The weakly strip

I picked up a copy of the Beano last week which is not something I always do, but it had four things by me in it and I thought it would be worth keeping for posterity. Although my Lord Snooty feature works pretty well, my new strip Big Time Charlie reads terribly. It's a pretty thin story about school food and the ending doesn't work. I quickly threw the Beano down, disgusted with myself. I've written lots of weak stuff before of course, but this one really feels like it was phoned in. It made me think of my favourite writers and how they managed to maintain the consistent quality of jokes and ideas in a strip despite the extreme limitations of the form: Set the story up, making sure conflict is involved. Let the characters respond to the situation as their personalities dictate, cram as many jokes in there, have as satisfying an ending as possible, preferably a funny one, avoiding a terrible pun. All in a maximum of about 12 or 13 frames.

So it strikes me that at the moment Charlie's personality is not fully formed and I am finding that limiting a character to a suburban setting is not my natural milieu. Nuke Noodle, the time travelling wrestler was a joy to write because he was the exact opposite of those things. Strong personality (stupid, arrogant, violent) and I had all of time and space to set it in. Think of a character from history, do a little research, introduce Nuke, sprinkle in some horrific beatings and my secret ingredients: a complete curve ball somewhere in the plot, and ridiculous turns of phrase ("It exploded like a bad shoe.") Done.

Charlie, hopefully, will improve as he goes. In the next few episodes I have explored a few different approaches to telling Charlie's adventures, and I have found a very surreal form of clumsiness is emerging again and again. In time we shall see whether these strips lead to Charlie having an extended stay in the Beano, or being another character that couldn't hold his own amongst their classic pantheon. I'm being pretentious now, so I know it's time to stop writing.

Oh, and there might be some news for Nuke fans soon....

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.