Well, 2012 is only a few days away, and my resolution would be to 'be more organised', why's that? I hear you ask, well on a recent rummage around the spare room I attempted to locate my personal samples of stuff I've done over the years. I thought that I'd kept a copy of everything I've done, but it seems I'm mistaken. The following is a 'sort of' bibliography, minus a few printed copies.

Many moons ago I produced a three issue comic called SPIRIT of THE HIGHWAYMAN, a tale of brigandry and black magic, featuring that most-famous of all highwaymen Mr Turpin, hung in the first few pages he didn't feature much in the story, no, it was more his spiritual self...and his fellow brigand Tom King that took centre stage. This was my first foray into self publishing, I had the plot and where I wanted to go with it, but to beef it up a bit Owen Richards added dialogue. A few years after that, I decided to collect it as a graphic novel, I drew 30 extra pages and hit the Bristol Comic Convention with it, that was 12 years ago now. How time flies. After that I produced WHITECHAPEL FREAK, my twist on the Jack the Ripper mythos, in tabloid newsprint form (like a Penny Dreadful of the times). This tale centred on a travelling freak show, with the focus being the prejudice from the locals and their hate towards the unfortunates. This sold 2500 copies via Diamond Previews. I then started producing sketchbooks for the annual shows, featuring comissions and other such work that would not otherwise be seen. Next up was a mini comic entitled 'The Bridge' based on the classic Ambrose Bierce tale 'An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge'.

Then came SPRINGHEELED JACK, a little-known penny dreadful rogue, reported to have a cape and springs on his feet so that he could outwit the local constabulary. I read some eye-witness reports from the day, and one stuck in my mind in particular 'it had eyes like glowing coals'...that was the seed to base my story on an alien rather than a bloke with a cape and pointy beard. I still like the juxtaposition of an otherworldly creature in Victorian London, I'm sure it would make a great film visually. In fact it did get attention from one of the big guys involved with the TRANSFORMERS franchise. The 3-issue series sold out, and I got great feedback from industry greats Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, so I just had to collect it and do it justice as a hardcover. Since then its been printed in colour by Reed Comics (these are the only versions I could get my hands on), with a bonus of SIMON BISLEY covers. Whitechapel Freak was also reprinted in colour, in a US standard squarebound format by Reed Comics. SHJ also won a coveted EAGLE AWARD in 2006. Recently SHJ has been translated in French by Aaltair publishing.

After a few years of producing short stories for other indie publications, I thought it would be a great idea to collect everything and produce another tabloid newspaper comic, along with new material. This time Diamond Previews (the US distributor) had changed their policy with regard to shipping newsprint items, so I could not sell through them, despite having a great Mike Mignola endorsement they would not stock the product, which was a big shame. Only UK for this one folks. All this time on the scene and I only ever did one short story that got printed by a US comic publisher. The story was the brainchild of artist Shane Oakley, and it's thanks to him that I got to draw his story in Cthulhu Tales.

Shortly after I was approached to illustrate the two volume MADAM SAMURAI written by Gael Mclaughlin and screen writer Gary Young (Harry Brown film with Michael Caine). These two books were the largest single project I've been involved in with a total of 160 pages. Half way through this I was asked to draw SIXPENNY MURDER, by John Short. Based a true story from 19th century Liverpool, it had real heart and message to tell.

So, what's next for 2012? Check back here soon folks...

Hello everyone
I had a great time at Thought Bubble in Leeds recently. The two-day show was heaving with folk and some pretty high-profile US creators. As well as selling loads of MS2 (and book 1 to many latecomers) I also went out and about touting myself to various publishers in an effort to try and get my name out there a little more, did sketches in the last few editions of my most recent sketchbook and got to have chats with Jeff Lemire, Adam Hughes, Esad Ribic and Adi Granov, the latter both had original pages to peruse and that was worth the price of admission alone. You just can't beat seeing the originals in the flesh (so to speak). Thanks go to Mark and Sabrina Peyton for getting me in front of those guys, much appreciated---the lines are way too long to be able to queue, whilst being behind a table yourself. I had a fan tell me he'd queued 3 hours for Adam Hughes, then spent another three waiting in line for Barry Kitson, good job it was on for two days:) The Sunday was very slow again, as is normally the case but all in all a great experience, and I sold a few of my originals again too.

