Ministry Of Stories

For a little while now -- I think almost two years, but with my memory it's almost impossible for me to be sure-- I've been volunteering with the Ministry Of Stories in Hoxton. I've done a few bits and pieces, and am a fully trained up Story Minister, but predominantly I live illustrate during the Storymaking Workshops.

During the Storymaking Workshops a class from a local school will go to the Ministry, and come up with brand new, original stories for the fearsome, unseen Chief. The session is in two parts -- during the first, the class collectively write the first half of the story, democratically voting on key elements like characters and settings. During the second each child finishes off the story in their own way.

The illustrating part takes place during the first half of the session -- as the children write their story, the illustrator comes up with 3 images on a flipchart at the front of the room, which as they are completed are handed through to The Chief's office.

I got involved originally just to do something different -- for one, I'd never done live illustrating, and thought it might be fun, and I needed something to get me out of the office. After illustrating a couple of sessions, I decided to get trained up so that I could help out as a mentor during the half of the workshop, and I've also used that training to help with a few of the after-school sessions.

Of the six sessions I've illustrated (I thought I'd done more, but not according to their website...) the last three have involved zombies. I don't know if that's because of how I look, or something? Although I'm not the only illustrator to have done zombies, my hit-rate seems disproportioaltely high. Besides that, though, I really enjoy going down there and helping out -- the kids are always fantastic, and come up with incredible ideas every time. And the other volunteers are amazing, and great to work with. My only regret is that becasue of other life-stuff I don't get to do more with them...

If you feel so inclined, there are a few ways you can get involved -- THIS PAGE at the Ministry's site will have details.

Previous stories can be found at the story-making section of the site -- clicking the pictures I've posted here will take you to its respective story.

Reptiloid-thing sketches

 Here's something a little different...

As many people know, I've got a bit of a 2000AD obsession going on, partly because of the general surge in interest becasue of Dredd 3D coming out. Mostly, though, I'm experiencing something of a semi-mid-life crisis, and falling back in love with the things I loved during my youth. Eventually, I'll get around to writing and posting my love-letters to Revere and Indigo Prime.

But, anyway. As part of the 2012 Thought Bubble Comics Festival, 2000AD are running a competition to win a chance at paid work in the comic. All that has to be done is to illustrate a 3-page Future Shock (the script and detail of the comp are here: http://thoughtbubblefestival.com/events/2000ad-portfolio-competition/). I thought I'd give it a go, to stretch myself artistically as well as indulge myself 2000AD-wise.

Unfortunately, I'm unlikely to actually enter -- I'm really busy with my real-life job and The Intercorstal, and I've just picked up another fun little project, so I've not got the time I'd need to focus on it. And even if I did start and finish the comic properly (which is difficult because I've not done anything like that before...) I don't think I'd be able to get up to Leeds to attend Thought Bubble anyway.

I quite like the sketches I've done so far, though -- working out how the alien characters in the script work physically, and also trying to work in some personality. And this, here, is those sketches.

The Intercorstal: Butcher's Park

I've finished the sixth installment of The Intercorstal -- here's a video of it while I get a PDF sorted.

I've also posted to the Abstract Comics blog, where I've been characteristically modest about it, but I think it's some of the best work I've done in ages.

The Intercorstal: Demos WIP

SO.

I've been away for a while. Mostly because my wife had our second child back in June and we've been adjusting to that since. Everything's lovely, just don't have as much time to focus on drawing as I'd like.

I'm getting back into the swing of things, though. Still no sign of Elipses, the collected Intercorstal edition that I've been talking about for at least a year now. But instead a brand new Intercorstal, called 'Demos'. It was called 'Epic' for a while, but I hated that. Still not sure about 'Demos', though, so that might change too. I mean, 'Witches' was called 'Sea Saw' for a while, right up until the cover was conceived, so there's an obvious benefit in not setting a title in stone until the last minute.

Anyway, when finished it'll be a 12 page comic (including the cover), based on a promotional booklet I got at an assessment conference from the company 'Epic' (see, that's where the original title came from). Once I've fiished it, I'll likely ask Art Roadie Anxietydecending to turn it into a PDF and then rather than send physical copies out I'll make it free-to-download.

Here's some photos I just took -- I've done a lot of this work sitting on the benches in Smithfields Park, and that's where these photos were taken (hence the daylight and gravel).















The Intercorstal at Heads Up, ft BATMAN

38 Pages From The Intercorstal and a Batman

I was contacted a couple of months ago by Holly from Chelmsford's Shiny Shed collective, asking if I'd be interested in taking part in a group show in Chelmsford, and I leapt at the chance. Sensing the opportunity to do somethnig a little different and push the boat out a bit, as well as having by a strange set of coincidences the space and materials required, I set about creating a wearable Batman suit out of cardboard.

I went through a bit of a 'process' with this -- I knew what I needed it to look like, but I had no idea how it would work, and while I was making it was constantly worrying that what I was making wasn't artistically valid and what have you. But filling the inside of the cape with cut-up Intercorstal panels and adding panels to the white areas on the gauntlets (which was my wife's idea, to be fair) resolved that conflict.

