Roy Deadman

This is the 5 page pitch I reworked into a 2 pager for Moronoid.
Roy Deadman is a mild-mannered postman who discovers he
will one day end the world (and possible the universe). His cat is
based on a mysterious cat called Ninja who came to visit us when
we briefly lived in Buxton.
Not sure what the future holds for Roy but here he is...

NYC Horror Film Festival

Fresh from my Celluloid Screams work in Sheffield I wrote
to a few other horror fests and was pretty chuffed to get
this commission from Michael Heine of the NYC Horror
Film Festival. It seemed appropriate to watch Ghostbusters
in celebration!!!
Their current website logo is pretty unbeatable so I took the
same concept and gave it my own slant. Hoping to bag more
Horror Fest work in the future fingers crossed!!!

Celluloid Screaming

Just had an enjoyable weekend at the Showroom getting my
full value for money out of the free pass Rob&Margot threw
in ontop of the payment (cheers guys!)

I thought I was pretty up on the horror scene but I saw plenty
of great flicks I'd never heard about. 'Paranormal Activity' had
the biggest impact on me and was in all honesty the scariest film
experience I've had since I was about 12. 'I Sell The Dead' and
'the Burning' were also pretty enjoyable, along with a nice
selection of short films nicely mixed up with the main events.

It was great to be involved and hoping they'll call upon me again
in the future. Working on a small job for another horror fest I'll
post this week.

Royal Stock T-shirt design

I did a t-shirt design recently for Royalstock, run by
a guy called Lord Bunn whose work I've often admired
from afar. He's gathered together a bunch of Sheff
-based talent and given us a free reign on a tee.

I drew this when my ear problem had totally floored
me and think in retrospect it comes across in this distressed
looking chaps face.

I'll post a pic of the actual t-shirt when it's printed and
available to buy...

Scream from the rooftops

The Showroom have gone all out to get the word out about
the upcoming Sheff Horror Fest I recently did some work
for, including putting up some posters and banners in the
Showy itself. They're only slightly outgunned by the no
-fucking- about 'Hallam Booze' shop sign.

As part of it I also talked to a nice lady called Rachael
Clegg from the Sheff Star whom I spoke to about my recent
stuff over a crackly phone line.

The Interview

Bond Pixels

Early today at BICs I bumped into Wynn Ryder who flattered me
quite severely by asking for a sketch of James Bond for a very cool
looking collection of mini Bond images by people he likes, most
notably a Neil Adams sketch of Connery.

The above picture isn't what I drew today but by some weird twist of
fate I just stumbled upon it from some old work I did years ago when
I had a few days designing images for old school mobile phones.
To credit myself I do like this one although I'll admit that to me Bond
was always about the Rodge.

BICS - I fought the Law

Just back from a brilliant weekend at the Birmingham Expo
where I managed to retain my professional attitude and
business-like cool at all times.
We managed to shift some copies of Moronoid which felt good
so we celebrated in style on saturday night, stumbling upon
the coolest and quirkiest little club/bar I've been in in years
which no doubt we'll never find again.
I definately want to do more of this sort of thing and keep
Moronoid cooking away for a few years (touch wood).

Birmingham International Comics Show

This saturday myself and Anjan are driving down to Birmingham
to flog 'Moronoid' at the Comics Expo. We went last year as a sort
of reconaissance so it should be interesting to be on the other side
of the table this time.

I'm not exactly Mr Charisma but it's cool meeting other creative
types and seeing what's going on. I'll post some pics up here soon.

Kill or Cure

A hard copy of Moronoid isn't far away now. We'll be setting up
a Blog specifically for the comic but for now here's a 3-pager I
did for Issue 1 with scribe Marcus Daley of the Electric Soup Kitchen
and Roomy Radio.
It features a metalhead called Ian who, on his way to work, fails to
notice the obliteration of the planet by belligerent alien forces.
I love the simple punch in the face-ness of Future Shocks and
asked for something in that vein and Marcus really delivered.

