Merry Christmas and thank you

Merry Christmas from me and Louise. Thanks for reading our blogs, commenting on our blogs, buying stuff from our shops, following us on Twitter and just being you! More fun to come next year.

A Christmas Cumulus

One of the highlights of the year for me was seeing Inspector Cumulus appear on the shelves of shops all over the world as a vinyl toy courtesy of (the great!) Crazylabel. I was overwhelmed by the reception to him and then "over-overwhelmed" by all the entries to Toysrevil's "Drawing Cumulus" competition (thank you, Andy Heng!). He's sold out completely now so thank you to everyone who bought one.

There will be further Cumulus developments in 2012. Stay tuned!

Carol singers

Another festive post.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

I've already watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and listened to the soundtrack about 6 times and it's only the 21st. Where do I go from here?

Scrooge

Seeing as it's almost Christmas - a festive drawing/bad joke extravaganza!

Wet dog

Finished your Christmas shopping? Well, spare a thought for this poor hound. He's been waiting here for 40 minutes for a bus AND he's sat on the Tesco Classic Dips Multipack.

Thomson & Thompson

The last of my Tintin posts - Thomson & Thompson (or Dupont et Dupond if you're French).

Professor Calculus

Back to my Tintin drawings - here's Professor Calculus.

Christmas DoodlePlanet

My contribution to the Christmas DoodlePlanet live drawing event. Three hours to produce a piece from scratch which was then put up for auction. A Dulux emulsion match pot, black Posca and a brushpen = fun!

Back to the Tintin posts tomorrow!

Captain Haddock

Following on from yesterday's Tintin - Blisterin' Barnacles! - it's Captain Haddock.

Tintin

I love the Tintin books. That's all!

Grobblock - a fun new festive character!

A fun new festive character! Introducing Grobblock. Say Grobblock's name (it's "Grobblock") three times in a row while pulling a cracker and looking in the mirror and he will magically appear!

Disclaimer - He's quite an excitable chap and will devour anything within 5 feet of tinsel including trees, presents, pets, grandparents etc. I'm not responsible for any damage/bereavement caused by Grobblock.

Nervous Business Cat

I didn't know what to draw today so I went for the obvious - a nervous business cat attending a seminar in a hotel (circa 1981).

It's a Boba Fett Christmas

I've always felt Boba Fett's uniform was quite festive, what with all the green and red, then I discovered he'd recorded this Christmas album before his sad demise in the Sarlacc pit. Featuring songs such as "Silent Carbonite", "Jango Bells", "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Bespin", "O Little Town of Tattoine" and "Rockin' Around the Sarlacc Pit". Anybody remember the rest of the track listing?

PS Thank you to Richard Clayderman for the use of his living room for the photo shoot.

Jim Henson Tribute Exhibition - Gallery Nucleus

Tonight is the opening of "The Lovers, the Dreamers and Me", a Jim Henson tribute exhibiton, at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra, California. We were really, really pleased to take part as we both love Jim Henson and the Muppets. Louise's piece will be unveiled later today but in the meantime he's my "concept artwork" for our contribution - Pepperdelica.

A quick Batman

Yesterday on Twitter Mr James Howard (AKA @themooks) was asking people to draw Batman. I did a quick Bruce in brush pen and a worn out Posca. Here's a colour version. To see some truly brilliant Batmans just search #drawbatman on Twitter.

Emo Terrier

Following this week's unintentional theme of miserable looking mammals - here's an Emo Terrier. Fully house-trained apart from the ability to tidy their rooms.

DC and Lansbury

Here's two pics I've recently done for other people's blog. First up is my version of Lizz Lunney's Depressed Cat. If you're a fan of feline ennui and existential angst (who isn't!) then you need Lizz's Depressed Cat book in your life. Buy it HERE.


And secondly here's a young, glamorous Angela Lansbury (which I've "hilariously" titled - Angela GLAMsbury!) for Timothy Winchester's annual Angela Lansbury week on his blog. Timothy is the creator of "People I Know". A brilliant webcomic which regularly features ghosts, unicorns, Angela Lansbury references and crying. Go have a look.

