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Posted on 12th January 2024 by pj

About Emma Newman

Emma Newman writes short stories, novels and novellas in multiple speculative fiction genres. She is a professional audiobook narrator, and a Hugo Award winning podcaster. Her current podcasts are ‘Imagining Tomorrow’ and ‘Tea and Sanctuary’. www.enewman.co.uk

The Script

Comic script - this is exactly what happened to my son in the small hours of this morning. I only saw the messages when I woke up, and he told me what happened once he was awake. It made me laugh, and I immediately thought it might make a fun comic and Beanie agreed!

A young man (if you want to base him loosely on my son, he’s 16 years old, tall, short brown hair, blue eyes) is about to leave his room but spots a huge spider on wall next to the door (it is on the wall that the door would rest against when open and the dressing gown hanging on the back of the door would brush against where the spider is) . 

He is terrified of spiders, so he can’t open the door. It’s the small hours of the morning.

He leaps onto his bed on the other side of the room, a bookcase blocking the line of sight between him and the spider and tries to phone his Mum who is sleeping in her room across the landing, and message her on WhatsApp, but her phone is on ‘Do not disturb’ so there’s no answer. 

Panicking, he phones friends until one finally picks up - ‘Help! There’s a huge spider in my room!’

Friend: What colour is it?

Beanie: Black? Brown? I dunno! It was BIG

Friend: You’re okay, I don’t think they can climb.

Beanie: IT’S ON MY WALL! (throughout the rest of this exchange the friend also now freaking out is just making Bean panic even more!) 

Friend: Oh, that one can climb then! Just dash out the door!

Beanie: It’s by the door, I can’t get out!

Friend: IT’S IN YOUR ROOM?! 

Beanie: Yes, I told you this!

He peeps round the bookcase. The spider is gone!

Beanie: It’s gone!

Friend: THAT MEANS IT COULD BE ANYWHERE!

Beanie’s eyes flick to all the posters it could be hiding behind, and all the clothes and stuff on his floor it could now be lurking under.

Beanie: YOU ARE NOT HELPING!

He hangs up and hides in the duvet. If you think that a final shot on the spider’s hiding place would be a good ending, do add that in, but happy to end it on Beanie hiding.

 

Artists Notes

One of the goals of the project was to try and work with as many writers as possible, and so I told every writer "Don't worry - I'll take any format of script" - there are sort of comic script standards, and attempts have been made in the past to really hammer them in, but for the most part every writer I work with works a little different anyway. That said, this script required a lot of thinking about to get the most out of the story (you can argue amongst yourself whether that's what I did).

Firstly there's a sort of action limit in comics, every action will usually require one panel - character opens door, walks through door, locks door? that's three panels. I felt like, on this script, there was too much going on to fit in the super limited single page I had, plus some of the action I wanted to build it up a bit more, so I knew I'd be putting a bunch of panels towards the getting ready to go out (because build up build up build up build up PUNCHLINE!) I also knew I wanted the dialogue interaction to have that ratatatat rapid delivery, which meant I'd get a single panel for that set of dialogue. This meant brutalising the story a little, cutting out the contacting of his mum and going straight to the friend. I also wanted a little end note on the spider - I thought that would be fun, a happy little chappy. (remove the last spider panel and the page feels like it's not quite finished - it's a figurative and literal full stop)

The manga shading effect/speedlines came after I'd drawn it and realise it would work better with a little bit of manga (tonally too, fits a teen), and the coloured lettering was because I needed someway to quickly distinguish the two sets of dialogue (I decided to eschew clip studio's balloon lettering tools a) because it would take ages to get exactly how I want it and b) because I thought I could add more character to it that way. The background of the room is pretty much a direct tracing of my teenage son's bedroom (which is so quintessentially teenager it looks like a set from a modern John Hughes teen comedy). (And it's all my son's work, he's done that all without parental help)

Anyway. This was finished the day before publication, but I think it turned out ok.

Oh, and because I drew it, and then slathered lettering all over it, here's the page without dialogue...

2020 Week 25

Posted on 22nd June 2020 by pj

Sheesh.

How’s your week. It’s been a complex, difficult week for everyone I think (and for many it’s doubtless been painful too).