My girlfriend's brother Steve was kind enough to pose as Ian for
me and threw himself into it big style. 100% Utah!!!

Moronoid Cover

I finally got the chance to nail my version of the cover for
'Moronoid', the comic I'm publishing with Anjan Sarkar,
with contributions from irish comics badass Phil Barrett
and pro scribe and podcast misfit Marcus Daley.

Originally, I intended to draw my own versions of the other
guy's preview bubble images but I realised that it would
look loads cooler to work in their original pics instead.
I always loved this kind of slightly dated preview approach.

For the central character I used a character called Ian from
the story I did with Marcus (see first page below). We'll be
selling these soon at the Birmingham Comics Expo and
Thought Bubble in Leeds. We'll also get them into a few
shops and online once we've got our shit together. They'll be
cheap to buy as we'd rather shift them and do another next
year.

Rightio I'm going to fall asleep in a corner somewhere...

New Young Pony Club DJs @ Fitzwilliam College

Here's a new commission for Soundcheck, a night
in Fitzwilliam College Cambridge. A fine young fellow
called Harry spotted my Sheff prints and got me on
the case for this. Originally Phil Jupitus was meant to
be DJing but was double booked ('Buzzcocks' was always
about Mark Lamarr anyway in my book - mutter mutter).

New Young Pony Club are the kind of band I would have
known about and loved a few years ago but now I'm a
burnt out old fart I only knew one of their songs off an
advert, albeit a very good song that goes...
''I can give you what - you - want''

Sadly, my cousin Ronan died around the time I was
working on this so alot of it was drawn through teary eyes
before I had to dart off to Limerick for the funeral. He was
a lovely guy with a big heart I'll dearly miss. RIP brother.

Celluloid Screams final poster

Here's the final version of the Celluloid Screams poster.
I wanted to ink it for real on my drawing board but
ran out of time so I pumped out the ink phase mainly in
Adobe Illustrator and coloured it in Photoshop. I kept
the colours pretty plain and flat as there's talk of it being
reduced down into a T-shirt.

I walk past the Showroom alot, have worked behind it
since 2000 and spent many a day in my youth sipping
coffee and pretending to be cool there, so this was a very
satisfying and gorey commission!!!

Quite keen to bag more work in this area as I think my
style lends itself well to horror (plus I like drawing gorey
stupid shit). As well as the obvious horror refs I dropped
in a subtle ref to Sheff band 'I Monster'. My good pals
James McVeigh and Jo Sims did lots of posing for this so
cheers guys!!!

Celluloid Screams Poster Stages

I keep reading how people I'm into build up an image
so thought it'd be fun to do the same. I usually start
off by giving the client a few very simple scribbley
versions to give idea options.
In this case I did about 16 in total as this is always
the most fun part. Some of them were real duds but
3 or 4 would have worked well I think. They chose
the bottom right image which was in my top 3 choices.



Next I work things up further in pencil and add a few
washes in photoshop to quickly show how the colours
will hilight the central characters. Originally the top
section was going to look all EC Comics but this got
turned into a simpler layout at a later stage.

I thought it'd be appropriate to let the Festival honcho
Rob decide on the T-shirt design rather than wading in
and he went for Ash's 'S-Mart' logo which I reckon works.

I'll paste the final thing asap

Moronoid Comics - 'Kill or Cure'

Just completed 2 short stories for 'Moronoid Comics' which myself
and Anjan will be flogging at the Birmingham Comics Expo in Oct and
Thought Bubble in Leeds in Nov (aswell as online and in a few select
shops).

'Kill or Cure' is a 3 page future-shock-esque tale I collaberated on with

scribe, Electric Soup Kitchen Podcaster and all-round good guy

Marcus Daley. Really pleased with how it's turned out and got into a
looser pen & ink style to christen the new artboard.

Will link to the Moronoid Blog when it's up. Just finished the Celluloid
Screams poster so expect that up here as soon as I'm allowed to show
it.

Tis good to be back.

