Posts Tagged ‘ the lost boy

British Comic Awards – Young People’s Comic Awards

Well, wow!! I was super surprised and rather shocked that The Lost Boy is up on the nominee list for the YPCA this year! The other nominees are rather super, so I’m really quite flattered to be up there with them. I wish everyone the best of luck! It’s great that the BCAs/YPCAs are doing ace work getting these comics into the hands of school-age children… it must be pretty fun to be one of the young people judging the awards, eh :D

Whilst the YPCAs have been running sucessfully for a couple of years now, this is the first British Comic Awards ceremony we will see. I am very excited to see who will be nominated in the categories, and so happy to see such enthusiasm and great care taken over UK comics! Go Brit Comics! :D

Bye-bye Jim and Bob.

The (blank) cover I did for Issue 31 of The Phoenix, and a photo of the finished, printed issue! I liked how Laurence (the designer) made the title look as if it was gently uplit. Not long to go now, for The Lost Boy! It finishes very soon! O_O; I finished making it last friday. So… I’m off to work on more projects! I’ll update here when I have solid projecty-based news.

1, 2, 3…

Hello! I can’t really post sneaks of the latest episodes of The Lost Boy, because we’re in the final stages now, and spoilers are all over the place. I thought I’d put this up, from one of the recent issues (#25)…

What does Bob end up doing as the loser? Did you miss issue #25…? Check out how to get individual issues here!

I saw this same rock-paper-scissors gag in an episode of Horrible Histories recently! I got a bit excited and was all “OMG! WE’RE ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH!” I adore the HH tv episodes…! Emma V got me addicted. I had a few HH books when I was a kid… the Egyptians one was my favourite. I used to love the Martin Brown illustrations something awful, drew in the same style to illustrate stuff in my history books, and used to pretend I was related to him because we had the same surname, haha! (I was very young at the time, I want to point out, in case that sounds very creepy……)

Coverboy

Issue 5 of The Phoenix had a cover of The Lost Boy :) Here are the cover[s] without the text on:

This was the initial cover with Jim, Bob and a jungly background…

In the end it was decided it didn’t work, so a new background was made…

…which is the cover you see on the comic :) The sand looks a bit flat, but you don’t see it in the final thing anyhow, so ^^;

Been a bit quiet recently! It’s got a bit busy and has gained the feeling of spinning plates.

Go go Firebird

The launch party for The Phoenix was on saturday. It also marked the date of Issue #1, so that was handy! :D It was a cool event set in the Story Museum, which I’m looking forward to seeing open its doors to the general public in 2014 (also it’s 10 minutes walk from our house – again with the handiness!)

I neglected to take a camera, which was pretty stupid of me, but you can see photos from the event at Sarah McIntyre’s journal here!

The comic itself is absolutely beautiful. It was lovely to see kids (and adults) sitting round and reading it from cover to cover! One little guy got really squealingly excited when he realised he would be getting a new issue every weekend (“Every weekend?! EVERY weekend…?!!”). If you never got your hands on one of the Issue Zero preview Phoenixes (Phoeni?) then now you can, by the way! It’s up here: https://www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/free-digi-phoenix/ And please do consider supporting the comic by subscribing or getting your issues every week in Waitrose stores and selected children’s bookshops (with more outlets to follow!) The comic itself houses many diverse storytelling and art styles from many UK creators and buying it is a good way to a) support the UK industry and b) have some fun.

Here’s a quick teaser panel from Episode One of The Lost Boy…

I’ve finished thumbnailing it now, so all I have to do is draw the rest of it! Woo! I hope those who will be following the story as it unfolds will enjoy it. I have definitely enjoyed making it…! For those who are following along, you MIGHT have guessed by now that a large part of The Lost Boy revolves around a map. Or, more specifically, map pieces. If you keep an eye on the TLB page on the Phoenix site, you can print out the map chunks as the hero finds them, and put them together with him as he goes along! :D The first one is up now…

Happy printing and arranging! ;D

More sketches for The Lost Boy

Following on from yesterday, here’s some more explorative sketches! Our *airquotes* “hero”:

…who looks like he’s chanelling Joffrey Baratheon Lannister Baratheon Lannister in that bottom one, there. And:

(I don’t know what happened to his tooth. Probably someone socked him).

And some super rough environment stuff… not sure how interesting these are but they were kinda helpful to me so… anyway here they are:

I realised with horror that I have, yet again, another comic in which the vast majority of the backgrounds are bloody foliage. Thank god Freakangels was so urban… or I think I would have killed something by now.

Please check out The Phoenix, and I really do recommend subscribing! Special Issue Zero that’s just gone out got some lovely and favourable reviews from children and parents, and I can promise you that Issue One and each issue after that will be FUCKING AWESOME.