I’ve been slowly slowly working my way through part three of a four part Dredd. Got it finished, eventually, three weeks it’s taken – for six pages. Crazy. (Granted I was planning on taking two weeks and I don’t have a deadline so it’s not late, but it is a rubbish way to earn an income)

That done, I’ve been doing corrections for a WWI story (never much fun, but necessary for this because it’s based on a true story). Drew a one page strip written by Umar Ditta, for an anthology thing and I’ve been thinking about the Channel Hex thing again.

To recap: last year I started working around the idea of a kickstarter format, one that would be both sustainable for me to do, and sustainable for a book for people to buy.

(And sustainability was important, because if I could make one book work then I could turn it into recurring format)

Ultimately I figured drawing a 64 page book in the “Commando” or “Starlord” format (roughly A5 size, typically 1 or 2 panels per page) would be the best. It would be quick to do, cheap to make and feel substantial – 64 pages would feel like something, even if, based on the page size it’s close to being about 16-20 pages of normal sized comics.

Anyway, instead of just barrelling ahead I did a lot of thinking on it. Roped a friend in for a script, and just started chipping away at it.

But, of course, feature creep meant it slipped to being bigger than commando size (a calculation I thought wouldn’t make any difference, but OF COURSE IT DID) it sort of upended everything. The Covid-19 hit and all plans went out the window.

Now, I’ve seen others take a similair approach to kickstarter and do well out of it, so it’s time to think about this again. (Notably the guys doing Hell in Stalingrad, who I did a cover for)

Going back to square one, the original format idea, it’s time to start building out spreadsheets and seeing how I can make it work. And, as soon as I get a script in hand, I’m gonna take an unpaid month and just draw the hell out of it. And move to kickstart with it as soon as I can.

So, next week, I’ll be thinking about that, waiting on a Dredd script and doing a four pager for the 77 kickstarter comic. Oh, and doing some work on this thing for the Finnish Insititute, which is a bunch of interviews I’m adding some goofy humour too (all done as comics).

That’s a lot of stuff for next week, but I just need to find my groove. Tomorrow I’ll fire the Dredd off to the editor. Look at what needs done on the 77. (Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday) and get that out of the way.

Closing off stuff to allow new stuff in.

Anyway, here’s to a calmer week ahead (as if)

OH and as soon as movement starts again on Channel Hex – you’ll see it behind the scenes on my newsletter SIGN UP NOW channelhex.com

Related posts:

  1. Channel Hex: Planet of the Blind
  2. 2020 Week 11 Review
  3. 2020 Week 12 Review
  4. 2020 Week 23

Folklore Thursday: Egg

Posted on 18th June 2020 by pj

Available to buy as a print on redbubble

Originally published over at patreon.

So, while John and I aren’t exactly the same age, we both grew up in Blighty and share many of the same references, and I’m pretty sure John had some notion what I’d do with this.

Monkey was an absolutely formative experience for me. I’d never seen anything like it. It hit the UK in ’79 – and I was nine years old. I grabbed the nearest broom handle from the back yard and was twirling it around like Monkey Magic for hours on end.

Endless school fights.

If you’ve never seen Monkey (or, to give it it’s original Japanese name, “Journey in to the West”) it was an absolutely bonkers adaptation of the a Chinese novel written in the 16th century. And probably my first exposure to asian culture.

I had a couple of notions of how to handle this, the big choice was do I do my own version of The Monkey King or do I do the version played by Masaaki Sakai (who was impossibly charming as the boisterous, and naughty monkey)

And you know, the pleasure of doing your own stuff is you can do what you like. So Masaaki Sakai it was. 

Ideally, I think, I would’ve like to have done this as a four colour comic book adaptation or a cover – and I designed a “The Monkey King” logo to drop on it, but I just couldn’t make it work, so in the end I settled for moving some of the text around so I could end on “The Monkey King” trying to tease out the idea of what my monkey king might look like, so in the final panel reveal it’s a neat little nostalgia hit.

Related posts:

  1. Folklore Thursday: Gandreið
  2. Folklore Thursday: Jack-in-The-Green
  3. Folklore Thursday: Food
  4. Folklore Thursday: Hawthorne

Holiday Comics 2012

Posted on 16th June 2020 by pj

A few years ago, while on holiday in Rathmullan (remember holidays?) I decided to try and do some daily comic stripping – and so I did (well, for a couple of days at least). And so here they are. They’re from 2012, when things gosh — when things were so much simpler.

