Shrewsbury

Had a lovely weekend drawing my Big Board at the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival. Here's a photo of me drawing it with a pen by Geoff Ward. 

I attacked the board with acrylic paint and gave myself a bad back. The other guys seem to have gone at it in a more sensible way, but as this was my first time I wanted to make a bit of a splash. Next year (if I'm asked) I think I'll do something with a bit more movement. Not really dynamic enough this one. Come next April and meet me and bring some copies of The Beano and The Phoenix to sign. It's a great laugh and there's lots of cartoon related goodness to nourish you. 

The caption says, "I have travelled here from the terrifying post-apocalyptic future where we fight an unceasing war against nightmarish insectoid aliens....Can I have a hug?"

New character coming soon

I've been devising a new story that'll be published in a comic fairly soon, but I thought I'd post some character designs. The first image is my original design, drawn in my regular style. He's based on a gladiator, but the armoured right arm is actually bionic, hence the buttons. 

After working up a few strips I quickly realised that there was more potential in the look of the strip, and I wanted to make it closer to the style of modernist cartoons that I so admire-the sort of influences that Samurai Jack wears on it's sleeve. The second sketch is the first in the new direction. The shapes of the character have become more exaggerated and he's become more simplified, although the buttons on his arm have become more stylised. The final character in the strip is not quite as scruffily drawn as this guy, but he's close. More soon. 

Oi! Can't a lump of earwax get some sleep around here?

 5 more episodes of Burp, including the first singalonga special....

I married a teenage smear

Enjoy!

More Burps

Here's the next five episodes of Burp from Oink! comic, or it would be if I wasn't missing issue 5! If anyone has that issue, I'd love them to scan in the missing episode and send it to me. (The same goes for issue 40 which has possibly the best episode ever, featuring a werewolf). But never mind. In these five episodes we see Burp's penchant for inventing machines to help mankind go horribly wrong in a quite brilliant curveball bit of writing. We also see the first repeating Burp title panel which remains in place until Banx is given a second page, 30 issues later. In that same episode, we also see Banx developing the squirting zit idea, which quickly takes over from the smell lines which usually emanate from Burp. In fairly short order those squirts start to get out of hand, but somehow they make Burp even more endearing. By the tenth episode, Burp has taken on the look that he'll keep for the rest of his adventures, his head becoming basically a smooth semi-circle.

"I'll use my buttock jets to get a better look inside!"

New year, old look

You might have seen the latest Beano, featuring another strip by me: Lord Snooty.

I've taken him back to his original outfit, but given him a new visual twist, in a sort of traditional Beano style. He's gone though revamps before of course, including a modernisation as Lord Snooty III, but my take is to make him a bit nuts, but keep the spirit of the original.

Only someone who is nuts would still wear that get-up.

Happy Christmas, smell fans!

As a special Christmas treat I am commencing with the great Burp Project. My aim is to scan all the episodes of Burp from Oink! comic and post them up on this here blog. I have extolled the genius of this strip before, and now it's time for you to see all of it.

Jeremy Banx' strip began in the preview issue of Oink! which was given away for free, if memory serves, with Buster comic. Flicking through the pages of the first few issues, I note a few forgotten characters, 'New Wave Dave', 'Mike and Spike', 'Master T' by Pete Dredge, 'Tiny Dumpling and Big Nan' by Ian Knox, and a two page strip called 'The Revenge Squad' by Tom Paterson who was never really a regular Oink! artist.

Number 0 also features strips that would appear in virtually every issue: Harry the Head, by radio's Marc Riley, Hadrian Vile, by the artistic genius Ian Jackson, Rubbish Man by Haldane, and Horace 'Ugly Face' Watkins by Tony Husband.  One thing that stands out as I look back, is that Oink! was a mixture of quite bad and quite blinding artwork, but that never mattered much to me back then in the 80's. The attitude was the thing. It felt bolder and more dangerous than 'Sid's Snake' or 'Pup Parade' and that's what mattered.

In the first 5 Burp strips, Burp's head is yet to take on it's fully realised shape, which came just a few issues later and basically stayed the same until the end of it's run. You can also see some pretty odd colouring choices (strangely, Burp seems to be the only page in those early issues with these weird colours). The premise of the character is established from pretty much the word go; He's hideous, he stinks, he can take out his internal organs (and they have their own personalities), but he just wants to be accepted. The strip would become far more sophisticated later on, but first it became more hideously anarchic as his internal organs started to develop bizarre personalities.

The Pet Specimen from Uranus which Burp carries slung in a jar at his waist, later develops from a sidekick into more of a way to crowbar an extra punchline in in the last frame. The first couple of strips play with a similar idea across the bottom, but that is quickly abandoned. You can also see some drawings of 'Mary Lighthouse' in the title picture. She was Oink's in-house critic who would shriek about how disgusting the strip was. Enjoy, the first five Burps of Christmas!