Cartoon Experiment

I guess the lifeblood of any business is, as they say, new business. And in a field where the flow of cartoons through the pages of newspapers, comics magazines and the internet is akin to a torrent of water passing through a sieve, it is important to constantly keep ahead of the game; to produce more ideas and never stem the flow of your creative juices.

Of course this is always easier said that done, especially when you find yourself on a cold, uninspiring morning with the rain beating down relentlessly outside as you sit with your cup of tea or coffee and a blank piece of paper with nothing springing to mind.

 'But this is what you do, if you are a creative person,' you tell yourself. You know that your mind has always been this way and that something will come to you; it may not be that diamond mine of an idea that'll make you the billion you richly deserve, but at least it will be something worth showing around my contacts.

So you pull a blank piece of paper out of the pack and start doodling...

At least that's how I do it.

But a while back I was looking for a new idea to send out to the editors of children's comics; something different to what I normally do, yet still maintain the signature 'action packed and lively style' that I've become known for.

Like I said, normally I would sit in a quiet area and scribble away until something new came out from the blinding whiteness of my paper, accompanied, hopefully, by the singing of angels to let me know that this idea was packed to the gunnel's with potential.

But this time was different. For a start I wasn't in a quiet room and scribbling, I was on the sofa chatting with Karen, and it was she who came up with the idea of an Alien that came out from under a child's bed and helped him cause calamity for those around them---especially his bullying brother, Hektor



And I'm not afraid to admit it, the idea struck me as one worth pursuing: kids love fantasy, they love slapstick action and the fascination with creatures--- especially magical ones--- from another planet was just a dream combination.

So I sat down with a sketch pad and the characters just came flooding from my pen, fully formed and needing no alteration.  Normally I have to fiddle with a new characters design at least a little bit until I'm happy with it, but every character I drew for this strip came flowing, unhindered from the end of my pencil.

That was a good omen, right? I sure as hell hoped it was!

And if that wasn't enough, the first story wrote itself too! I've never had this before. Normally I write a script out, play with it and hone it, sculpt it and mould it into exactly what I want, yet here I was, creating characters without seemingly thinking about it and writing a script as though my hand was being guided by another.

To say I was a little freaked out would be to understate my feeling by quite a considerable margin.

But I sat there for a while, looking at what I'd created and the short time that it had taken to do so. What could I say, this was completely alien to my normal creative pattern;  I'm normally quite quick with ideas, and character creation has never really caused me any problems, but this? This was something different.

After a while a spark came into my mind. Do you know what? I thought to myself 'just because its different, doesn't make it wrong, so why don't you just do it and see where it goes, y'know, go with the flow, stop trying to analyze it. Just accept it for what it is'.

Now I'm not here to say that I sent it out and a huge check came flying back with hundreds of little noughts on the end, and in truth its already been rejected once, but just as an experiment into the theory of 'the gut reaction', I'm letting you know about this little episode in my creative life and I will keep you updated as to its progress.

Below are the first three pages.

Enjoy my friends

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

Greetings from me...

I've been racking my brains today for something to post, and every idea I came up with would either take a few hours out of every night and spread itself over a week or two to produce or just wasn't right for this blog. And anyway, I needed something instant for now. I can always work quietly away on the other ideas and post them at a later date.

So in the time honoured tradition of searching for something completely non related to our blog, I stumbled across some artwork I'd done a while back which I thought may interest you.

About two years ago I was looking into having a bash at what I would call the traditional humorous greeting card market--- you know the ones: the smutty, innuendo filled bit of brashly coloured fun. I had already had a certain amount of success in the past with specialist greeting cards for the corporate markets and felt that now would probably be a good time to have a crack at the mass market.

But sadly, at the time all the major UK card companies were closing their doors to new talent and sticking with their in-house teams of writers and artists. So the ideas published below have been reposing gently in the vast vaults of my documents files.

But never-the-less, thinks I, it could make a good colourful post  by showing you what I sent out that day. I also hope it will raise a smile and help blow away the New Years blues that so many of you seem to be suffering from; especially if the myriad comments on Facebook and Twitter are anything to go by.

So here we go: Three card ideas, showing front cover's on the left and the inside on the right, as that's how the industry likes to view them and is also a submissions guideline I'm giving you for free; should you wish to have a crack at greeting cards yourself.

...and finally, it is a well known fact, within the industry, that Hallmark boast that they have a card for every occasion. Well they haven't got one for this occasion---but I have.

Cheers for now.

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