Scottish Independence Comic

Last year I drew this comic about my feelings on Scottish Independence.  It was meant to go into an anthology, but with that delayed and with the vote now just months away, I agreed with the editor that I should put it online.  I have presented them here in the page spread format that was originally intended for printing, so each jpeg is actually two pages side-by-side.

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Or if you want to learn more about making comics, and live in Edinburgh, I have a comic course starting 8th May 2014... more about it here.

The Derby Ram

Digging through my old files I came across this again, a piece I did for the third volume of the Solipsistic Pop anthology.  It's strange to look back - I'm still pleased of a lot of this but there are parts that look really clunky to me now.  Some of the imagery in this is really appealing still, but I think you can too easily spot the parts from the original folk song and the parts I added myself.

Solipsistic Pop 5

I've been busy working on my contribution to the latest edition of UK comics anthology Solipsistic Pop.  Editor Tom Humberstone has always collected together some of the most interesting UK based comic artists for his curated anthology, which this time round is an anthology of journalistic non-fiction and reportage.  It's going to be a fascinating read when it comes out - a timely collection of comics from the growing field of non-fiction and journalistic comics.

My own piece is on the impending vote on Scottish independence.  It was admittedly very hard to write for me, a task that took me so far out of my comfort zone I was squirming for weeks as I made it.  Hopefully it will stand up to what will no doubt be a really high standard of reportage from the other contributors, which include non-fiction pros such as Darryl Cunningham and Tom Humberstone.

Solipsistic Pop 5 is out later this year, and will be available to buy from www.solipsisticpop.com

Maps to Live By - Making of

Solipsistic Pop vol. 4 is just about to be released to the public.  We received our advance copy the other day and I have to say it's more wonderful than I imagined.  Editor Tom Humberstone has crafted a top class anthology, and the artists involved have all pushed their work into new and interesting places.  It's on a par with any comics anthology I've ever seen, reminding me of the quality seen in the pages of Best American Comics or RAW, and it showcases a breadth of talent that evinces the healthy state of U.K. comics today.

I'm really proud to be a part of it.

I thought it would be nice today to talk about the making of my own piece for the anthology.  For most of my comics career so far I've been creating documentary style comics, mostly about film theory and parasitology.  It's an exciting niche to work in, but one that trains certain tendencies and neglects others.  My work up until this year had generally been very un-sequential and has had very little storytelling in it.  This year I decided to work those other muscles, first with my wordless piece for Paper Science 5, and then with this, my short story Maps To Live By.

The story was sparked off when I met up with Tom in May while he was planning this fourth volume of the exemplary anthology.  Over a game of the Battlestar Galactica Boardgame (honestly, it's amazing) he talked about his idea for the volume.  The theme of maps struck me straight away, as well as his insistence that the artists should explore more complex formal and narrative themes than in the previous kid friendly edition.

I started to see in this a story of my family's complex maps: my Grandfather's childhood in India, the son of a Scottish man and an Indian woman; my father's childhood in Scotland, with his Anglo-Indian father and Swiss mother.  It wasn't just the idea of physical maps of course, but those deeper, more complex maps we experience: the maps of race and culture and identity that we're expected to read, follow and understand every day.  It was the idea of receiving a map you're not sure what to do with, or a set of maps that conflict with each other, and show you there's no simple route to follow.

This family history I'd explored before in my autobiographical project '100 Tiny Moments From My Past, Present and Future', and it was a theme that I felt and still feel has more to be said about it.  These are ideas and debates that sit right at the heart of my family's experience of the world, and I wanted to look at them through this comic book lens.

I immediately knew as well that this story needed to be told by both myself and my father, Peter.  It's his story at the heart of all this, and his voice that told the tale to me.  These events have been part of the family oral history.  Very little of this is written down, and what was interesting is that as we compared notes with the documentation that does exist, we found that not everything added up.  Thus, this story is not so much a factual reconstruction of events, as a continuation of that oral history, complete with those half-truths, grey areas and convenient fabrications that exist in every family's story of itself.

The writing process was a fantastic experience.  Peter and I would meet up with these half formed ideas and chip away at the scenes we'd imagined.  We work well together, and it was amazing confronting all these pieces of family history, and getting to know each other better in the process.  I'd say the writing of it was more like sculpture than anything.  We started by trying to put it all into words, soon finding that a better way was to piece together the pictures and words simultaneously.

We actually moved the writing into the physical space, printing off the sketches I'd done in Photoshop and re-arranging them on the carpet, re-writing them as the pieces slowly sifted together.

Then, I'd work up a more finalised composition of panels and content..

Before moving on to the digital pencilling process.  A lot of these images were based on real family photos, hopefully giving the scenes an air of authenticity.

Finally I inked and coloured the piece.

I don't want to give too much of the piece away, so I'm going to leave it at that.  It was certainly the most complex and challenging comic I've ever written, in so many ways.  From the layouts and narrative structure, through to the content itself, I've tried to do my best to live up to both the nuance and complexity of the story we took on, and to the quality of the artists on show in this latest edition of Solipsistic Pop.

I definitely recommend ordering a copy when it comes out, so keep your eyes on the website here or on my twitter, since I'll no doubt talk about this once it's out.
 

