God Of Loneliness

A few months ago, I was contacted by Emmy The Great to ask if I wanted to collaborate on a project together. I'd previously done a couple of fan art drawings and produced a comic strip for an online advent calendar to promote the Christmas album by Emmy The Great and Tim Wheeler, and Emmy thought it'd be fun to work on something together for the release of her new single, God Of Loneliness.

A short film was being produced to accompany the single, directed by Chris Boyle and starring Isy Suttie (Peep Show) and Shazad Latif (Spooks), and Emmy's idea was to have four single-page comics which would be released online in the week's leading up to the release of the video, and act as a prelude to the events of the film.

We came up with the outline for the comics together, with the idea that each comic should take place at a different period in the life of the character played by Isy Suttie in the film, and then I developed those ideas into the finished comics. In the week's leading up to the release of the single and the debut of the short film, the comics were released individually online across different music blogs and websites, together with four remix tracks to download. Each comic would feature a guest appearance by the artists that provided the remixes (Banjo Or Freakout, Dems, Dan Le Sac and CSS).









All of which leads into the events of the short film released alongside the God Of Loneliness single...



I enjoyed working on this project and it made me more confident about working on a longer comics narrative, which is definitely something I want to develop.

Watch this space!

**BLU-RAY BONUS CONTENT**
This project made me develop my way of working, which was more involved than when I'm producing three panel comic strips. I did quite a lot of writing before I even started drawing, working out the narrative and where I could fit jokes within the story. Next I drew rough sketches of the comics to work out the layout of the page. I found it quite interesting to compare these sketches with the final comics, so thought I would include them here...

Originally I was envisaging working to a landscape format, hence the slightly different arrangement of these first two comics. After we decided upon a portrait format, I adjusted these strips accordingly, while still keeping the same idea in place...

Happy Birthday Thomas Flintham!

It was my friend Thomas Flintham's birthday today and I met up with him and our friend Ainé this evening for a few drinks where we talked about chart singles from the Nineties, the correct pronunciation of Dylan Moran's surname, and the relative merits of Patrick Kielty (We couldn't come up with any)...

I also drew Tom a card with him as Link from The Legend Of Zelda video games...

Bon Voyage Yuki!

My friend Yuki is going back to Japan tomorrow, which is a bit sad. We were on the same MA Illustration course at Camberwell College of Art in 2008-2009 and have remained friends ever since! It'll be strange that we can't just meet up for coffee anymore or speak on the phone. Still, at least it gives me an excuse to finally go and visit Japan sometime soon!

Among the many things that Yuki is interested in is space. And after she posted a photo with her head on a rocketship on the Facebook event for her leaving drinks, I had the idea to draw this picture for her leaving card...

Laydeez Do Comics

Tonight I went along to the Laydeez Do Comics talk at the Rag Factory on Brick Lane. There were three interesting and inspiring talks by comics creators Kate Brown and Sally Jane Thompson, plus Emma Hayley and Doug Wallace who run the publishing company SelfMadeHero.

I did some sketches of each of the night's speakers while they were giving their presentations (as well as drawing a sketch of fellow spectator Seleem because he was sat in my line of vision, and I wanted to draw his hair!)...

East London Comics & Art Festival

Yesterday I went along to the first East London Comics & Art Festival, held at The Village Underground in Shoreditch. It was very busy when I got there (and got even busier later, when people were queuing to get in) and it was a bit tricky to get around the narrow aisles and have a proper look at all of the stuff on sale, but I managed it eventually and saw some great work and chatted with some interesting people.

I also attended a panel discussion hosted by Becky Barnicoat, talking with Simone Lia, Darryl Cunningham and Karrie Fransman about the successful trend in comics of autobiographical or semi-autobiographical narratives. I drew a quick sketch of the panel while they were getting ready to begin the discussion...

It was very interesting to hear what each of them had to say on the subject, discussing their working methods and inspirations, as well as addressing the moral issues involved when the story you have chosen to tell features other people's lives. It was a very inspiring discussion and after looking at a lot of the comics that people had produced to sell during the Festival, I left at the end of the day keen to create more of my own comics work!

Album Cover Rally

My work has been included on the Illustration Rally blog as part of their Album Cover Rally, the brief for which was to re-illustrate or re-design the album covers of your choice. I had quite a few ideas for this brief, but settled for the following covers:

Homework by Daft Punk

Elephant by The White Stripes

If I'd had more time, I'd have loved to have done more of these. Maybe I can pick this theme up again at a later date. You can check out all of the submissions over at Illustration Rally.

The Amazing Adventures of Pussy Boy!

A few months ago I ended up having the following exchange on Twitter with my friend and awesome comic drawing person Rachael Smith...

Rachael then followed this up by drawing a picture of the aforementioned "kid with cat-like superpowers" ...

And then I came up with a series of comics featuring Pussy Boy... (click on the comics to enlarge)

If you're going to get superpowers based on the abilities of an animal, then a cat is probably not the first one that you'd choose!

Jubilee, Jubilaa, Jubilee, Jubila-Ha-Ha-Ha!

The Diamond Jubilee weekend is underway in the UK, marking Queen Elizabeth II's 60th year as Monarch. Yesterday the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant Flotilla took place along the river, with over 1000 vessels traveling from Battersea to Tower Bridge, and the typical British weather ensured that at least one of this morning's newspapers will feature the headline: "LONG TO RAIN OVER US"!