We’re beginning to make plans for a second Go Wildlife Comic. Expect to see not only crustaceans, but crustacean information too!
I feel bad I haven’t updated in so long! It’s not that I haven’t been reading comics- I’ve a huge backlog now- but I’ve been mega busy the past few weeks. First of all there was the Thought Bubble festival in Leeds, and then I was away to Japan for a conference. While in Kyoto I got the chance to visit the International Manga Museum and I’m really glad that I did.
As I’ve said before I know very little about Japanese comics, but this didn’t really matter in the Manga Museum. It was just so great to be in a building dedicated to comic art and to see comics being respected and discussed as a serious art form and contribution to culture. As well as the copious amount of manga available for visitors to read, there was also children’s events, historical information, technical information on manga creation and a special study area for academics of manga. The Cartoon Museum in London is a lovely place, but if there was somewhere like this in the UK I’d be in there every weekend!
Go Wildlife minicomic is here! This is all the work I did on 24 hour comic day, presented to you in a miniature size that hides all the drawing mistakes and rushed panel compositions! There’s some pretty weak animal jokes in there, but also a lot of stuff that came out surprisingly well. Definitely worth £1!
Cover illustration for the Go Wildlife minicomic, which I made on 24 hour comics day. It’s going to be teeny weeny, less than A6 size!
Here’s an early concept illustration for my ‘Bunny Behind the Moon’ children’s comic. I did this for the Glasgow Independent Studio Members exhibition a couple of months ago, forgot to post it earlier. This project has turned from a silly little idea into a big complex thing- writing for kids is hard, and I want it to be good! Slowly getting there…
Had a great day out at Dundee Comics Day yesterday, it was a chance to catch up with friends and hear some interesting and inspiring talks by people involved in the comics industry. But what really made it special for me was seeing my partner Adam receive the runner up prize in DC Thomson’s ‘Tartan Bucket’ competition, for his character Holly Unlikely.
Now all the fun is over, I’ve got an insanely busy few weeks ahead getting out the 4th Team Girl Comic, preparing for Thought Bubble and organising my trip to Japan for an ecodesign conference.
A couple of samples of my work for Team Girl Comic issue 4. I’m still waiting on a few people sending me their work, and we need to make a few changes to the cover art but there really isn’t long to go now! It will definitely be out in time for Thought Bubble at the latest.
I’ve not been doing quite as much drawing the past few weeks, partly due to editing TGC (boring computer work) and also PhD commitments. And laziness. But I have been drawing some bunnies, maybe I’ll post some of them later.
Here’s the first page of my 24 hour comic, more to come soon! This year I completed the challenge with about 10 other artists, all spending the night in Plan B books. It was quite a different experience compared to the previous years I’ve done this. First of all I had company, which was great for boosting morale. Being away from home meant I took less breaks, which probably isn’t as healthy but it did mean that it only took me about 18 hours to complete. I also gave myself a slightly different challenge, instead of trying to create an epic Bears tale I instead opted for a mini wildlife comic, with a different animal featured each hour. This kept things simpler and more varied which was good. Will I do it all again next year…?
As Go Wildlife was nominated for awards at the Glasgow Comic Con this year (under best comic book and best writer), I was invited to submit a piece of artwork for last week’s exhibition at the Mackintosh Church. I went for Junglefowl as it’s a self-contained story that seems to have been popular with readers.
Team Girl Comic issue 2 was also nominated, to see our entry by Jude Stewart (in a lovely red frame) visit the TGC blog.
