2:04 PM - Take that, Cap’n Crunch!
Current mood: animated
Category: Art and Photography

Cap'n Credit Crunch is a cruel tyrant. More and more, he's reminding us that we've had it pretty damn good for a while now. I'm among the thousands of people who moan and groan about being perma-broke, but buy a DVD every week on a whim. Or comics. Or the 'essential' crate of beer. Remember, none of these are essential. So, looking at what you can cut back on almost brings things into perspective.

On the one hand, why the hell should our standard of living be diminished because some corporate idiots can't use a calculator? A gold-plated Armani calculator that also makes coffee and lies to their wives about where they are? But... look at how indulgent we are. We really are. Well, some of us. Some of us deserve the wake-up call. I intend to beat this thing by cancelling the add-ons to my digital TV subscription, quitting drinking (at least at home), cancelling the DVD rental... oh, and moving house to a smaller place. As far as I'm concerned, the only possessions that are essential in my life are my computer, an internet connection, drawing supplies and a bed. Food, I suppose you could argue that it's important too. I might disagree but just for a laugh.

Does that mean Cap'n Crunch has won? Nope. It means that I'm not going to fight him. It means that I'll be better off, more focused and (hopefully) more content in the knowledge that I have all the material possessions I need. That's something you don't always realise. So yeah... have some of that, Crunch! I'm not even dignifying you with a skirmish. Go board some other bloke's vessel. Yarrr. And stuff.

Oh, is this thing still on?

Well, I think I'll post some art then. First up, the sketch I promised yesterday. Staz Johnson was good enough to accept a handful of shrapnel (not like flak, just loads of coins. Hey, it was all I had left!) to do me a knockout pic of The Punisher. I love watching talented artists draw anyway, so this was just cool all the way through. Like a Maxibon. Mmmm.



Then, as if it's even worth me showing some of my stuff after that, this is the pencil stage of the first sketch card I'm doing for the American Cancer Society charity auction. It's the second year I've been involved in this, and I'm trying to blow last year's attempts away. Last year I did Thundercats headshots, this year it's a variety. Marshal Law, Maxine Manchester and the inevitable Wolverine are coming, but here's my take on early 90s Cable. Just you wait until I ruin it with my feeble inking and colouring. Think I'm joking? I'm pooing myself about even starting it!



Stay frosty!

Currently listening : Songbook: The Singles, Vol. 1 By Super Furry Animals Release date: 2005-01-25

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11:35 AM - Results, Convention & Focus
Current mood: ecstatic
Category: Life

Anybody following my blog will no doubt be sick to death of my incessant "Vote for My Daddy's a Super-Villain!" posts and bulletins. It wasn't just here, it was every site I could get my grubby virtual mitts on, and some real-life locations. Yeah, surprised me to learn there's a real world, too. The things you learn, eh?

Well, the (I won't say 'good') news is that we came 6th out of 10 in the Zuda contest. We were 5th until literally a couple of hours before the voting closed. I would have like to win, so it was a bit of a blow, finishing in the bottom half. The better news is that we're not done. We aren't giving up, and in fact Scott and me are working right now to bring MDAS to a potentially wider audience than Zuda brings in. I can't say any more than that, but I'll update when we get the go-ahead.

Last weekend was the Birmingham International Comics Show. What a great weekend. It's nice to not only make a rare journey outside the house that doesn't involve going to work, but also to meet like-minded people. It really refuels your passion as a creator to speak to your peers, get their opinions and exchange ideas. And drink lots of beer, of course. I got to catch up with some friends from previous conventions, meet 'internet friends' and finally put accents to faces, and also getting to chat to the pros was a treat. Charlie Adlard was a good laugh, as was Staz Johnson (I'll have to post the sketches I got from them). Jimmy Bott, a good mate and a great artist, was so busy over the weekend, but always had time afterwards to socialise. So, yeah... good times. Although I'm now so broke, my 'homeless person' appearance is almost justified.

All of the things that have happened since the Zuda contest has really made me take stock of how far I've come. Obviously, I'm still frogspawn in a big pond, but I'm building a body of work, I've got connections with Image, DC and... oh, can't say yet... Perhaps the thing I'm most happy about is that I'm pretty much a shy and unsociable person by nature, and all of a sudden this new attitude has snuck up on me and taken over, forcing me to be talkative and raise my motivation levels to the point where I'm no longer sabotaging my own opportunities. Anybody who's had a chance at something they want but has been too nervous, lazy or had too little confidence to go for it will know how it can affect you afterwards. It's the simplest thing to follow through with a plan, but try convincing your brain when it's plotting against you. But hey, it's easy to see that now.

