I've been horsey riding along DEATH DEFYING cliffs in Yosemite, WRESTLING scorpions and coyotes in Death Valley, and entertaining the studio audience of the sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" with my own personal rendition of Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me"....

In the meantime, thanks to everyone who's left me a cool message on this blog! Play nice amongst yourself until I return!

Take care for now!

L

LATEST LEGO BIONICLE COMIC ONLINE!

Yup, your eyes do not decieve you--not a hoax, not a mirage...my penultimate issue of BIONICLE can be viewed free online, semi animated HERE !( listed as number 9 on the site)

How good am I to you?!
L

LEEDS THOUGHT BUBBLE!

Helloooooo....

I've been kindly invited by the lovely folks of LEEDS THOUGHT BUBBLE festival to attend the show on Saturday 15th November, and I can't wait!

I'll have a table set up where I'll be doing free sketches for people, as well as selling various bit and pieces like finished drawings of popular characters and maybe limited edition A3 prints of some of my colour work.

But get this....with every free sketch or purchase, I shall be giving away a Krispy Kreme doughnut!!!! Let's see Mark Millar beat that!

Of course, if no one approaches me, that just means more doughnuts for me, so nah,nah....

You'll be able to find me there by looking out for the 2 metre tall stand that I've just had made up (picture attached)!

All the info on the festival can be found here!

Stop by and say hi!

L

BYE, BYE BIONICLE...

Yup, you read it right folks....I guess now it's been officially announced, I can confirm that I'm leaving BIONICLE.

Believe me, this was not an easy decision for me to make. I was planning on drawing BIONICLE throughout 2009 and hopefully beyond, but sudden schedule changes to accommodate an extra issue to next year's run left me unfortunately unable to commit, without seriously impacting on my other professional, and personal commitments.

It was one of those rare moments in life where you have to decide what's really more important to you. Hopefully this decision won't come back to bite me in the ass, but right now, it feels like I made the right choice--though that doesn't mean I don't feel sad about it.

But hey! I'm very happy with the work that I did throughout my run, and my final issue is still to be released in November! And what a great final issue it is (I've attached a teaser panel)! It'll be a very natural end to my time drawing BIONICLE, leaving a clean slate for the next artist to take over (I know who it is, and he's gonna ROCK!).

Bionicle fans should also know that I recently finished a poster that I think will be included in a future Brickmaster magazine.

So thank you so much to the entire LEGO/DC team, and of course all the lovely BIONICLE fans for making me feel welcome. 2008 has been an incredible year for me!

Take care for now.

L

BIONICLE "ENDGAME"

Hellooooo.....well it's that time again...

Right now lots of Lego fans around the universe are recieving issue 14 of BIONICLE, so I'm allowed to post a few scans of my line work, though I've also attached a scan of the cover, wonderfully coloured by Ulises.

This issue introduces the REALLY COOL vehicles piloted by the Bionicles. Seriously, the kids are gonna love playing with these toys--though they're lucky they don't have to draw them! Have you SEEN how frikkin' detailed they are???!!! GAH!!!!!

Take care for now,
L

BZPOWER Interview

I recently got interviewed by a nice chappy called Greg on behalf on the premier BIONICLE fan site, BZPOWER.

We could have discussed poetry, economics, science and religion, but in the end we just stuck to talking about comics and toys...

Click HERE to read my insane ramblings! (Once there, you need to click the highlighted bulk of text)

Next: My interview with PLAYGIRL Magazine.....

Life of a freelancer...

Well so much for taking a month off to recover....unexpected work commitments forced me to cut it down by 2 weeks, so apologies for those waiting for the "studio tour"--I'll get to it as soon as I can. My room is once again covered in Bionicles, cake wrappers and underwear--and you don't wanna see that (though if you do, maybe you should try one of those specialist sites that charge you £20 a month...).

So for now, here's more random Defoe pages. Defoe Book 2 has recently concluded in 2000AD, and seems to have gone down well with readers. I've already got Pat Mill's script for Book 3 and it's fantastic! There's so much happening in the first episode and the pacing is sooo good, I can't wait to get into it!

Also on my list this year is an album cover and a 4 page backup story for these lovely guys.

See ya,

L

Bionicle comic online!

My next Bionicle comic is now on the official Lego Bionicle site for free viewing, and semi animated, you lucky lucky girls! It's listed as number 8 on the site.
You can find it here.

And a few more Defoe...

These DEFOE pages have been out in 2000AD for a while now, so I guess I can post them.

Hopefully these won't be too scary for the Bionicle fans that have been finding their way here.

The final page with Bendigo turning into a zombie is one of my favourites...

I'm back!

Well the craziness of my schedules is over, and I'm taking some downtime for a couple weeks to rejoin the human race, get a hair cut, eat some pasties, and chill out with my incredibly understanding girlfriend.

Here's some uncoloured pages from issue 13 of BIONICLE that's currently being mailed out to a milllion fanclub members around the world...

In the next couple of weeks, I'm hoping to do a bit of a "Studio Tour" so you can see how a freelance comic artist lives. OBVIOUSLY I'm gonna have to take a couple of days to tidy up, so you don't see the reality of half eaten bowls of porridge, 15 Bionicle toys in bits on the floor, and assorted cake wrappers around the base of my bin that I really should have emptied days earlier...but you'll get the general idea...

Zombie Leigh...

Christ...I really do feel like one right now. My life has been...crazy...for the last couple of months, and will be like this for another 2 weeks. Not really something I want to go through again, and when I'm done with these deadlines, I'm taking a month off to recover and rejoin the human race.

In the meantime, here's a few random pages from the first few episodes of Defoe that have already come out.

Catch you in a couple weeks.

L