FAN ART: MIKE NEVILLE VS TEDDY SCARE BEAR!

Some more fan art for ya, this time of the thrilling first meeting of Teddy Scare Bear and Ben Clarks adventurer/crime fighter/local broadcast legend MIKE NEVILLE! Ben is the creator of many crazy funny comics, such as Mike Neville, Punchasaurus and Griefbringer (among others). He's got loads of them up on his blog - magicbeanscomics.blogspot. Check 'em out, your ribs are sure to be tickled!

WORLD WAR BEARS!

Currently working on completing other mini comics but fret not, Teddy will return next year in the comic book event series to end all event series - WORLD WAR BEARS! (with respect and apologies to those whose work I've re-imagined for the above pic). And I'm sure he'll pop up in some of the fan art pieces I've got planned for the next couple of weeks.

I made use of some Computones plug ins I have in Paint Shop Pro to fill out the background on this piece. Not sure how people feel about the use of this stuff outside of the usual grey tones but I don't really have a problem with it. As long as it all looks good it's fair game, I think.

GOTTA GET 'EM ALL!

Check out these trading cards that Martin Eden has created to promote the latest issue of Spandex; how cool are they? He's giving away one card per issue at the London MCM Expo but I'm kinda hoping he'll sell them as a set at some point. I absolutely loved that Jim Lee X-Men trading card series that Marvel put out in the early 1990s. It was the only card series that I ever really got into, although I never completed the set (much to my annoyance). Marvel put out a pretty good Marvel Universe card set afterwards but I never saw anything that could compare to that X-Men one. These Spandex ones look fun, though. So much so that I want to have a go at doing some!

TEDDY ON THE RACKS

Dropped off some copies of Teddy Scare Bear at Orbital Comics today. It's quite a cool shop on Great Newport St, London with a good range of new comics, books, lots of back issues and a nice gallery space. The staff are friendly and helpful, which is always nice, and it seems as if they always have some interesting events going on. Best of all, though, they have some space set aside for small press comics. So that's Teddy Scare Bear up there (sold as a set of 4 issues @£1.50) on the third rack from the top, mixing it up with the likes of Martin Edens' "Spandex" and P.B. Raineys' "There's No Time Like The Present". Not bad company, eh? Why not pop along and pick up an issue (or two)?

GHOSTWATCH BACK ON DVD

Ah, Ghostwatch. One of the most controversial British TV shows of all time. In fact, I think it might still hold the record for most number of viewer complaints (over 30,000 calls to the Beeb), which, when you consider that it was a show that had no sex, violence or profanity is quite an achievement.

Despite being a pre-recorded drama it was "sold" as a live TV event in 1992. A studio host (chatshow lege Michael Parkinson) and a team of outside broadcasters investigate poltergeist activity in a house in Greater London, before inevitably being possessed by said ghost. It caused almost an entire nation to collectively shit it's pants as most people tuned in to it believing it to be real (bit like that whole Orson Welles-War-of-the-Worlds-radio-play-malarkey). It was pretty ballsy and innovative programme- making at the time and pretty influential (although it probably gave birth to such tripe as Most Haunted). In fact, Parky and the Ghostwatch team even turned up in issue 2 & 3 of Teddy Scarebear! I remember it being really good (and scary!) and am looking forward to watching it again this Halloween. Ghostwatch is on Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube and I think the shows creator Stephen Volk has a blog dedicated to it. Check it out.

BRAND NEW FORMAT, SAME GREAT TASTE!

Actually, I wouldn't recommend eating Teddy Scarebear; It'll leave you with terrible wind (well he is evil). TSB has been reformatted and is now printed on nice, shiny 160gm paper with colour covers. Even though it's still pretty cute at A5 it's actually now 4 times the size of the original version (back when it was called Teddy Krueger). Can't believe I drew the whole thing at that size! So now that TSB is bigger and shinier than ever before it would make an awesome gift this Halloween (just sayin').

FAN ART: THE HUMAN WONDER

Here we have my rendition of Gary Ochiltrees' time displaced golden-age superhero - The Human Wonder! Gary owns the Krypton Komics & Books store in Tottenham and has self-published 3 issues of "Tales of the Wonder Kind". Each 44 page issue features a main story, back-ups and (on the back) brilliant mock-up covers that look like genuine golden age comics. Issues can be ordered from the Kryptonkomics.com website.

I've also recently treated myself to a copy of Manga Studio Debut and the image above is the result of my first try-out of the software. I started off with a rough pencil image which I then scanned into MSD and inked on the computer. I've never inked anything in this way before so I wasn't too concerned with getting a nice, consistent, smooth line. If I can get a decent result after a lot of practice then I think this may be the way to go. It would certainly save a lot of time cleaning up my scans.

FAN ART: THE O-MEN

Came across this pic in one of my folders this morning. It's of some of the characters from Martin Edens' O-Men series. I started it ages ago but kinda forgot all about it. I went down the Greg Land route and based all the characters on real people. Miss Scarlett was based on the actress Jemima Rooper, Rob was based on David Beckham and Vixen was based on Becky from Corrie (yeah, I know, they're not great likenesses are they?). The others were based on random fasion/glamour models; I just changed the hair, clothes, accessories etc.

Some of it came out ok; I quite like Strange and Grace in the second panel. Some of it makes me cringe (Molly Valentine, Vixen's broad shoulders). Anyway, finishing off this piece has put me in the mood to do some more fan art. Watch out small pressers!