Back again soon.

Hello everyone
...and a hearty welcome to all you new readers. In the coming weeks I will randomly select 'followers' from the list. If you could then contact me with your address, I will then send you a free 50-page sketchbook (this will only apply to UK residents only please) including commission samples such as mainstream comic characters, horror and loads more (from a limited number of just 50 books). I look forward to seeing some of you at the upcoming THOUGHTBUBBLE event in Leeds... drop by the SCAR COMICS table and check out MADAM SAMURAI vol 2.

So, what are you waiting for, scroll down and see some of the other posts, and double click to see any image in large format. Come back soon y'all.

Hello all,

I was recently tasked to produce a carnival show-type poster commission, to include some famous faces. It was great fun to do and has set my mind thinking on possible further versions, although I guess that will be down to whatever else I'm doing. On the theme of 30's monsters I receieved an email from a production studio in LA requesting the rights to use a Frankenstein image I drew years ago. They wanted to use it as a background graphic alongside a peice about Mary Shelley on the Discovery Channel. Sadly it would need redrawing as I've never scanned my stuff in at 600dpi, so I'll just have to see what happens....

anyway here's that poster to be going on with.

Hi Gang
This update is a bit different. A few weeks ago I decided to tackle the biggest single peice of art I've ever done, at 23x 16inches, it's not huge but my normal working area is A3, which is standard for most comic work of course. If anybody wants to buy it it I will have to roll it in a large art tube :). It's the Dark Knight as a dark knight, yes it's been done before but I thought I'd give it a bash.
I enjoyed it but it was a bugger to scan....

Sam Costello's 'A Mother's Love' is now showing here

Hello everyone

Aren't horses difficult to draw? I've drawn them numerous times, especially in my first book SPIRIT OF THE HIGHWAYMAN, but trying to capture that dynamic leg position can sometimes be a royal pain in the butt. This drawing is one of those incidents. I always attempt to do it out of my head, which, I guess must be where the problem lies. I don't know about other artists, but when I resort to looking for photo reference I can never seem to find exactly what I want for the task. After numerous erasing I finally got there...this will (of course) change again when I come to ink it. I planned on this one being a fairly time consuming illustration, so I'll post more as and when.

I've just seen that BOOM studios are releasing an 'omnibus' version of Cthulhu Tales, I hope WHISTLE FROM THE DEEP is in there (Shane Oakley writes a great fishy tale). Also, don't forget to checkout the SPLIT LIP website, where 'A Mother's Love' will be featured.

back soon

Hello all
I'm currently on the last few pages of ' A Mother's Love' a story for SPLIT LIP COMIC, a web-based horror anthology run by Sam Costello. The story itself contains some pretty gruesome stuff, and I've thoroughly enjoyed it ;) thanks for the opportunity Sam, hope there's more sometime. Head over to Sam's website for more details here.

I'll be at the Birmingham Comic Con in August (first show this year due to one thing and another). I'm looking forward to it as it's the launch of Madam Samurai Vol 2... who's going to be there?? I'm going to cheat with the accompanying image this time...it's old commission I did way back when

Greetings all
Yet another week closer to the release of Madam Samurai Vol 2, here, to whet your appetite a little is the cover art on the drawing board, when I completed the second book last December. After a good few months break from drawing I've just started on a short story which I was approached to illustrate way back before I started MS2. It's called 'A Mother's Love' written by Sam Costello of the horror mag SPLITLIP... more on this soon.

Hello everyone
I checked out the latest issue of PREVIEWS and Madam Samurai Vol 2 wasn't listed, so sorry if you've gone out on purpose to buy it, as I did. The editor has given me the go ahead to show a page here...so here goes. If you enjoyed the first book, you'll flip at this one:) ...it's got action, gore, fights, gore, hacking, slashing...some great words and a few pretty pictures....oh and a terrific final sequence. Don't miss it. I'm thinking of selling a load of original art, both from these two books and other works, contact me at black_boar1@yahoo.com for details.



