Crossing genres

Ebony is like Doctor Strange if Doctor Strange was a girl cat.

Leave me alone I'm tired.


I wonder if there's much money in drawing superhero fetish pics? Oh, don't look at me like that DC put it on the damn cover!

I'm a little surprised I'm still enjoying Final Crisis, maybe it's just because the central concept seems to be that Darkseid's evil is so great it WARPS SPACE AND TIME!


See I don't just read superhero comics with freaky sexual subtexts. I've been meaning to draw a DMZ pic for ages, it's a fine comic, highly recommended.

I love the way Riccardo Burchielli makes all the characters look completely knakered.

Air Water Earth Fire

Waaaoooooh waaaah waaaaah waaaaaoooooooh waaaah waaaaaah etc.

Describing Avatar: The Last Airbender as the best American action/drama cartoon since Batman: The Animated Series sounds a little like I'm damning it with false praise, so I'll just say that's really, really, good on a number of levels and you should check it out if you haven't already.

Defective Fish Colon?

I was a bit apprehensive about subscribing to The DFC, the brand new British weekly kids comic, as it sounded like one of those things I appreciate rather than enjoy and anthologies always have their ups and downs.

But it's great, thoroughly enjoyable. The strips are of excellent quality and it actually felt like something kids would enjoy (unlike so make comics which are aimed at adults who want to read kids comics).

Particular highlights for me were Spider Moon by Kate Brown, which I'm not just saying to stop her beating me up (though she totally could), Vern and Lettuce by Sarah McIntyre which is beautifully done and features a rabbit, Monkey Nuts by The Etherington Brothers which has plenty of laughs and the usual quality art work, and a special mention must go to Super Animal Adventure Squad by James Turner for featuring a unicorn secret service director with an eyepatch -

It's Nick Fury as a unicorn! That's gold.

My only quibbles are the matt paper which stopped it feeling like a real magazine to me, and that everything seemed to be printed a little dark which hurt the art in a few strips.

With a subscription it doesn't work out much more expensive than a regular American comic (and several times the quantity and quality), so I'd suggest that if it sounds like your kind of thing you should give it a go. If you don't like it you can always just give it to a kid.

I wish in motion.

Upon rembering to put Vera Brosgol's Live journal on my feedreader I saw that a student film maker had produced a live action version of the I wish story from the first volume of Flight.




I think it's pretty awesome for a student short.

Mathew Alan Smith's Bristol adventures

Bristol was hot this year, stupid hot, like a jungle.

This probably contributed to my enjoying it less than last year, not that it wasn't fun, just a bit, well, less fun. The table wasn't in quite so sweet a spot opposite the Tokypop honeypot and lost in the mini-comic table line up (at just the point when you lose attention), we are men of modest means and can't compete against anyone who could afford to spring out for a banner. We lacked a quick and direct selling point for the comics as well, I would have been tempted to sell it as the only comic in Bristol without a zombie in it but I'm too nice. Still Zak did well with his full colour book, but that's no surprise as he's Zak and we all cower before his might and glory.

Meh, what are you going to do. I sold enough to pay for the photocopying, called Chris an 'effeminate pimp', was pulled into a horrifying conversation about 'come to bed eyes' Wolverine, and listened to Jamie McKelvie's Alice in Sunderland like knowledge of Malvern.

The cosplayers seemed to be growing in number. The best by a huge margin was the lady who dressed as (or so I was told later) a Warhammer Terminator, a costume which looked like it weighed the same amount as the entire contents of the room I'm currently sitting in. The worst costume was the almost non existent one worn by an underage girl who decided to stand in my eyeline all day, making me feel like I was going to be arrested every time I gazed up from the table. Are there no anime characters who wear burkas?

Here I am in D'Israei's wall of Fame this was the only sketch I got (I even have my eyes open for the photo!).