So work ethic is back, and really, it shouldn't have ever gone away. I love what I do, and having spent time with other artists who share my concerns but also my passion, I realise that work ethic and a positive attitude is all you need to get somewhere. Confidence breeds success, breeds confidence.

So before lunch, as Tripping Daisy's 'Trip Along' plays in the background, I'm going to take a second to remind myself how lucky I am to have got even this far, to be working at any level in a field that I've loved since I was running around the garden pretending to be Lion-O.

Then back to work.

Currently listening : Broken Down Comforter Collection By Grandaddy Release date: 2002-06-12

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7:30 AM - With a week to go, let’s get tough!
Category: Art and Photography

Yodels.

It's been a month full of anxious glances and constant promotion, as My Daddy's a Super-Villain! continues to draw readers and votes over at zudacomics.com, but throughout all of this, one thing has remained constant...

... we've been in fifth place.

Now, that isn't too shabby in a contest where we're not only up against nine other webcomics, but also some very high quality competition. But fifth place isn't first place, I've come to realise. We need some first place action to appear during this last week.

My request is simple. Well, simple-ish. If you are a fan of comics, or a fan of my art, or a fan of Scott O Brown's damn fine writing... give us a chance and have a looksee at our entry and tell us what you think. We'd be happy to have fans of the comic, but it can only continue at Zuda with votes.

Registration is necessary but easy. It's a quick form, e-mail confirmation, then you're set. To win, we'll need VOTES, 5 STARS and your FAVOURITE. If you can do this, we can survive into 2009.

For anyone willing, this would also be very, very cool: if you have friends that appreciate comics and art, please spread the word, or even link to this blog. I refuse to believe that everybody who would be interested has already heard of this, so there will be potential readers out there! If you do this, I'll be your friend for life!

Links to help us out here:

ZUDA CONTEST - OUR PAGE!

'MDAS!' PRODUCTION BLOG!

FACEBOOK GROUP - SHOW US YOU CARE!

E-MAIL US WITH YOUR THOUGHTS - mydaddysasupervillain@googlemail.com

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7:37 PM - Vote Small!
Current mood: artistic
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

So we're well into the first week of voting on Zuda's September contest. So far, it's going good, but I will never stop campaigning! Well, until it ends. No point after that. But, as Eliot Ness once said, at least in The Untouchables, "Never stop fighting until the fight is done." And you know what? He was talking about this webcomic.

What you need to know: the contest runs throughout September, and there are 9 other comics up against ours. To win, we need to be ranked 1st on September 30th. To be ranked first, we need as many people as possible to vote, rate us highly using the 5-star system, and put us in their favourites. Or favorites.

The link is http://www.zudacomics.com/node/674.

We've also got a Facebook group here so come on over and be our friend. We've got pretend cake and everything! Also, I've been trying to set up a MDAS (acronym rules) MySpace page, but so far it's not letting me. I call foul!

Other links you may be interested in, which are somewhat related:

The Flame of Magnor! Official production blog
Scott's blog
My DeviantArt page
MDAS feedback -- give us your thoughts!

Remember: Vote Small!

Currently listening : Play By Moby Release date: 1999-06-01

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7:31 PM - Your vote counts
Current mood: chipper
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

Heard of Zuda Comics?

I hope you have, because it's a good thing. It's a chance for webcomics to not only find an audience, but potentially earn a place in the happy smiley world of Zuda ongoing strips. All it requires is a lot of votes. Oh, and it's a part of DC Comics.

So, I can imagine you know what this is leading to... yes, September is the month that the story I'm illustrating is in the competition!

My Daddy's a Super-Villain is written by Scott O Brown, an uber-talented writer with titles such as Nightfall and Atlantis Rising to his name. It's illustrated by yours truly, who has about £1.63 to his name.

If I had to describe the concept to you, I'd just provide you with a link so you can read it and vote for it, rather than spending undue time waffling, as is my wont. So I will, but in a sec. What? You're so impatient, sometimes.

