Timeframes

Last Sunday I spent the day in Dundee at the third annual comics conference, Timeframes. I had been to the venue, Dundee University, before to see the Beano's 70th Birthday Exhibition but this was my first attendance at the conference.

To be very honest I was convinced to go along based purely on the opening of a new exhibition based on the art of Starblazer, a popular science fiction digest comic from the 1980s. However, I did enjoy a large portion of the talks that took part in the lecture hall including an excitable Emma Vieceli, fellow Scotch Corner contributor Gary Erskine's talk on his work on the latest Dan Dare series and the always amusing Alan Grant.

Also of note was a great talk by Bill McLoughin, editor of Starblazer and Keith Robson, artist on the title. The schedule of the day meant that each guest only had around 20 minutes to talk and I almost boo'd annoyingly when they had to finish their talk. It could easily have been an excellent hour long talk as they both seemed to have some great stories to tell.

Jeremy Briggs has posted a review of the event on the Down The Tubes website and sums up the day very well. While I was there I had taken along my moleskin sketch book and did little ten minute drawings of some of the guests, all very quick and scrappy but fun to do. So a special prize (a congratulations head pat) to anybody who can correctly name any of the scribbled guests. And apologies to those who I jotted down, you look a lot lovelier in real life.

Scotch Corner

Back in February a new daily 'sketchblog' started up called 'Eclectic Micks' and featured the awesome talents of seven Irish comic book artists. The plan being that each day an allotted artist would post a new sketch, and man have they posted some great sketches. If you haven't checked out their site I advise you to do so as it has become part of my daily routine to drop by and see what they've drummed up.

Always one to spot a good idea and shamelessly steal it myself and five other Scottish artists have decided to do the same thing, and so Scotch Corner has come into being and launches at the start of July. The main difference between or blog and the Irish lads site is that we are not all illustrators from the comic industry and so Scotch Corner will be a daily 'artblog' where we'll post up just about anything we feel like posting. Myself I plan to show some finished pieces but also some sketches and if I can teach myself how to again some traditional painting. It's going to be a lot fun and I'm looking forward to seeing what everybody produces and catch some good art vibes.

Now there is also one other major differences between the blogs, and its that anybody else in the land of internet can contribute to Scotch Corner. Every Sunday the blog is open to a guest contributor and if you want to take part then you are free to do so and more than welcome. Just drop by the site and check out how to take part.

Journey into the radio listings!

I've had a busy couple of weeks and sadly had no time to continue my (almost) weekly sketches during that time. Still you should never complain about being busy and I don't intend to start. One of the things that kept me occupied for a bit was drawing another listings illustration for the Radio Times, which you can see in the issue released this week. Its to accompany the Saturday Play on the 27th June, Radio 4 called 'Journey Into Space - The Host'. Here's a tiny bit of the blurb about the play:

Jet Morgan and his crew, Lemmy, Mitch and Doc, are woken from cryo-sleep in their ship, the Ares, by a distress call from an abandoned freighter.

When Jet and Doc go on board the abandoned ship, they find no organic life forms but, instead, discover the personality of JJ Andreev – a previous associate of Jet's who was reported dead – locked inside the dying ship's computer system. But JJ's digitised personality hijacks the Ares, taking the crew to the Enceladus – a research orbital where newly-discovered alien bacteria are being kept.

Edie, the only one of the crew on the Enceladus not in cryo-sleep, is wary of the new arrivals but it soon becomes clear that they will need all the help they can get to stand any chance of saving their own lives.

Crikey! As usual I'll post up the image for you to see once the RT is finished with it, in the meantime you get a little glimpse of some sleeping cryo-sleepers.

Judge Death Sketch

Three 2000AD character sketches in a row (people will start to talk) but its difficult to draw Cassandra Anderson and not follow it up with Judge Death. And he's a lot of fun to draw and very popular to boot so an easy choice. I know his hands cut through bodies with ease but I couldn't help but chuckle to myself when I drew the poor fellows eyeballs on the end of Death's digits :)

What I like about the Judge Death character is the continually growing background to the character. The 'Young Death: Boyhood of a Superfiend' storyline with art by Peter Doherty was a fantastic series at the start of new Judge Dredd Megazine back in 1990. I must admit to not taking to the sibling 'Sisters of Death' in the Necropolis storyline but I did enjoy the decline of the replacement Judge Dredd clone, Kraken, but then I'm getting off topic slightly. One of my favourite adventures was the incredible 'team up' drawn by Trevor Hairsine which had Death, Dredd and Mean machine working together!?!?!! Hmmm... Mean Machine, I wonder if I'll be drawing another 2000AD character next?

