New Work-Dandy Annual 2017

Looks like this year I came back into the comics world with a crash, a bang and one of those stunt-man type rolls.

Not only did I get a very nice order from DC Thomson, creators of many titles including the Dandy comic, but I have been approached by a new prospective publisher (more about that on a separate post). But first let's get onto the Dandy Annual project.

Although I can't show you the whole page---sorry about that---I wanted to share sections and tasty tempters of what will be coming in the Dandy Annual 2017 (out around September 2016)

Some of you may know that I used to have a really great career in British children's comics until just
before the sad demise of the Dandy. (I'm pretty sure it wasn't ALL my fault).

Anyway, the Dandy, although no longer a comic, still comes out as an annual, with all the stars old and new. And this year I have been asked to produce a fair few of the pages for the weighty and welcome tome of merriment and mirth.

Amongst these commissions were three two page Ollie Fliptrik Pages, five Dirty Dick comic strips and an eight page Secret Agent Sally story; all scripts written by my own fair hand and produced by my own odd mind.

Now I could say a lot about the process, and how happy I am to be working for the great DC Thomson again, but you probably just want me to shut the *&%"% up and show you some brightly coloured pictures. Oh well, if that's what you want then who am I to argue with you, especially seeing as I have other 'how to' posts lined up and you can get your fixes then.

But for now, here's some sample cutaways (I'm not really allowed to show the whole page as that would be naughty and unfair and I would probably get shouted at by custard pie wielding lawyers---I honestly believe the comics industry employ such legal people). So here we go...

"It is also worth noting that all work is copyright DC Thomson, and that includes world rights and such stuff. You have been warned; watch out for the custard pie wielding lawyers..."

On another point you will notice that there are no word balloons. Although I did write the scripts, the lettering is still done and Thomson Towers...I have a sneaking suspicion that they have trust issues.

The last panel from a typical Ollie Fliptrik catastrophe.

I love drawing the snow, so when I get to write and draw, snow tends to feature largely.

Dirty Dick was a revived character from the golden age. Dick would go out clean and come back filthy; no matter how hard he tried; it was His thing.

Agent Sally was originally a collaboration between myself and Craig Graham, the Beano editor. But for the annual I got to write it myself. So guess what? More snow.

Now on a final point, I've added a before and after as seldom does an entire commission get away without a few amendments. In this case having seen the finished art, the editors asked me to change the last panel so the snow was removed and a hard rocky surface put in its place. So with the aid of a light box and some Photoshopery-jiggery-pokery I produced a page without having to redraw it all, as would've been the case 20 years BP (Before Photoshop)

I sincerely hope you enjoyed this post. If you did then please share it like a demented sharing person and keep on coming back for more of the same, and a whole lot more.

Live on Amazon---Ryan's Dinosaur Dreams

Finally, after I don't know how many attempts, emails and pleading letters, my first Children's book, Ryan's Dinosaur Dreams is, at last, ready to purchase through Amazon.

If you are new to this site and are wondering what on earth I am talking about, then please click here to find out more. But basically I've produced a 27 page children's book, lavishly illustrated and in full colour. Over the past few months I've been posting samples of the artwork and storyline for this project both here and on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+, all of which have received a very large and favourable responses.

So without and more of a preamble, I'd like to officially announce that the shop is open; Ryan's Dinosaur Dreams is now up for grabs on Amazon

For those of you in countries outside of the UK either go to CreateSpace or your own countries Amazon site and simply search for Ryan's Dinosaur Dreams.

Over the next few days I will be putting a permanent link on the side bar to save you constantly having to search for this post, also, and once Sleepy Hamlet has been completed and posted on Amazon and Kindle, I will give my publications their own tab on top of this page with links to all the Amazon  and CreateSpace sites that carry them.

Thanks, once again for all your kind comments and positive feedback regarding both Ryan's Dinosaur Dreams and Sleepy Hamlet and I'll be keeping you updated as to the next project; giving you more sneak previews and sample chapters or illustrations, proving that this site really is the Diary of a Cartoonist and Writer.

