MOOSE! MOOSE!

Issue 3 of Jamie Smart's joyously silly kids comic Moose Kid is out now at http://www.moosekidcomics.com .  Featuring a  strip by yours truly about Napoleon and his trusty Velociraptor!  Read em while their fresh.

Salon of Rejects launch at Gosh

Had a brilliant time launching the Salon of Rejects this week at Gosh Comics.  A great turnout and it was fun to meet the other 'Rejects and hear their thoughts on comics.  As part of the evening contributer Myfanwy Tristram did a talk and slideshow about women in comics and if you'd like to read a transcript of what she said along with slides you can find it here https://myfanwytristram.com/2016/04/07/what-i-said-at-gosh-comics/

Picture courtesy of @bantamofsolace

Save the date: the Salon at Gosh Comics 6th of Arpil

The Salon of Rejects Launch

Woop!  The Salon of Rejects anthology comic is no GO GO GO!  As of now they can be bought at www.salonofrejects.com/where-to-get-it .  Get yours before they sell out in record time (probably).  I'm really chuffed with how it turned out and that such incredibly talented artists agreed to be involved.

Here's a little blub from one of the contributors Myfanwy Tristram that neatly sums up what it's all about:

"Why 'Salon of Rejects'? Because these are all entries to the prestigious Cape/Comica/Observer Graphic Short Story contest that didn't scoop that top prize. Or.. er, any prize. But we still think they're pretty fab. So, like the artists rejected from the Paris Salon, we've cocked a snook at the establishment and set up our own display."

The Salon contains short comics by Michael Lomon, Mhairi Braden, Ross Mackintosh, Sarah Ushurhe, Tom Plant and Myfanwy Tristram.

We may well be doing a launch event at Gosh Comics very soon so watch this space for more details.

Here's a few preview images from the comic:

From The Noneist by Tom Plant

From Giddy Heights by Myfanway Tristram

From Dermis Pearl by Sarah Ushurhe

From Always Burning by Michael Lomon

From Mary by Ross Mackintosh

From Night Shift by Mhairi Braden

The Salon of Rejects artists part five: Ross Mackintosh

Ross Mackintosh is a graphic designer and illustrator from Yorkshire, who regularly creates strips for his blog explosivemovement.blogspot.co.uk and is also the author of the graphic novel Seeds.

Here's a preview of Ross' comic for The Salon of Rejects:

Introducing the Salon Of Rejects artists part four: Sarah Ushurhe

Sarah Ushurhe is London based creative, illustrator and writer whose works have featured in both online and print magazines,apps, bookstore cafes, exhibition walls and blogs. 

Sarah's comic for the Salon of Rejects (Dermis Pearl) tells the story of Pearl, a Tanzanian living in Canada and recounting her memories as she flicks through photographs of her growing up in Montreal with albinism and the price that it cost, back when she was a child in Zanzibar.

Picture by Sarah Ushurhe

Salon Of Rejects part three: Mhairi Braden

Continuing this week's introduction to the Salon of Rejects artists: 

"Mhairi Braden is an Edinburgh based Irish Illustrator studying at Edinburgh College of Art. Interested in all things myth, folklore and pastry"

Below is a striking page from her comic The Night Shift:

Image by Mhairi Braden http://www.mhairibraden.com/

If you can't wait for the official release on Saturday, there are a few copies that have already appeared on the shelves of the brilliant Gosh Comics in that London!

Image courtesy of Michael Lomon

Salon Of Rejects part two: Myfanwy Tristram

Continuing the intros to Salon of Rejects artists:

"Myfanwy Tristram grew up with The Beano, graduated onto Deadline, and was delighted to see the graphic novel reach maturity just as she started getting more serious about comics herself. She now spends much of her spare time swearing over inky bits of A3 paper, and tends to wake up in the middle of the night with ideas for still more stupid cartoons."

Myfanwy's comic for the Salon is a satire poking fun at gender expectations in her beautiful, vibrant line and wash style (you may have guessed from my own work that I'm a big fan of line and wash in comics).  Here's a sneek peek:

Image by Myfanwy Tristram http://myfanwytristram.com/

Cracked Eye and Art Bastard

I've got one of my comics in Cracked Eye!  It also features an interview in which I try not to sound too much like a stupid head.  Did I succeed?  Find out here:

https://crackedeye.com/cartoon/noneist

And the big Art Bastard news is that we now have a date for the PREMIER!  Watch our trailer and then book tickets here: https://www.picturehouses.com/cinema/Hackney_Picturehouse/film/lsff-bargain-basement-big-screen-filmmakers-qanda

THE ART BASTARD SHOW TRAILER from Chris Lewort on Vimeo.

