Author: pj

Here’s what you can find:

This month’s Judge Dredd Megazine, part 1 of the six part Devlin Waugh tale, Two Months Off. In which Devlin takes a well deserved break and as we all know nothing can ever go wrong on holidays, right? RIGHT?

Here’s the pencils and inks from page 1.

Also, coming up, Judge Dredd Case Files 46 – more details here

Finally you should be able to pick up Battle Action this month featuring me and John McCrea on HOOKJAW!

Look at this mad Steve White cover!

I don’t know what I can show you of Hookjaw, I did the scaffolding and plumbing for John and he built this extraordinarily pretty comic.

It did give me a rare chance to pull the old “let’s drop the credits in the water” opportunity

It was, I think, one of the more technically complex things I’ve drawn (lots of sharks in the water, people on boats, and drones in the air…)

That’s not the only shark action I did this month, I also got to draw… GUMS!

Unsure when you’ll see that, but man, that was so much fun to draw!

Anyway, that’s your lot, more as I remember them!

Outside of comics, the rehearsals continue apace. Had forgotten just how much i love acting. Even the sitting around waiting part of acting, I’ve always really loved, so doing that again (while also acting as a prompt for other people’s lines) was a real proper pleasure. I fill so much of my time with DOING that not doing seems like a real luxury.

AND… I have finally completed couch to 5k – the 8 week course, took maybe 15 weeks, and I’ve run two park runs (in the slowest possible time for a human, hitting about 45 minutes both times, though a five/ten minutes of that was me walking).

Now doing a regular Monday/Wednesday/Friday (at least that’s the plan) 4-5k run.

I had to fill in a form asking how much exercise I do and, for the first time in my life, I had to scroll past “NO ACTIVITY” to “THREE-FOUR times per week”

I’m still fat. I can’t outrun that. I need to think about my diet, because I would like to lose some weight too – but feeling pretty smug, going from walking half a k and getting sore legs to regularly running 4k (30+ minutes non stop running) is pretty good. Now just gonna keep consistency for running and slowly get towards a 5k around 30-35 minutes. I’ll be happy with that.

I often think there are schools of artists (and by schools I’m talking collective schools of fish rather than people who were actually trained together) – artists who either are influenced by each other, came up contemporaries of each other or share some essential dna (or are maybe simply simpatico) Then you’ll get the occasional artist who will look like they’ve turned up out of the blue and generate a score of people influenced by them, but even they in turn will diverge and pick up different influences until they’re either nothing like that artist or so unique in who they are you can no longer tell their primary influence.

Before I start I want to make it clear, NONE of this is meant in any negative way, this is how artists make things – we draw influence and ingest it and combine it and get something out that we love (which is what Picasso means by “Great artists steal!”) also I’m probably deeply simplifying the influences here, for which I apologise.

So for example (and these are all artists I love) Frank Quitely, self admittedly is hugely influenced by the artist Dudley D Watkins (and many others, but he’s essential in that DNA)

I think Watkins clarity of story telling, exaggerated features and Claire Ligne style is still very present in Frank’s style.

Frank went on then to influence a bunch of great artists.

Bill Sienkiewicz drew early inspiration from Neal Adams and then every other artist he could swallow into his own art until what he produces is nothing like anyone else alive. Except you’ll occasionally get some Adam’s like rendering on stuff. Adams’ influenced a lot of artists, I suspect you could also draw a family tree from Adams to Alan Davis and those who were influenced by Davis.

When I was first putting pen to paper, my influences were largely Steve Dillon and Jerry Paris. To a greater or lesser extent I think both artists remain in my art, but as I got older I attempted to grab some broader influences, never all that successfully, but certainly slightly more mindfully (less demure though* this will make no sense as a joke in about a year)

Mignola, Adam Hughes, Kevin Nowlan, I took what I could from them – where I failed to grab those influences that failure is mine rather than their particular genius, and of course, the singular genius that is my pal John McCrea, whose influence is so deeply imbedded I frequently surprise myself by drawing what I can only describe as a McCrea face (First Dredd strip I ever drew, the took a small image of dredd to use in the index and when I looked I thought “Oh wow, for some reason they’ve used a John McCrea drawing in the index”)

Having not really been picking up comics for a while I’m out of the loop on what talent is out there, so I’ve decided to scour around and find artists that I would like my art to sit comfortably with – people I think plough a similar furrow (and I apologise for dragging them in to this, this is purely an exercise in my head) largely because well, it’s good to have a sense of what’s possible.

