Here is the second in a regular series where I'll be offering a peek into my sketchbook at my designs for the stars of The Pirates of Pangaea (appearing weekly in The Phoenix, go subscribe kids! It is I-ain't-even-foolin' GREAT). This week we are saying a big Pangaean hello to Bosun William, or Master Bosun, or simply The Bosun to his friends. Rugged, stoical and heroic, he is Sophie's only protector amidst the dinosaur and pirate-infested scarinessfest that is Pangaea. So rugged, stoical and heroic in fact that he can wear a ponytail with a bow on it and still appear rugged, stoical and heroic.

More pirates next week!

More piratey sketches next week!

This weekend saw the launch of the first issue of brand new weekly comic The Phoenix! Which, uh, I may have mentioned already. The above is an early / alternate version of the issue one cover - in the end, we decided that it looked a little too 'apocalyptic' and went for the blue-sky background used on the final cover. I thought I'd post it here, not least so you can see the nice pterodactyls I went to all the trouble of drawing even though I knew perfectly well they'd be covered up by the (admittedly lovely) logo.

Anyway, Saturday was a preposterously lovely day from start to finish, beginning with the fact that I got to stroll up the corner shop and see my work featured on the cover of a well-known national newspaper.


Saturday was also, of course, the day of the launch party itself - a brilliant and hugely fun event held at the super-exciting new Story Museum in Oxford. (Can't wait for that place to open properly, it sounds like they've got such exciting things planned for it). I had a really lovely time and caught up with so many comics-creatin' (and comics-readin') friends old and new, that I couldn't remotely hope to cover it all here. M'colleague Sarah McIntyre posted lots of great photos and a write-up of the day over on her blog, so why not go read that and feel just like you were there? But without cake.



If you haven't seen a copy of the Phoenix yet, you can read the preview Issue Zero IN FULL and FOR FREE over on the Phoenix website! And then go subscribe. C'mon, you can get five weeks' worth of awesome comics for a tenner. A TENNER. Give it a whirl!

Anyway, huge thanks to everyone who's said nice things already about both Pirates and How To Make (Awesome) Comics - seeing people's drawings and completed HTMAC 'exercises' start to flow into Phoenix HQ is already one of my favourite things about 2012. Not least this collaborative masterwork - script by my marvellous nephew Lex, art by his wastrel father:




That's pretty harsh, Superman.

I'm snatching a 5-minute-break from drawing rigging (OH MY GOD THE RIGGING) to wish you all a Happy Phoenixday Eve! Yes, tomorrow is Official Launch Day for the brand new weekly comic featuring pirates and dinosaurs and bunnies and monkeys and space aliens and robots and, oh, ALL KINDS OF GOOD THINGS. There's still time to subscribe in order to get the first issue, so head to the Phoenix website for a bunch of tasty subscription options, or you can pick up a copy from Waitroses nationwide and select independent children's bookshops. (Full details of where you can buy it coming soon to the Phoenix website! One would imagine.) But seriously, go subscribe.

ALSO: just announced is that you may wish to pick up a copy of The Times newspaper tomorrow, for a free 8-page Phoenix pull-out featuring, oh heck, all kinds of fun stuff - not least a special BONUS How To Make (Awesome) Comics strip! The Times is available, uh, pretty much everywhere. In shops and stuff?

Join me next week for the start of a regular series of blog posts featuring behind the scenes peeks at pirates and dinsoaurs AND helpful annotations for Professor Panels' illustrated lectures. Uh, if I get all this rigging finished.

As a special Christmas present to the world in general, the brand new issue of Waitrose Weekend magazine - available free by the tills in branches of Waitrose nationwide - features an exclusive brand-new page of How To Make (Awesome) Comics, by ME and featuring my colleagues Professor Panels and Art Monkey. In case you haven't met them before, they are...


The strip features a competition to design a character and get it printed in the Phoenix Comic, so - if you happen to find yourself or your family at a loose end at any point over the holidays, why not have a go? You can find all the details about the competition here:

https://www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/awesome/

And here's a quick peek at the mag!


May I just say, it is a profound honour and the realisation of a lifelong ambition to be sharing page space in a publication with a personal hero of mine: Gregg off Masterchef.

And if that doesn't keep you busy, remember you can always visit the Mo-Bot High Facebook Page and while away the hours thinking up ridiculous entries for my Giant Robot Competition!

Right, I think that's about it for me, this side of Christmas. Merry Christmas, Everyone! May you all Function With Relative Ease, and I - and indeed Prof P and Art Monkey - will be back very soon with the most preposterously exciting start to 2012 you could even imagine...

I very much enjoyed drawing Giant Robot Judge Dredd and Giant Robot Harry Potter this week, so I thought it would be fun to do another in this little sort-of-series. But who to turn into a giant robot next?

YOU DECIDE!

Yes, I thought it might be fun to turn it into a little competition, and give you YES YOU the chance to win a piece of original, custom artwork depicting a Mo-Botized version of the comics / movie / pop culture character of your choice. The winner will get an A3 full-colour poster print of the finished piece, as well as the ORIGINAL pencil sketch / whatever scribbles and roughs I do to get started.

TO ENTER: all you have to do is go 'Like' the Mo-Bot High Facebook Page, then say who you would like a giant robot version of. THAT IS IT. Closing date of January 15th, 2012, at which point I will use a combination of random number generation and deciding which one I most want to draw to pick a winner. (i.e. if the suggestion 'Batman' wins, and there are 20 entries saying 'Batman', I will pick the winning entry using a random number generator).

PS I'm not saying 'Batman' is going to win, that was just an example. Although I DO totally want to draw Giant Robot Batman.

Go enter! It will be FUN.

(If you're not on Facebook - oh, go on, just leave a comment here on the blog. But Facebook entrues MUCH HANDIER FOR ME, so would be appreciated.)


Mo-Bot Week rolls on tomorrow with the funnest and - by far - most ridiculous entry yet!

The SECRET ORIGIN of today's entry in Mo-Bot Week*: so aaaages ago I made a Funny Joke on twitter, announcing my delight at the news that I'd landed the assignment of producing graphic novel adaptations of all seven Harry Potter novels... but that I would of course be making some changes.

This was essentially just an excuse for me to make up lots of silly titles: Harry Potter and the Unusually Large Baby, Harry Potter and the Drunk Jellyfish, that sort of thing. Anyway, comics writer, journalist and tweeter par excellence Chris Sims chimed in with "Harry Potter and The Hell With It, They All Have Giant Robots Now." And lo, my mind was blown.

I'm only sorry it's taken me this long to actually draw it.

Look, I even made 'character designs' for this one.
In the unlikely event that they do ever license the Potter books for comics versions, I can only imagine the creative team would be like Neil Gaiman and Dave Gibbons, or generally the famousest and most expensive creators imaginable. But I'd just like to say: I WOULD DRAW THE HECK OUT OF THAT $#!£. Holla at me, Bloomsbury.




And hey, if the idea of a school filled with plucky kids having adventures with cool magic giant robots appeals... well. Do I really need to spell it out?
More Mo-Bot Week* Fun-ness tomorrow!

*Yeah, yeah, so Mo-Bot Week kind of morphed into Mo-bot Fortnight - my son got chickenpox so schedules have taken a bit of a tumble all round. He's on the mend now, hooray!