Sunday 16 January 2011

Friday 14 January 2011

END OF THE ROAD, FRECKLES.


Finally made it to the last episode of Lost. What a beautiful ending to probably the best T.V show I've ever seen. I had to really think about that afterwards. I really got into Buffy and the X-Files when they first aired over here but lost interest around series 3/4. Same with the Sopranos and the West Wing. I think the only shows that come close are Life On Mars/Ashes to Ashes (which, strangely, had a similar ending to Lost) and BSG. I know this show has had many detractors but I've loved it from beginning to end. Sure, season 2 was frustrating but no less fascinating (and it had Mr Echo!). The storytelling (even when it was clear they were making it up as they went along), the characters, the acting, the scripts, the direction -it was all superb. Loved the switch between flashbacks, flash forwards and "flash sideways". There was even that episode with Sunn and Jin where they employed both the flashback and flash forward techniques with heartbreaking effect. The final episode left me both happy and sad. Happy for the characters in the church at the end, sad that there will not be any more episodes to enjoy. Now what am I going to watch?

Tuesday 11 January 2011

FROM RAGS TO...ER..RAGS




So the X Men have been redesigned (again) and somebody has seen fit to put Storm in a loin cloth (again). Seriously, what's the thinking that goes into this? "well she's African...so think jungle....think tribal....think loin cloth!" Sigh. I know, I know, she's a female character in superhero comics and so has always been treated as a sex object but surely there's something else that can be done with her visuals?

Friday 7 January 2011

Teddy Krueger #1 Cover


Whoops, here's the cover to ish 1.

TEDDY GOES COLOUR!







Here are colour versions of the covers to ish 1 & 2 plus page 1 of ish 2. I'm sticking to flat colours as I think that is the approach that suits the art best. It's a little rough around the edges but I kinda like it. Hope other people do too. I should mention that Teddy Krueger is only in colour online. The actual mini comics themselves will be printed in b&w. I was going to put the colour version up on Comicspace but...well there doesn't seem to be any comics on there anymore. Lots of blogs, forums and art for sale but no comics (not that I can see, anyway). Shame the site had to be redesigned. Anyway, looking at other sites such as Carbonmade.com or I may just post them all here. I should also point out that Teddy isn't simply a spoof of that other Krueger fellow. This character was originally conceived after watching films such as Critters, Ghoulies, Child's Play and NOES but Teddy is very much his own character with his own story. More on that soon.

Sunday 2 January 2011

YEAR OF THE SCARE BEAR


One of my new years resolutions is to post more artwork and more updates on my comics more often. So here's another Teddy Kruger pic for ya. As I said in my last post, Teddy's an old horror character of mine from the 90's and was influenced by films such as "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Childs' Play". He was one of a number of horror themed characters that me and my old comics creating buddy Rob Pocock worked on after making our own super hero comics for a couple of years. We created some posters and strips but never really managed to get a proper comic going. Anyway, after hitting a bit of a wall with the first issue of "S.C.I" and the "Britains' Best Comics" one shot I decided I needed to work on something else - something quick and fun. I knew Teddy would be perfect as it would allow me to work in a much simpler style than the reference heavy style of S.C.I. I just was'nt sure of the format until I went to BICS 2010 and picked up some mini comics by R. Claude. One of them, called "Immortal Ewan and the Rod of Rasputin", was just a sheet of A4 folded in half 3 times to create a 7 page comic with fold out mini poster on the inside. It was the perfect format for what I had in mind for Teddy. I'm drawing these at a size only slightly bigger than my normal thumbnail size, so it's not possible to get bogged down in too many details or rendering. There's not much room for dialogue either so it's a pretty good excercise for telling a story as simply as possible. Teddy Krueger will be a 4 issue mini comic miniseries with the cast of S.C.I appearing in ish 4. More details and artwork to follow soon.