The Rainbow Orchid

Most people wouldn't be surprised to know that I own or buy Tintin and Asterix books and that I also collect the lesser publicly known books like Lucky Luke and Blake & Mortimer. However, you'd probably be surprised to know that I tend to try and collect two versions of these books. One will be read and stored on one of my many shelves in the studio for easy reach and the other (usually but not always an older, second hand edition) is stored safely away awaiting the next generation of Reid children to reach just that right moment to be mesmerized and devour them eagerly and most likely destroy them with wear and tear. And so the obvious reason for buying two copies.

And now at the start of August I'll be buying two copies of a new series by Garen Ewing called 'The Rainbow Orchid'. This series will be three volumes long and published by Egmont and is very much one of the champions of the British Small Press scene. The Rainbow Orchid has been around for a while and I already own two versions of the first volume, the original A4 hand published version and a delicious hardback edition that Garen created last year for devoted fans. This new edition from Egmont has updated art and lettering (a typeface created by Garen too) and I'm eager in a totally nerdy way to compare the various versions side by side to spot the differences.

It's a big thrill for me to see this gem come to a wonderful fruition and the wait to see further volumes of the story has been long but I'm sure worthwhile. Garen is a talented artist and designer and like myself has worked as such for many a year. I was excited to see his work was to appear in the now sadly cancelled weekly comic The DFC and so having been deprived of this the arrival of the full Rainbow Orchid story over the next two years is welcome replacement.

I urge you to support this new album of comic work by pre-ordering the first volume on Amazon for the meager price of £4.19, you can see many samples of the work on the links posted in this post. For myself I will be buying two versions, one pre-ordered on Amazon but the other I want the enjoyment of going into a bookstore and picking up the album from the shelf.

Judge Anderson

Cassandra Anderson first appeared in the Judge Dredd story 'Judge Death' and within eight pages was encased in resin spray called Boing sealing herself and the fiendish Judge Death together for eternity (well, sort of). Anderson was released from her self made prison when the editorial powers that be wanted to start a new comic based on Dredd and spotted a good character in Anderson. The comic never happened (well, sort of) but the material wasn't to be wasted and she came back to 2000AD with art by Brett Ewins.

I know that Cassandra was originally drawn by the magnificent Brian Bolland but I think it was Brett's work on the character that first defined her and is definitely my favourite. You can't beat that great 1980's super flick she sports and he draws a great curve on the female body. Brett's art has been sadly missing from the pages of 2AD for a long time but Cass has had some great artists work on her including Arthur Ranson, the body building paint version by Kev Walker and recently the insanely Mega City detailed work of Dave Taylor.

This sketch took me about two hours to draw and to be honest I'm not entirely happy with the results, if I was to go on to do a finished drawing I'd want to re-work it some what. But as always this is really done as a fun practice and of course as a pre-prepared sketch for Hi-Ex 3 next year.

The Dangerous Book of Heroes released!

And so today is the publishing day of the book and you'll be able to go into your book store of choice and have a good look through before being convinced (if you where not already) to buy it, or at least go home and order it cheaper online.

The book itself is a weighty tome and I can see it being a favoured choice of a Father's Day present come the 21st June (in the UK). Like all projects that take up so much of your time, in this case half a year, it's a strange feeling to hold a copy in my hands. I finished working on the book two months ago so I can look through it with almost a clear view and I'm pleased to say that even to my own critical eye (artists are always harsh about their own work) I'm happy with the look and pacing of the work. But now of course its down to the public to decide if they like it and I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes.

This was my first fully illustrated book as an artist and I'm hoping it'll be the first of many, it was an enjoyable project and one that I hope other people will enjoy and appreciate.