Undercrackers!

Posted by on January 20, 2011

Hooray! This week sees the release of a new issue of the monthly mag Beanomax, which, as we all know, means another stupid DEREK THE SHEEP story! “Woohoo!” the nation cries.

This month features Derek looking after idiot savant Bernard the Goat whose shed has blown away. Bernard likes to eat underpants, so it’s all about the pants for two whole pages. I even get to use the word “undercrackers” (I love that word).

Here’s an hilarious panel:

Ho ho. And what japes are had!

I did have a scene where Rodney the Bull and Dave Goose were flushing loo paper down the toilet, but there just wasn’t room to fit it all in. The shame.

Here’s Rodney looking all innocent, DVD-extra-stylee:

And here he is in the strip all dressed up in loo paper:

So please rush out and buy the Beanomax, cos it’s brill and I’m in there every issue. Oh yes.

Filed Under: Beanomax, Derek the Sheep | Tagged:

Bad Dog!

Posted by on December 23, 2010

The folks over at Forbidden Planet have just posted a nice review of my jolly new comic newspaper from Newspaper Club called “Bad Dog”. Here’s a lovely picture of it:

Well, it’s not exactly new. For one, it’s been out since October (and was for sale at MCM Expo and Thought Bubble), and secondly all the strips are reprints from all over the shop.

Bad Dog was originally an exercise in making me draw something new every day on my Ye Olde Blog (now deceased). I would sit there for five minutes, scribble out a piece of nonsense, then post it straight on the net untouched. Yeah, Rock and Roll dude. I would then collect the best ones into mini-comics and sell them at comic shows alongside my other scribbly wares.

Not everyone appreciated my manic doodles, but some people did, so hooray!

The Bad Dog Newspaper is a bit of a “Best Of” containing my favourites from the two mini-comics; a rare strip from a Zombie comic published by Sex Gore Mutants; the story Freddy the Little Goldfish from it’s own mini and a strip previously only seen on t’internets which was a bit of a fan-favourite at the time (Singing Zebras).

For a while back in the olden days, I also ran an on-going Bad Dog strip involving Sydney being kidnapped for Greyhound Racing. I didn’t end it due to the oncoming juggernaut of Derek the Sheep, but I definitely want to finally finish it off soon and reprint it in some form or another (Along with my Bad Dog graphic novel idea I came up with a couple of years ago. Sigh, if only someone invented more hours in a day…).

If you want to buy one, then leave a comment (I’ll see your email). They’re £4.00 plus P&P (which might be pricey – around £3.00).

Filed Under: Bad Dog, Small Press | Tagged:

New Derek!

Posted by on October 27, 2010

Hooray! It’s another month, which means there’s another Derek in the Beanomax!!!

This month Derek and his sheepy pals are woken from their woolly lazy world and are subjected to the raving loony that is Clarence the keep-fit sheepdog.

Here’s a marvelous sequence:

So sprawling was this story, that it’s a TWO-PARTER!!! Yep, so you have to wait a whole month to see how it finishes. And its totally nuts, I tell ya.

And while you’re busy buying the Beanomax, pick up the exciting new Dandy featuring loads of brand new strips! Shamefully I didn’t have time to contribute a strip due to my over-burgeoning schedule (including work on my BRAND NEW graphic novel coming out from Walker in about a year’s time. Woohoo!!! More on this soon. It contains dinosaurs is all I’m saying at the mo’…).

Anyway, good luck to the Dandy and all its contributors!

Ta ra!!

Filed Under: Beanomax, Derek the Sheep | Tagged:

Graffiti Knitting

Posted by on October 11, 2010

Graffiti Knitting eh, What’s that all about? Little old ladies tagging trains with bits of wool in the dead of night? Well, sort of. Apart from the “old ladies” bit. And maybe skip the “dead of night” bit too. Ok, and maybe they don’t tag trains neither. In fact, why don’t you go read this brilliant article out today in The Guardian, featuring The Fleecestation‘s very own Graffiti Knitter, Deadlyknitshade. That tells you everything you need to know about the little-known art of Yarn Storming…

Interesting to note that the first comment on the knitting article by some humourless know-it-all says, “Been done before”.