Celluloid Screams further info

Here's some more info on the Celluloid Screams fest.
The previous version of this ad read as-if 'Birds' get in
cheaper. Glad to report I'm not a 1970s-esque sexist hehe.

Been busy on Moronoid pages and will post some peeks
soon...

Celluloid Screams Horror Film Festival

Friday nights at the Showroom have recently seen the rise of a
cult film club known as Celluloid Screams. Now they're planning
an explosive Halloween festival and have got me on the case with
some branding work and a poster. Try not to sit behind me in the
cinema as seeing this badboy on the big screen may cause my
head to swell to Mekon proportions.

They've not announced which films are on the bill yet but I've got
it on good authority that it'll be pretty spesh. Alright I admit it I
don't know either but I trust the man holding the cards.

If you buy a pass now it'll save you a respectable amount of money.

I also finished my Royal Stock Tshirt a couple of weeks ago but I'm
going to hang fire until Bunn has printed it and post a pic of the
final article. He's getting a bunch of local talent involved with a
launch do in Oct.

Golden Orbit Comic Fair Sheffield

Today me and the lovely Melissa went to the Golden Orbit
Comic Fair in Sheff. It was a fun if sweaty afternoon where
we met some very sound people and were cheered on by
some of my mates who kindly bobbed by.

Looking forward to Birmingham now and a nerdy weekend
with Anj and Marcus to launch Moronoid.

Sci-fi/ Comic Fair - Sat 11th July

Hello,
I'll be flogging some prints at the Golden Orbit Sci-fi/
Comic Fair on sat 11th July.
It's in the foyer of the Workstation which is next to
the Showroom in Sheffield. Happy to sign any prints
bought on the day or previously so come and say hi.

Talking of the Showroom I've just started on some
promo work for an upcoming Horror Film Fest at
Halloween, run by the crew of the locally infamous
Celluloid Screams night. Tickets are loads cheaper if
you buy them now apparently.

Hiatus

I've been pretty tied up working flat-out for Desq over the past few months but me and my co-pilot Chris have almost reached the end of a fun but tough project. I've got a pile of cool commissioned work backed up that you can expect to see on here soon including a Tshirt design for Royal Stock, a Horror Festival ad campaign and of course the 2nd half of the Archipelago prints.

Like a famous austrian cyborg once promised I'll also most definately be back, although I'm less likely to drive a truck through a police precinct reception in the process. For now here's a glimpse of a short strip I'm sitting on for a while (and don't want to jinx by talking about it)...

Sheffield Star Interview

Photo by Roger Nadal

Doug O'Kane just ran a very flattering article about me in the
Sheffield Star which exceeded all my expectations by being
a full page!!! I've been laid up with my dodgy ear again so this
was a welcome boost. It focuses on the prints I've been doing
about Sheff lately. Read it below...

Interview

Wynn Ryder - Star Wars pic

The other day I saw a fantastic black and white Star Wars
pic by Wynn Ryder and, just as Vader was seduced by the
dark side, I was unable to stop myself downloading it and
adding a quick splash of colour. It was a welcome distraction
from being deaf all weekend.
The force is strong in that Wynn guy...

Tharg Sketch

Despite being the most boring man in the galaxy at the minute
I'm fucking ill yet again and have had to accept being stuck in all
day on my own :(
Decided to cheer myself up by testing out the new art board I just
blew 140 galactic groats on with a sketch of everyone's favourite
Betegeusian.
Hopefully I won't be getting sent a ''Rigellian Hotshot'' off Tharg
for my handywork...
Borag Thungg!!!

Quinto's Spock

Lately I've been a bit busy as Desq, where I normally
work part-time, asked me to go full time for a bit to cover
a large workload. I've struggled to fit the comic-style work
in and had to turn away some jobs I was flattered to be
asked about (sorry to all concerned), but I couldn't resist
this commission for James McV's film collumn in Exposed
as it was a fun quickie.

I saw a pic of spock last year by Wynn Ryder which I loved
and used it as inspiration for this bad boy. Quinto is a perfect
choice for Spock in my book and looking forward to the flick.
Live long + all that stuff...