cheers
Dave

Hello all
Yes, I know, long time no see. Paul Gravett has done a great review of The Sixpenny Murder short story I illustrated here
Madam Samurai won an award in LA recently, at a New Media event. Talking of Madam Samurai, the second book is listed in the current PREVIEWS. It's well worth ordering from PREVIEWS, and tell your comic shop to order some for their shelves too:)

Thanks to everyone for the requests for Gothic, hopefully there should be a Paypal button here somewhere to enable to buy direct from this blog. I'll be back soon, promise :)

Hello all
Yes, I know it's been a sparse around here for the past few months, nothing much to report as such, but the Forbidden Planet blog recently did a great review of GOTHIC, the tabloid collection a did a few years back, so I had to let you good folk know:) When I had this printed I expected it to be distrubuted by Diamond PREVIEWS, but at the exact same time I got all 2500 newspapers offloaded at my house they decided to change their policies. It was not stocked due to the fact it was a newsprint product. I've just been taking them to the odd show here and there over the past few years, so not everyone would have been able to get their hands on one.

However, thanks to FP's Kenny Penman, you will now be able to get one from FP Dublin, FP Manchester and Nostalgia and Comics in Brum over the next couple of weeks. The image shows a few original drawings that were sold with the first 20 copies. These drawings have long since gone I'm afraid. If you would like a copy posting to you just leave a message here and I will get back to you asap.

Continuing my rummage through the 'projects in the ether' files, I came across these pages of a 'Green Knight/Gawain' tale. I illustrated 12 pages to be submitted to various comic publishers, the chap who wrote the script wanted a complete story, but as I have found out, better to do 12 pages than 100 pages when not sure of the outcome. He touted around a few places but it wasn't taken up by anyone. Let me know if you want to see more of these pages....

Also this week, there's a great review of The SIXPENNY MURDER short story I drew for KULT CREATIONS. I'm really glad that this peice of work has come to the attention of Forbidden Planet, there was such a lot of meaningful, emotional work in it. Nip over to their blog and see what they say

http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2011/the-sixpenny-murder/

Hello everyoneHere's a few more pages that have not seen the light of day before. These are from a well-known children/teen book publisher, so I had to change my style a little, as there are comedic elements within the story too. The author of the would-be gn, was a NY Times best seller, he'd had about 15 books under his belt. I guess that's why his trousers were tight.

STAND AND DELIVER
A few days ago a good friend of mine pointed out that there were two pages of my original art for sale on ebay. The pages are from Spirit of the Highwayman my first ever gn. I only produced 500 of these books way back in '99 (cor, time really does fly) and they have become a sought-after comodity-- one went for £50 last year on the same auction site. Funny really as no one wanted them when I had 500 to sell. I guess that's how the world of small press works, you can hawk your wares around for months, seemingly with no joy, then someone sees it, word spreads and before you know it you are a millionaire.

I lied about the last part:) Anyway, why not have a bid?

Good evening everyone,
I've been busy having a massive cleanout at home, ready for an imminent house move. During this ardous task it set me thinking about posting some archive bits and bobs, which for one reason or another you may not have seen before. Here's a few to start us off. I used this Batman illustration as a little colouring tester, as you can see I got bored a few minutes into it. I'd love to apply a 'set pallette style' to my stuff, but I just can't bring myself to spend ages on a peice. Secondly this was the first page of 'Boy Brimstone' an all-ages gn from Bloomsbury, I'd done 20odd pages and the rug was pulled, due to big management changes, sadly the book never saw the light of day. Pop back soon for another update.

Hello all, Here's a cover rough for Vol2 I should be okay to post this has I've tweaked it for the finished article. I've listed a few items on ebay also, there's a French Sketchbook which will include an original painted sketch of any character you wish, a batch of original art pages from the Sixpenny Murder short I illustrated, and a few other odds and sods when I get round to sticking them on

cheers for now

Happy 2011 everyone. I've just been reading Grant Morrison/Mukesh Singh's 18 Days, don't know if any of you have seen it, but it ranks as one of the most beautiful books I've seen in recent years, I highly recommend it! There's a hell of a lot of work in it (from both creators).
Well, it's a new year and new projects for me, first on the list is an 18th century slice of american gothic, for SplitLip horror anthology (thanks for waiting, Sam)...check back soon for some development sketches etc.