A quick update, some sketches and some musing

Things have been a little mental lately, but back to say hi again and give you some rambling updates.

MG&GL has been going pretty well so far, although the slow speed I’m able to work on it is being a little excruciating. Jack and I actually have quite a lot of story planned out for the thing that I can’t wait to get to. And in the mean time it’s been fun to draw, and an interesting challenge adapting his prose into single-page suitable scripts (when I’m much more used to working long-form.) Makes me want to break out and re-read the Nikolai Dante that much more… there’s something really special in the pacing of stuff like that series, where you have these great on going stories that also have to work in 5-page chunks so every single page has to be spot on. I don’t buy the progs, so when I read them I get the story all at once but because or the original form it’s pretty much super-condensed. You don’t see that much in mainstream comics outside of 2000ad and print versions of web comics. Unless I’m wrong, in which case give me links, people.

(Interestingly, I’m not sure FreakAngels does it. I love it, but then I also love decompressed storytelling too. Instead of cramming in a tonne into 5 pages, FA seems to just flow from one intense moment to the next, it always leaves you wanting more without that hyper distilled storytelling you get in something like Dante.)

Back to me (egolicious, mmm) and comics though, I’ve been having great fun with a series of workshops I’m doing with the lovely Andrew Barton for CYC. The deal is this: For Culture Shock festival this year, we’re making a comic. A massive comic strip, on big banners to go up in the camp-site. We’re taking the banner to schools and youth clubs and each group is adding on, continuing the story. This has been some of the most fun I’ve had in a workshop, and the banner is looking great so far. The next date is this Saturday 2-5pm at Harrogate Trax, followed by another in-school one on the 15th. The Trax one is open to anyone, so come along and join us.

In other news, the web design work I’ve been doing has been making me want to spruce this place up again… but I’m gonna give it a wait, lest we have yet another thing where I spend more time doing redesigns than actually updating the thing. Online content wise, I should hopefully be doing some more streaming in the next couple of weeks as well, for a couple of commissions and possibly for colouring a MG&GL page, if people are interested in seeing that.

Meanwhile, I’m going to leave you with some sketches and pieces I’ve been doing lately. Enjoy.