Breakfast Comic Strips

As an exercise I’ve been drawing automatic 'breakfast comic strips' this week - no preplanning, just seeing what comes out.

I usually have extremely vivid dreams & have been suffering from awful anxiety & dread when I wake up in the mornings so this has just been a way to distract myself & to force myself out of it. No rules, but none of them been allowed to have taken more than about 30 minutes to draw (because I have lots of PROPER work to do!) They're extremely variable in quality but I thought some people would be interested to see them. They probably say a lot about my subconscious & obsessions but I'll leave that for you to work out!

Tuesday 10th September

Wednesday 11th September

Thursday 12th September

Friday 13th September

My 'get up & go' just got up & went!

 "My 'get up & go' just got up & went!" 

(pen, ink & wash on A6 300gsm watercolour paper)

"There's Some Days You Just Can't Get Rid Of A Bomb"

 As you might have noticed, Batman has become rather a theme in my work of late, but I think he's always been a recurring motif in my drawing since I was a kid. He's always there lurking under the surface somewhere! 

The Incurable Oaf™

 My spirit superhero. (Hark! Is that Marvel & DC Comics on the phone I hear?)

MORE made-up comics you say? Go here!

The Wrestling

A friend mentioned the wrestling to me the other day - not ANY wrestling but the '70s 'World of Sport' style wrestling which ALWAYS uses the definite article. For some reason it was never just wrestling. It was THE wrestling!
Always reminds me of rainy Saturday afternoons as a child so these memories were whirling through my head when I drew it in my sketchbook. I *might* have taken a little bit of artistic licence (see who you can spot in the crowd!)

I've posted the original sketchbook piece below to give you a little peek behind the whole process. I drew it with a couple of Rotring art pens & a bit of strategic Sharpie. I've added some extra characters in the background digitally but most of the original pen work is still there then the colour was added in Photoshop.

(If you're fascinated by the whole era The Wrestling by Simon Garfield is really worth a read!)

Newham Word Festival with Guy Bass

I had a great time with author Guy Bass at the Manor Park library with the the kids from Monega Primary School  for the Newham Word Festival today. We covered everything from childhood vices, potato shaped children, dinosaurs, superheroes & not to forget our recent collaborations 'Noah Scape - Can't Stop Repeating Himself'  & 'Laura Norder - Sheriff of Butts Canyon'.

Guy's exuberance & expert storytelling went down really well with the kids & the morning gave me plenty of scope for plenty of live drawing to prove I was definitely 'quick on the draw' (see what I did there?!?!)

Thanks to the staff at Manor Park library for making us so welcome!

 Look at all our lovely books!

A meat pie, Tarzan & angry giraffe...

 Noah Scape

 Various superheroes (& Hulk's tiny trousers)

 Ten Gun Ben (& startled horse)

 Ten Gun Ben says "NO RULES!"

 A wild west 'good morning' pussycat (& rogue TARDIS)

 Potato shaped child & Guy's mum laying down the law 

(NB I have never met Guy's mum so this is purely invented)

 Noah Scape's favourite things!

 Laura Norder & Duncan Disorderly drawn from life in double quick time
(see below)

Superdad's Day Off (sneak preview)

Shhhhh! Here's a sneak preview of Superdad's Day Off by the very funny Phil Earle with lots of nice colour pictures by me. It's published by Barrington Stoke on the 15th April & you can pre-order it here.
I'll write & post more once it's published. I've got previous form with superheroes so was BIG fun to illustrate!

Happy Superhero Day!

Yes! There is such a thing!

(This is a clip from my film X&Y from a few years back - you can see it in its full glory here!)

Doomed Franchises #1 Wilbur the Friendly Toast Boy™

Wilbur's exciting adventures were slightly limited by his lack of discernible limbs & tendency to get cold & soggy rather quickly!

Unlikely bird superhero hybrid awaits Marvel movie adaptation

Come on, they're making adaptations of EVERYTHING now. Patience my friend...

WHAM-BAM-JELLY-AND-JAM! - Cartoon Kid - ZOMBIES!

I just received my copy of the new Jeremy Strong Cartoon Kid book - Cartoon Kid Zombies!
It's got falling trousers, dancing hippos, talking cakes, police elephants (naturally!) toilet paper mummies & lots of other zombie based shenanigans that Casper & his superhero friends encounter - what more do you need?

It's been a lot of hard work & a lot of fun working on these books & this looks like this will be the last in the series which is a shame (especially as I can draw some of the characters in my sleep by now!) & I've grown quite fond of them.
WHAM-BAM-JELLY-AND-JAM! Anybody can be a superhero! (as long as you stick your pants on the outside, I ALWAYS do!)

You can buy a copy from here but I'd suggest getting one from your local PROPER bookshop - who knows what else you might find?

KAPOW! FREE Superheroes in Newham!

Get your capes on! If you're a Newham resident you get FREE entrance to the Discover Children's Story Centre until Sunday 12 August - including the Superheroes exhibition I illustrated & designed for! How good is that?

Cartoon Kid is July's poster boy!

I'm July's poster boy for my agent Arena Illustration's calendar - illustration was commissioned by The Times for their Campaign For Fun which searches for the most fun school in Britain*.  It features characters from Cartoon Kid, the series by Jeremy Strong, published by Puffin Books which I'm about to begin illustrating the 5th in the series - yay!

* It definitely wasn't the one I went to.

Superheroes Exhibition launch party

Our hero with assorted superheroes
Our hero modelling a very fetching cape (photo Sarah McIntyre)



Photos © Tim Mitchell

Me with the Discover team (photo Sarah McIntyre)

Great launch party last week for the interactive Superheroes exhibition that I just finished working on with the lovely folk at the Discover Children's Story Centre in Stratford so here's a few photographs of the exhibition (& a couple of me looking silly too!)
Big thanks everybody at Discover for being delightful to work with & for all their brilliant work in making the exhibition work so well

Images courtesy of  Tim Mitchell, Arena Illustration & also thanks to Sarah McIntyre, monster illustrator extraordinaire who has kindly let me nick some  photos from her blog

More images here

Welcome to Alphabet City!

Animated intro for the interactive Superheroes Exhibition at the Discover Children's Story Centre featuring square jaws, a surfeit of cape-ery & a glimpse of a Super-Villain to boot! See it here

(thanks to Sam Hooper for some great sound design)

Meet the Superheroes!

These are the finished comic strips that go with the children's Superheroes exhibition that I've just finished working on. They introduce the superheroes A,E,I,O & U in their battle against the evil vowel snatching villain Y. (all superheroes need a good origin story!)
The exhibition (which makes me wish I was 6 years old again!) is at the Discover Children's Story Centre in Stratford & is open until the 4th November - more details here

Badges!

I visited the Superheroes exhibition this morning - it's all looking really great, the folks at the Discover Children's Story Centre have done an amazing job, photos to follow. Today I got to wear a cape, sit in a Super Car & got given badges & comics too - yay!

Superheroes comic strips

Here's a selection of the comic strips I produced for the Superheroes exhibition at the Discover Children's Story Centre in Stratford, East London showing the origins of the main characters. The superheroes A, E, I, O & U are battling the dastardly villain Y who is stealing all the vowels from Alphabet City!

I was commissioned to design the superhero & super villain characters & the the urban environment the exhibition is set in (including lots of fun with signs & animals! : )I also produced some animated clips for the interactive parts of the exhibition

The exhibition opened on Sunday 1st April & will run until 4th November - I haven't had a chance to see the finished piece yet, looking forward to it loads.

You can find out more details on the Discover website