Why yes, yes it has been done before. 65 million years before in fact. Check it out:

I painted these dudes at Ally Pally Knitting and Stitching Show whilst I was selling (the soon to be completely sold out) Derek the Sheep books. I was sharing a table with fellow Fleecestation studio mates, the afore-mentioned knitting supremo Lauren O’Farrell and children’s book uber-illustrator Sarah McIntyre, who were selling books and badges like they were going out of fashion.

Trying to tap into a market that catered for both my lovely drawings and knitting, I concocted the above tiny series of on-the-spot watercolours featuring Graffiti Knitted Victims of The Jurassic. I love dinos, but I totally guessed the Jurassic bit, so someone rang their expert friend after I’d just painted the stegosaurus and I was spot on! Woohoo!

I might make these as prints, and if they take off then I might consider Graffiti Knitting victims of the Triassic. The world is my prehistoric oyster.

Filed Under: Derek the Sheep, dinosaurs, knitting | Tagged:

Independent on Sunday update

Posted by on October 5, 2010

Got sent a jpeg of the print copy of Sunday’s interview for the Irish Sunday Independent!

Here it be…Ain’t I handsome.

I might publish the full unabridged version one day, which includes my fantastic beans on toast joke. I told it on twitter and it really made Jamie Smart laugh, so it must be funny.

Filed Under: Beanomax, Derek the Sheep, Interviews | Tagged:

Woohoo! I’m famous!

Posted by on October 3, 2010

Yes, it’s fame at last for me! The Irish National newspaper The Irish Sunday Independent have interviewed me for their financial Q&A The Paper Prophet. I talk about baked beans, mars bars, chips, all sorts of important things for readers to think about over their morning Frosties.

This is all in anticipation of an invasion by me and fellow Fleecestationer, Sarah MacIntyre to Dublin in a couple of weeks as part of the Children’s Book Festival. In fact, I’ve just remembered we’re being filmed for a kids TV programme on RTE too! Wow. Get those rotten tomatoes ready to throw at the screen.

In other news, yesterday me and my dad had a crazy day meeting long-lost relatives. I’ve been digging around my family tree for over 10 years now (one of my long-standing uber-obsessions) and it was great to finally put some faces to names of some of my ye olde ancestors.

Check out this mean-looking dude (my Great-Great-Grandfather) on the left from about 1900…

.

Apparently he was a right hard fella and to be truthful, with that scowl, I wouldn’t want to mess with him. He had a tough old upbringing; his rogue sailor dad was lost at sea around 1863 and in 1883 his step-dad murdered his mum (a sad story I’ll save for another blog post).

Here he is wrestling an anchor 20 years later…

(I keep thinking that’s his hair blowing in the wind, but it’s probably a tree).

His son (my Great Grandfather), in the first picture on the right, was no different. According to an article in Island History News (all about the Isle of Dogs), he joined the Merchant Navy and went round the world three times, was iced up in Greenland for nine months, got torpedoed three times in the First World War and worked as a diver for the PLA. (And that was all before breakfast! Hahaha!!!)

And the little baby dude on his mum’s lap? He did the last trip on the Cutty Sark! So cool.

Thanks to everyone for such a brilliant day yesterday, especially Brian Lang for organising the get-together.

I’ll leave it upto my great uncle once removed for the final word. Cheers Jack!

http://www.youtube.com/user/JACKEYBOYSOTON

Filed Under: Family History, Festivals, Interviews, photos, Sarah McIntyre | Tagged:

Derek and Vern in TBK mag!

Posted by on September 22, 2010

Derek the Sheep turns up all over the shop alongside fellow sheep compatriot Vern, in TBK magazine this month!