The Salon of Rejects cover

Worked on this cover today between jobs.  It's the front and back cover for the upcoming Salon of Rejects.

Salon of Rejects and this week's sketches

I've been working on an anthology comic in stolen moments over the last few weeks.  It's taking shape, just the cover left to do really.  In the meantime I've made a little teaser website for it http://www.salonofrejects.com/

Crossed Guns in Avoncliff is one of my favourite pubs, it's also one of the few places near Bath that does a veggie roast. Sketched this guy while waiting for my sticky toffee pudding

Trying out Noodlers pen

Sketches of people nodding off

Moose Kid 2 is out

Issue 2 of the brilliant Jamie Smart edited all ages comic Moose Kid is now ready to read at moosekidcomics.com.  The comic features the work of 50 odd artists (including me) all giving our work away for free to hopefully entertain some young readers.

Issue 2 contains some of this

and this

(pic credit: Rick Eades)

a little bit of that

(pic credit: Jess Bradley)

some kids doing this:

(pic credit: Dan Gaynor)

these

(pic credit: Andrew Waugh)

A seal pup

(pic credit: Rachael Smith)

A green thing in a shower cap

(pic credit: Andreas Schuster)

the promise of gold, jewels and custard

(pic credit: Chris Garbutt)

and a crazy amount more.

Oh and this:

(pic credit: Rikke Asbjorn)

ELCAF and Moose Kid

I had a great time at ELCAF this weekend meeting loads of interesting and talented people, learning some new skills and buying far more comics than I can afford.  Good times!  It's definitely the best comic event I've ever been to.  If you're in to comics I would totally recommend going and taking part in their masterclasses and events next year.

In other news, this amphibious, androgynous fella will be resurfacing in the next couple of weeks....

Putting together a page of Sunshine Bay

Here's a little summery of how I put together pages for Sunshine Bay.  I experimented with a few different ways of getting the same effect, but for this page I did it in layers on Photoshop, meaning that I can pull it apart and show you how it's done.

First up, the sketch.  My sketches are generally a lot more rough than this, but I originally used it as part of a pitch to children's comic The Phoenix (the page is A4 here to fit their dimensions)

The Phoenix showed some initial interest but in the end it didn't come together so I decided to self publish.  I liked the idea of making the book look like a postcard to I cut the pages in half to make them landscape format.  This meant quite a bit of tweaking to get the page turn right but I'm really glad I did, I think it made it in to a nice little object.

I've lined this in Pentel Brush Pen and dip pen:

I then colour some of the lines on Photoshop (for any cartoonists who don't know how to do this: change to document to greyscale, use the channels window to select all the grey, select > inverse, make a new layer, add a mask using the circle in a square icon at the bottom of the layers panel and fill in the layer with any colour you want your lines to be)

I then used the lines as a guide for a watercolour paining:

And finally I put it all together!

It's a bit of a roundabout process and sometimes I found it much quicker to just do it all on paper and scan it at the end.  The main advantage is that you can have coloured lines, and indeed much more control over the lines generally.  I hope that's of some help to someone, and (brazen plug approaching) please do go and buy Sunshine Bay from any branch of Traveling Man, or from my website.

Stacey's Pop Culture Parlour

Fancy hearing me make a tit of myself live on a podcast? If so tune in tohttp://mixlr.com/spcp-live/ .I'll be on in about an hour burbling about Gurber, Moose Kid and other stuff. It's a 24hr podcast to raise moneys for Operation Smile 
https://www.justgiving.com/SPCPLive/

Broken Frontier covers Moose Kid and a few sketches

This morning Andy Oliver posted an interesting interview with Jamie Smart about Moose Kid Comics.  Check it out at Broken Frontier: http://www.brokenfrontier.com/small-press-spotlight-on-moose-kid-comics-with-jamie-smart/

In other news, here's some sketches:

First off, a dismembered head frowns at a pole being held by a man in a hat:

Man playing iPad game at Oldfield Park station