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Locker
Posted on 26th September 2019 by pj

Oh man, we messed up.

Well, we didn’t really, we work from a list in advance of what the next Folklore Thursday is gonna be. The list is pretty far in advance, and, apparently, this week, changed. So instead of whatever-this-weeks-topic was it became insects. BUT THIS WAS THE FIRST WEEK I WAS ACTUALLY AHEAD! so, poop. Instead you’re getting too Folklore strips. Locker, was my new fav.

Davy Jones’ Locker. The deep-sea Hell of the drowned, according to pirate-lore and later nautical-lore. Davy Jones a diabolical figure, sometimes said to be glimpsed among the rigging during a storm. More often than not though, the sea-devil simply waits below.

John Reppion via Twitter

I love stuff like this, instantly I could see it all – deep-sea Hell of the drowned? Class! Trying to get something of a narrative in there – the sailer with the red scarf, drowned in the waters. And shifting to a symbolic skull in the water, was fun in the last panel.

I enjoy drawing gruesome faces, so that much is fun for me.

The Studio

Posted on 1st February 2023 by pj

Been a slow slow slow development towards what my new studio space looks like. Functionally, I’ve moved to entirely digital, which has meant the focus of the space is around digital drawing. But I still want to have the option to pick up some paper and draw on it.

I have a great big a3 inkjet printer I’d love to get rid of, but I need (JUST IN CASE!) and a Alex set of drawers first for A3 / A2 paper (well, just about A2) which is just a little too big. And this chair is no longer fit for purpose. BUT I have a bookshelf (which is currently half empty) and a new shelving system which I can add to as I see fit (though it turns out the top is so high up I can’t even reach it, so it’s now where I put my Objects of Desire. Though, tbh even seeing them requires me to stand on my tip toes.

I do miss the old old studio, you know… the one before we had kids when I had this VAST room that I could fit three tables in, and still have too much space. *sigh* maybe one day. At least now we’re in a house rather than a flat, there’s a possibility one day I’ll get a bigger space by putting a decent shed out the back… but I suspect my wife will veto that long before I put roots down. Still, this isn’t bad. Not bad at all.

Inside the studio space

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A month of pages

Posted on 31st January 2023 by pj

Well, I’m not going to do any drawing tomorrow, but let me tell you – phew, what a month.

In the end, I pencilled 47 pages and inked 49.

It felt good. It breaks down like this:

Week BeginningPencilsInks
2 Jan 2023 128
9 Jan 2023511
16 Jan 2023291
23 Jan 2023124
31 Jan 2023 (so far)05

That included two episodes of the Leopard from Lime Street and finishing chapters three and four of Bad Magic (the Skulduggery Pleasant graphic novel written by Derek Landy). Next month I have the final two chapters to complete.

If you’re a patreon member you can see and follow the progress of the work I’ve done over the last month, and I intend to try and keep that format of weekly updates with photos of my work journal.

StreA page from the Leopard from Lime Street in the comic Monster Fun.

I’m feeling pretty good about not only how much work I did, but the quality of it (and idiot might say “fast pages aren’t good pages”, but I’ve always maintained, for me, the opposite is often true – fast pages frequently are ones I’ve felt confident about, slow pages are the ones that I’ve had to labour over).

Last time I hit a burst of speed like this was for the second volume of Dept of Monsterology (and I’m still really happy with a lot of those pages).

One worrying factor is if I DO the same next month, I’ll literally run out of work – but then, I can always start looking for more. Certainly, like an idiot I’ve started to turn over the idea of a commando digest style comic as a possible project. That’ll pass. I’m sure that’ll pass. I think.

Anyway, hope you had a good start to the year, mine has been great!

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The Digital Studio

Posted on 30th January 2023 by pj

Here’s my computer setup for work.

Acer Asus 4k 27″ Monitor (which I can show 3 roughly print sized pages on across ways) cost: £179 (I think I picked this up as a bargain, it was the last of two of these in curry’s and they were discontinued, the newer one I think was about £230 or something)

Huion 16″ I picked that up for around £300 (Actually it might’ve been £269?) absoloute bargain at either price. I’d buy another of these in a heartbeat. 

