Merry Christmas One and All!

Creature Comforts

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

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.

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.

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.