MEGA ROBO REVENGE

It's been a little while but Alex and Freddy are BACK in the brand new series of Mega Robo Bros: MEGA ROBO REVENGE, starting in this week's issue of the Phoenix! (Issue #267, pictured above!)

I've been looking forward to this one for ages; it's by far the biggest MRB story yet, in terms of scale, in terms of plot, and in terms of SHEER NUMBER OF CRAZY EXPLOSIONS. Lots of stuff here we've been building to for ages, so strap in and enjoy!

Available in shops nationwide! Or now would be an excellent time to SUBSCRIBE if you haven't already - and look, if you do so now you can get a FREE copy of How To Make Awesome Comics too! Which I also recommend.

Mega Robo T-Shirts!

Just a note to mention that Mega Robo Bros t-shirts are now available from the Phoenix Shop! And, honestly, they look pretty great.

Available in sizes for ages 9-11 and 12-14! A bunch of people have asked if adult sizes and / or younger kids sizes are on the way - not yet, but do go tell the guys at the Phoenix if you'd like some, so they can gauge demand!

Okay! Please go buy awesome t-shirts!

(Awesome ad artwork by Paul Duffield)

Thought Bubble Sketch Commissions

Hello! I'll be at the brilliant Thought Bubble comics festival in Leeds this November, and I've had a few enquiries lately about doing commissions for people in advance of it. So I thought I'd come up with a plan. So I have. And it is as follows: 

I'm going to be offering A4 pen & ink sketches for £10.00 GBP - or less if they're bought as part of a bundle with some of my books (Mega Robo Bros, Tamsin and the Deep, Pirates of Pangaea, and How To Make Awesome Comics). So the planned price list is:

Sketch: £10

Single book: £10
1 Book + Sketch £18 
2 Books: £18
2 Books + Sketch: £25

As to subject matter, you have a few options. I'm very happy to do sketches of my own characters, so if you want Alex, Freddy, Stupid Philosophy Penguin or whoever, that's absolutely fine, and I love you very much for asking, and here are 150-odd examples of that sort of thing if you like that sort of thing.

If you want something else: I don't usually draw other people's characters any more, but I'll make an exception for Thought Bubble, as I appreciate there are people whose thing is getting every artist in the world to draw Batman or whoever. However, I have to make these things fun for myself, too, so I'll happily draw basically anybody - real or fictional, alive or dead - just so long as they are either:

a) piloting a GIANT ROBOT

or b) riding a DINOSAUR.

I've used Freddy as an example there but, as I say, if you want a drawing of Moon Girl or Oor Wullie or Queen Elizabeth II or whoever it may be, that's fine. As long as they are on a robot or on a dinosaur.

If you'd like to order something in advance and pick up at the convention, that's great, as it gives me more time to work on your sketch in advance - just drop a line to info@neillcameron.com letting me know what you want.

Oh hey, I should mention: part of the festival is the ceremony for the Young Peoples Comic Award, for which both Mega Robo Bros and Tamsin and the Deep are shortlisted.

Which is kind of crazy.

See you in Leeds!

Mega Robo Sketchfest

Those nice people at The Phoenix recently ran a special offer to celebrate the launch of my new book Mega Robo Bros, whereby anyone who bought a book through the website would get a signed copy and a free original sketch by me. I agreed to this, slightly nervously, hoping we might sell a few and bracing myself for it being "around 40".

Well, anyway, we were only out by a hundred or so.

I cannot overstate: this was tough! This took a lot. This turned into a real "Hamilton wrote... the other 51!" moment for me. But I wanted to make each one cool, and different, because it really means a lot to me that these characters seem to have connected with people, and I wanted to do something special to say thank you for the support.

So, anyway, here are a LOT OF DRAWINGS OF ROBOTS. Enjoy!

If you missed the offer, the book is of course still available from all good bookshops. This offer's over for now, but if you'd like a sketch, come find me at any of the various festivals and events I'm doing this year, and I dare say I could be talked into something.

MEGA ROBO BROS Vol 1

My new book MEGA ROBO BROS is out today from David Fickling books! It collects the first big arc of Alex and Freddy's adventures - for those counting at home, it's edited highlights of Season 1, and then the entirety of Season 2. (Season 3 currently unfolding weekly in the pages of The Phoenix!)

