Ego Scan Complete

From A History Of 2000AD in Five Pages by Robin Smith (plus sampled artists)
2000AD Prog 1526 (30th Anniversary Special)
Copyright © 2007 Rebellion/2000AD

Prog 1526, marking 2000AD's 30th anniversary, somehow didn't seem quite the big production I'd expected, despite containing some lovely Ian Gibson Dredd and the welcome return of Simon Fraser to Nikolai Dante.

There was, it's true, a certain amount in there for the nostalgic; a Flesh prequel by original team Pat Mills and Ramon Sola, plus a welcome nod to 2000AD's dafter days with a Tharg strip, entitled A History of 2000AD in Five Pages. Of course, it's possible I find it so welcome because both Ian and I get a name check on the last page (under "new" talent). I can't help thinking it's ironic that a strip that celebrates the creators who made the comic great contains so may uncredited scans of said creators' art... though I suppose there's an argument that if they had tried to credit everyone, the credit box would have taken up more space than the story...

Stickleback Part 9 References

I've been dreadfully lazy the last few days, but here are the references for Stickleback: Mother London part 9. Because the action takes place in established locations and no new characters are introduced, there are only a couple of new references:

Page Four: Gog And Magog

Gog and Magog's new incarnation as extensions of the giant tree, all wound around with roots and branches is an overt reference to the mythical figure of the Green Man - in fact, the idea is prefigured as early as the first panel of part one of the series, when the face of the Green Man appears on a milestone near the great oak.





Page Five: The Oak Connecting Earth, The Twins, The City And The People

This panel was my own clumsy homage to the work of Italian comic artist Sergio Toppi, whose beautiful, design-based, symbolic panel layouts are like the work of no other artist (though he had a considerable influence on the early work of Dave McKean).





Finally, the following panel (page 2 panel 2) doesn't contain any references, but I was really pleased with it, and wanted to show it off without the lettering:

Stickleback: Mother London is copyright © 2007 Rebellion/2dd
Created by Ian Edginton & Me.

Stickleback Cover

Back from my travels to be greeted by 2000AD Prog 1525, bearing my Stickleback cover and the last part of Mother London. Despite a few minor surprises at the interior repro, I'm relieved at how well it's turned out; aside from the fact that it must be a bugger to print, that last episode was done in such a rush that I've no idea what the heck I was drawing towards the end.

They've put a nice, subtle cyanotype-type tint on the cover image (which was done black & white like the interiors). At some point, I'll have to have a go at translating this technique into colour...

I'll sort out references for the last episode in the next day or so.

Off On Me Travels... Again

From Scarlet Traces: The Great Game
Copyright © 2007 Ian Edginton & Me

I'm off visiting family until next week, and since family are on dial-up, posting may be a bit more infrequent than usual. Mind you, given how infrequent I can be, you might not notice...

Stickleback Part 8 References

Busy one, this week....


Page One - Sir William Ashbless

Yes, that's the future owner of the R.M.S. Leviathan, all right. If Len Chipps had taken that eye-symbol amulet around Ashbless' neck as well as his City Fathers membership chain, the events in Leviathan would never have happened...






Page Two - Bey's Costume & Aleister Crowley

Bey's party costume refers to Roger Corman's 1964 film Masque Of The Red Death. The guy taking his cloak on the right of the panel is meant to be a young Aleister Crowley (hence his dialogue, "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.")






Page Two - The Wicker Man

Inspired by the giant sacrificial figure from Anthony Schaffer's 1973 film The Wicker Man, the centrepiece for the City Fathers' big shindig is in fact a giant cage-dancing assembly, topped by the twin faces of Gog and Magog, much in the style of the Roman god Janus.






Page Two - The Hermaphrodite

A regular character from old pagan ceremonies - Christopher Lee's character takes the part in the final ceremony in The Wicker Man, The Victorians purged the figure of the Hermaphrodite from many surviving Pagan celebrations.






Page Three - Harlequin and Hobby-Horse
Harlequin is a mischievous trickster and precursor to Mister Punch, an obvious symbol for Stickleback himself.

The Hobby-horse is another character from pagan celebrations, and also 18th century slang for a harlot.






Page Three - The Gargoyle

Inspired by Bok the Gargoyle from the 1971 Dr. Who story, The Dæmons.








Page Three - Lyme's Mask

Inspired by Azal the Dæmon from the 1971 Dr. Who story, The Dæmons.








Page Four - The Oak

The Oak was the central symbol of the Druid faith. The image of a giant tree, however, comes from Norse mythology. Yggdrasil the World Tree connected the three worlds of Norse cosmogony, and sheltered the last men though Ragnarok, the last battle that ends the world.