I could wang on about my process and what this means to me, and how it ties into The Intercorstal for ages, but I'll save that for another time. For now, I'd just like to share these photos of the work I have on show, which I'm incredibly proud of -- the photos were taken while the rest of the exhibition was still being set up, so there's still tools and coffee cups and whatnot in frame. I've added some comments on each picture, which hopefully shed some light on what's going on in my head.

Any comments, questions or crticism are heartily welcomed.

And if you're able, head down to the Heads Up show -- it's on in Chelmsford in the old Barcalys Building, at the top of the High Street, running between 19th and 27th May. All the work there is incredible, and it is a genuine honour to have been asked to participate.


Batman installed, waiting for the other pieces to be wall mounted. The fists are hanging by string attached to the cape -- I only managed to work out how to do that on the day of installation. I'd encourage anyone gonig to have a go on the fists -- they can be 'worn' by holding a handle attached on the inside of the box.



The left-hand part of the installation. I jumped at the chance to use this corner of the exhibition space. It's very busy with pipes and air-con ducts and plugs, as well as the boarded-up doorway. I think it really adds texture to the presentation of the pages which I was worried would look a little flat from a distance -- especially for the bigger frames. Close up, the detail in each page is obvious, and any texture takes care of itself.



The right-hand side of the installation. The drawback of using this section of the room was that the walls are in sections -- some is solid brick, some is plasterboard, some are hollow... Mounting these was a bit of a brainache.

3 of the pages from 'Witches' in yellow-green frames. I've always considered 'Witches' to be one of the high points of The Intercorstal so far, and I think these three pages look great together.

This frame used to have 'Mist Of Blood And Rage', which I did for Operation Concrete, in it. It took hours to get those pages in, and to look as neat as they do (which I appreciate is ot as neat as they could be...). The frame's hanging on a crossbar attached to the doorframe, with the rest of the door being filled in by a single sheet of wood. I didn't want to get too over-enthusiastic and lose my cool, but thematically that's absolutely perfect for The Intercorstal - the idea of a 'hollow door', the fact that it's a doorway and not a doorway at the same time...

I've had this green frame haning up at my mum's house for years, with older work in it. I went round on the morning of the exhibition's setup to nick it back, because I realised that I needed another coloured frame to balance out the compostion of the displayed work. Because it's a light frame, I could hang it against those pipes instead of against the wall, which again adds a certain amount of texture to the setup.

Another eight pages. When arranging the pages in the frames, I didn't actually spend a lot of time considering which ones I wanted, or where. It's kind of been a theme throughout, letting the pages fall wherever they might -- for instance, when putting together the run of the first Intercorstal comic, I shuffled the pages and turned some of them back to front to randomise the order of pages through the book.

This is one of the latest pages, which have been done on A4 Bristol Board, whereas the earlier pages were done on slightly rougher A5 paper. I wanted to show all of the newer ones, but didn't have the frames I needed, so only this one went up.

Here's one of the fists, post-completion, on my living room floor. The insides of these boxes have a handle inside, set so that the fist can be worn. The handle's set in a position which feels comfortable to the wearer -- if you've got the left-hand fist on your right hand, the weighting feels wrong.

Batman Ghosts





I'm taking part in the very exciting HEADS UP group show in Chelmsford, organised by The Shiny Shed Collective, which takes place between 19th and 27th May. I'll be using the space I have as an excuse to show off The Intercorstal in a gallery context, as opposed to the short comics and zines which have been done so far. I'll also be unveiling my first 3D piece, which is a kind of semi-installation, which I'll go into more detail when the show starts.

Batman and Robin Ghosts

On sale there will be a collection of postcards of Batman Ghosts. Essentially, they're the Ghosts that I've been including in my work for years now, but with Batman's ears built in. In some of the scenes, I play up to the Batman side, in others I don't. No two are the same and I hope to have at least 50 done by the launch of the show. I've given up on the idea that I'll have scanned them all beforehand, so here's some photos of a few of them.

Vampire Batman Ghost

Unicorn Batman Ghost

Lots of Batman Ghosts

Laika, and stuff

Here's a picture I did of a dog called Laika for the esteemed Karen Hart. I'm pretty chuffed with how it turned out.

Otherwise, things have been pretty quiet, as I've been trying to sort my house out ready for Child No.2, due in the summer. This has meant emptying 30-odd years worth of crap out of the shed in our back garden (kindly left by the previous owners), doing some rudimentary "chop it back out of the way of the doors and paths" gardening and decorating the bub's room.

Taking this time away has given me the chance to refocus on what I want to acheive creatively, and so I'm going to focus on personal work unless it's a direct comission from now. The Intercorstal and my 'grthink' work have had more attention develop naturally than my fashion and editorial work, so it makes sense to focus on that.

Having said that, my next personal project, other than a new one-off instance of The Intercorstal, is going to be along the lines of the Corgi and Zombie helmets I've made out of cardboard. I'll relinquish more details when I'm further along.