TBK is a brilliant mag all about new and groovy childrens books and this issue is their 30th anniversary issue. Even my old china plate Jamie Smart has his fizog plastered in there as he chats about his brilliant kids book Find Chaffy (buy it! BUY IT!!! How I loved Find Chaffy. Sigh.).

Me and Sarah Mcintyre, creator of Vern and Lettuce (buy that too!!!) did a quick 4 panel comics jam for the mag, which has a hilarious ending, even if I do say so myself. Here’s one of my panels…

If you pop over to Sarah’s blog, you can see one of her panels too! So exciting.

We have original illos dotted throughout the mag, so I’m sure it’ll be worth thousands of pounds in the future. So best get a copy now, unless you intend to become a millionaire in the not too distant future!

Filed Under: Derek the Sheep, Sarah McIntyre, TBK Magazine, Vern and Lettuce | Tagged:

Run for the hills, Derek is here!

Posted by on September 16, 2010

Woohoo! It’s that time of the month again i.e. a new issue of Beanomax hits the shops. And a new issue of Beanomax = a brand new Derek the Sheep story!! Yay!!!

That’s 9 Dereks in a row now. I totally OWN that mag! And I’ve just sent off the 10th, which is a two-parter and everything. W00t.

Here’s a panel from this month’s mad Derek strip:

Hahaha!!! Chaos ensues etc.

Please buy the Beanomax and support little ol’ Derek and the rest of the Beanomax crew. Sales have gone up 5%, halting a dramatic slide since he’s been in there (not that I’m saying it’s down to Derek or anything, just pointing out a jolly coincidence… or am I…?), so what are you waiting for? Buy the thing!!!

Ta!

Filed Under: Beanomax, Derek the Sheep | Tagged:

National Geographic Kids strips online!

Posted by on September 13, 2010

As some of you may know, for the past two years I’ve written and drawn a comicstrip every month for the popular magazine National Geographic Kids. For the first 18 months or so I wrote jolly stories about individual people from history, such as Cleopatra, Nelson Mandela, Einstein, Scott of The Antarctic, that sort of thing (I have some on my webpage here).

Then in January we had a bit of a revamp and I came up with a little dude called Max the Mouse who would walk you through historical civilizations as a bit of a beleaguered tourist guide.

Here he is getting into a bit of gladitorial shenanigans…

Anyways, I was doing as bit of ego-surfing the other day and it turns out they’ve put a few of the Max strips online! Woohoo!

So here’s they are for your delectation (whatever that means):

Romans

Vikings

Greeks

They’re a bit chopped up from the original strips to fit the web format, but it’s great to see them on the website. Of course to see the strip proper, you’ll have to buy the mag every month! 🙂

Filed Under: Nat Geo Kids | Tagged:

Sarth London Clouds

Posted by on September 11, 2010

I loves clouds me.

I think my obsession started from when I worked on Little Cutie and I began messing with painterly clouds in the background. I kept thinking “These clouds are rubbish. I need to observe proper clouds and stuff”. I never did, but it always nagged me in the back of my brain that I should sketch some proper clouds like a proper artist. But I never have time to be a proper artist, so I started taking photos of the fluffy wonders.

And then I became obsessed.

I have a terrible collecting mentality/affliction and once something piques my interest I need to dive in headfirst and know everything about them, have every one of them, pore over every bit of info about them, to the detriment of everything else in my life.

Currently I love cumulonimbus and boy we get some mad ones here in South London (see the beauty up top). They’re so dramatic and foreboding and so damned HUGE.

We get especially big ones outside our studio. Check out this monster:

And here’s a cheeky one above Clarence House from Tuesday (Not strictly South London I know)…

I’m not sure if I’ll ever put one in a comic, but I loves ’em anyway and will keep taking photos of them and stashing them in my flickr stream.

Gotta collect them all!

Filed Under: clouds, photos | Tagged:
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