No, I have no idea what I was inking with – I forgot to draw it. Probably a brush.

Watched a lot of Son’s of Anarchy.

Up to a point…

Crafted an entirely new creator owned action adventure series about librarians…

Tried a bit of Simple RPGaming with my son, by asking him to design a guy to fight me, it did not go well.

The 2012 Olympics, back then, the most dystopian thing I could imagine was the fact the Olympics wouldn’t allow not-Olympic funders to show their brand name. Oh sweet summer child.

And finally, Tabitha Devine, dark Gothic Mistress – which made me laugh if nothing else.

You know, for strips I spent half an hour or so on, they aren’t actually too bad. A bit of silly fun. Hope you like ’em!

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PJ’s Live Sketch Show #5

Posted on 15th June 2020 by pj

So, yesterday was the last live sketch until august, I think – next week is Father’s Day. Then we’re into July, and that’s sort of height of summer holiday in NI.

I want to thank everyone who’s commissioned me over the 5 episodes (though really, I think I’ve done this format now about 7 times) and esp for everyone who’s been able to tune in and chat alongside. Honestly. I know I talk a lot, but if I didn’t have questions or comments to respond to it would be one hour plus of pencil scratching sounds (maybe that would be better … Nah!)

anyway. Hopefully see you all again in august for season 2 🙂

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PJ’s Live Sketch Show #5 Sunday 14th June

Posted on 10th June 2020 by pj

Thanks to everyone who joined me for this week’s show. Here’s the youtube video of the show if you fancy watching it!

Sketches on this week’s show:

Durham Red, a Triptych featuring: Dan Dare, Dredd, Toby (Halo Jones), Halo Jones – Kano, Dredd, B. Zane (from Numbercruncher), Mean Machine, Trapper Hag (my choice!) and Catwoman – packed double length show!

  • Durham Red
  • Dan Dare
  • Triptych Dredd, Toby, Halo Jones
  • Kano
  • Dredd
  • B. Zane
  • Mean Machine
  • Trapper Hag
  • Catwoman

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Posted in Uncategorised

The Live Sketch Show

Posted on 8th June 2020 by pj

Now on Sundays!

Decided to make the move to Sunday Permenent, so it’s now just the PJ Holden Live Sketch show, Sundays from 8.

I’d hoped that every episode I could just do a handful of commissions, but it’s possible everyone that wants a commission has already gotten one. Boo!

BUT! If you’d like a sketch drawn for you on the show, let me know : pjholden@gmail.com subject “Live Sketch” – sketches are A5 and it’s £30 for a pencil sketch and £50 for an inked one.

The show lasts about an hour and I like to have about 6-8 sketches (depending on whether I’m inking them or not)

No related posts.

2020 Week 23

Posted on 7th June 2020 by pj

How was your week? Yes. Mine too.

Anyway, here’s what I did, in this, the first week of June.

Pencilled an episode of Dredd, actually quite liked some of the pages (by which I mean I sat back and thought “wow – that’s actually pretty good”) so who knows what I’ll think by the time I ink them. That happens next week.

The most recent folklore thursday seems to have been very popular.

Started up a redbubble for the folklore thursday stuff. Will be adding to it as time allows, but i think there’s some neat things up there right now…

I did an episode of the Saturday Sketch Show Live last week on Saturday (and I’m doing another episode tonight – and taking bookings for next week’s show..)

I drew a silly little three page comic with Al Ewing for “Quarantine Comix“

Yes, it’s an Animal Crossing comic, sort of…

In other news, reached out to Umar Ditta whose writing a one page strip for me a quickstarter, that should be fun. (Pencilling that today in fact, possibly inking it too)

So, to next week-

Inking this episode of Dredd. Repencilling the Jericho 5 strip I’m doing for the 77 – which I’ve asked Dan Whitehead to write for me (I had planned to write this myself, but I’ve just not been able to do it to the quality I like, and Dan’s pretty damn good, which means I can concentrate on getting the drawing as good as I can…)

And that’s it.

Anyway, on to next week, and let’s all just try and get through this with our kindness and hope intact while at the same time acknowledging Black Lives Matter and systemic racism is a problem endemic both to politics and culture and we need to fix that.

Related posts:

  1. 2020 Week 8 Review
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  4. 2020 Week 13 Review

Folklore Thursday: Bakekujira

Posted on 4th June 2020 by pj

Originally published at Patreon.