Thank you

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you

Ryan's Dinosaur Dreams--update

Cover for the book

Having worked every night for the past few weeks and filled every working gap of every single moment on these pictures, I'm only three illustrations off finally completing my first children's book, Ryan's Dinosaur Dreams.

I wont lie to you, it's been a baptism of fire. I've never done a children's book before; never written one or illustrated one; but somehow--- drawing it as I did initially for my grandson--- it made it so much easier to produce; and on top of that, I've got ideas for more children's books, graphic novels, comics,short story collections and novels. So please do keep coming back because y'man here is going in all kinds of new directions; I'm evolving, growing and expanding my horizons and ideas. It's all so new, so exciting and it's happening before your very eyes (hopefully).

Picture title: Teaching ballet to Brontosaurus

But meanwhile, back here on planet earth, Ryan's Dinosaur Dreams has turned out, as I've just said, to be a bit of a task; flying as I was without the metaphorical safety net of experience. And because I'm also publishing it myself through the medium of P.O.D. (print on demand), I've got all the technical on-line form filling and file uploading with only a cold heartless computer programme to guide me along the way--- with all the pit-falls and possible catastrophe's that they entail. Place this next to the fact that I'll also be launching my first Sleepy Hamlet tale--- a kindle novel--- and you can see that I'll be going through two pretty steep learning curves at more-or-less the same time. So if I go slightly off the rails, please forgive me.

Mind you, whenever I have a clash with technology, there always seems to be a story that comes out of it, like the wordpress v blogger post I did a while back. So I guess my suffering is usually your future entertainment.

Anyway, back to the book. I struggled with endless cover designs. At one point I had a very large and intricately illustrated front cover idea, and it would've looked spectacular, but I had to think of my audience: children of that age just wouldn't get it; I'd effectively
be drawing the cover for myself, which is not what this is all about.

So I went back to the drawing board. I tried this, and I tried that, I even tried a bit of the other, but nothing sat well in my mind and everything seemed  crass or amateurish.

So I did what I always do in situations like this: I walked away from it; completely forgot about the cover and put it to the back of my mind and thought: an idea for the cover will come to me. 

Now I know this sounds weird and a bit airy-fairy but it really works. I've been using this technique for over twenty years and it has never once failed me. I remember once when I had a twenty minute deadline to come up with a gag for a news story and my mind was white and empty with blind panic. So bravely---and I really mean, bravely---I chose to forget the story and do something else for five minutes. I actually gave my mind five minutes to come up with a gag that had eluded me for the best part of three hours, and within that five minute deadline an idea just popped into my head.

And here's the really strange part--- the bit I can never explain--- the gag I got wasn't anything to do with the train of thought I'd been pursuing before. It was a completely different angle and idea; almost like it had been written by someone else and handed to me.

Anyway, that's enough of the mind guru stuff. All you really needed to know was that this is my process and I applied it.

So about three days later I was skimming through my documents looking for something unrelated when I came across this image (see below), an image I'd already used for one of the inside illustrations. No sooner had I glanced my eye across it than the image at the top of this post just popped, fully formed, into my head.

I thought: 'but wont that be cheating, won't that just be taking an illustration from the inside and using it for the cover, where's the thought process in that, isn't that just a sell out?' and then another image came immediately into my mind of a selection of children's books I'd been reading recently while researching size and format for this one, and they'd all done just what I'd been thinking. They'd taken one of the illustrations from within the book and plonked it on the front. And I guess because I'd placed it within a box, laid it onto a background of stars, picked a colour scheme and designed and positioned the books title, it wasn't exactly 'just a picture from the inside'.

So with just a bit of creativity and the untapped power of the mind, I came up with a cover that I'm really happy with, and one that I hope you are to.

Hope you liked the little preview and the sample illustrations from the book. I will, of course, let you all know when it is finally ready for purchase and I'll also be adding a banner add on the side bar above where it links you to my Greeting card site.

Anyway, that's it for today but don't forget to come back on Friday for the page 20 (that's almost half of the way through), of our weekly webcomic Brabbles & Boggitt. 

See you then!

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you