If you’re an artist, it might be a useful exercise to see what artists out there draw in a way that you can find inspiration in.

What surprises me about this list is that my initial list (Mignola, Hughes, Nowlan) are clean lines, beautiful tight line work and are generally, very controlled.

This list I’d describe, for the most part, as much more … muscular? maybe. Inky? I’m not sure. Any way… my list, in no particular order:

• Nick Derrington.
• Nick Klein
• Dan Panosian
• Riley Rossmo
• Ryan Stegman 
• Danny Earls 
• Kyle Holtz
• Matt Smith (aka Barbarian Lord)
• Dani
• Ryann Ottley

So instantly one common trait they share is all of them, I think, are traditional pen and paper and ink artists (and the ones that aren’t, well, they use a brush)

This may not be my artist school, but it’s one where I think I can learn a lot.

Man, look it’s hard – SUPER HARD – to keep track of what I’ve got coming up in print, frequently I have no idea. These three things below were drawn over, I think, a two year period – and, of course, they’re all coming out within a month of each other. But anyways…

Batman Brave and the Bold issue 16

Cover date: October 2024

I have a ten page Metropolitan set story about cops and Superman (and what the cops do when superman is off doing super things), written by Jay Faerber and called “First Watch”.

You can see a little preview of one of the other strips right here:

https://comicbookdispatch.com/batman-the-brave-and-the-bold-16-preview

Old Dog: Operations

Cover date: September 2024

A 6 pager I wrote and did layouts for with John McCrea finishing, called “Reflections” – Old Dog chases a suspect into a hall of mirrors, and comes face to face with himself.

Once this is in print, I’ll double check with everyone but should be able to put up the script, thumbs, layouts and inks – just so you can see the shine and polish John does on my layouts! Honestly, every time John does this over my layouts firstly I get a thrill that it’s happening, then I see all the little modifications he’s made to make the art really zing and then I spot the big stuff he’s redrawn and I learn so much (and occasionally, I’m either embarrassed or, usually, humbled at how crude my art is compared to his, though I AM doing layouts). On the pat-myself-on-the-back side, my story telling is usually 100% intact, which means I’m good at that bit! But man John really brings it alive.

https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/old-dog-operations-one-shot

Battle Action 2024

I’ve a strip in one of the issues (not sure which!) Major Eazy, written by Rob Williams. Major Eazy contributes to the invasion of Sicily.

https://shop.treasuryofbritishcomics.com/catalogue/B0064

Here’s Keith Burn’s extraordinary cover for the first issue (I think I might be issue 4? which means the cover date should be … November/December for my issue)

Leopard from Lime Street

There’s a collection of the Leopard from Lime Street, drawn by Me, NICK ROCHE & LAURENT LEFEUVRE and written by SIMON FURMAN (links all to Rebellion’s website of things we’ve done)

I’ve been drawing LOTS of other stuff though some you’ll seen sooner rather than later.

-pj

So anyway, updates are a bit pathetic round here, arent they?

I can’t honestly say that’ll change, but I keep meaning too.

Now the meta moaning about my minimamal maintenance of this aide memoire is done, on to the action.

Things what I have done.

Couch to 5k – I’ve been doing this off and on for WEEKS! WEEKS! With my mate. It’s been a comedic disaster, our first attempt we got to week 4 day 2 and decided it was too much and went back to redo week 3, then by end of week3 we went back to week 2, then we discovered my mate, who is clearly much much fitter than I and yet was struggling, had to go to hospital to get a gallbladder removed. So we paused, and then when he was well enough we restarted back at week 1.