Phew, I high time I got to do something of a nod* to Katsushika Hokusai. 

My initial thoughts was, I’d obviously get The Wave in there, that was a dead cert (it was only a few years ago watching a documentary it was pointed out the boats and crew bowing before the wave as it was about to hit them…) Then I started trying to figure out ways to join the wave with a panel before it that would be a reverse of it somehow – giving me a neat ying yang symbol built in to the page, googling Hokusai I stumbled across another of his pics (I was looking for how he’d drawn a whale – terribly, as it turns out) called Whaling Off Gotō which suited the bill. Some quick research on whale skeletons and boom! we have all the ingredients for a page of comics.

I just had to trace them then!

Maybe the BBC will make the documentary about Hokusai  available again, it was fascinating, incredibly prolific artist generally considered the father of Manga.  

*Ok, it’s much more than a nod.

NEW: I’ve set up a redbubble store where you can now buy all sorts of cool things with this on it! The original image is 600dpi, A4 in size, so even enlarged up to be a blanket(!) it should still look super sharp. The redbubble store for this strip is here.

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May 2020

Posted on 31st May 2020 by pj

So, let’s try and do this.

What did I do in May?

Well, let’s start with the good stuff – man this was a cool month for things I’ve got in print!

Judge Dredd Chimpsky’s law drew to a close in 2000AD. Five episodes of old fashioned Dredd adventures, with everyone’s favourite hyper intelligent bonobo, Noam Chimpsky.

Lookit his little face.

And just like that, Noam makes a new Robot Friend.

Chimpsky WILL return!

Over in the Judge Dredd Megazine, the latest issue had a cover by me, so that’s cool as the three part Dredd serial (Bad Sector written by Arthur Wyatt) also finished. A very different Dredd to the chimpsky story. I hope you liked it too.

The Mighty Tharg really liked the first panel on this page, I know cus he said so!

Also this month, in the Times, I had a one page Roy of the Rovers story appear in print! (Yes, that is weird! me, football?)

Roy suffering from lockdown hair.

I started a live sketch show, roughly an hour of me chatting and sketching on facebook. The most recent episode went well, but scheduling conflicted with the launch of Nasa’s first new manned spacecraft in decades, so that was annoying (bah! NASAAAAA!)

Here’s the most recent episode – episode 3

I’m hoping I can keep it up, if you’d like to buy a sketch from me, that’s the way to go!

And, I managed to make enough selling some sketches and tings to buy myself the new iPad Pro 2020 – and it’s LOVELY! Same size screen, smaller/lighter and generally a bit nippier. Love it.

Ok, so what did I actually draw, and more importantly, what did I invoice for?

1 Episode (6 pages of a Dredd) part 2 of a new Chimpsky strip.

1 new Dredd Cover

1 Cover for The 77 (a kickstarter comic created to reflect the kind of British comics that came out in ’70s)

3 page strip with Al Ewing (you’ll see – also, these were pencils, inks, colours and letters)

and .. uhm… that might be it. Crap. That’s not been a good month. Though I did also finish a 7 page WWI story that’s taken ages (waiting on notes and approval) so that I can finally invoice that.

Also, would like it, your honour, if you took in to account four pages of Folklore Thursday (pencils, inks, colours, lettering)

So a total of: 14 pages complete and 7 pages of inks (making 21 pages completed this month)

Oh – just remembered, four pages of an oddball little comic job that isn’t for comics, but is comics (of a total of 20 pages).

So let’s add that in – 26 pages complete.

Well, it’s not as terrible as I first feared, but it’s literally unsustainable (given the percentage of invoicable/time taken to draw or finish some of it). I need to start upping my output. (or, you know, find a wealthy fan who wants to buy all my originally artwork that is super reasonably priced)

So, what’s ahead:

I’ve two more episodes of Dredd to do (12 pages). So that’s my big plan. Concurrent to that, four more episodes of Folklore Thursday (which is taking us closer and closer to the end of year one). A four page strip for the 77, and I’d like to do another 10 pages of the oddball comic thing. Bringing the months work to 32.

AHAHAHAHA.

Ahahaha. Nope, that’s unlikely. Let’s say I’ll be happy to hit 25 again though.

Anyway, hope your month wasn’t terrible and let’s see how it goes in June…

Related posts:

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