Anyway, I am super proud of it, and really hope people enjoy it. Early reviews have been extremely encouraging, but you know how these things are, it's always a question of getting the word out. I've updated my website with a new MEGA ROBO BROS page where you can read a preview, check out a bunch of the uncollected strips in their entirety, and more. Please feel free to share, link, tweet, tumbl, or whatever it is you're supposed to do nowadays.

And hey, if you're in Oxford, come along to Inky Fingers on the Cowley Road TOMORROW (Saturday 4th Jan), where I'll be painting giant robots in the window and signing books and drawing stuff for people, should you want that.

Also, SPECIAL OFFER: any and all copies of the book ordered this week from the Phoenix's online shop will get a free, original A5 sketch by me! Every one unique! Go grab one quick before my hand falls off.

Merry Mega Robo Christmas

Merry Christmas, all! I've been a bit too beleaguered with things to do any of my usual festive shenanigans this year, but to attempt to atone for it, those nice people at the Phoenix posted last year's Mega Robo Bros Christmas Special for your reading pleasure. Enjoy, and have a marvellous holiday season, and I'll see you in the new year for SO MUCH AWESOME NEW MEGA ROBO BROS YOU CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE IT.

Mega Robo Return

Look who's back in this week's Phoenix Comic! It's only Alex and Freddy, those Mega Robo Bros themselves, back from their summer holidays. We've got a short run of 2-pagers (which, for what it's worth, includes several of my favourite episodes of anything I've ever drawn) and then a big new Epic Action Saga is kicking off soon! 

The Phoenix is available by subscription, or from any of these fine vendors.

Mega Robo Update

Last week's Phoenix saw the last episode in the current run of my series Mega Robo Bros and I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who's said such nice things about the series lately. You know who you are, and it means a lot, and I'm beyond delighted that my little robot dudes seem to have connected with people. Anyway, Alex and Freddy are going to be taking a short holiday now, but they will be BACK SOON. Soon, and often. We've been having some very exciting conversations about these little guys lately, and, basically, they're going to be around for a while, touch wood. I got me some plans for these guys.

Anyway! By way of something completely different, this week's Phoenix features a thing I'm very excited about; I had a chance to collaborate with one of my favourite cartoonists, James Turner of Star Cat fame, and I grabbed that chance and drew muscular barbarians all over it.

What else? Tamsin! Kate is currently putting together the Tamsin and the Deep collection, and oh my word it is looking glorious. So excited for this book, I can't begin to tell you. In the mean time, I'm starting to write the next volume, Tamsin and the Dark, which I'm afraid I really can't tell you anything about yet. Well I could, but then I'd have to push you down an abandoned mineshaft in rural Cornwall. And I don't think either of us want that.

Comics Club update: I've had a few enquiries asking if we're running the weeklong comics course at the Story Museum again this summer, and I'm afraid not - it's a huge amount of work, and I'm afraid I just couldn't fit it in with other commitments this year. I am doing a few one-off events here and there in Oxford over the summer - check out my Upcoming Events page for details. More to be announced there soon!

Okay, that's pretty much what I'm doing! I had better go and get on with it all.

Mega Robo Bros LIVE!

This weekend saw the third annual Phoenix Children's Comics Festival - or #PHOENIXFEST15, to hashtag it all up in here - at the Story Museum in Oxford, and an amazing fun time it was too. I was there on the Saturday and it was just stunning to be surrounded by such enthusiasm, creativity and sheer bursting-at-the-seams excitement for comics. And for OUR comics! Honestly, it's hard to put into words how great it was to see.

ANYWAY! As is my usual form, I was far too busy drawing robots for people to remember to take any photos of it all. But fortunately, some of my robots came to life and came along, so I could take photos of them! Look who I bumped into:

Which, obviously, rather completely made my day. And allowed us to quickly create the following:

MEGA ROBO BROS LIVE!

You'll notice that the kid who came cosplaying as Freddy was also SIMULTANEOUSLY COSPLAYING AS EVIL EMPEROR PENGUIN, and as such holds a pretty solid claim to being the most awesome person in the country.

Here for good measure is the Alex version:

Just so much fun. I made those panels last week, volunteering on a Sunday and being filled with a  nagging worry that I really should have just taken a much-needed day off instead. I really hoped they would be a fun little bonus thing for kids and parents at the festival, and anyway, these pictures alone make it all pretty much worthwhile from my perspective. Thanks so much, Mega Robo Family!

Mega Robo Week!