So it’s been 10 weeks or so, but we’re finally back at week 4 day 2.

The thing is, past a certain age comfort becomes priority and discomfort becomes something to be avoided. So for me, being sweaty and out of breath isn’t comfortable, and so I pull back a bit – but the really is, I suppose, you need to get there so you can be fit enough to bend down to tie your shoes without running out of breath. Similarly, being hungry is my first sign that I need to eat – and I honestly can’t remember the last time I was hungry. I need to learn to sit in discomfort if I want to get fitter and get slimmer.

Definitely Maybe

Yesterday me and my 16 year old went to see Liam Gallagher play in the Boucher road playing fields – on the anniversary tour of Definitely Maybe. Despite not being a full on oasis fan (neither of us) we thought it’d be worth seeing this tour – part of me regrets the fact that in the 90s when Blur and Oasis were big, I was entirely unbothered by concerts and live music. My twenties I’d rather spend it behind a computer screen programming than going to any concerts. But my kid loves music and loves concerts and I’ll sometimes make him jealous of the fact I saw Prince in 1991 (was my first concert, really, age 21, and I think it was my last concert for quite some time, as I just didn’t like concerts). So this seemed like a good one to share.

When Blur and Oasis were doing their direct face off, I was in Milton Keynes and knew a lot of people who were Oasis fans and I never felt I had a lot in common with them – too lary, too testosterone fuled and macho, and so it proved. Drunken blokes, constantly seeing plastic glasses with beers flashing over head like inept fireworks, and one bloke shouting “GET IN! GET IN! GET IN!” (though I think this was a football related joy).

Anyway, me and the kid did not enjoy that aspect of it. Plus we’re both short (me more than him) so finding a spot to see anything is great until people taller than us stand directly in front.

There were three bands playing, Esmeralda Road – a NI band – doing I suppose funky jazz? who it turns out, has members in it, my eldest son knows cus they were a year ahead of him in school, Kasabian who was great actually – bursting with energy, way better than I expected (and also everyone seemed to know their lyrics, except me…) and then Liam Gallagher, who did a lot of singing, not much talking and when he did talk it’s pretty much what you’d expect from Liam Gallagher.

Anyway, that’s my concert review.

On Anthologies

Man, I love anthologies – isn’t that obvious. Anyway, over the last year or so I’ve accidentally picked up “ASIMOV The Early Years” volumes 1, 2 and 3 – I used to love Asimov, so much so, that when I’d sort of exhausted his scifi oeuvre (ok I bounced off Foundation, but man the Caves of Steel! the Robot Stories! and these shorts from the Early Years – all great stuff to adolescent me) I discovered his Black Widowers stories – retired detectives solving mysteries.

I’ve also picked up the recent return of EC Stories, and have now set it my mission to get something in print in one of them. Let’s see how that goes – good to have goals, right?

Also, inspired by them, I’ve decided to try and focus on writing and drawing some shorts – it’ll take forever so don’t get excited, plus I’ll probably forget about it- that I can pull together into my own ec inspired anthology (difference between an ec inspired anthology and a 2000ad inspired one? I think the ec ones are all done in one, whereas 2000ad things have long continuous arcs)

And finally…

John McCrea was around so we took out my new Samnee Artists Edition of the Black Widow book, and let me tell you, John and I just stared at this thing boggle eyed. I will say my enjoyment of the artists editions has massively shoot through the roof since I decided I’d look at these books with John – it is the best way to enjoy them, get a pal around and share them with someone. But also, especially on this Samnee book, Chris is of the “I’ll fix it after I scan it” generation – ie, people (like me and John and more) who do much of their corrections on the computer. Which means there’s very little whiteout, but there is a lot of code on the page to indicate what to do (lines with an X through them to indicate – “ERASE THIS LINE” and arrows pointing at lines, which I think indicates “redraw this bit”) we compared the drawn art to the printed art, and man there’s a lot of small, almost insignificant differences, but differences all the same. Small cutsy cartoony faces, redrawn with slightly more realistic shadow. Light carved out of figures where the figure is entirely in shadow. Nothing major, but highlighted why Samnee is a genius.

