....Surprise!
I know I've not been around this 'ol blog lately, but things are happening on the drawing board. At the moment The Signal Man project has 'leaves on the track' (US readers may be thinking 'uh?') well, here in the UK if there is a delay in journeys, the railway very often blame 'leaves on the track'... but, there is a good reason for this particular delay. A few weeks ago I got a mail from a huge UK comics icon, who invited me to be part of a new project he was working on.

I said 'Yes' :)

sadly I can't tell you anything else right now, but I can show these bits for your perusal. Check back soon for more details folks!

My contribution to the MOEBIUS charity book has turned out to be a bit colossal. let me explain, first of all it's A2 in size, so it's taking some time to cover that white area. I've made it difficult for myself by attempting to draw it in his unique style, which is a bugger when you come to drawing clouds - his have great depth and form, mine, i'm not so sure. Still, I'm really enjoying the challenge and hopefully I'll finish it this weekend. Though, now, I'm not sure whether I should leave it black and white, or put some colour on it...decisions, decisions.

Back soon folks,

Hello all
Well, a few weeks ago the genius that was MOEBIUS died. My first contact with Moebius's work was in the early 80's Heavy metal issues, it could have been earlier than that, but I think it's safe to say that he has left an indelible mark in many minds. In later years his work never seemed to get translated, but I had managed to get a few Arzach albums, just to look in awe at the incredible imagination which he committed to paper.

Last week I was asked to contribute to a charity book (to be published by the chaps that produced the French version of Springheeled Jack). A few days into the idea and over 100 artists joined up---that surely is a sign of appreciation for the man.

I started my peice last night, attempting to use a 'Moebius-like' line, I'll post a few more development pics soon. I'm quite excited by this opportunity, but I guess he did fire folk's imagination. A little like Jack Kirby did.

Train of Thought: The Diary of the Signal Man No.1
Hello Everyone, thanks for stopping by.

With this tale being an adaptation of a Charles Dickens short ghost story, you would expect to see somewhat large text boxes running throughout. This page is no exception. Here we have my initial A4 roughs and a page just being roughly sketched out, these two panels in particular have a great deal of exposition in them. This is why I always tend to sketch out as much of the copy as possible during the thumbnail stages, it also gives me an idea of exactly how much of the panel will be obscured.

As I get further into this story I realised there is scope to dust off my artistic licence, more of which to come in the next post.

If you'll pardon the pun I'm getting stoked up with this thing folks:) Thanks for asking me onboard Mr Cobley.

Hello all

After I did last week's Signal Man page I got thinking about how it should be printed etc. I plan on possibly gauging interest via this blog and Facebook, then possibly just printing to the initial orders, that way you will have something that will hopefully become a sought after item in 100 years time;) Just as a test I changed this page into sepia, what d'thee reckon? Should it be mono, sepia or actual colour?

Speaking of tests, just as a precursor to actual orders, can anyone WHO MAY BE interested in a copy hit the LIKE button on the FB link. This is just for gauging purposes only. Thanks.

Hello one and all
Just produced page 2 of The Signal Man and it got me thinking that sitting in a signal box can be a very solitary existence, a little like sitting at a drawing board really, so it's good to get feedback on this ere blog. I'm assuming everyone is familiar with this Dickens classic, but just in case you are not... get your ticket and board The Signal Man express. We'll make stops along the way, delving into the production diary, stoking up the imagination as we go.

Last week I was asked to contribute a convention sketch to Club Batman (on facebook), here's the finished pic in case you didn't see it elsewhere.

Greetings blog readers
I spent time recently roughing out the Charles Dickens short story The Signal Man, adapted by Jason Cobley who has written many a fine tale and adapted numerous literary classics such as Dracula,Frankenstein and recently When the Inspector Calls. We are currently not decided upon how or when it will be published but here's the first page to be going on with (sans text, of course). I'll be back with a diary-type/ from-the-drawing-board-development-thing, which will start soon. So make sure you check back here regularly.

I've heard that many of you in the US were unable to purchase either of the Madam Samurai books, through some problem at Diamond distribution, but fear not, as they are both available digitally on GRAPHICLY.com they are well worth checking out, if I do say so myself;)
Here's a few pics to whet your collective appetites.

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.