Louche Skeleton...

...in a very small, "members only" jazz club near the Catacombs, Paris.

Imagine my surprise...

I was in FNAC in Madrid last week browsing the design/illustration section when Louise brought over a book called "Colorful Illustrations 93ºC" to show me (in particular the work of Ryan Cox, great stuff). Whilst flicking through it's 380 pages I stumbled across two double page spreads of my own work! Which I knew nothing about! All images had been dragged off my website. Six of the images had never been in print before. The book's publishers are based in Hong Kong and I haven't seen a copy anywhere else. It's nice to be featured in a book but the worrying thing is all images are included on a CD in the back. This seems to give the impression that all the featured images are clip-art or copyright free which is certainly not the case. Cheeky sods. Has anyone else who reads this blog found themselves in this situation before?

UPDATE Darren Di Lieto (the person who runs the fantastic Little Chimp Society website and the person who conducted all the interviews in this book) has blogged about this and posted scans of almost every page here. At least the illustrators have had their work credited. Darren's interviews have been reprinted word for word without mention of his name or his website. He is, understandably, very annoyed. Read his post and spread the word.

A Bunch of Girls

Kaiju!

The latest batch of Kaiju (now past the 50 mark!) made by Louise. Here they are with some point of sale display I've made for the window of Tokyo Jazz Panda in Chester. If you're ever in Chester pop in and say "Konichiwa". Also available at the Here Gallery in Bristol and Falmouth or through my website.

Zip it, Kowalchek!

Football Heroes

I know nowt about football and the only time it ever really impinges on my consciousness is when they move Coronation Street because of it. Despite this, I've contributed (quite heavily) to this year's Football Heroes book. I was invited by Jerzovskaja, the designer behind the project, and when I saw the quality of the 2006 edition I felt I had to do my bit. It was an honour to be amongst such esteemed company. I ended up drawing this year's Russian team, the Czech team from 1996, Kevin Keegan and Zinedine Zidane. The book is out April 15th and more details can be found on the blog. Here's my Zidane, Czech player Poborsky and Russian player Bistrov.

Even more canvases.

Right, that's another 5 done. What do I do with them now?