Bargains of the Damned

Print 3 just got sign off from the guys at Archipelago so
should be hitting the streets within the next 2-3 weeks.
The subject is a mock zombie film poster satirising my
own experience of a certain shopping mall.

I ended up choosing a palette inspired by John Higgins,
whose imput on Watchmen and the Killing Joke is often
forgotten.

I'm halfway through building my own online shop so
people can buy directly off my site so keep your eyes
peeled. The next print is very likely to have a theme of
Steel so get saving your brass!

Zombie Rejects

My zombie pic is getting ever closer to completion now. In
celebration here's a couple of zombies who I was asked to
remove due to their unattractive nature.

These 2 ugly bastards are my friends James (aka MC Terrys
Allgold) and Si Fitton (DJ Baron).

Ta for posing guys and I'll try and slip your handsome selves into
a future project instead.

Kurt - Happy birthday

Yesterday I thought it'd be a good idea to post this pic on Kurt Cobain's birthday or something. By some weird coincidence I just looked it up on wiki and it was yesterday. Maybe I have some strange and unknown powers I can't consciously control - if so could there be a link to my little eyes??? Happy birthday old pal.

The Friends of Batman

So I don't have to read my pretentious blurb about Collateral anymore here's a pic of those shambolic boozey comedy punks The Friends of Batman.

We're gigging with the Clench on March 5th at the Grapes in Sheff.

Peace out!

Collateral - hidden ending???

Okay so I'm really straying from the reason I set this Blog up now but I promise there's a new print coming very soon (as soon as I get the chance to finish the bugger). Anyway, I was watching this Michael Mann flick for the 2nd time last night with my lady and I was struck by something slightly bizarre.

For the first 3/4 of the film the tone is fairly serious and shot in an almost believable manner, albeit with Mann's trademark fast-paced action thriller antics. Jamie Foxx's mild mannered cab driver is befriended/kidnapped by Cruise's sociopathic hitman and forces him to be his companion on the journey. A sub-plot evolves of Cruise attempting to convince Foxx that nothing really matters and he should psychologically let go and escape the control of others/life. Eventually Foxx accepts this philosophy and, knowing that he can never realistically stop a professional killer any other way, flips his cab (when neither are wearing belts) causing it to spin several times which would obviously kill them both. Point proven, what a good ending, except...

...after this scene Cruise then emerges and runs off to try to kill, coincidently, a girl Foxx met earlier and fell in love with. Foxx then persues Cruise, saves the girl and takes out the trained killer in a shoot out. I'd argue that the film even changes genre at this point, going from exaggerated thriller to laughable action adventure.

Maybe I'm talking out my arse but I'm guessing Mann made the film he wanted and ended it with a car crash and the death of his 2 leads. The implausibility of the final 1/4 seems so great that I think he was sending out a wink to the film bods to hit the off button post crash. Okay I'll piss off now.

Punisher Warzone

Okay so this has zero to do with my work but fuck it.
Last night myself and some mates had a guys night
out to see this bloodbath of a flick. I've not read
the Punisher since the mid-90s but this film comes
closest from what I remember of capturing the
hard-hitting meathead. Dominic West's 'Jigsaw'
was a high-point for me.
Weird that he's a Sheffielder.



Okay so it's basically a shit film but it's got balls
of steel and goes well with a few beers.
If you'd rather watch an emo-clown getting
A-team style punches that's your choice man.

The Friends of Batman - Gig

My band the Friends of Batman are playing the Grapes in Sheffield on March 5th.
We'll be supported by the Clench and the Sicknotes so it should be a fun one.
I cannibalised a panel from a comic pitch I'm working on for the flyer.

Rother FM

Rother FM's James Marriott was kind enough not only to buy my work but he also invited me in to plug it on his radio show. I'm not sure how long it'll be online but here's the link.

Big thanks to James Marriott for all his help!!!

