The House Of Skullduggery: July 2012

This morning i took some time out to visit Angus' daycare and do some drawing with them. A great, chaotic, exhausting but fun half an hour with 15 three year olds and the country's future art directors.

I finished up, and had printed, three of the characters i already collaborated with him on about a year ago to show the rest of his class and then had them art direct the creation of a couple of new ones, the Bonga Boo and the Hundy Hoo. They're pretty wild so i'll sketch them up properly, finish them and get them printed for them to hang up on the classroom wall next week.

In the meantime here are the three i finished up for today -

The Wuggis Duggis...

The Stick Stook Akin Ook...

And the Huffetter Puffetter...

I also brought in a bunch of stickers for the kids to take home to their folks, cementing me as permanent favourite parent in the room!

Folktale Friday I: Vitazko and the Griffin - based on a Czech folktale that starts with good intentions, makes way for betrayal, incorporates some pretty horrific rending of limbs, nailing of hearts to castle walls and ends in bloody revenge. You can read it here.

This is the first in a new weekly project i've set for myself; each week i'll pick a folktale, a creature, a hero or myth and illustrate the heck out of it, because who doesn't love metal, monsters, beards and chainmail? Nobody, thats who.

You can follow me on Twitter for updates or, you know, come back in a week for the next topic!

Crom!

If you didn't make it to Oz Comic-Con in Melbourne this weekend you most likely missed the announcement of a new graphic novel i will be working on for Gestalt Comics, Rombies: Ex Legio Mortis (The Legion Of The Dead), a parallel 'Rombies' book written by Christian Read and due for release in January 2013.

I'm very, very excited about this project. Not only is it my first time back working with Christian in almost a decade, it's a departure stylistically to something a bit more sophisticated and looser than how i usually work. Not only that it's a high concept genre fest; ancient Gallo/Roman history, celtic beards, warrior queens and gut wrenching zombie horror. I'll be keeping regular updates as it comes together over the next six months, so stay tuned.

Oz Comic-Con was the biggest, best and most successful con i've ever had the pleasure of attending. Thousands of fans packed the venue from start to finish and while it seems there were some teething issues around people getting into the venue (due to the overwhelming turnout) everyone i chatted to was generous, excited and enthusiastic.

A huge thanks to the organisers for putting on another incredible show to back up Adelaide and the tireless volunteers for keeping an eye on me. Really looking forward to next year's event; they can only get bigger and better!

Thanks to Dymocks for hosting me and supplying books for people to buy, thanks to my Finnish metal powered booth buddy KJ Taylor, for being such great company, and thanks to the tour de force that was the chicken (Yokie).

Extra special thanks goes to Skye, rightly self appointed cosmos queen, for all her incredible help at the booth over the entire weekend. Without you i wouldn't have been able to leave the table to take a break, keep track of sales or cope with the hundreds of people who came by. Hopefully a 50-50 cut will suffice, or ideally a retaining fee for next time!

And of course thanks to everyone who took the time to come by and say hello, have a chat, make with the kind words and bought a print, a book, or a commission or two. It's always great to meet new and old fans alike, being the solitary field that it is, it's incredibly surprising and humbling to know your work resonates with people, so it's very much appreciated. Here is to doing it all again next year!