My comic Mega Robo Bros starts its second series in The Phoenix this Friday! To celebrate this exciting fact I thought I'd spend this week sharing some art from the strip, and even some full episodes, and pulling back the curtain a bit to talk about, you know, the artistic process and my thoughts and feelings and all that dumb stuff. 

In case you haven't caught it yet: Mega Robo Bros tells the story of Alex and Freddy, two brothers who live in a London of the (carefully indeterminate) future, and... well, actually I'll just give you the blurb that opens each episode, that seems easiest...

This is Alex:

 He's the sensitive one.

And this is Freddy:

 He's the terrifyingly destructive, scatalogically obsessed, borderline sociopathic one. (Which is to say, he's 6).

The idea for the strip had been floating around my head for a little while, ever since one day I saw my son running around pretending to be a robot and shooting lasers out of his fingers and thought to myself: oh my God... what if he could?

My son will happily tell you that this means that the strip is in fact his idea, and I'm not going to argue too hard. In fact, as it's been appearing in the Phoenix a weird feedback loop thing has been starting to happen, where I'll put in things kind of inspired by the boy, and he'll find them hilarious and quote them back endlessly, to the point where I actually find it quite hard to remember who said something first: my son or my fictional robots. 

Which can be confusing.

Anyway: as I say, the second 'season' begins this week!

Regular readers may have noticed a certain fluidity to the strip so far, in terms of size and scale. Basically, I've been doing it on quite an ad-hoc basis; trying different lengths of strip, different approaches, different things. This has been hugely enjoyable, and I've loved the opportunity to experiment and do shorter little things. Single-page comics have become pretty much my favourite things in the world, and at some point I want to try some even shorter ones. Also, it's basically been as close as I've ever got to just straight-up writing a sitcom, and I have loved every second of it. Back when I was developing the idea, the point at which I got really excited about it was when I had ideas for two stories I could do with it - one of which was a 3-panel gag strip, and the other a 200-page emotionally gruelling graphic novel. That seemed like an idea with legs.

Anyway, as I've been doing these shorter strips, along the way I've been dropping little hints here and there,  letting things percolate away in the background, building up bits and pieces about a bigger story. And in Season 2, starting this Friday in The Phoenix issue 160, we actually get on and start telling that story. I'm really excited about it. Join us, won't you?

Also! Check back on this blog, as well as my twitter and tumblr all week where I'll be posting selected full episodes from Season 1, development art and fun stuff to give you a taste of the strip. 

MEGA ROBO BROS are GO(s)!

Hey! My NEW COMIC, Mega Robo Bros, begins in this week's issue of The Phoenix, and you do not want to miss out! It's a great issue all round anyway, but also: ROBOTS!

I'm really excited about this strip, I've got so many plans for it and am having huge amounts of fun. It concerns the adventures of Alex and Freddy, two kids who - well, they are robots? And they are brothers? It is all right there in the title?

You can buy The Phoenix from these fine vendors, by subscription, or digitally on iPad. Please do so!

To celebrate this new venture, and because I said it on twitter before thinking better of it, I am having a small MEGA ROBO COMPETITION! Simply tweet (or facebook, or blog) a photo of your cat* reading this week's Phoenix, and win an original sketch of Alex and Freddy, the Mega Robo Bros themselves! And indeed, possibly your cat.*

TAKE A PHOTO OF YOUR CAT READING THIS WEEK'S PHOENIX TO WIN AMAZING PRIZES!
— Neill Cameron (@neillcameron) February 24, 2014

*If you don't have a cat, dogs are allowed too.  And indeed goldfish. And indeed stick insects, zoo animals, or any variety of robot.

Here's a couple to start you off!

From @PollyLWH:

And an AWESOME CYBER DOG from @AlixCoughlin:

TERMS AND CONDITIONS:

• Just tweet your photo with the hashtag #phoenixcats so I can find it!
• Competition runs until this Friday (28/02/2014), so you have plenty of time to FIND A CAT.
• Judges decision is final! Points will be awarded based on creativity, composition and ADORABLENESS.
• Or I might just pick one at random, so I feel less horribly guilty? I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO DO THIS.

Anyway, have a go! I will draw something cool, I promise. And check out Mega Robo Bros in the Phoenix, this week and indeed EVERY week until... you are all thoroughly sick of it?**

**NEVER GONNA HAPPEN. It has ROBOTS.