Expocomic Madrid

Off to Madrid tomorrow for Expocomic Madrid 2007; I'll be getting in late tomorrow, but I'm staying until Monday, so if you're going too, come along and say hi.

I have one official event, giving a comics class with Charlie Adlard on Sunday.

Will post photos etc when I return.

Expocomic Madrid Poster

Poster for Expocomic Madrid by Mark Buckingham, colours by me

Aside from my proper job, I've also been managing the odd little extra bit here and there - one of the more fun things has been colouring Mark Buckingham's poster for this year's Expocomic festival in Madrid.
Publicity work is always very different from comics. In the comics industry, the artist's work is the finished product; in publicity work, the illustrator is a collaborator, providing raw material to be processed by designers and other hands in order to become the finished product. It's always interesting to see what becomes of the work as a result. At first I was a bit startled by the amount of cropping and post-processing they'd done to the original file (see below), but on reflection I think it works well. With the integrated panels and dot-screening, there's certainly more of a "comic-related" feel to the final layout.

The original colour version of the poster.
Art by Mark buckingham, colours by me.

Each year's poster is based on the symbol of Madrid; the bear and a tree called the Madroño. As you can see, Mark's original drawing (above) is a much wider shot and my original colours were bolder. The blank space at the top was to allow for a banner.

Virgin Pentel Brush Pen

It'll never look like this again; a Pentel Brush Pen before the first ink cartridge goes in

Much to my annoyance, I seem to have lost the pencil case containing my sketching kit. Sentimentality aside (I've had that pencil case since I was fifteen), it contained my battered but much-loved and locally-unavailable Pentel Brush Pens, so when I was down in London last week, I bought a couple of replacements.

I'd forgotten that the incredibly hard-wearing* nylon brush tip is, in its virgin state, pure white, so I photographed the new one before loading it with ink. It reminded me that I'd loaded my first-ever brush pen on a crowded tube train on the way back from the shop; in the end, half a carriage of bored Piccadilly Line commuters were watching, hypnotised, as the band of black ink crept slowly down to the point of the brush tip.

Bliss.

*My eldest brush pen had survived sixteen years of continuous (ab)use.

Bits & Bobs

A rough panel from Stickleback: England's Glory
Stickleback © 2007 Rebellion/2000AD
Created by Ian Edginton & Me

From my recent blog entries you'd get the impression that my life consists of Having Toys and Swanning Around, so I thought I'd post a panel from Stickleback: England's Glory to show that I have actually been working.
When you're using a fairly expressionist painted style, there's a tendency to avoid putting in much in the way of backgrounds or contextual stuff - it's far easier to do pretty, swooshy stuff with paint - but so far I think I've been able to strike a balance between the look of the thing and the demands of the story.

You'll be able to judge for yourselves soon - my current understanding is that Stickleback: England's Glory will start running in 2000AD Prog 2008 (for the uninitiated, that's this year's big Christmas edition). There's also been some talk of a collection combining the first two series of Stickleback in one volume, to be published sometime in 2008...

Thanks Due

The excellent Gosh! comic shop on Great Russell Street

Thanks to everyone who turned up for our signing at Gosh! on Thursday night - Ian and I had a terrific time. Particular thanks to all you nice Gosh! staff for looking after us so brilliantly (especially my old mate and collaborator Will Kane for being our minder during the event).

Left: the window display for our signing, including three separate cut-outs.

Gosh! has been a favourite haunt of mine since my days as a spotty fanboy, so it was a genuine pleasure to do a signing there. The signing had been threatened as Ian was forced to delay his arrival in London due to an illness in the family, and my trip home was complicated by a rail strike; but in the end, everything came together. Ian made it in good time, and I made it home without either having to skip out early or suffer excessive delays. My arms are about a foot longer from lugging carrier bags full of books home, though. I thought having Page 45 as my local comic shop might inure me to Gosh!'s charms, but no such luck; that place is just too good...

Above: sample pages from The Murders On The Rue Morgue from the Nevermore anthology
Written by Ian Edginton, drawn by me

The Nevermore launch at the ICA (including a talk on Horror in comics hosted by Paul Gravett) went well; it was great to catch up with old mates and to meet a few new ones; I also had my first chance to see the book. It's an anthology of Edgar Allen Poe adaptations, featuring work by Jamie Delano, Steve Pugh, Shane Oakley, John McCrea and Natalie Sandells as well as Ian and myself.

The cover to the Nevermore anthology, published by Selfmadehero

Though I completed my story back in March, I've held off publishing details here until the book was out. Our segment is an updating of Ur-detective tale The Murders On The Rue Morgue, and it was the first thing I worked on following the first series of Stickleback. Given that the latter was so reliant on digital jiggery-pokery, I decided to do Rue Morgue "straight" - ie no grey tones or effects (except for a couple of bits where I simulated the use of white Letratone). I wanted to see if I could still tell a story as if I were just using pen and ink, and I'm pretty pleased with the results (see above). Working this way forced me to think a lot harder about drawing and composition.