Media Mo-Botspotting

Mo-Bots have been popping up here and there in the nation's newsagents and thought I'd put together a quick round-up of places to look for 'em!

Giant Robot Snowball Fight - my cover art to Transformers issue 19, on sale in all good newsagents now!

• The latest issue of Transformers comic features a cover by ME (yay! Transformers! This one's for you, 8-year-old me) and a competition to win 10 copies of Mo-Bot High AND 10 copies of my DFC Library compadres The Etherington Bros' fabulous Monkey Nuts, too! Get on that.
• The latest issue of fantastic anime / manga / asian pop culture mag NEO features a short interview with ME, talking about Mo-Bot High, AND a 10-PAGE PREVIEW! Including this funky poster here, and a Bonus Extra Page which wasn't included in the book!

• The brand-new issue of Comic Heroes magazine has some preview pages too, in its comics-previewing supplement SIDEKICK! And very nice they look too.
• Me and my Cardboard Mo-Bots popped up a couple of times last week in the Oxford Mail and the Oxford Times, publicising the book launch party at Blackwells. And look, Logan even made it into the paper, too!

(I would not normally use my own son for marketing purposes, honestly. But I was looking after him the day we had to go do the photos, and what was I going to do? "Listen kid, you go play outside in the street for a bit while Daddy poses for the nice man.")

Also, I've just seen a couple of very nice reviews pop up online:

This one, on fantastic teen fiction review site Chicklish, from reviewer Luisa Plaja.

"Filled with action, suspense, brilliant tongue-in-cheek humour and amazing illustrations, this book is wonderful and I highly recommend it. I want the next book and I want it now!"

And here's another over on kids' book site Armadillo:

"...there is a lot more going on here than giant robots and spectacular fight scenes – the sinister dinner ladies, and ominous comments about Asha being ‘the Harbinger’ give this a touch of Doctor Who-style mystery alongside the technological awesomeness."

The Armadillo review is part of a lovely great big feature on the DFC Library, along with interviews with loads of the creators and Mr David Fickling himself! Do go and have a read.

Right, that's it, I'm exhausted. Hooray, now for several days of not having to have my picture taken!

Badges? We don't need no stinkin'... wait, what was that? We do need badges? Oh, okay.

I have been trying to design a Mo-Bot High badge! Here are some possible designs:

I have hit a bit of a mental block on this, and so am polling it here! If you have any preferences for which of these you like, if you could let me know in the comments here or on twitter, that would be very much appreciated!

(Please note: they would all be the same size, 25mm - I've just made some bigger and some smaller in this image for the highly technical reason that I thought it looked nice that way.)

Hey, I've been meaning to blog for a while about the first three DFC Library titles: Good Dog, Bad Dog, Mezolith and The Spider Moon. I'm a huge fan of all three and wanted to write a little introduction to help people who maybe didn't read them in the DFC get properly excited about the sheer awesomeness soon to be heading their way. Anyway, I haven't had a chance to get round to it yet, but handily there is now an online eBook type preview of the three available over on the Random House website! Go and have a look why don't you!

A Whole Mess o' Santas

Hey, I fell a bit behind posting my Santas-of-the-Day, so here's a catchup!

No. 12: Mr. Darcy Santa

"He finds the question of whether you've been naughty or nice to be frankly beneath his consideration."

No. 13: Santa Strange (Earth's Santa Supreme, Master of the Festive Arts)

No. 14: HULK SANTA

No. 15: Morris-Dancing Santa

That last one was requested by my Mum.

Just. Don't. Ask.

In other Santa-related news, you may remember Ninja Santa (above) from last year's flurry of christmassy activity - anyway, he is currently endorsing the highly entertaining festive mashup exravaganza 'Ninja Christmas Megamix' by Snake Eyes. Go have a listen, it's ace.

