“When you understand a frog through and through, you attain enlightenment.” – Shunryu Suzuki
Here’s how to get hold of this little fella.
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It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, it’s been pretty hectic, the book is well and truly out now. I’d like to say thanks to everyone who’s said nice things about it on Twitter. I’ve had some good reviews, I’ve done a fair few interviews, signings and had a great trip to SPX in Washington, all of which I’ve been posting about on Twitter. But there’s more to come, so here’s where’s to find me in the coming months…
Last week the book came out in France, so having already done a lovely little festival in Dieppe, this week I’m heading to the St.Malo festival, where I’ll be speaking slowly, and again wishing I’d paid more attention in Miss Payne’s French lessons. Posted here are some sample pages from the French version, published by Akileos. Then two weeks later I’ll be attending Comiket for the first time and the weekend after that it’s Thought Bubble, which I’ve been looking forward to for two years now, having had to miss it last year due to working on the book. I’m not on any panels at Thought Bubble, so in order not to feel left out, I agreed to this Book Trust event on the Monday. Then the following weekend it’s going to be a bit of a trip down memory lane at S.W.A.L.C. with quite a few of the original Deadline suspects available for drinks and sausage rolls etc. Really looking forward to that. So please come and see me at one or all of these events and I’ll happily paint a small picture in the front of your copy of ‘The Nao of Brown’.
Lastly I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Doug Wallace from Self Made Hero who’s been a massive and integral part of this whole experience. Sadly he’s leaving SMH. It’s been an absolute pleasure to work with him, his expert guidance through this process has taught me plenty and I’m really sad to see him leave.
Cheers Doug.
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In this month’s Art Review magazine you can find these two pages. They’re also online, along with with a nice big interview with me, here at Paul Gravett’s site. The brief for AR was to do something with Nao, but it couldn’t be from the book, these had to be original, previously unseen pages. After having had just over two hundred pages to play around with, I was more than a little worried about what I could do in such a limited space. As is often the case, inspiration struck when I was in the shower.
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Here’s the new cover, complete with bits round the edge that you won’t see anywhere else.
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Gah, it feels so long since I posted something here, I’ve forgotten how it all works.
Anyway, the book is pretty much all done, I think it should all be signed off within the next week or two. It’s been proof read and mistakes have been corrected, the pages before and after the actual ‘comics stuff’ have all been designed. I’m really pleased with how it’s looking.
It’s a weird though. People keep on asking me how I feel and I’d like to tell them it feels amazing because, well, that’s what I think people want to hear. And it did feel amazing when I finished painting the last page – for about ten minutes. Then I had to letter them all. When I’d finished that, again I was euphoric for about ten minutes. Since then, since meeting that particular deadline, there’s been plenty of stuff to do, meeting the print rep and choosing the paper stock etc was all good fun. But even though these things have all felt like little milestones, there’s definitely been a bit of a ‘down’ feeling. It’s hard to explain. Maybe it’s the inevitable crash after all the adrenalin that’s been pumping through my veins in order to get it finished on time. It’s not like I’m short of stuff to do either, I’m really busy. But I think the transition from that intensity, back to something resembling a more normal life, is a bit weird.
The next big thing I’m looking forward to is having a copy in my hands for the first time, then I think it’ll finally feel real. I think that’s the milestone I’m most looking forward to but it’s also the one I’m most scared of – cos then, of course, it’ll all be too late.
I’m gonna try and up the amount of posts on here… There’s lots of exciting things coming up so drop by. I’ll post up storyboards too… You can also follow me on Twitter where I’ll occasionally be posting Nao stuff that I won’t be here.
The image on this post is panel 1 page 98… venue for the second date.
Thanks for sticking with me.
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My favourite artist.
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I had to re-draw a panel today, twice, first I thought of a slightly better way of doing it, and it was quite an easy change to make. Then coming back from lunch I realised it would be much better if she wasn’t reacting to the sound of the kettle… she should be too engrossed to notice it at all. So I re-drew the whole panel. It feels good when you realise something like that before it’s too late. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of things I’ll want to change once the book is finished and in the shops, so it’s nice to know I at least caught one before it got away.
So this is my ‘deleted scene’ of the day.
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Brandon Graham of King City fame started a new Moebius Meme in the same vein as Paul Pope’s ‘Apple Pie’ one. They’re all collected here. The Starwatcher picture is on the cover of my well worn copy of ‘The Art of Moebius’, I love that picture so much so I couldn’t resist having a stab at my own version featuring Nao.
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Haven’t posted anything for a long time – sorry. Been really busy, still drawing Nao (only 60 pages left to draw!… But then I have to paint them all… 183 of them…)
Anyway, this post is about ‘Nelson’, which you can also read about here… A brilliantly conceived project by Rob Davis who is jointly editing it with Woodrow Phoenix, both of whom are very much contributing brilliant work to the book as well. There’s some great people involved and the contributors list reads like a who’s who of British comics. After originally saying yes, I then had to pull out because of my workload on Nao… Luckily Rob came back to me with an idea and we managed to sort something out. I’m very pleased and proud to be involved in such an excellent project and can’t wait to have a hard copy in my hands, hopefully some time around November… I’ve purposely kept myself from looking at the artwork that came after my year, so that it’ll be a surprise when I read it… but what I have seen looks amazing.
A few people have already asked me if I had a Grifter, I didn’t (although I desperately wanted one), I had a Strika for ages, then I think a second hand racer with cowhorn handle bars (I wanted one of these but we couldn’t afford it). Before finally graduating to the new found fad of BMXing.
In other news, I’ve got a top secret meeting tomorrow about something I’m very excited about. Wish me luck.
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