Page Five - Stickleback's gang in Salvation Army uniform

Sorry, just as baffled by this as you are :-)

Addictive Behaviour

This week I ar bin mostly prey to compulsive Micro-Dalek buying. As a small child I was obsessed with Daleks, but there were never any decent toys available - the ones they did make were always the wrong proportions, the wrong colours. It always struck me as funny, because with their relatively simple shape and limited articulation, Daleks are like ambulatory toys to start with; the 1970's toy Cyberman was just a sort of dressed-up Action Man*, but a well-made toy Dalek would have been an avatar of the "real" thing. When the big remote-control ones came out, I was seriously tempted, but a combination of price and storage space put me off; on the other hand, Micro-Daleks are 2" high and a tenner a pop for something that's exactly what I wanted when I was eight.

Which is probably why I snapped like a twig and bought twelve.

Dr. F remains nonplussed by the whole business, but then, Daleks do tend to be more of a boy thing. She asked me if I play with them, to which I replied, with some dignity, "No, I just line them up, and rejoice in their multiplicity."

Which is what I'm off to do now.

Bliss.

*The new metal ones are really nice, but luckily I don't have a fetish for Cybermen, old or new.

I ar also been photographing my Daleks lots.

10,000 Visits

My latest Sitemeter report informs me that this blog has passed the 10,000 visits mark. I'm not sure how that figures in the scale of things webby, but it flabbergasts the hell out of me, so I'd like to say thanks to everyone who's visited the site and particularly to those who've left comments*.

I'm not going to play the violin and whine on about what a lonely life it is being a comic artist; in fact, I'm a natural hermit who thinks spending every day locked away in a cupboard is a perk of the job. But, with the exception of meeting people at cons and signings, there's been no real sense of what happens to the work once it leaves my hands; no idea if lots of people are reading it, or if it's just evaporated into the æther.

Since starting my website in 2000, I've received a limited amount of feedback by email, but starting the blog has given me a much better (and more immediate) sense of whether stuff is getting out there and whether anybody likes it. The encouragement I've received from your postings has really helped keep me going through the heavy deadlines of the last few months.

Equally, I hope I've been able to give you a bit of a window into the wacky world of the comic artist.

Thanks, finally, to Graeme, for occasionally dragging me out to drink coffee and blether about stuff in general, blinking all the while like a pit pony in the daylight**.


*Except for that one spambot, who can just f*ck *ff :-)
**Me, not him.

Leviathan Step-By-Step Demo

1) length of flex; 2) ratty dressing gown; 3) stick figure; 4) needs a haircut

Luka Pizzari of Italy emailed me recently about a step-by-step demo I did of my working process for Leviathan. I originally put it together to go with an interview I did for the 2000AD website in 2003, but since then I moved ISPs and anyone who bookmarked it will have lost it.

It's now posted again here, and I've also added a permanent link in the toolbar (right) to make it easier to find.

So What's Next?

One of the arts of surviving as a freelance is to make sure you've always got something new on the go. In the past, I've not always been in enough demand to manage that, but happily these days I seem to be doing quite well. Still, it's always a good idea to remember the wise words of the great Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt; "I have been poor, and now I am rich, and one day I will be poor again."

Finishing Stickleback: Mother London has left me with a much smaller pang of regret than finishing Scarlet Traces or Leviathan. This is mostly because those were situation-based, finite stories* - once they were done, they were pretty much done. Ian and I conceived Stickleback as a character-based, open-ended affair that could go to any number of series. So while I wouldn't jinx things by promising another series of Stickleback right now, let's just say it's not beyond the bounds of possibility...

So what now? Well, I've just finished a couple of little bits and pieces - colouring a cover for my old mate Shane Oakley (of Albion fame) and also a fun two-page strip for Fables #59 (see illo) - that's going to be an extra issue in March, an anthology of one and two page stories featuring contributions by lots of artists including Barry Kitson and Eric Shanower.
Working for Vertigo after a break of eight years was a real eye-opener; I'd forgotten that they're the most hands-on editors in the business, so dealing with them can feel a little like a ritual beating after the hands-off approach of Dave de Dark Horse and Tharg-in-residence Matt Smith. In absolute fairness, Shelley Bond gave detailed feedback regarding what she liked in the work, as well as what she wanted changed (something few editors would bother with). And I have to admit, the strip was better for the changes suggested, which, in the end, is the point...