Another type of Clerical Panda

Yesterday I posted a drawing of a Clerical Panda. "Clerical" has various meanings and certain people ("Hello" Craig! "Hello" Bridget!) thought I meant "of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the clergy or a member of the clergy" as opposed to "of, pertaining to, appropriate for, or assigned to an office clerk or clerks". So just for Craig and Bridget here's another Clerical Panda.

Get yourself "Creaturized"

An A5 "creaturized" portrait of yourself, a loved one or merely an acquaintance can now be yours! Following the success of doing "creaturized" portraits in Selfridges in London and the Sketch-o-matic at Cornerhouse in Manchester I've decided to offer them online for a trial period. See the image above as an example. Click HERE for more details and to buy. Thank you!

Clerical Panda

Not every panda's life consists of flying into Edinburgh Zoo on a specially chartered flight. Some pandas have to work for a living. Look at this poor sod - 9 till 5.30 with just two 15 minute Bamboo breaks. It's an outrage.

The Pugilist

Ah, good ol' Terry Flynt, star of The Pugilist films. The first one is still the best (Diana Dors as "Big Val" and the inspired casting of Bernard Breslaw as gangland crime lord "Tony 'The Meat Grinder' Cumberland") but even the sequels were entertaining - "London Punch-Up" (1978), "I'll Fight Ya!" (1979) and the karate-themed "A Proper Hong Kong Hiding" (1980). Basically just 90 minutes of fighting with an Alan Hawkshaw soundtrack but classics nonetheless.

Scrugg of the Bailey

This is possibly my favourite of all Benley Furton's "Scrugg" novels. Scrugg's adventures delighted tens of children in the seventies and eighties. He was a psychotic, cave-dwelling feral elf/chimera hybrid who just wanted to live a normal life above ground with the humans (or "hoobuns" as Scrugg would say). "Scrugg of the Bailey" ended with Scrugg being chased out of the Old Bailey by torch-bearing Londoners when he hilariously ate the witness for the prosecution. Oh, Scrugg! Other titles in the series include "Scrugg and the Fetid Delicatessen", "Scrugg the Town Planner" and recently "Scrugg and the Quantitative Easing". Anyone else remember Scrugg? No, me neither.

Desmond Sternhound

Desmond isn't very happy today. Someone has been strolling across the bowling green in non-regulation shoes. He will find out who's responsible. Was it you?

Hilda

I'm going to post a pic a day on the run up to Christmas (my version of an Advent calendar) so here's the first - my version of Luke Pearson's "Hilda" from his brilliant new book "Hilda and the Midnight Giant". I can't recommend it highly enough. A great story beautifully drawn and chock-full of ideas like a Snickers is chock-full of peanuts. Buy it now!

Sketch-O-Matic at Cornerhouse, Manchester

Tomorrow (November 30th) I'll be taking part in the Sketch-O-Matic project at Cornerhouse in Manchester (more details HERE). I'll be producing sketches similar to the ones I did for the Selfridges press day back in July 2010 (see below). £1 a sketch! Bargain. I'll be there from 12-1pm then stick around and get drawn again by esteemed web comic pioneer and bon vivant Mr John Allison. See you there.

Illostribute - Albert Dorne

As I've probably said on this blog before, I love Illostribute. This month's subject was Albert Dorne. An incredible (and incredibly prolific) illustrator working mostly in the '40s and '50s. This was a great subject for me as it's a style almost completely different to my own. Previous subjects have been an influence on my work (especially Hirschfeld and Mary Blair) so it felt harder to make my mark whereas Dorne's work, despite the fact that I love it, has only ever been an influence in the sense that he made me want to be a better illustrator.

