Hello There!

Hi there if you find yourself directed here through a link from some of our cancelled convention or festival appearances. I'm part of an independent comic creator collective producing a diverse range of comic strips and publications, please browse this blog and its links for various information, commentary and surprises on comic, history and related subjects.

Please also have a read of some of my short comic strips posted recently to provide an insight into what we do and a wee distraction to your day :)

Scottish Spring Tour!

Quiet on here but not here after my various wonderful trips which are hard to describe! However, the comic convention season is already on the way with two shows under my belt during last week's Scottish Spring Tour!
 

The Dunfermline set-up inside a giant marquee!

Different set-up and stock for the Edinburgh show!

This took in both my Dunfermline Comic-Con debut and a welcome return to Edinburgh Comic-Con, where once again, Gary Crutchley ably manned the table during my infrequent absences (!) and sold his WesterNoir and recently launched Hard Country trades, to great success.

It's always great to catch up with the Scottish comic contingent and even though it was hard on my own at Dunfermline to do my normal socialising, I did see a great deal of familiar faces, many of whom I saw again with more time to chat in Edinburgh.  
 

With the shows being a week apart we took the opportunity to stay in Scotland, catch up with local cousins for a fab meal, then head North and catch up with the family - and Mother's Day, our first we shamefully realised since the year before we moved, 1986, Eeek!! - which was fun as always but the weather was pretty changeable this time of year.

We also made a welcome stop at Kemnay's finest, Geek Bothy Store where we caught up with Emma and Morgan, fresh from the shop's latest award-winning accomplishments and ahead of the following week's Scottish awards! The store is a delight and all awards are highly deserved for the hard work and attention that Emma, ably supported by Morgan, puts in :)
 

Geek Bothy's Current Comic Corner!

3 in 3, there's going to be a Time Quake!

Well we do like to test ourselves don't we so since things are too quiet round here, the Accent UK 'tourbus' is outdoing itself these next few weeks with Time Travel, Atlantic Crossings and a 'Homecoming' coming up!

Who opened the Jar? A glimpse of our Curious Comic Corner!

First up this weekend sees Dave and I re-united for a brand new event from those fine folks behind the Asylum steampunk festival that we've being enjoying in recent years. Time Quake though promises to be something very different with various 'zones' such as Post-Apocalyptic, Time Lords, Wizardry, Steam Wars and much, much more with ourselves building a small set for our brand new Curious Comic Corner in the very special 'Author & Artists Alley', not a standard 6' x 2' table in sight! Challenged we've been on this one with serious planning since before Christmas, there's been a few hiccups here and there but join us if you can in Manchester, it all promises to be a very different spectacle over the Easter weekend!

Next up is a different type of time travel as Dave and I will literally be travelling back in time (by a fair few hours at least!) to take up our positions in Artist's Alley of C2E2 in Chicago, the windy city! We're soooo excited about this, our first 'big' US show and our first time exhibiting across the Atlantic for I think 5 years! As I reported after Scott and I's Seattle trip, so much has changed over there with the growth of comic movies and related interest, so this is quite a thrill. That said we're under no illusion that it will be a tough gig for us alongside the better known creators of the comic world and of course the entertainment guests and more but we're going mainly for networking, a bit of promotion and of course the experience, exciting stuff!

Next up - and I do mean, literally next! - is a welcome return to Auld Reekie for Edinburgh Comic-Con. This will be our third time there and its been a privilege to be part of this enthusiastic, friendly event as it has grown. This time, WesterNoir's very own Gary Crutchley will also be attending for what I think will be his very first trip to Scotland! I will of course be failing if I let him go without trying a wee bit of haggis, neeps & tatties, washed down with a Tennents or maybe a wee whisky? We'll see!

Actually I think there's a fair few other 'southern-based' comic creators making the trip so with the amazing native comics folk, Edinburgh again promises to be an enjoyable trip.

So there we are, 3 shows in 3 weeks in 3 countries !  There's a few more after that with a couple of new shows to be added to our tour dates but luckily I'll have a decent break after this wee run to - hopefully - get back to the business of writing and drawing! It may be a wee bit quiet here until then but if you are anywhere near these 3 shows, feel free to join us and tell us about your own favourite comic trips!

LIFE SUPPORT!

Life Support is a wonderful idea to raise funds for Children's Hospices Across Scotland - the charity CHAS. It's the brainchild of Colin Maxwell, a Fife based comic creator who before Christmas made a request for comic creators to donate Sci-Fi themed strips and pin-ups to form a comic to be launched at Edinburgh's Capital Sci-Fi event in early February, which is also an important fundraiser for CHAS.

Many creators answered the call and I wanted to contribute but not having any existing 'Sci-Fi' themed material to hand quickly wrote a hopefully fun one-page comic strip which I drew over the festive period, completing in the New Year to get 2018 off to a creative start!

I won't reveal my finished strip but show instead a panel's progress from 'BOOM from the ROOM!', my wee homage to the Tin Tin & Oor Wullie strips of my youth!

Pencils

Inks & pencils (Uncleaned)

Cleaned Inks

Finished Lettered Version (Scots edition!)

I submitted the above finished black & white version but wondered how it would look in colour so turned to Matt Soffe, who has done an amazing job on several of my Moments of Adventure strips (and forthcoming ZULU!), who once again did a splendid job!

Matt's fantastic colours!

