(I also grabbed Justice League Dark but I really DO need to read more of that before I can say anything about it.)

Tachikawa School-G Pen

So, over to the left there is a quick sketch of WW, using the School-G for the lines and some Zig Graphic Twins for the shading. The School-G is basically like a cross breed between a cartridge pen and a traditional G nib… which frankly is an awesome idea. I’ve been getting into G nibs lately, and the idea of being able to throw one in my handbag is very appealing.

Now (art quality aside), the WW sketch there shows the biggest flaw with the Tachikawa, and that’s that unless it’s on the right kind of paper, it bleeds massively. This is pretty frustrating because of course, my default sketch book isn’t the right kind of paper.

A quick test on Bristol Board shows its okay on that (but my wallet is pre-emptively crying) and over to the right is another quick test I did on some printer paper. Once I’ve done some more experiments I’ll come back with more conclusive things about it.

The big negative out the way, what about the rest of it? Well, you’re not going to get quite the range of thicknesses that you’ll get from a traditional nib from it, but you can still get a decent range—I’d say between a 01 and a 07 fineliner depending on pressure, if you can avoid bleed. Maybe a little thinner if you’re featherlight and fast, and it is available in an extra fine as well. It’s a little rougher on the page but it’s clean, fast and forgiving; It dries very fast and you’re not going to get an accidental, picture-destroying blob of ink falling off the pen. It plays just fine with watercolour markers. And again, it’s a nib pen you can throw in your bag without thinking about it. You do need to use it at least every couple of days to stop it drying out, but as I want to get better with a nib that’s actually a feature rather than a bug for me.

So, conclusions on the Tachikawa School-G for now: Needs the right paper and won’t replace a G-Nib if you like really high line varience, but it’s a really good tool to be able to throw in a pencil case or when you don’t want the mess you can end up with from the real thing. More thoughts when I’ve gotten more used to it.

Wonder Woman #1 & #2

If I hadn’t heard such good reviews, I’ll admit getting me to buy a Wonder Woman comic would have been a hard sell, especially with the less than stellar portray of women in some recent *coughCatwomanCough* comics. Wonder Woman has never been a book I’ve been hugely interested in, and I’ll admit I’ve maybe unfairly assumed it would be very saturday morning, straight laced superhero stuff, with a character who’s history has been pretty absurd at times.

But I’ve heard good things and it’s about time I read some main stream DC, so I picked up the first 2 issues and was pleasantly surprised. Here’s some reasons why:

• Rather than straight punchy-punchy heroism (which for the record is fine), we’ve got mystery/horror with a dose of greek myth thrown in. I mean, I knew she was greek based but this is nice and heavy on the ‘gods and goddesses being jerks to humanity’ side of things, and Diana getting lumped protecting Zola feels almost more like something out of a noir story to me.
• On that note, Diana’s attitude. She’s kinda surly and no-nonsense, and just gets on with things. I like that a lot.
• Also she is huge. With muscles. She feels really powerful even without gimicks.
• Also despite having a scene where she’s completely naked, she never feels that sexualised. She’s not ashamed of her body, but she’s not flaunting it either. With recent comics news, that’s just so refreshing.



• And she head-butts a centaur.
• Not knowing much about the series beforehand isn’t getting in the way, we get a little dose of backstory in #2 and it looks like the rest is incoming.
• The art is decent, the colouring isn’t afraid to be moody, there’s bags of energy and nice bold inking. The dialogue is solid too and the characters are all interesting so far.
• And she head-butts a centaur.

My only big negative is not really the team’s fault and that’s the huge amount of ads in there. If I didn’t want to support the singles due to it being good (usually my real reason for buying singles) I’d be waiting for the trade to escape having my immersion broken every 3 pages.

So yeah, I think this will stay on my pull list, and hopefully the quality stays up. As this is interesting stuff indeed.

I’ve skimped out on doing a ‘review of 2009′ kind of a post, due to running around like a mad thing for most of the holiday period. But there have been some awesome things over this last year.

Such as:

• Doing loads of workshops, both in art and joining the ranks of Shooting Roots. More is going on the workshop front, so watch this space.
• Getting nominated for the Society of Authors’ Educational Writers prize and tripping down to the House of Commons for the reception. I didn’t win the prize but it was an  absolute honour being shortlisted, I was up against some stunning work. Plus I got to chat to Nick Sherratt and that’s just cool.
• A lot of making new friends and reconnecting with old ones. There are some very inspiring people in my life right now.
• Got to see Shooglenifty and the Edward II reunion (twice in the latter case) which would tie for gig of the year, but I also got to Michael Marra again.
• Took some script writing classes and they’ve really sparked me up. Learned a tonne more about web design and photoshoppery. While I haven’t managed as much art or writing as I would have liked, I think I’ve been improving in what I have done.

Not bad for what has effectively been a down-time year.

Of course, there’s been some rough stuff along with the good, but most of it was beyond my control, a long time coming, or just serving as part of the spark to power some much needed arse-kicking. It’s been a weird one, but as it is the future and all, I decree 2010 to be a year of getting it together.

Last time I did a ‘this year, I resolve to…’ post, it jinxed it all so I’m not going to. But I have some fun plans and projects I can’t wait to share with you guys.

All right people, lets do this thing.

Have a good one.

Here are a few of the things I saw.