The process for this one was a bit more convoluted. I only had a day spare to do the entire thing so I spent the morning sketching the individual characters over and over again until I could make them my own. Once I had drawings I liked I scanned them into Photoshop and recreated the composition on screen and then printed the entire thing out ready to lightbox (image below). I think you can still see the sellotape that I used to stick the two pages together (very high tech!). The finished result is at the top of the page along with Dorne's wonderful original. Have a look at the Illostribute blog to see some incredible reinterpretations including (the consistently brilliant) Steffi Schütze's take on the same illustration. Roll on the next one and long live Illostribute!

New Cumulus Print

A new Inspector Cumulus print "Cloudy with a chance of.. Murder!" is now available in my online store. I'll also be at Thought Bubble in Leeds this weekend selling this print (along with a few others) and copies of "Konichiwa, Japan!" and "Sketchbook Vol 1". See you there!

"Konichiwa, Japan" book

Our "Konichiwa, Japan!" book is now available from my online shop. It's a 32 page, full colour, A5 book collecting the work I did with Felt Mistress as part of our 5 weeks residency in Japan. Makes an ideal Christmas present! Ad break over.

"Nelson" is out!

Here's a couple of panels from my chapter of Nelson (I was given 1985). If you don't know what Nelson is then let Blank Slate explain -

"Nelson is a 250-page collaboration between 54 of the UK’s most exciting comic creators. It is an unprecedented experiment to create one complete story – a collective graphic novel.

London, 1968. A daughter is born to Jim and Rita Baker. Her name is Nel. This is her story, told in yearly snapshots. Each chapter records the events of a single day, weaving one continuous ribbon of pictures and text that takes us on a 43- year journey from Nel Baker’s birth to 2011.

Based on an original idea by Rob Davis and co-edited by Davis and Woodrow Phoenix, Nelson celebrates the incredible diversity of talent in British comics today. Creators known for their editorial and national newspaper strips unite with those from humour comics such as the Beano, The Dandy, and MAD Magazine joining a wealth of talent from children’s books, indie publishing and webcomics, with the science fiction and superhero worlds of 2000AD, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse.

Part exquisite corpse and part relay race, Nelson spans decades of British history and a myriad of stylistic approaches in telling the story of one woman’s life by 54 creators, in 54 episodes, detailing 54 days. The result is a surprising and compellingly readable book that is sad, funny, moving, poignant, ridiculous, heartfelt, and real. This is a story like none you have seen before."

It includes a wealth of incredible UK comics talent. An intimidating line-up to work alongside!

Buy it now online or from one of the many Nelson events coming up over the next couple of weeks. I'll be at Thought Bubble in Leeds and the Gosh! launch event signing my contribution. See you there!

Recent Wolfmen

Seeing it's almost Halloween here's a couple of Wolfmen (a Wolfman with an iPod and a rock Wolfman) from my sketchbook and a heart broken Wolfman from a recent Halloween themed DoodlePlanet live drawing event.

Ghosts of Gone Birds exhibition

Here's my interpretation of the extinct Giant Hoopoe bird (also known as the Saint Helena Hoopoe) for the Ghosts of Gone Birds exhibition in London this November (have a look at the amazing list of artists involved!). I've provided a 2D rendition and Felt Mistress will be working her magic on a 3D version based on my illustration. Here's a sneak peek (or "sneak beak" perhaps? Oh, I kill me!) of the felt version too. Full reveal soon.

A Grizz' for Lizz

Here's a Grizzly Bear I recently drew for Lizz Lunney's Grizzly Bear Thursday blog. My bear has done his "big shop" earlier in the week and is now in Marks just shopping for bits - some dips, emergency milk, that kind of thing.

If you don't know Lizz's work then click here. Her comics are always guaranteed to raise a smile (unless you're Depressed Cat).

A Panda says "Hi!"

Sometimes it's just nice to draw a panda.

Illostribute - Mary Blair

Here's my piece for the latest Illostribute blog. This time the subject was the fantastic Mary Blair. Below is the original illustration that I've reinterpreted. As always it was a pleasure to contribute.

New sketchbook, new sketches

I bought a new A3 sketchbook from the highly recommended Fred Aldous shop in Manchester (a hard shop to leave empty handed!). Here's some new guys I drew to christen it.