If you’re a reader of my old blog, you’ll have read periodic updates on how I work – primarily because like me in a party, the moment I feel like I’m comfortable I have to upended a table and jump out a window (or find a tiny kitchen corner to hide in).

The current process goes like this:

Read script.

Create a multi page document of the length of the script + a few pages at the back for layouts/designs.

Use a page at the back, creating a page frame (a specific layer in clip studio paint) and divide it so it’s exactly nine frames, which I’ll use as my guideline for thumbs.

Digital thumbs, I find drawn this way are actually more detailed than my normal pencilled thumbs, and can sometimes double as pencils.

Happy with thumbs, I’ll cut the thumb out for the first page, then paste that into the first document, scaling it up to fill the page.

I’ll create a “pencils” folder (setting it to draft – again a Clip Studio Paint specific thing) and make it a pale blue colour, dropping the enlarged thumb in. I’ll create a new pencil layer within that folder, and trace/finish the rough thumbs into useable pencils.

Once I’ve got my pencils, I’ll create an inks layer, and just ink the damn thing.

That’s it.

I’ve a couple of rules of thumbs for making the digital work go smoother, but you’ll have to be a backstage patreon for that!

Behind the scenes, I explain what’s going on with this scaffolding I’ve drawn all over Dredd’s face, but here’s the picture for everyone else!

So it was 25 years ago yesterday since the Batman animated adventures debuted.

I’m unsure of how old this (unsolicited) batman sample is, but it’s at least half that.

Even as I did these pencils I was aware they were far tighter than my usual. Now they just look insanely tight.

(five vertical panels? I bet I thought I was the bees knees, but it’s largely unreadable – also, why put batman’s ears on top of black, I should’ve made the bg at the top lighter. And … Bruce Timm much? actually no, not even a fraction of Bruce Timm, but look at that bored Commissionor Gordon/security guard.)

This page has nothing going for it. NOTHING.

I was pretty pleased with the Bat-goggles, and I still like the chunky batman on panel 2 though that big dildo-like building is fairly distracting.

(and I clearly used up all the perspective grid on that first page, cus here it’s all Aldus Huxley doors of perception perspective…)

I was asked in Feb to do a little interview for a student. Here’s that…

As a parent who is working professionally within the comics industry, do you encourage your kids to read comics, and why?

I think I’d always encourage my kids to read, regardless of what it is they’re reading. I like comics, and comics got me through a tough time as a reader, but my kids don’t seem to have picked up that deep love I had for them and treat comics as just another way to entertain themselves when they’ve been told they’ve got to come off youtube.

Given the current state of the industry, do you think young readers are catered to enough? Does the industry put enough emphasis on younger readers? Is there anything you think the industry could do,
from a publisher or retail level even, that would help open the door for kids into comics? Or is there anything that they are doing at 

the moment that you think is encouraging?

Price I think is the big issue. There’s plenty of kids comics on shelves in the newsagents and supermarkets (in fact more than at any time I remember) but they’re expensive especially compared to the hours of entertainment that can be had from video games, and it would be nice if all comics shops had a section that matched the Big Bang’s shelves for kid friendly fare.

What is your opinion on the all-ages books that are currently available? A common phrase used in comics retail, when suggesting comics for a new adult/teenage customer, is that there is a comic out
there for everyone, do you think this statement applies to younger readers or do you think more publishers should be focusing on the all-ages market?

I wish I could speak with some authority here, but I can’t. My experience is limited to my experience, and I have a tendency (like most parents) to try and impose my tastes on my kids, I want them to read 2000AD – I’d LOVE a younger age version of 2000AD – but they love pokemon and are pretty well served on that front.

What do you think kids could learn or what could benefit them from reading comics at a young age?

There’s an enormous amount of benefits to reading comics, I think – and many not so obvious. Expanding a child’s vocabulary seems pretty obvious but I think it broadens your thinking and helps you understand new more complex subjects sooner. Granted that’s often a little backfiring (I mean, it’s great my kids know what radioactive means, but it’s less great that they think it means it can grant them the powers of any animal that is radioactive as long as it bites them). It’s also amazing way to expand a child’s empathy, and can teach them social situations and how to react, again, comics being comics, there’s a hyperbolic nature to these things, but the little moments grounded in real life can help kids deal with knowing right from wrong, and knowing what side society they really want to belong to.