Anyway, this afternoon I’m expecting Batman Year 1 Artists Edition, where all the marks are on the page, and McCrea is still in town… so …. let’s see! (will get some pics!)

My son (aged 16) and I (aged er… not telling) opened up one of my boxes of original art, mostly containing stuff over a decade old (and some older) – which sounds like a long time ago and feels like no time at all. This was largely Dept of Monsterology (which I wish had been more of a success than it was), Numbercruncher and some bits and bobs of Dredd.

A couple of things struck me during this deep dive. Some of the art I liked, some I didnt – the mission was to separate good pages which I might be able to sell from bad pages (or at least harder to sell) I’d bin them, in the end of the pile of binable stuff barely made a dent (which isn’t to say I’ll ever sell the others, because the work involved in that would be substantial, and so it’s more likley they’ll sit in this box for another 30 years until my kids are left with the job of disposing of them in some manner, probably in a tip. (It’s ok though, they’re simply the building blocks for the comics that they become)

When I began my comics career, I kept all the art I drew, eventually I had too much and just started keeping finished comic pages (as opposed to the odd nice drawing) then I started only keeping the pages that were published, and even with that I still have a massive pile of artwork (one of the many advantages of going digital is I no longer keep pages and pages of paper)

One of the benefits though of looking through this old stuff is seeing where the quality varies, though I often don’t have a clue why it did – too mcuh confidence? lack of confidence? I don’t know, but some pages are much more amateurish than others – even in the same run of a book. I dunno how much of that is detectable by a non artist, but it feels painfully obvious to me.

Some of my inking is too clunky, even as the drawing is nice. Though often the clunky is better than the other stuff, where the inking feels weed-thin, like a strong gust will blow it away. There was a more explosive energy to a lot of it (but maybe that was the material – Monsterology, especially was a kinetic fun thing). Also, this work is about 10 years into my pro career, so I can’t even blame it on my own growing pains.

Also, I redrew a lot of stuff – I joke about it often, and it’s something I had a reputation for, but it’s much wilder to come face to face with two pages and NOT KNOW WHICH ONE WAS THE FINAL ONE. I mean, why? I used to say (and I still sort of believe it) I can redraw any of my own art and it will be fractionally better – but sometimes those fractionally improvements are so small, and yet at the time felt so important.

That Dept of Monsterology page? I think I drew a third version of that. Ugh.

I dunno if I can draw any lessons from this, I wish I could. I wish I could see exactly why the bad pages were bad and the good pages were good.

It’s not all bad, a lot of the work I look at and think “actually that’s pretty good” and even the weak ones I think – well, the colour probably made it harder to spot that was weaker.

Anyway, putting that box away for another decade might help. We’ll see.

Quick update, I did a fun little short radio interview on BBC Radio Ulster this morning, and you should be able to hear it here (it’s about 15 minutes in)

My old webserver company has become a new webserver company, hopefully they’ll keep the website up and running as smoothly as the old one did, and if you’re interested in hosting your own website (I pay around a fiver a month and honestly, it’s a bargain to have a wordpress install that’s all my own – with no ads, or features you “pay for”) anyway, the people hosting it now are:

https://www.velocitas.cloud

And, if like some pals who had a google account with multiple emails, you should consider moving to these guys as a fiver a month will get you unlimited email addresses (instead of googles new crazy pricing per email address for business)

On the personal front, mad busy, can’t talk about it. Went to Disneyland paris last week – an emergency holiday (wife was taking son, but she took vertigo meaning she couldn’t do any rides with him, so I had to get an emergency passport and book a flight and hotel so it wasn’t a massive waste of money on a miserable holiday for the two of them) but came home to do a work catchup and somehow wife now has covid. She’s not had it lucky, that’s for sure. (Quite apart from marrying me)

Anyway, now the website is in a new home, let’s see if we can’t figure out what to do with the place, eh?

-pj