Sketches I drew for people -

An angry Squirrel
A girl with large nipples
Zombie Jimmie Olsen
The Phantom
A penguin startled by a broken dog

Books I picked up -

2001 issue 3 by Jack Kirby - A strange whim I had.
Jack Staff by Paul Grist - A comic I really like but always forget to buy.
Fred the Clown by Roger Langridge - I heart Roger Langridge!
Toad Hunt by Will Kirkby - The best free mini comic I ever pulled out of somebody's oversized head.
The innocents by Gipi - I picked up Notes for a War Story a little while back and was blown away, so these huge slabs of Gipi were a must.
Phonogram by Gillen & McKelvie - "Worcester's shit" said McKelvie, I couldn't disagree.
Polar Opposites Mini by Marc Ellerby - Foul mouthed penguin are pretty much an instant sell for me.
Day at the Beach and The Monster in the Well Mini By Kate Brown -Which doesn't feature any boy on dragon sex, for better or worse.
Manga Midsummer Nights Dream By Kate again - The special variant badly drawn arrow edition.
The Pin-Up art of Dan DeCarlo 2 - Which has pretty much everything I could have ever wanted from anything.

Special 100th post extravaganza!

Yes my hundredth post, and I'm going to use it to make your lives a little better. Bookmark this and then whenever you're feeling down you will be instantly perked right back up again, all because of...


Dancing Ryu!




Look'it'im go!

Dancing Ryu is by the wonderlicious Emlan who always makes me smile.

In Rainbows

Disclaimer: I know pretty near to fuck all about music so any advice I give should probably be discounted.

The new Radiohead album, y'know that one, is pretty awesome. No real standout singles but that's a welcome change from Hail to the Thief's few good songs and annoying filler.

Also kinda upbeat in an Electioneering style way.

It's powering me through my drawing right now, woo.

The monster shark to Jutland

Now I love me some Terry Gilliam, I even made a comic telling the story of the making of Adventures of Baron Munchausen for college once (if only so I could use a joke I stole from an issue of Promethea), so seeing Tideland for sale in my local HMV I thought 'sure probably going to want that'.

It's been about 24 hours now and it's still rolling around inside my head, whenever i try to think of words to describe it I realise that I'm using the wrong part of brain. It's not disturbing, or shocking, or freakishly twisted (well maybe a little twisted), but I feel that those terms are the ones most people would understand the film by.

I'd compare it to Pan's Labyrinth but it's the contrasts between the two that really make Tideland so potent. There's no shocking violence to show that the adult world is a horrible place, fantasy and reality have a very different relationship. Both are advertised as children's stories for adults but it's Tideland that is more accurately described.

As a viewing experience it felt so personal that I'm almost afraid to hear what other people think of it. I felt a very similar way after I read the novel of Peter Pan for the first time last year, it's primal, it sits in your mind like a stone. Like Gilliam says in his introduction, it's innocent and true, that's where the power comes from.

Perhaps it's just me.

Tomorrow I'll go back to my feeble attempts at humour, but for today you get the meditative Smithy thinking about doll heads and taxidermy.

Sexica from Multiple Warheadz

Picked up a copy of Brandon Graham’s Multiple Warheadz the other day, it's all quirky hipster Moebius and nudity, a combination which comics (and every other medium) need more of.

Now to find a copy of King City.

TeamSmithy recommends... Crecy

Scene: The Headmasters office of a small public school in Essex during the early 1980's.

Headmaster - Now Warren, do you know why you're here?

Warren - No sir?

Headmaster - Hmm, I think you do Warren, your history teacher came to speak to me earlier.
Warren - My history teacher sir?

Headmaster - Yes Warren, he tells me that you've defaced your text book.

Warren - Well I thought it could do with some livening up sir.

Headmaster - You seem to have scrawled a large number of offensive words over the text.

Warren - Offensive words sir?

Headmaster - Yes Warren, some particularly offensive words.

Warren - You mean like cu...

Headmaster - Yes that one stands out, you seem to have used it a lot.

Warren - Well they would have used it all time in those days sir.

Headmaster - That may well be true Warren, but the history lesson is no place for such language. On the same subject, while this drawing of the death of Edward the Second may well be accurate, I think you know that it also isn't suitable for the classroom. Do you understand Warren?

Warren - I think so sir, history can be very interesting, but I shouldn't let that interfere with me learning about it. Is that right sir?

Headmaster - Hmmm. While you're here Warren you wouldn't also care to explain why we found these cigarettes in your blazer pocket would you?

Warren - I'm as surprised as you are sir, I thought I'd smoked them all at lunch sir.

Fun and informative, it'd be really quite nice if Ellis did a whole series of these, I think he has a little too much on his plate at the moment though, pity.