So we finally did it, well sort of any way, we made it into Judge Dredd the Megazine and onto the 2000ad website as official credited creators. Admittedly us and about 60 other one time entrances but hay that’s not the point. It is a sort of sideways version of a life long ambition to see print in 2000ad (since the ambition has existed longer then the meg it couldn’t really be included in the life long part). Holt Bros stands up fairly well I think in the issue as a whole, the script is quick and easy to follow and the art is good with a few dodgy poses and hands and the lettering is a bit too big. Overall though I like it and I’m happy with the results and I hope that it’s well received.

I am naturally all for the small press segment and I think a lot of readers have come round to it too. The strips have been of a consistently high standard and they have given a lot of publicity to the small press in general. The articles have helped but showing the quality of self published stories available can only work in the favour of both independent publishers and the UK comics scene as a whole.

The thing that stood out the most was the print quality, it’s fantastic, it’s crisp and clean and it really shows off the art. Small press printing still has a long way to go before it can match professional quality printing. That seems to be one of the issues with braking out. Reading the 2000ad review forum a lot of the small press stuff has been well received and praised above much of the professional content. One of the points that has been made a few times is, given how good these people all ready are in comparison to the pros, what to they have to do to get a foot in the door? Having a story printed in the Meg for a start will probably help.

I’m 2 pages into my Dog Breath strip and I’m finding the scale a little tricky, I hope small fonts print well because this is going to need one. Other then that it’s going well. The breakdowns seem to be working and there is some interesting page layouts coming up before the end. I’m feeling a little better about my artwork also, it’s creeping back to it’s angular shaded self again, but with improved anatomy and shading. I find whenever I put major work into my technical skill my flow suffers, the mark making becomes stiff and in places clumsy and my hands feel heavy. It’s as if the touch leaves my fingers and I’m left clubbing images onto the page with my giant fists.

Johnny himself is such a Carlos character that in my opinion only Colin McNeil has ever drawn him properly other then Esquerra himself. Both McNeil and Esquerra seem to hate the idea of men having lips and both take a similar approach to stylisation. My version of Johnny comes from Carlos’ Proposed TV series Character designs and from the realisation that in the real world Johnny Alpha would look like Rupert Evert. That’s not to say I based him on Evert because I didn’t it’s not like my artwork is realistic and it definitely isn’t photo realistic it just really helped me to realise that his face could still be his face and be a little more realistic.

I was going to draw this story in a high contrast low detail style, big on style small on fuss, I didn’t. as you can see I crammed it full of detail and ended up drawing it well above 50% larger then it’s A5 page size. There were 2 reasons I wanted to draw it high contrast and low detail. The first reason is the A5 format and probably print quality, Large solid blacks print well even on a lo-fi print process where as crosshatching is often poorly reproduced. The second reason was more personal, I thought if I concentrated more on over all design and less on detail I would be able to work faster and produce a more energetic story. But alas I am no lo-fi high contrast artist. I greatly admire Jocks work on the Losers and Sean Phillips work on both Sleeper and Criminal and Mike Mignola in general but in the end it’s just not what I do. I have however taken a more modern approach to the frame lay out and attempted to add new working method as well as really trying with movement. Not that you can really see any of that on the first page.

With future heroes in the bag (and on it’s way to a possible place on a sci-fi website) it’s time to move on to the next project. Desert Tail, by Eric Moore for the Strontium Dog fan zine Dog breath. It is a 9 page a5 story and I’m going to work on a more energetic look and a modern layout. But first I decided to spend a day constructing the main set. As most of the story is set in the same location I reasoned that constructing a 3d background would be viable. The idea wasn’t to make a set suitable for rendering, nothing fussy, just blocks for perspective and consistency.

To help with the visualisation Eric sent me a sketch of his idea for the location.

It’s easy to get carried away with 3d, I like to get carried away with 3d, that’s why I have cinema 4d (a fairly old version now) I paid a lot of money to get carried away with 3d but I don’t have the time to construct and texture a production quality location only to draw over the outlines. So I kept my target, simple location, 1 days work, and I’m pretty happy with the result.

The main difference between this and the stadium I made for Bosher is the level of detail. The Bosher model was complicated and I was out of practice with the program so complicated things further. I will definitely work like this again.

