S'Been a While

My weekly blogging has taken a bit of a nosedive of late but I plan to rectify that.

Had a very fun BICS at the weekend, where I met a lot of fellow Insomnia creators and staff which was great and some of Team Kronos City met for the first time. There was some bonding on Moomin love.

In Kronos City news, the first draft of the script has been finished!

Here's some pictures. Knock yourself out by looking at them. With your eyes.

First up is Guillermo del Toro looking worried.

The second should need no introduction. If it does, there's something gravely missing in your life.

The Truth About Kronos City...

Lauren put up a post detailing how she thought that the idea for Kronos City came about, and I promised her that I would put up the real story, which isn't as interesting as all the mystery...I was out for coffee with my housemate, Ruth, and our friend, Elaine, and Ruth made a comment about how she measures time in streets or streets in time - I can't quite remember which. It was to do with how long it takes to get somewhere being determined by how many streets there are between you and it. Anyhoo, that planted the idea of streets made of time, which changed into canals of time, which was the starting seed for Kronos City.

I'm not entirely sure exactly where the karma idea came from. I was walking home from work (it's about 40 min) and I came up withthe whole karma inc concept, in a pretty similar form to how it ended up, although there's a few new ideas and subpolts that came together from some other stories that were floating in my head.

So there you have it...

I'm also firing up a sketch I did of Elektra a few weeks back. I like my brush pen.

Before Kronos City, there was Karl the Anorexic Vampire

Good evening!

I am endeavouring to put up a blog post every Saturday. In honour of the first chapter of Kronos City going up online (at http://www.myebook.com/index.php?option=ebook&id=14544 if you haven't checked it out), I thought I would put up one of the earlier Karl the Anorexic Vampire strips. Karl's a character I dreamt up a few years ago. He's since then found a home in the cosy surroundings of Kronos City.

Chapter One Preview Online

The first chapter of Kronos City is up online for all to see if you want to mosey over to http://www.myebook.com/index.php?option=ebook&id=14544. It's been up since last night and we've already had 130 views! Tell your friends - they'll think you're cool.

A saturday afternoon's diversion

This is what I did this afternoon. I'm pretty sure it's Halle Berry.

Did me another picture

I also had coco pops.

Fables Art

Hello! I knocked this out this evening while watching Pushing Daisies Season Two, which is very much worth watching. It's a scene from Fables: The Mean Seasons, which is very much worth reading.

Moon

Moon, directed by Duncan Jones, is currently playing in the QFT until the end of next week, methinks. It's definitely worth a look. If you can try not to read anything about it and you'll enjoy it to its full potential.

Stephen's Blog

Just like to direct you to Stephen "Cancertown/Slaughterman's Creed" Downey's latest blog update, mainly because he's put up a sketch that I did. :)

http://stephendowney.blogspot.com/2009/07/very-odds-and-sods.html

Letters Ahoy!

We'd like to announce the signing of letterer Jim Campbell to the Kronos City team. Jim had sent us some really nice, thoughtful samples in different styles that really suited the feel of the book and the art. I think he'll make a mightily fine addition to the team.

Andrew

Clipping from The Red Eye

"A big welcome to letterer Jim Campbell who will be joining the Kronos City team, for starters. In the past Jim has worked with Classical Comics on their range of graphic novel adaptations of classic literature, and for Zenescope's Grimm Fairy Tales.

Jim's sensitivity to the art in devising his lettering styles is exquisite, and I'm incredibly pleased to have him on board."

Strangers in Paradise Blog

Firing a link up to Terry Moore's blog from 2007, when he put up a sketch I had drawn, which tickled me all sorts of pink.

http://www.terrymooreart.com/blog/?p=90

The Strain

I got sucked into buying books today. Very much looking forward to reading The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan.

24 Hour Comic

Posting a link to my 24 hour comic which I did last October. There's an official 24 hour comic day every year, where you produce a 24 page comic within 24 hours, and that's including all the time it takes to come up with a concept, eat, drink and sleep...which explains the vastly varying degrees of art quality.

This year's is on the 3rd October, and they're great fun. Last year's one in Belfast was in Catalyst Arts and we had a video link with one in Dublin. They're a great way to get to know other creators in the area and get the juices flowing - you're not supposed to plan your comic in any form!

Here's the official website:

http://www.24hourcomicsday.com/

And here's mine from last year:

http://www.comicspace.com/belfast24hourcomics/comics.php?action=gallery&comic_id=23417

Kronos City Page One

Alex and Lauren have been really busy and sent me the first couple of pages of art for Kronos City, and it's looking fantastic! It's great seeing the images in your head go, via your words, into something more beautiful than you can create yourself!

Hello everyone! This is my first venture into the hithero unexplored world of blogging, although I am a veteran facebooker...

I'm currently writing Kronos City for Insomnia Publications with lovely art by Alex Willmore and Lauren Anne Sharp, so I'll be posting updates on that.

I'll also keep everyone posted on the latest goings on at Insomnia.

I dabble a lot at the doodle, so you can be wowed by my penmanship. I discovered at the 2D festival in Derry that I'm one of the fastest pens in the west. I'll be posting some of my various dabblings as we go along. I like to draw the characters from Kronos City a lot. In the early stages of plotting I used to draw them over and over again until their personalities popped out at me. I'll get round to scanning them in some time as well.

I'm including some of my Dr Sketchy work from the burlesque life drawing held in the Menagarie in Belfast on the first Sunday of every month, which is excellent fun.

Enjoy!