I should also finish by saying thanks to everyone who helped in the making of this short comic, which was such a big undertaking:  Mary and Margaret for checking it over and making sure it made sense, Tom Hunt for his input and advice on the story, and Anita for digging around the family history.

Maps To Live By - A Solipsistic Pop 4 Sample

Lots on the go at the moment, but far and away the most personal and challenging project is my piece for Solipsistic Pop 4, which I wrote alongside my father, Peter.

Based on family history, it is without a doubt the most demanding comic I've written, both in personal and technical terms.  I thought it would be nice to share a little of it today, since for too long I've been working on things yet to be finished.  I have to say it's been nice getting back to drawing more personal work, it being almost two years since I made '100 Tiny Moments'.

Please help fund this project and order your copy for when it comes out here.

Solipsistic Pop Volume 4 and Why We Need Anthologies.

Anthologies are important.  When I first became seriously interested in comics it was An Anthology of Graphic Fiction edited by Ivan Brunetti, that really began to open my eyes to the true breadth of creative innovation being done in the form.  From within those pages I first discovered everything from the twisted worlds of Kaz and Gary Panter, to the unsettling work of Henry Darger, and the sweet and evocative autobiography of Jeffrey Brown and James Kochalka.

I mean, I knew about a lot of fantastic artists already - Dan Clowes, Chris Ware, Adrian Tomine - but this volume opened things up, bringing a whole range of artists together in one place, defining a moment in comics history, while delving back into the geology to show where we've come from.  Sure, I didn't like all of it - some of the artists I found to be too willfully obtuse and 'underground' for my liking - but that's not the point.  Anthologies are necessary because they open things up.  In a culture where increasingly we're asked to narrow our tastes down to a specific trend, and buy into niche fashions and ideologies while writing off others, the anthology threatens to push back against those narrowing influences, and challenge us with something new.

My encounter with Solipsistic Pop did the same for me three years later as Brunetti's anthology had.  It opened things up and showed me a whole mess of comics I wouldn't have encountered otherwise.  Tom Humberstone, editor of Solipsistic Pop, brings together artists from across the UK, working in a number of styles and with a number of voices, and is putting them in one place.  Each volume is like the ring in a tree trunk, an exciting and fascinating moment in UK comics history.  Through Solipsistic Pop I got to discover Luke Pearson, Kristyna Baczynski, Stephen Collins and Mark Oliver to name just a few.  And from there I went on to investigate more and more.

Solipsistic Pop 3 Launch Party Details

“This is a carefully considered, lovingly crafted and utterly covetable compendium, a confirmation of the pleasure of comics in printed inks on quality paper stock [...] Don’t have any second thoughts about purchasing this”

-Paul Gravett

Solipsistic Pop 3 will be launching in London at The Black Heart in Camden on November 12th.  There'll be comedy, music, and free sweeties with every purchase of the new book!  I'll try and make it down, but will have to wait and see.

Date - Friday 12th November
Venue - The Black Heart, 3 Greenland Place, Camden, NW1 0AP

Doors - 8pm - 12.30am
Entry - £3

Further details of the event can be found here.

Solipsistic Pop Preorder!

(Cover image by Marc Ellerby)

Folks, the time has come for you to pre-order your copy of Solipsistic Pop 3, released this November.  I've had a look and have to say that it's looking absolutely amazing.  Every artist involved has delivered some of their best work to date, and there is so much excellent stuff in there that I can't wait to get a copy in my hands.  You can pre-order now from the Solipsistic Pop website. 

Solipsistic Pop 3 Preview

I've just finished my contribution to Volume 3 of the Solipsistic Pop anthology series.  You'll be able to see the full piece when the collection comes out in November.  In the meantime here's a little preview.

We were asked to work with two spot-colours (black and Pantone 485 U) which get combined in the printing process to produce a whole range of different tones.  Used to just picking my own colours, it was interesting and eye-opening to be creatively constrained in this way.  I think by far it made my work better, and the final look of the piece is far more cohesive as a result.  I think it's an approach I'll take far more in the future, limiting myself to a carefully selected and considered palette.  I can't wait to see what the other artists come up with.

Solipsistic Pop

The lineup for Solipsistic Pop Volume 3 has been announced, and I am pleased to say that I am one of the contributors to what will no doubt be an amazing collection of UK comics.  More details will follow in the coming weeks and months as we approach the November release.  The press release follows:

Solipsistic Pop 3 is due this November with a launch party in London taking place before an official release at the Leeds Thought Bubble festival.

Contributions from: Krystina Baczynski, Becky Barnicoat, Adam Cadwell, Warwick Johnson Cadwell, Franceasca Cassavetti, Stephen Collins, David O’Connell, Rob Davis, Joe Decie, Marc Ellerby, Anne Holiday, Tom Humberstone, Linzie Hunter, Mark Oliver, Octavia Raitt, Edward Ross, Philippa Rice, Anna Saunders, Julia Scheele, Matthew Sheret and Andrew Waugh. For more information on the artists, please click here.

Details on the book and previews will follow over the coming months, but for now we would like to announce that Solipsistic Pop 3 is being built as a UK alternative comic anthology that is accessible and appealing to children and young adults. Inspiration for the book is equal parts RAW, DC Thompson, Panini and McSweeneys. More information soon!