Download the interview

Phil Barrett - irish comics guru

This year I'm co publishing a small press comic-book with Anjan Sarkar and we've been lucky enough to lure irish comic genius Phil Barrett into the fold.
Phil even sent me this Crumb-influenced 'Note-to' featuring a hairy caveman that looks a bit like me. Top marks Phil!!!

Rorschach

I just did this pic of old changey-face for Exposed's March film collumn. Must admit to being very excited about this flick and doubt Jack Synder will fuck it up. It's been about 9 years since I read it so I'll hopefully get the time to give it a scan again before the release.

Tony Hart story

Ok so this Blog is meant to be purely about my comic
pics but the strangest thing happened to me today.

A couple of days ago I went onto Tony Hart's website
and left a brief message on his guestbook to mark his
passing away as, like most 80s kids, he's one of my
art heroes.

Anyway, this morning I opened my inbox to find an invite
from a lady at the Richard and Judy Show to come on
the show that day as a Tony Hart fan and talk about him.
It wasn't a wind-up but as it's based in London and I had
limited time to get there I had to leave it.

Pretty random + nice to be asked.

Ninja (the cat)

I spent a week last year as a reluctant gardener pulling out weeds with roots like trees. The painful task was made easier by the regular visits of a mysterious cat I nicknamed Ninja. We've moved since then but I'll never forget Ninja.
I decided to use her in a comic pitch I'm working on. I just hope Ninja remembers me and all the sausages I gave her at our bbq.

Hotpants Romance

Here's an image I did of Manc punk rock ladies Hotpants Romance.
I'm ashamed to admit I've never seen then live but after hearing their
bubblegum punch in the boyfriend tunes I was well-up for drawing this
for Sandman Magazine.

Paul Grist Interview

One of the best days of 2008 for me was getting to interview one of my comic-book heroes Paul Grist for Sandman Magazine in the summer. The 'Jack Staff', 'Burgular Bill' and 'Kane' creator was astoundingly modest for someone with his back-catalogue and I had alot of fun penning the article.

It's a fairly light intro to his work which I hope will help spread the good word of the Grist!

Paul Grist interview for Sandman Magazine

Vive le Jarv

I recently spotted that Jarvis was playing the Academy in Sheffield and, being a big fan, I tracked down a guy at the venue and asked if they wanted to commission me to do the poster. The venue were up for using a design I did but they ended up using a tour poster from his record co instead.
Nevermind, it was a blinding gig anyways which made up for it. Here's the poster design (minus text) that didn't make the grade. Can't win em all I guess :(

Holy Fan Comic!

A while ago myself and Exposed magazine writer James McVeigh decided to celebrate our love of the Bat in a mini-comic inspired partly by the alternative takes on the Dark Knight in the Black and White series.

It's not sanctioned by DC but seeing as we're making no profit from it (and Batman isn't doing anything too shadey) I think we're okay to do this.

It's called 'Knightshift' and is a kind-of Batman vs Death stand-off. I think my style has evolved alot since I drew it (it looks a bit stiff) but I still like most of it.

download it for FREE

Happy Christmas

One of the most fun jobs I do each year is designing the Desq Ltd Christmas game/card which gets sent out to clients etc. Okay so it's not technically in my comic style but they really let me go nuts with this one and I'm well chuffed with it! Merry christmas!

Check out the other game links on there too...

Desq xmas game

Hello!

Hi there,
I finally decided to get my arse in gear and get a blog together as I don't get the time to properly update the 'news' section of my site often enough.
I thought I'd kick things off by anouncing the release of 2 prints I recently had published by the Archipelago Print Co. Both are about South Yorkshire with a satirical ref to the destruction of Tinsley Towers (and how it should have happened) and a super-powered use of local Henderson's Relish.

The plan is to do 6 of these in total and hold a show in Sheffield in summer 2009. Can't wait to see them all on the wall. Print 3 is a fake zombie film poster about northern shopping mall Meadowhall which I'm going to have done prob for late Jan-early Feb.

More info.