CHRISTMAS COMICS: Star Wars

Here's a Christmas classic from 1983.

It's painted by Bob Wakelin, who also gave us Spider-Man and Santa here.

BELL TIME page 3

Redbird Review is serialising my comic called Bell Time.

Page 3 is up now. Have a read here.

You can read from the beginning here.

SCOTLAND IN COMICS 15: AMERICAN SPLENDOR

In 2003, a movie based on Harvey Pekar's American Splendor was released. Pekar visited the UK in order to publicise the film.

A year later, the DVD contained an American Splendor mini-comic with a story of his travels.

Here then, is Harvey Pekar in Scotland:

FRANKENSTEINS COMIC

I'm just back from the launch event for Chris Murray, Norrie Millar and Philip Vaughan's new comic book, "Mary Shelley's Dundee".

I did a new comic story and read it to the audience as part of the evening.

Here it is for your reading pleasure...

FRANKENSTEINS

I'm doing a reading tomorrow of a new comic I've done called "Frankensteins".

Here are some previews of the two page story...

Looking forward to the performance 7pm at the McManus Gallery, Dundee.

BELL TIME page 2

Redbird Review is serialising my new comic called Bell Time.

Page 2 is up now. Have a read here.

You can read from the beginning here.

TREEHOUSE COMICS EXHIBITION PREVIEW - PART TWO

Here are more of the comic artworks going on display...

Norrie Millar

Neil Scott

Jules Valera

...and me!

Come along for the opening at 2pm tomorrow to see these and more in the flesh!
The exhibition will then be open throughout the rest of October and November.

TREEHOUSE COMICS EXHIBITION PREVIEW - PART ONE

The Treehouse Comics exhibition opens 2pm this coming Saturday at Arbroath Library. Here is a preview of what's on show...

Jon Adam

Kathryn Briggs

Andy Herd

Balázs Lőrinczi

Stuart McAdam

More tomorrow!

BELL TIME BEGINS

Okay, I'm excited about this one. Redbird Review has started running my new comic called Bell Time.

Have a read of the first page here.

BELL TIME

When I finished Dump earlier this year, I decided to lay off doing any longer form comics for a while. Dump was 50-odd pages, and was the sequel to Berserkotron, itself around 40-odd pages. I wanted to have a break from working away on the same story for years, and concentrate on doing shorter pieces. And I have done that over the summer, working on stories ranging from 1 to 6 pages.

An opportunity arose though. A new kind of project for me. I was offered “a regular comic spot” at a website. I thought that sounded interesting, but didn't really know what it would entail. The editor wanted to feature a strip, with open ended deadlines. I put my thinking cap on and came up an idea I thought could work as a serialised comic book. I reckoned I could commit to doing a new page for it every three weeks.

This was approved. I decided to go about this story differently than Berserkotron and Dump. To explain, although I knew the rough shape of those stories and how they ended, I wrote and drew those comics in chunks. Berserkotron was done in six page chapters for an APA, and I put together Dump as a three issue series. When it was time for a new chapter, I just sat and wrote and drew them, then stopped work on it for months at a time in between chapters. I had to reacquaint myself with where I was in the story, details of what had happened, etc.

This time I didn't want to work that way. I was going to sit in a concentrated period and work on the story until I was finished. And so I did. I had some time off work coming up and worked solidly throughout it. First, I put down every idea I had for the story and then started to knit it all together, ideas sparking new ideas as I went. After 5 A4 pages of notes, I was ready to start writing. A week or two later, I had it all written. 50-odd pages once again.

And then came the expected psychological barrier of starting up the mountain. I was working on other comics, doing talks, getting involved in comics related projects, all the time knowing I was gearing up for picking up the pencil for page 1 of this story.

The excitement in my mind took hold today. Tonight I did get started, and that page has been pencilled. Pretty soon, I'm going to be able to introduce my new comic to you. Can't wait!