Even when I had the massive 27″ Cintiq, I’d usually split the screen in two, in the left I’d show the full sized page and on the right I’d show a zoomed in area I was working on. The Huion is capable of the same but there’s not enough real estate there realistically, so instead this double screen set up is perfect.

Both powered by a Mac M1 Mini, the new M2 Mac Mini starts around £649 (8Gb RAm, 256Gb HD) – I’d probably go to the £1049 model (16Gb Ram, 512Gb HD) the mac isn’t upgradeable, and while my current setup is 8Gb/512Gb I do slightly regret not getting more ram (not that it’s ever hampered me, mind you, it runs fast enough for everything I do)

Updated to add: I forgot, the mac doesn’t come with keyboard or mouse, so I’ve a logitech wireless mouse (about £20?) and a really lovely, took-me-ages-to-finally-pull-the-trigger keychron keyboard, that was about £69(!) yes, I know. But it’s super small footprint, the keys are bright white (though it has an irratatingly large selection of how the keyboard lights work – I mean keyboard lights that dance around while you’re using it, I just want them on or off!) and they have a chunky nice feel when you use them. Plus it’s wired OR wireless, I use it wired just to keep the lights on all the time. (And you have three bluetooth connections you can choose from if you like).

Connected to all of that is a Brother DCP6690CW – which I think I bought 10-15 years ago? An A3 scanner/inkjet printer. Anwyay, it was around £260 and I use whatever rubbish ink cartridges I can find cheap and it works great for everything I do – scanning lineart, and printing blueline for inking. (though a more modern one would work a bit nicer on the network and I could print/scan to an iphone) That said I don’t actually ink this way anymore, so I’ve got it on hand JUST IN CASE.

Second printer is a Brother HL2350DCP laser printer, I use this for printing scripts and the odd comic, it’s A4 and can print double sided so good for silly fun projects.

Software wise: Clip Studio Pro Ex ver 1.13 (Latest version 1). There’s a version 2 coming soon, I’m not sure it has any features I want/need, but my old computer head will kick in and I’ll probably upgrade. 

For scripts/editing, I’ll usually turn to Pages – which is Apple’s word processor and free with the mac. Word compatible so good enough for most things. Though I am tempted to get Scrivener for comic scripting, which is about £50.

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Currently…

Posted on 30th January 2023 by pj

Drawing comics, listening to 90s music and wondering how on earth it’s worked out so well.

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Folklore Thursday

Posted on 23rd January 2023 by pj

I’m having to revisit folklore thursday strips for a collection (hurrah!) and oen of the things I’m doing is a brand new strip. Except… I don’t remember how to do it any more! So I’m sitting staring at the John’s tweet (remember, John Reppion would write a folklore tweet and I’d make up a comic using it) and thinking “how did I do this for a year?”

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One of my favourite things about getting older

Posted on 21st January 2023 by pj

Is finding myself in the company of an old friend and just hanging out – esp when it’s my old mucker @mccreaman

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Four page days

Posted on 18th January 2023 by pj

I’m scheduling the pencils I’ve got to do this week for four page a day. Absolutely bonkers, but very doable. I mean, for a start my pencils are super rough (a guide for my later inking). Hoping I can get 21 pages completed, then start inking next week. One annoying thing about that schedule is when you have a hard crash in the middle of it (for whatever reason) suddenly, you’ve missed two days and you’re eight pages behind. Horrible.

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Qwitter

Posted on 11th January 2023 by pj

I’ve gone round the houses on twitter, and the quitting of it. Here’s where I am now: my account – while active is only so because it’s a reasonable defence against my username being handed to a pornbot or similar (how many old comics forums are now in the hands of porn websites? I dunno, but don’t look up panelxpixel, it’s depressing)

Anything I post here gets autoposted, I do occasionally browse twitter and when I do, I might RT someone generally if it’s someone looking for help, or trying to drum up an audience for their kickstarter. I’m trying not to engage, but twitter still remains the best way to catch up on the world. BUT – my days of posting bon mots are, I think, over.