In all seriousness, this is the biggest opportunity of my young career and each and every vote would mean a lot to me personally, and I know Scott would appreciate every one of them too. If you're familiar with the site, please go and check out our story. By all means, check out the others, too. Just... vote for us, please?! If you've never heard of Zuda before, you've got a whole world of pleasurable reading on your hands, skipper. Scott's been involved in others, too. If you can spot which, I'll throw a vol-au-vent in your general direction.

There's some stiff competition, but I'm confident we can win this. Please have a look, have a vote, let us know what you thought of the story.

MY DADDY'S A SUPER-VILLAIN

Currently listening : Guero By Beck Release date: 2005-03-29

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9:33 AM - Commission Blitz!
Current mood: excited
Category: Art and Photography

Situation: Critical!

Time: Limited!

Mission: Potentially idiotic!

So, I go on my holidays on Thursday night. As much as I'm looking forward to the break and seeing both the friends I'm travelling with and the friends I'm staying with.... I have no money at all! Literally, less than £50 to last the whole time I'm away, which will cover the journey from the airport, probably.

Therefore, I'm doing something that one side of my brain is excited about, and the other side is screaming "NOOOOO!" at me for.

Commission sale time, folks! Until Wednesday morning, I'm taking requests for bean men characters, with a quick background, for $10 each. Yeah, that works out at £5, which means I'll have to work my ass off just to double my spends, but needs must when desperation hits you in the crotch with a mallet.

To reiterate:

ANY CHARACTER - $10 - UNTIL WEDNESDAY MORNING.

If I get too many requests that I can't possibly make them in time, I'll update here saying so. Until then, hit me!

Currently listening : Kid A By Radiohead Release date: 2000-10-03

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1:53 PM - Thor struck this week
Current mood: artistic
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

What a nightmare. This week just seems to have gone all wrong, every day piling a fresh heap of poo onto the previous shovel load. Of course, I'm slightly overdramatising, but that's my nature. Essentially, I've discovered that I'm not the type of person who is any good at contingency plans, so when my car loses the ability to get me to work, it becomes a crisis. The part I needed to fix said car was expensive and the labour costs were, frankly, totally blown out of proportion. Ebay came to the rescue, but couldn't deliver for a few days. Since the broken part was the windscreen wiper mechanism, everything would be hunky dory as long as it didn't rain.

So Thursday (Thor's day... God of Thunder... Supervisor of the Rain Department... total pain in the buttocks), along comes the biggest downpour for months. Nice. Had to beg for a lift home and back to work on Friday. To make matters worse, I cracked a tooth on an onion ring that night. "How?" I hear you ask. Well, it's easy when you burn your dinner because you're so busy trying to hassle your insurance company to send the documents they forgot to send earlier this year, so you can tax your car.

All of which adds up to a mighty "Nyaaaaargh!" So, this last week is probably best chalked up to experience. Move on.

In that spirit, I've been working hard on one of my projects today, and I intend to get even more done tomorrow. It's quite therapeutic in a way, losing yourself in drawing. Off to see Radiohead at Lancashire Cricket Ground tomorrow too, which is the perfect end to the week. Maybe this week has been trying to balance out the fun I'll have tomorrow night? If so, it can forget trying that kinda stunt again.

Did a warm-up (well, 2 hours, but I got carried away) today, and it's turned into one of my favourite bean men images yet. Appropriate, too. Mr. Thor himself!

Currently listening : Ocean of Confusion: Songs of Screaming Trees 1989-1996 By Screaming Trees Release date: 2005-05-24

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6:47 AM - Return of the Mack!
Current mood: artistic
Category: Art and Photography

Well, not the Mack, so much as me. Closest I get to being a Mack is that my hair looked a bit like Columbo's the other day. Seriously, you should have seen it; work colleagues were amazed and friends were agog. Yes, agog. I might go for the Ironside look next, although I'm fairly sure being shot in the spine is not only a random event I'd be surprised if I chanced upon, but also... well, you can't really go from that to a Quincy style, can you?

All of this is beside the point. What's the point? I dunno.

I've made some major changes recently, and one of them is cutting down on the amount of websites I can lose days viewing, or commenting on, or whatever. YouTube's just dandy if you want to show somebody The Vader Sessions for the first time (if you haven't seen it, watch it now or I'll never speak to you again), but hardly a productive use of time. Same goes for forums and news sites. Really, it's one thing to keep up to snuff with an industry I'm doing my best to be a part of, but does it really matter if I don't read every one of Marvel's previews for June? Of course not. So now, it's blogs and art hosting sites and e-mail. That's the limit. And so far, it's paid off. I gained about five hours that I never even considered lost this weekend, and work hath been done. Eth.

