How To Make (Awesome) Comics: The Comic!

The good professor here and his associate are the stars of my *other* new strip that will be appearing weekly in The Phoenix - How To Make (Awesome) Comics! Every week's strip will feature a little lesson from the Prof about some aspect of the writing or drawing or how-comics-work type hoo-hah, followed by a Monkey Masterclass giving the readers the chance to dive in and get involved with all sorts of fun comics-making games and exercises.

The general idea is something that's part Scott McCloud, part Robert McKee, and part "lots of stupid jokes about farting and bananas". It's a little hard to explain in the abstract, but honestly - I'm a good few strips in now, and I'm enjoying this as much as anything I've ever worked on. It's really fun as well, because I get to try out ideas and jokes and stuff when I'm out on the road doing workshops, and then feed them back into the strip, which is rather nice. As a cartoonist there's something rather lovely about being able to try out new material in front of a live audience, and actually *know* what gets a big laugh.

So go subscribe to the Phoenix and you will be getting - apart from all the other cool comics and stories and such - a weekly part-work course in (awesome) comics creation! Including many diverse and profound theoretical insights. Such as, for example, THIS:

Pirates of Pangaea - issue Zero Sneak Peek!

The Pirates of Pangaea ©2011 Daniel Hartwell & Neill Cameron.
Check out more info on the Phoenix website, and a larger version here!

Hey, have you been over to the Phoenix website to grab your copy of Issue Zero of the super-exciting new weekly comic yet? There's lots of cool stuff in it, including a 4-page prologue to The Pirates of Pangaea, me n' Dan's new strip, from which I present an exclusive preview HERE!

..or HAS he? Go grab a copy of Issue Zero to find out!

So much other excitement to find on the site, including the mind-bogglingly exciting revelation that Ben "Mezolith" Haggarty and Garen "Rainbow Orchid" Ewing, two of my favourite creators in the universe, are collaborating on a strip! Not to mention new strips from (deep breath, and in no particular order): Jamie Smart, Kate Brown, Paul Duffield, Jamie Littler, Rob Deas, Faz Choudhury, Gary Northfield, Dave Shelton, James Turner, The Etherington Brothers, Patrice Aggs, John Welding, Adam Murphy. If you look for it you can even find a sneak peek at my OTHER new strip, about which I shall blog more information here ooh, any day now...

Go have a browse around it all. And then, of course:

Hey Kids, FREE COMICS!

Well there I was shopping for organic hand-picked artisan Green tea and what did I see by the till? Why, only the Future of British Comics, that's all.

Yes, the super-exciting BIG NEWS (from yesterday, which it you are reading this you probably already know) is that a special FREE Issue Zero of The Phoenix Comic is available now through Waitrose supermarkets! To get your FREE copy, here's all you have to do:

• grab a copy of Waitrose Weekend magazine. It contains a CODE.
• go on the Phoenix website and ENTER that code
• get a FREE COMIC.

If you don't live near a Waitrose, don't worry - plans are afoot to make sure no-one misses out on their Phoenixy goodness. And look, if you know anyone who *does* live near one, or if you have access to the Internet and a bit of initiative, I dare say you'll be able to get ahold of the code. But if you can, you really should try and grab hold of a copy of the mag, as it's got a great-looking pullout section about the Phoenix, a glorious double page spread by Patrice Aggs, as well as such esoteric delights as Today presenter James Naughtie talking about comics, and the revelation that Olly Smith off Saturday Kitchen used to write for Pingu.


I'm so excited about Issue Zero - I was lucky enough to get a peek at a copy the other day and it really is something a bit special. It's not just recycled content or the first few pages of stuff that was going to appear anyway ("preprints", I guess), as you'd often get in these kind of things - we all went to a lot of effort to create new stuff specially for the occasion - prologues, teasers and standalone episodes, as well as some other very exciting bonus treats.

I'll try and blog more tomorrow with a sneak peek at my contribution(s) to the issue, but till then- seriously, go and grab a copy, while stocks last. Order one on behalf of a son/ daughter/ niece/ nephew/ class/ local neighbourhood street gang of your acquaintance, and be the gnarliest* grown-up on the block. Or heck, just order one for YOU. And then read it while you sip your organic artisan hand-picked green tea.


*What, you didn't hear? 'Gnarly' is totally back.

ComICA this Saturday!

Just a quick note to say I'll be at ComICA Comiket this Saturday, mooching around, chatting to fine comics creators and selling and signing books at the DFC Library table. Come by, there'll be all sorts of fun stuff happening, to wit:

• 1.30-2pm: Sarah McIntyre: the fabulous creator of Vern & Lettuce and illustrator of Morris The Mankiest Monster and many more! Sarah will be signing and sketching and comics-jamming and well frankly WHO KNOWS what comics-related mayhem may ensue.
  
• 2.30-3pm: Adam Brockbank: the preposterously talented comic artist and film concept art designer extraodinaire (Harry Potter, Captain America, and those are just the ones he's casually, off-handedly mentioned, doubtless many more) will be signing copies of the extraordinary MeZolith.
• 3.30-4pm: Neill Cameron - that's me - will be signing & sketching copies of Mo-Bot High, drawing robots on any available surface, and... well, who knows? I'm going to bring my trusty cardboard mo-bot along and take pictures of him meeting various Interesting People, I think. And Hipsters.Hipsters and cardboard robots, it should be a fun afternoon!
  

Anyway, I'm not actually too sure what else is happening on the day - as previously discussed, I currently have an embarrassingly limited brain capacity for any matters not directly relating to Pirates and Dinosaurs - but I know there's going to be loads of amazing cartoonists drawing live on a big screen and stuff, so I'm pretty excited to be going along. I'm mostly just hoping to meet and hang out with some interesting comics people, and maybe snag a copy of Blank Slate Books' utterly great-sounding Nelson, which I think is out now? I think?

Anyway, do come along and say hi. And on that note, I hear the call of Pirates and Dinsoaurs. Till Saturday!

The GIGANTOSAURUS Sale is on!

Yes, it's true - for the first week in November, (and in an attempt to clear a bit of space in my studio) I'm running a GIGANTOSAURUS-sized sale in my online shop, offering a whopping 20% off EVERYTHING. To take advantage of this senses-staggering salestravaganza, just enter the offer code GIGANTOSAURUS when ordering. Once again, that offer code:

GIGANTOSAURUS

But what can you buy? Why, here are a couple of options:

Mo-Bot High BOOK ONE - signed copy with ORIGINAL SKETCH of your choice! Whatever the heck kind of giant robot you want, drawn in the front of this VERY GOOD GRAPHIC NOVEL. Check out more details HERE: http://neillcameron.bigcartel.com/product/mo-bot-high-book-one

Or how about, just in time for Chrismas, the return of:

...Neill's Christmas Cards of Awesomeness! Five designs, featuring Father Christmas mish-mashed with everything from Cthulhu to Batman to (naturally) Giant Robots.

More details HERE: http://neillcameron.bigcartel.com/product/christmas-cards-of-awesomeness

Commissions are currently SOLD OUT due to workload pressures, but I might put a couple of pieces of original art up in the shop in the next couple weeks, so keep your eyes peeled for that. Now: please go and buy things so that I can move in my studio and afford to buy Christmas presents and stuff! Thank you.