Complete coloured & lettered version

You can support the project and guarantee yourself a copy of the finished comic by backing the current Kickstarter campaign to cover printing costs here or at its launch in Edinburgh on 3rd & 4th February.You'll have to wait a little longer to see the full coloured version of my strip which may well be included in one of my future projects 😉

Robert Louis Stevenson Day!

Today, 13 November is Robert Louis Stevenson's birthday and has in recent years been marked by Robert Louis Stevenson Day with events in and around his Edinburgh birthplace.

Since I've currently no plans to visit Edinburgh before next year's highly anticipated Edinburgh Comic-Con, I'll mark the occasion with this short comic strip I did based on RLS's interrupted conceivement of one of his most famous creations Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde!

The strip is included in my first (mainly) historical fiction comic, Moments of Adventure: Collection One, which also features a ghost hunter on Edinburgh's streets! Leave a comment below if interested in ordering a copy :) 

Happy Birthday Dr Livingstone!

It's the bi-centenary today of the birth of David Livingstone, one of the greatest Victorian explorers and one of my personal heroes.

He is a fascinating character from humble origins, largely self-educated while working in a Scottish mill, qualifying in medicine to achieve his aim of becoming a christian missionary in China, diverting his attentions to Africa after meeting the esteemed missionary and fellow Scot, Robert Moffat, (who's daughter, Mary, Livingstone later married). Moffat fired his imagination with tales of the untouched central region of Africa where the smoke of a thousand villages indicated a population where the gospels had not yet been preached.

A fiercely determined man driven by ambition to preach beyond every other man's line, successfully journeyed and mapped out vast parts of previously undiscovered Central Africa (to Europeans at least!), famously including the Victoria Falls which he named after his monarch, - ignoring its indigenous name of Mosi-oa-Tunya, The Smoke that Thunders.

The impressive Ray Harryhausen designed Livingstone statue at Blantyre
(Mr Harryhausen's wife is Livingstone's Great Granddaughter!)

He denounced slavery and advocated new forms of health care, education and commerce with the aims of the African people trading on a level playing field, taking their place alongside 'developed' nations.

His ambition ultimately cost him and his family dearly with both his wife and subsequently himself dying in the Dark Continent but not before his fame and discoveries had ensured his legacy, one that continues today, particularly in modern Malawi where he is fondly remembered and celebrated.

I could say more but for a full insight into this remarkable man's life I highly commend Tim Jeal's excellent biography Livingstone, which has recently been revised and re-issued.

The 'single end' tenement birthplace of Livingstone at Blantyre, now run by The National Trust for Scotland, housing special exhibits and artifacts alongside a small learning centre, cafe and gift shop!

Also recommended are trips to his birthplace in Blantyre, (in the grounds of the now demolished mill) and Edinburgh's National Museum of Scotland who currently have a special commemorative exhibition. We have been very lucky to visit both these special places recently and are well worth a look - noting though that the NMS's exhibition only runs for a few further weeks to April 7th.

For further information on the year long planned celebrations both in the UK and Africa, keep an eye on the interesting Livingstone 200 website.

Some Edinburgh Moments

'Auld Reekie' is a special place which like so many other places you only really appreciate it when you don't see it very often. We've been to Edinburgh a fair bit over the years but this was our first visit since 2010, so we made a point of seeing things we hadn't 'done' before as well as just chilling out - almost literally as it was bitterly cold!

Among the many highlights was a visit to the National Library of Scotland mainly to see their exhibition to 75 years of The Dandy Comic which was due to run until 3 February, so we just caught it before it closed.

The exhibition, while good, was surprisingly small and just a taste really of what must be lurking in the vaults of D.C Thomson. I would say that the recent Commando book exhibitions held in Aberdeen and London contained far more original artwork although probably not so old as some of the pieces here, such as early Dudley Watkins Desperate Dan and Jack Prout's classic Black Bob. Photography wasn't allowed so sadly I can't show anything, but many items would be familiar to readers of the informative History of The Dandy book.  Notwithstanding my comments, it was still pretty special seeing these items up close.

We carried onto the Library's current main exhibition 'charting' (excuse the pun) the Bartholomews family firm who successfully produced maps from their Edinburgh base between 1826 and 1995. I have to say that previously knowing nothing about the map making industry this ehibition was excellent, lots of items, original hand drawn maps and engravings and many homemade tools really told the story of this firms rise and eventual decline as modern technology eventually overtook.

Seeing the size and quality of this exhibition demonstrated to me what the library could achieve and sadly just reinforced the brevity of The Dandy one.

The Bartholmew exhibition runs through to 7th May 2013 and well worth a visit and perhaps I should mention that both these exhibitions were 'free' so no real cause of complaint I guess!

Travels Past 'n' Present

 

Edinburgh Castle - Taken Friday 26 January 2013

Catching up with things after a great long weekend in Edinburgh last week, getting our Scottish culture fix for Burn's Nicht and now back home have been busy planning with Dave, Accent UK's comic show schedule for 2013.

We're still finalising details and some events have yet to release their table bookings but at the moment it's shaping up very nicely with trips round the UK, a jaunt to New York and the very welcome return of one of our fondest shows, komiks.dk in Denmark now renamed the Copenhagen Comics Festival!.

I've added a wee list to the side of the blog of forthcoming and likely shows and will no doubt post more about them as they arise, but hopefully there should be plenty of opportunity to catch up with us and our latest releases this coming year.