I've got so many irons in the fire, I'm afraid one of them may slip and accidentally brand a passing blacksmith. I'm sure his insurance would cover something like that, though. Umm... there's my work on Transformers: Mosaic (been a writer, artist, colourist and letterer so far) which is fun and satisfies a need to create TF stuff I've had since I picked up my first comic ever; there's the continuing saga of the J & AC comic, which has outgrown its original premise and become the Godzilla of satirical comics (at least to me) and various commissions. Whew. It's lots of fun, but hard work.

The net result of this new focus is that I'll be blogging again regularly here, as well as in any damn place I see fit. DeviantART is another one. And my Wordpress blog, although chances are it'll be the same as this one, to save time. Check it though, so I can look at my viewing figures and feel some shallow kind of validation wash over me like a wave of Tizer.

So, as has become tradition... I leave you with my lastest little bean guy. This just needed to be done, to break the pattern I've established for the last few days, and keep me fresh. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, may I present the Ragin' Cajun himself, the Man of Steal, the frankly ridiculously accented.... Remy LeBeau, aka Gambit!

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10:18 AM - Sketch card auction
Current mood: hopeful
Category: Art and Photography

A quick note to let you guys know about the charity auction I'm involved in.

Probably should have told you about this earlier, since it's happenin today, but the auction is in support of the American Cancer Society, and it starts at 5pm (that's 1700 hours for anyone in the military) today, although that's US time (and I can't figure out which), so that's probably 10pm (2200, soldier) UK time. Like anyone from the UK will even read this...

Anyhoo, the point is, all of the money will go to the charity and there are loads of well known artists involved, like David Mack, Jim Valentino and Steve Rude to name a few. Lots of guys like me too, who just want to do something to help out. There's some great stuff, which I've seen with me own googly eyes. My contribution is this series of six Thundercats portraits, which is a departure for me in that it's done in pencils and marker.



There's also an exhibition of the cards today at Comics 2 Games
166 Mt. Zion Rd.
Florence, Ky, 41042.

I hope this does some good. It would be a great feeling to see the bids come in, so if any of you guys reading this like what you see, please head over to the auction page

Cheers!

Currently listening : The Fragile Army By The Polyphonic Spree Release date: 19 June, 2007

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6:25 AM - Like a bad smell...

It sucks not being able to show anything of what I've been working on (admittedly, I've been a lot slower recently than I would have liked). So a little update is in order, I think.

Our story for Popgun got shifted from volume 1 to volume 2, due to the sheer size of it. 36 pages was easier to trim from the page count that lots of shorter stories. So, look for volume 2 in July. This year, obviously.

I'm working on a superhero (kinda) story at the moment, and prepping a sci-fi space hero tale with a slight change of style. Back to basics, almost, but with more dynamic storytelling. I reckon, anyway. Also working on a series of lifestyle illustrations which I'll post here if I get the go-ahead. That's very different, too. Almost traditional.

In the meantime, I've moved house, bought myself a new car, started playing the guitar again, and I am now officially 'one of those people who runs regularly'. Don't worry, I'm not a fitness freak (I know how you worry...)

Wanna see something entirely stupid? 'Course you do. Here's a silly pic I had the urge to do after walking through the smelly section of Debenhams trying to get a shortcut to the car park.



Okay, so there is other news. I can't believe I haven't even mentioned this stuff. Keen (very keen) readers of my rambling, inane babble may remember I've worked with a fine artist named Grant Perkins in the past. Well, we're still collaborating and we've done quite a bit. First, there's an episode of Nightmare World, the online comic created by Dirk Manning (recently concluded, and Mr Manning is now a finalist in an Image Comics competition to create their newest superheroine. Fingers crossed...). Then, we've had a piece accepted in Cereal Geek, issue 3 (ours isn't in the previews). The one I'd like to show off here is our Sinister Six collaboration, which is the first of many portfolio pieces. I think it came together really well, and it's probably our best collab to date.



See? Cool, eh?

I've done something else recently, but far be it from me to put all my recent achievements in one blog entry. Nope, you'll have to wait. At this rate, about eight months.

Currently listening : Mr Understanding By Pete & the Pirates Release date: 12 February, 2008

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