It’s nice because I often get a bit BLEH after christmas and don’t generally enjoy my birthday, so The Phoenix is a great way to lift those early year blues, should you happen to get them as well! :)

This may well be my last post before Christmas and possibly of 2011 altogether, so… Merry Xmas to all those who celebrate it, and all those who won’t, have a safe couple of weeks! x

Sketches for The Lost Boy

Here’s a few sketches I made when I was testing out the characters for my Phoenix strip, The Lost Boy!

This was the first thing I drew:

The story changed quite a lot after that, so some of those things in that image won’t make any sense/make an appearence ^^; The main character looks rather stoic there, as well. I was going through a period of being nuts about vertically-striped socks, and socks paired with boots, so… I blame that obsession for how he looks. Actually his costume didn’t change at all… (except the string around his arm switched to his left arm). His little creature-thing/mascot was based more on a rabbit back then, too.

Then I made this one:

Very little changed between then and the final design for the main character. His hair just got longer, really. Oh! And he got freckles. The furry creature changed again though:

…which is more or less his final design!

I started exploring the characters a bit more after that (as you do), so I’ll post those up tomorrow…

Events, reviews, interviews

(Well, that’s a… pretty descriptive title! Um… here we go!)

I’m very excited to be a guest at Malta Comic Con, which I have heard many good things about! I’ll be there along with good company. If you’re looking to go to the convention, I’ve been assured that they organisers are able to offer some great transfer and accommodation rates for travellers, so do give them a buzz on info@maltacomic-con.com!

You may also wish to check out the Co-Promotional Scheme the organisers are running, which looks like a great opportunity ^_^

In bookish news, I went along to the Turnaround warehouse recently to sign and sketch a pile of Fish + Chocolates! :D It was really interesting to see the inside of a distribution warehouse. For my sketch, I drew a unique potato smile in each one, haha! Look out for these special potato-ed editions! :D I wanted to collect a couple of things related to Fish + Chocolate here, too…

Interview for Fat Quarter Magazine: Bloody Mothers. I really enjoyed doing this one!

Review (in Spanish – use Google Translate) by Little Nemo’s Kat: Tortured Motherhood. Note that it also pimps Page 45, which is one of my fave comic shops and certainly worth the visit if you’re in or around Nottingham! :D

Sigh. Comic shops. Oxford used to have a Comics Showcase, but that shut down. There are a few floppies and random tankoubon in Truck shop on Cowley Road, but it’s not quite the same as having a COMIC SHOP. I think our closest one is in London. That’s depressing, guys. Really depressing.

That said, the comic shops I’ve been to recently have all been THE SHIT. If notions of gloomy, pungent, cramped, un-woman-friendly comic shops still lie in the mind of the public conscious… it can slope off into the corner now. I don’t think I’ve been to a poor comic shop for years.

In other news, I’m still working hard on The Lost Boy for The Phoenix! I’m having lots of fun. I hope it will be as much fun to read! :D

The Lost Boy for The Phoenix

Woop! Woop! Woop! The Phoenix Comic has announced “The Lost Boy” – the strip I’m making! I’m so happy I finally get to speak about this. I’ve been sitting on it since like spring, and have had seriously itchy fingers wanting to blog/tweet about it, haha! Here’s a poster image:

It’s… actually still a bit difficult to speak about it much due to the nature of the story. I can’t tell you what the characters are called yet, for instance ^_~ Hopefully all will become clear in January when TLB starts its run from Issue One of The Phoenix! Are you excited…? BECAUSE I AM OH GOD I AM SO MUCH.

…in terms of work-load, I’ve been working on the script, thumbmails, design and rough pages alongside this poster. I’ve just put my pen down after roughing the fourth episode. I’m having sooooo much fun with this story…!

P.S. Do you recognise the fluffy lilac things in the back of that poster…? ;D

Fish + Chocolate HARDBACK now out (mostly)!

I say mostly…! I’ve heard lots of people saying it’s in their comic shops and bookshops as of this week. I’m not 100% certain it’s shipping if you’ve pre-ordered it through Amazon, etc., yet. As far as I know, editions bought online will ship around the 22nd September.

You guys oughtta see the hardback… it’s so nice! I’ll take photos and update this entry with them when I get the time. The colours are really great – things like the desaturation processes are far more obvious and work really nicely. It’s also about 20% BIGGER than the self-published edition! I was really surprised and really happy! The size suits it nicely – it’s sort of in-between A5 and A4.

BUY THE HARDBACK BUY THE HARDBACK BUY THE HARDBACK

I am definitely going to announce what I’m currently working on as soon as I’m able… I got a bit nerdishly excited and made a new Tag for it… “TLB.” I’ll expand that when it’s announced… :3

The other thing I’m working on I’ll make a proper entry for when it’s at a better stage of production. This might not be for a while -_-; It’s slow-going, eh!