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!

KELLY'S EYE - VALIANT

I was asked about Valiant books yesterday, and in particular Kelly's Eye. I knew I had a couple of issues at home and here is the story in question:

This episode of Kelly's Eye is from the 20th September 1969 edition. Valiant ran covers with outlandish images such as the one below with dinosaurs and cavemen running around...

"Is it true... that the early cavemen used firebrands to fight off dinosaurs, which often attacked them? You'll find the answer on It's All Yours page inside!"

Of course, you'd excitedly reach for that page and be presented with a sobering No. No, cavemen did not do that. Cavemen and dinosurs did not live at the same time.

But what a cover...

Researching Valiant comics online now is complicated by the fact that thirty years later there was an American line using the same name. This situation is similar to looking up the UK children's Phoenix comic, and being inundated with pictures of Jean Grey from the X-Men.

MAKE / SHARE

Photo pinched from @Creative_Dundee

I took part in Creative Dundee’s monthly event Make/Share last Wednesday. It's an open call to anyone making things to come and talk about what they’re doing.

It’s held at the MakerSpace in the Vision building at Dundee’s waterfront. I knew I was one of three speakers, and as it runs 7-8.30pm, I had about half an hour.

There was a limit on how many images you could take along – 4 or 5 in total, which was perhaps a more problematic number to someone doing comics rather than other creative endeavours, what with the emphasis being on sequential storytelling. But no matter, I decided to show a page each from the 4 most recent comics I’ve put out: “No Greater Love” at the Guardian #opencomics page, “Tiddlywinks” in Dirty Rotten Comics #5, “Silently Falling” in Jack Sprat #1; and “A Book with Death in the Title” from the forthcoming Treehouse #7.

What was interesting was not knowing the extent to which the audience was familiar with comics. In one respect, I can talk about comics minutiae forever, but how to structure a half hour talk to people who maybe have no prior interest? A brief intro about how I came to start doing comics and then the background to each of the 4 stories was the way I went.

It’s always great to hear people’s interpretations of my stories. An intriguing one for "No Greater Love" came on this night, in which the mother had died after giving birth and the father was now left alone. Because the story is told in images, there is a lot of room for interpretation, and I found this take fascinating.

The MakerSpace studio is filled with creative people with an interest in technology. Another of last night’s speakers was Grant Richmond, who had taken an old radio, gutted it like a fish and refilled it with modern electronics, replacing the speakers and enabling it with wi-fi. Impressive, and he still hasn’t finished tinkering with it. The other speaker Andrew Kieran, has an enormous weaving machine onsite that he has transported around Britain. It too had a technological aspect – one of his woven articles has a mobile code as part of the pattern.

I enjoyed shoehorning self-published comics into the creative arts arena last night. A really fun evening.

JACK SPRAT #1 at BOOKS & BROOMSTICKS

Belle Whittington has reviewed Jack Sprat #1 over at Books & Broomsticks, and included a preview of my story, "Silently Falling".

Have a look here.

JACK SPRAT #1 at LE SENTIER DES MORTS

Jack Sprat #1 has been reviewed over at Les Sentier des Morts, with the following missive:

"J’ai particulièrement été touchée par les bandes graphiques de David Robertson. Pas par le design mais par le texte. Il n’y en a pas beaucoup mais l’atmosphère qui en ressort est triste. On se dit qu’on est petit face à l’univers et qu’il suffit de peu de choses pour qu’une vie parte dans une direction. Quand j’ai fini cette histoire, je l’ai relue plusieurs fois pour voir si je ne ratais pas quelque chose, un indice, n’importe quoi qui puisse me faire espérer une autre fin."

It's a first for me, being reviewed in French!

Have a look at the full article here.

JACK SPRAT #1

This is the cover to the new magazine Jack Sprat, edited by Emily White, and featuring a mixture of comics, flash fiction and artwork by Silvia Carrus, Victoria Caswell, David Duke, C.E. Lamb, Louis Netter, Slake Saunders, and Jonathan Scott.

I've a four page comic story in there called "Silently Falling".

The entire issue can be downloaded free at the Jack Sprat Press website. Go have a look here.

DUMP #3 at COMICS ANONYMOUS

My comic has been reviewed over at Comics Anonymous.

Have a look here.

"David Robertson brings us the third and final edition of his Dump comic released through Fred Egg Comics.

It pulls together a sea of ideas and while you could class this as an anthology there’s so much more to this than first expected.  A solid mix of stories and ideas that covers everything from time travel to bum monsters and everything in between.  This issue is starts and ends with some longer stories and some interesting shorts but the “30 day comic event” David took part in makes up a good run of the pages and shows off the diverse range his writing & artwork has to offer.

The nods to the likes of Star Wars, the homage to Garfield and switch from solid black lines to a far more sketchy style works well given the short, punchy nature of his chosen themes.  While those themes flip from one thing to another they also help convey a mix of emotions too as the funny, the sad and the crazy elements all mix well to give this a rollercoaster feel to it with each page turn bringing a surprise subject and response.

There are also some guest artist that contribute to this issue with work from Neil Paterson, Pam Wye, Keara Stewart, Damon Herd, Donna Law & Ludi Price all blending well with David’s own style to give this a consistent feel to it.  While a couple of these stories have already appeared in the Treehouse anthologies it’s good to see more of David’s work together in one place and while this may be the last issue of Dump…..I’m sure we’ll see more from him soon.

You can check out the Fred Egg Comics Blog and pickup the issue over on the Big Cartel page.

7/10

G-Man"

DUMP #3 at DOWN THE TUBES

John Freeman has written on Dump #3 over at Down the Tubes.

Have a read here.

"Continuing in what seems like some mission to offer the most eclectic and diverse of comic strips, David Robertson’s Dump returns for a third and, apparently, final issue offering stories of night-time nerves, time travel weirdness, autobiographical stories and reflections on life and death.

We also, at last get the concluding part of the title’s main strip “Dump” starring Bert Ainsley, which picks up straight from Issue Two as two hapless workers (one of them Bert) at a council dump find life spiralling in ever decreasing circles.

It’s certainly a quirky mix from the get go with “Things to Do At Three O’Clock in the Morning” that jolts you with a subtle scare but you’ll end up smiling at; strips like the thought-provoking “Television: The Drug of the Nation (Not)”, drawn by Donna Law; and a series of well reproduced pencil-only strips, the result of David’s month of drawing a story per day for a month. This “30 Days of Comics” offerings are wide ranging and include some delicious barbs at the expense of a well-known US comic strip starring a certain cat. (If you can’t guess which strip I’m talking about, you’ll just have to go an buy an issue, won’t you).

With its mix of David’s strips drawn his own inimitable and distinctive style, and impressive work from artists such as Pam Wye and Damon Herd, among others, plus an interesting set of notes on process to round off the issue, Dump Issue 3 may be considered by some as experimental, but it’s certainly as distinctive and memorable as the first two issues. Check out David’s blog for samples from the collection – it’s worth a mouse click."

DIRTY ROTTEN COMICS #5: Available now!

Further to yesterday's post regarding a review at comics website Broken Frontier, I am pleased to say that the postie today brought me my contributor copy of Dirty Rotten Comics #5.

It's a fine book. Loads of variety and great comics.

The story I have in there is "Tiddlywinks", which was itself the subject of a short series of work in progress blog posts here.

The book is now available at the Dirty Rotten Comics website!