I’m lettering future heroes at the moment and I think I have mentioned how I feel about lettering before. As soon as it’s done that will be the first 3rd of issue 2 completed, a mile stone in any ones book. Instead of brush inking I have been using drawing pens this time and going for an old school solid black and white look. I haven’t really been taking the pencils to a finished level so a lot of the detail and shading is strait from the pen this affect the art in two major ways. Not over working an image keeps it fresh and keeps the lines lively. You can get a lot more energy into the lines and into the page as a whole by only laying them down once. The second effect is the trade off for that, without well worked out lines and shadows you seriously increase the chance of really screwing up a picture. Over the 8 pages there isn’t really a single page I can say I’m happy with, or a single frame really, but I am happy with the over all strip and I am happy with the over all look. My motto with any strip is the same as my motto when I redraw a frame, the next one will be better.

With page 2 I drew frame one and realised it killed the page, even though it was one of the most complicated frames in the whole story I still re-drew it. Not that the second (lets say I only re-drew it once) rendering is any better, in fact it’s scrappy and the faces aren’t up to much, but it is a stronger composition. All the work I put into the perspective of the background and all the time I spent drawing that fountain (days to work out how to get the perspective right) and most of it will be covered by lettering. I put a lot of work into the backgrounds and into the vanishing points and then I cover most of it up, amazingly wasteful.

PJ Holden, a real and published comic artist drew us a Nazi Zombie sketch as part of his sales pitch for his small press collection, Previously, and what a nice sketch it is too. Previously is a collection of his genre spanning work though the small press and makes for interesting viewing. I would say it made for interesting reading but in all honesty the quality of the artwork far outstrips the quality of the writing. It’s not that it’s badly written but with the exception of the one page gags I had pretty much forgotten every story straight after finishing it. Having said that I would recommend Previously to anyone starting out in the small press. PJ is a genuine success story as well as being a fantastic supporter of the small press and with his development though this work you can see why.

So I set fire to page 7 and 8 of future heroes today. I have been struggling for weeks to draw this story, fighting to get it up to pro standard, and I can’t help but to fucking fail. Out of the six pages I have ‘completed’ about half of the work, maybe less, shows a decent level and one big frame in particular demands re-drawing. Over the last 5 or 6 years the look of my artwork and to a degree my technical skill has changed a lot but perversely I’m no closer to becoming a professional. I spent most of my life trying to pick apart comic art to see if I could work a system, find the cheats and cheap tricks, dissect an artist and build myself up in there image. Then I cut all that crap out and started to learn to draw properly, technical drawing, life drawing observational drawing, the ground work for real art and it’s like learning to draw all over again. I was nearly there in a stylised kind of way and for 5 years now I have been nearly there in a progressively more observed and distinctively my own voice kind of way. The worst thing is being nearly there. As I inch closer and closer to becoming a complete artist the comics industry inches closer and closer to oblivion. I inch closer and closer to having to jack it all in and get a real job.

That’s what I have been thinking for a wile now. My art work has been nearly there for so long I’m starting to think it never will be quite good enough and I should just puck it in and grow the fuck up. Ever since I saw my first comic I wanted to be a comic artist and I have always thought if I put in the work I would get there but that’s crap. You can’t always get what you want with hard work, perseverance doesn’t always pay off and except for the odd extremely lucky motherfucker dreams rarely come true. Chris suggested I Go for a PGCE and become a teacher, a thought that horrifies me. Not that there is anything wrong with being a good teacher, I like teachers I could have done with an inspirational teacher. But you know what they say ‘those who can do, those that can’t teach.’ And that for me would be completely true.

I notice that things are starting to gear up in preparation for this year's Caption. This is the event for small press and indy comic creators that does away with the concept of exhibiton stands and instead gets everyone to circulate in one big happy group.

I'm intrigued by the idea and certainly the Oxford location is accessible from my base in the South East. However, due to real life commitments around August 11/12 I am having to give this one a miss.

There is an associated Art Exhibition which seems to be open to non-attendees. Although imho it's a tad unfair to exclude comic writers in this way, possibly Steve will want to submit something.

The Birmingham International Comic Show comes round in October, but again we're going to give this one a miss. I'd love to get some Hellboy signed by Mike Mignola but the practicalities of exhibiting don't work out and it's a bit far to trek even in order to gain a short audience with The Mig.

So that leaves us plugging away in the shadows on various projects, including Walking Wounded #2, for the rest of 2007. Next year though we'll definitely be back, with Bristol our number one target and possibly a day out at the Thing on the cards too.