Busy reading Poe

I’m also about to start on a ten-page adaptation of Murders On The Rue Morgue for an anthology of Poe stories published by an outfit called Metromedia, who specialise in updated adaptations of literary works in comics format; they'll shortly be launching some Manga versions of Shakespeare tales.
Murders On The Rue Morgue is written by Ian Edginton, with other contributions in the book by Jamie Delano, Steve Pugh, John McCrea and Shane Oakley.
Working on this project inspired me to try reading Poe's Tales Of Mystery And Imagination, an amazing volume whose stories are foundation stones for the modern genres of horror, fantasy, SF and detective fiction. It's also fascinating to see the ones that didn't make it; if stories such as Domain of Arnheim had proved more popular, the 1930's might have been awash with magazines called Weird Landscape Gardening Tales.
Written in the 1820's and 30's, the stories sometimes seem a little clumsy exactly because Poe was inventing from scratch as he went along; genre conventions that seem to be missing from some of the stories were invented by later writers who refined his ideas. Nevertheless, he stands head and shoulders above his contemporaries for both imaginative power and readability; I mean, can you see Tinky Winky, Dipsy or La-La writing anything like The Fall Of The House Of Usher?

Beyond Murders On The Rue Morgue, I have a project lined up with Steve Murphy, who wrote the Tales Of The TMNT story I drew back in 1994 (published 1995?). Called Pale Witness, it's a 30-page one-shot about a female cosmonaut. More on that once I start on it...

*Though Scarlet Traces went to a prequel and a sequel, we didn't know that at the time of finishing the first one.

Bufkin the Monkey and The Magic Mirror are from Fables by Bill Willingham & Mark Buckingham; © 2007/all rights reserved Bill Willingham/DC Comics Inc.

Stickleback Part 7 References

Still a bit zonked following the completion of Stickleback: Mother London - 19 pages in one month, 12 of them in the second 2 weeks! (My normal output is 10-12 pages a month, my highest ever was 22.5 pages for Batman in 1998).
Here are the references for Part 7. This is the one I did in a hurry because of having to sort my accounts out, so apologies for the odd dodgy bit here and there.
What's next? I'm already fully booked for the next couple of months, and I'll tell you more in the next post...

Page One - The Monarch Of The Glen

A reference to the famous 1851 painting by Edwin Henry Landseer, also a guest appearance by miniature Dachshund deluxe The Captain.
Regular 2000AD readers will have seen The Captain before; in Leviathan, the illicit hooch Captain McLean's Old Rot Gut is named after him (and he appears on the label). He's also the co-star of Captain McLean's Last Case, a Tale of the Leviathan from Prog 1465 (also in the collection). I understand that my old mate Mike Collins also put Captain McLean's Old Rot Gut into American Gothic, his and Ian's horror western for 2000AD.
Guest appearances by The Captain are a sub-set of our ongoing persecution of Aberdonian comic shop owner Mike McLean (see reference 3 for details).

Page Two - Runes

In the main panel, the runes under the image of the tree on the far wall spell out a message in English. The same message recurs on page three panel two.
If you want a go at decoding it, use the Anglo-saxon Futhorc.






Page Four - The Ongoing Persecution of Mike McLean

In the foreground, the three characters are meant to resemble (and I mean meant, my skill at likenesses is not great) the gang from Asylum Books And Games in Aberdeen. From left to right, Seonaidh*, Ultimate Steve and proprietor Mike McLean.
Mike's an old mate and has been making guest appearances in my comics since 2000. He appears as a dodgy punter in a strip club in Lazarus Churchyard: Finality (2000), as a judge in the control room in Judge Dredd: Tempus Fugitive (2004), as a victim/identity of the Nosferatu in Judge Dredd: The Horror in Emergency Camp 4 (2005), and as the Scottish anarchist who blows up the BBC in Scarlet Traces: The Great Game #1 (2006). His various cameos have had him blown up, sucked dry, and reduce to a twisted mass of scar tissue. I'm surprised he's still talking to me.
The character of Captain McLean from Tales of the Leviathan: Captain McLean's Last Case (2006) is only roughly based on Mike, because Ian and I didn't want Tharg-in-residence Matt Smith wondering why the same guy was always turning up in our stories.
Mike always gives a pained howl of "Oh God, not again..." whenever we give him a cameo, but on the other hand, he's admitted to me that they always sell twenty extra copies of anything we put him in...

*pronounced, "Shawny."

Geschafft!

"What!?! It's all done?!!?"

Stickleback © 2007 Rebellion/2000AD
Created by Ian Edginton & me.

As of 13.25 this afternoon, Stickleback: Mother London is finished. I'd just like to say a big public thank you to the following people:

Ian Edginton - for coming up with the idea, getting it going, and not only writing a set of corking scripts, but getting 'em in ahead of time too!

Matt Smith - for his steady hand and steely nerve during the deadline-scraping rollercoaster ride of the last few months.

My belovèd, Dr. F. - for her unfailing support during a long and grinding journey down that winter tunnel of deadlines. Couldn't have done it without you.

January is over, the darkness is starting to lift, and I'm off out to lunch. See you in the funny pages.