Christmas 2005

Working on this years Christmas card at the moment.

Here is last years. Front:


Inside:

and back:

Hello there. I'm switching this to a blog format for a while and may keep it so if it works. Partly because it was a pseudo-blog anyway and partly its easier to add more background explanations to the bits and pieces I stick up here. Also I can put other up other stuff that I find interesting that's not just comics or drawerings. Furthermore it might encourage me to keep it a bit more updated.

So without further ado:


If you know me well enough and I'm so inclined, I might send you a card on occasion. This one is pretty self explanatory. I originally roughed out this gag for submission to Bob Byrne's Shiznit by the way.

A few years ago on a trip to Australia I found a big book of New Yorker cartoons in a second hand bookshop. It had selections of cartoons from the beginning of the mag to the 50's and I lugged the book all the way home thinking I'd struck collector gold. I've since found out they're fairly common.

Nevertheless there was some cracker artwork in it and I was particularly taken with the grey wash work of Helen E. Hokinson and Charles Addams (not to mention 'Arno' and Whitney Darrow) who both influenced this to an extent.

Only thing is its a bugger of a style to reproduce satisfactorily in a photocopier. For best results you end up having to separate the wash from the line work in photoshop, rendering out two different sets of bitmaps and stacking them together - most arduous. Fortunately it works fine on the web - more in this style soon.