I have occasionally posted stuff, but it’s now basically just when I want eyeballs to look at things. I’ve found, like my old boss Davie used to say – I’m as replaceable as a fist in a bucket of water (you remove the fist and the water rapidly fills in the void)

I suspect over time those eyeballs numbers will drop and drop until the point where there really is no point posting there (partly this is the algorithem anyway, and partly I suspect Musk’s push for payment for audience is gonna make it useless)

That all said, my blog has never had more attention from me, and I’ve been averaging three-four pages of pencils per day (I mean yesterday I finished pencilling a page from the previous day, then did two pages of pencils and then did two pages of inks and still went to bed at a reasonable time…) so being mostly off twitter has been generally a net positive in my life – even if I do miss all my old mates who haven’t made the leap to Mastodon.

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Film Night!

Posted on 10th January 2023 by pj

So, I did the first class – a sort of introductory who-we-are-and-what-our-favourite-films-are, two hour thing.

(For the record, I said my favourite film is The Big Lebowski – which I think it is, probably the film I’ve seen the most, and has bits that make me laugh, though honestly the reason I’m doing a course on short film making is I love things like Inside No 9, Black Mirror and… you know … 2000ad)

The plan is everyone who wants to can pitch an idea and then Larry (who’s running the thing) will pick one (based, more on how well it’ll use everyone’s abilities, as much as the quality of the idea/script)

It’s weird introducing yourself in a group – especially one where odds are you’ll find a comic fan – or at least someone who knows you (Belfast is a small place anyway, so – as was the case here – Larry had heard of me, but from people saying “there’s a guy who lives [redacted] who writes* for 2000ad” (*these things are always a bit garbled)

So last night I sat and had a think and came up with about five ideas for shorts, I dunno if any will get past tomorrow, and they’re all a little nebulous, but here they are:

TANGO

Outside a community centre a husband and wife talk about their past, and their future, and how this tango class is a first step in a new future for him. As he walks haltingly towards the door, we see a sign for the tango night – “Singles Tango Night – widowers welcome” and he turns and says goodbye to his wife, who vanishes.

The Pass

Spide and Jaunty are two not-so-bright belfast hoods who need some money for weed, and decide to mug the first person to come down the back street they’re in. That first person, it turns out… is Gandalf.

There’s a confrontation – Gandalf gets the better of the two idiots and escapes, but as he does so, he drops his pipe.

Spide is disappointed, they got nothing. “‘er, you think he was… you know, Magic…?” Jaunty, drawing from the pipe and in a smokey weed induced haze – “I dunno about him, but this is fucking magic”

The Ticket

A traffic warden and a badly parked driver face off, as the warden is about to place a ticket on the car and the man knows if he can get to the door he can claim he was just leaving. No dialogue and filmed like a spaghetti western, including tumbling crisp packets and close up of sweaty eyes.

Working Stiff

An office style docudrama as a husband and wife are interviewed about their typical day. The husband though, is a monosyllabic zombie. “Oh well, day to day there’s not much difference from before, I mean he’s still mostly in the way, though he is a LOT better with the dog and to be honest his personal hygene isn’t what it was… ” “And your … love life” “Oh, well, now … that IS different… I mean… now he’s always … ” [end credits]

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Eat my Shorts

Posted on 9th January 2023 by pj

I woke up this morning and thought, I should really be trying to do something beyond just sitting in the house and drawing comics, and LO! I booked myself a course on making short films at our local arts community centre. (if you’re in Belfast, it’s the Crescent Arts Centre)

I did think “I should do something totally outside my wheel house” – but I’ve wanted for years to make short films and never done anything beyond a couple of little goofy shorts for my son (who was the main driving force – when he was about 8) and my mate (years and years ago, again, he was the main driving force). I have all the kit, I just lacked time and a way to remove the barriers you construct around yourself.

I’d like to do this, then maybe a course on writing, but we’ll see how we go…

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