Pluggetty-Bloggetty Boo

Thanks to Graeme Reid of this parish for pointing out that Ian and I get a considerable mention on the Forbidden Planet Blog.

Close Encounters Of The Bird Kind

Above: Blasé the sang froid robin.

In between work and house-move unpacking chaos, Dr. F and I have been painting the vast fence that runs around our back garden. Since crowds of gullible Mississippi urchins are in short supply in Nottinghamshire this year, we've been stuck doing the job ourselves, zipping out to do another panel or two in between cloudbursts.

Left: death-wish magpie fledgling stares down Allen Ginsberg the cat back in 2001.

On thing that has livened up proceedings has been the appearance of a particularly tatty and cocky robin, now nicknamed "Blasé," who alternates chirruping at us from a nearby tree with hopping down practically within reach to peck stuff off the lawn. That's when he's not buzzing us - passing so close you can feel the draught from his wings. It's the most startling birdy encounter I've had since Sheffield in 2001, when a fledgling magpie hopped up the front steps and sniffed the cat.

Lucky The Half-Face Cat from 2006

And on the subject of cats, I was delighted to see Lucky The Half-Faced Cat out and about for the first time this year. He's looking very old and a bit tatty, but he's still going!

Creature Comforts

Okay, now I've moved back in...

A Treat For Mangamax...

More from Judge Dredd: Time's Squared; this time from a panel featuring the Robot Wars and the original small-chinned, skull-helmetted Judge Dredd.

I've always said that I love drawing Dredd so much because he's the only character I've worked on that I also read as a child; a double thrill then, to draw the exact Dredd I remember from that time (the first copy of 2000AD I ever read was number 11, containing the second episode of Robot Wars, albeit drawn by Ron Turner and not Mike McMahon, who I'm pastiching here).

This job has also been an excellent excuse to spend time reading old Dredd stories under the excuse of "reference." I was a tad hampered by the fact that I was in Edinburgh and my books were still in Nottingham, so many thanks to Graeme Neil Reid of this parish for helping me out with reference for the early Dredd stories.

I don't usually get advance notification of when a story will see print, but I'll keep an eye on my subscription copies and post as soon as it comes through.

Prisoner Of The Daleks!

5" Cyberman Action Figures; methodone for the Dalek addict.

I was going to try and get a post in this weekend, but Sunday's blogging time was eaten up trying to find my house keys - I searched every coat, bag and pair of trousers I'd been wearing over the past week, rang up the cinema we visited on Saturday, hovered on the verge of calling a locksmith before finally finding the bloody things at the bottom of the bed! I'm still nonplussed by the whole business... I mean, I'm certain I didn't have the bed with me when I went out...

One unfortunate effect of returning to Nottingham has been a relapse of my Dalek-buying addiction. I thought I'd got it kicked; using 5" Cybermen (top) as a sort of methodone treatment, I'd cut down and then finally gone cold turkey sometime in May.
Unfortunately, this little claw-armed bugger caught me when I was weak and fatigued, out shopping the first day back from Edinburgh. He was lurking wilfully in a remainder shop, that deadly thing for the collector, The Variant I Hadn't Seen Before.

Left: 5" Claw-Armed "Assault Dalek". Check out his thread on Flickr for more details.

I know, I know, it's all just excuses, I'm forty for God's sake, I should know better. Perhaps I should start a group for Middle-Aged Men Who Want Toys... "Hello there, my name is Matt, and it has been nine days since my last Dalek..."
Still, at least I've not spent too much time photographing Dalek when I should have been drawing Stickleback. Speaking of which, better get back to it.

See you in the funny pages.

Stickle's Back

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

I can reveal today that Stickleback series 2 has been given the green light by Tharg-In-Residence Matt Smith, and that I have script for part one, which I should be getting on with instead of writing this ;-).

Luckily the timing of this series has neatly fitted around the recent house move; last series I lost the first two weeks of the schedule to our move up to Edinburgh, which effectively used up all my weekends between September and Christmas. This time round I should have a bit of thinking time to help make the pages extra good, and even manage the odd afternoon off every now and again.

There's lots more I could tell you about the new series, but being a wicked little tease I'm going to leave you on tenterhooks for the mo'. Back to the service of The Mighty One for me...

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jig

Just a quickie to say we've made it safely back to our permanent address in Nottingham, though most of our stuff is still in transit (the joys of moving part-load!) and the rest is still in boxes. More soon.

Departing The Cupboard Of Doom

First things first - I've already packed me Daleks

All good things come to an end, and our sojourn in Edinburgh is due to end a week today. With the move rushing up on us, it's probably best for me to announce a "planned outage" until, say 15th July. The removal men delivered an unfeasable number of cardboard boxes this afternoon, and I've already packed my Daleks. Only 9,999 books to go...

Meanwhile, in an attempt to liven up a post that's likely to be around for a while, I thought I'd share some of the character sketches I did for Judge Dredd: Time's Squared.

Judge Dredd in the manner of Carlos Ezquerra from 1981
Judge Dredd © 1981, 2007 Rebellion/2000AD
Judge Dredd created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra

Although only glimpsed fleetingly, the story features Dredd at various points in his history; I did character sketches of some of them so I could make Dredd look properly in period. Above is my analysis of Carlos Ezquerra's Dredd from The Apocalypse War (1982). I found this Dredd particularly fascinating as it's Carlos's first time drawing the character since he drew the very first Dredd story back in 1977, and he's radically altered the way he draws the character to accommodate the changes made by subsequent artists (most notably Mike McMahon).

I was a massive Carlos fan in my very early teens (when Strontium Dog started), and as a result of copying his drawings back then I can still do a reasonable pastiche of his rendering style; in fact when I did the panel set in The Apocalypse War, it was incredibly easy to slip back into those old drawing habits from nearly thirty years ago.
Analysing his stuff in detail has given me a renewed appreciation for his work, and at some point I'll do something about him on the lines of the Belardinelli appreciation from last month.

(Thanks due to Graeme Neil Reid of this parish for his help finding me reference for some of Dredd's other early adventures.)

Below are character sketches for the various iterations of Herbert George Sewell; with the exception of a new tank for The Brain, this is not so much character design as note-taking to remind myself what I did last time; it is, after all, eighteen months since I drew the last time traveller story...

Various iterations of Herbert George Sewell
Herbert George Sewell © 2007 Rebellion/2000AD
Herbert George Sewell created by Ian Edginton and Me.

Herbert George Sewell © 2007 Rebellion/2000AD
Herbert George Sewell created by Ian Edginton and Me.

Herbert George Sewell © 2007 Rebellion/2000AD
Herbert George Sewell created by Ian Edginton and Me.