AND FINALLY, as a bonus extra Christmas present to the world in general, James and I just released a new episode of our podcast, Unified Review Theory, in which we review the concept of free will, Mario Kart Wii and the year 2009, all while playing videogames. Hilarity ensues! Well, a bit. Go check it out on the URT blog, or heck, just have a listen here:

Gosh, what a long blog post. And that's without even mentioning my MASSIVE, UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME NEWS. Plenty of time for that.

Another Santa tomorrow!

Hashtag Funnies 3: 'Glee'

Here is today's Hashtag Funnies strip!

Twitter links: @neillcameron, #hashtagfunnies, Glee

I think the 'Glee' people on Twitter are talking about is actually some TV show, but I don't know it so went for a different interpretation.

Anyway! I was amazed, delighted and utterly confused to read today a 1,500-word analysis of my social media strategy by the scholarly and erudite Pete Ashton. He makes some very good points, (including a tip about how if I used Flickr I apparently could have saved myself hundreds of pounds GODDAMMIT), and it's generally quite a fascinating read. Pete absolutely gets my motivations for doing things like the A-Z of Awesomeness and these daily nonsense hashtag strips, but explains them much more precisely and knowledgeably than I would be able to myself. Also at much greater length - I think if I wrote a 1,500 word essay here on the subject of ME, the internet would punch me in the face (and be quite right to do so).

Anyway, you can go read it here.

Mostly, I am just delighted to discover I have a social media strategy. Well done me!

New URT Podcast!

Hey, we recorded a new episode of Unified Review Theory! If you want to hear two grown men talking about robots and Elvis, why not go and do just that?

In other audiovisual fun, here's what I used that Mary Jane pic from a few days ago for:



...yeah, a TAPE. We roll pretty old-school round here, let me tell you.

You'd be surprised how hard it is to actually make a tape these days. For starters you have to, you know, find a tape.

While I'm here: a bunch of other folks took up the Garen Ewing Moustache Challenge - check out the spectacular profusion of face-topiary over on Sarah McIntyre's blog!

Happy 40th of June!

Today is Garen Ewing's 40th birthday, and to celebrate, here is a drawing of him sporting a Lord Kitchener Moustache.
Garen, of course, is one of the most talented cartoonists in Britain. The drawing above is by Sarah McIntyre, who as it happens is also one of the most talented cartoonists in Britain. The moustache is scrawled on top by me. I am... um... one of the most talented cake-consumers in Britain.

Why not visit Sarah's blog and have a go at giving Garen a moustache yourself? I went for the period-appropriate Lord Kitchener, but I think he'd also look great with a Handlebar, a Franz Josef or even a Salvador Dali.

Garen's book The Rainbow Orchid is being published this summer by Egmont UK! I have of course been telling people how great it is for many years now, so am looking forward to this tremendously. You can pre-order a copy from Amazon now, and I recommend in the strongest possible terms that you do so.

Happy Birthday Garen!

Super Monster Mashup!

Check out this rather stylish monster, clearly on her way to some glamorous Monster nightclub...

Drawn as a kind of visual game of consequences (monsterquences?) by Sarah McIntyre (head), Garen Ewing (torso) and myself (feet) over on the Super Comics Adventure Squad blog, where all us ex-DFC creator types hang out and play stupid monster-drawing games and stuff. Go take a look, there's usually something pretty amazing posted there on at least a daily basis.

My recent radio silence here is due to being in the midst of one of those periods where I'm enormously busy but kind of in the middle of a long stretch of work, so having nothing to post publicly for a while. However, I don't seem to let the workload stop me blithering away happily on Twitter and Blip.FM, so please check there if you feel the need to reassure yourself that I haven't died at the drawing board or something. (Which reminds me, as my current lifestyle so often does, of a page by Evan Dorkin that is one of my favourite comic strips of all time, "Cartoonist Goes To Hell").

Anyway, best get back to it. I'm currently drawing something that is making every fanboy nerve in my body tingle with glee, and I'll be sure to post about it here when it's coming out...

Go Go Super Comics Adventure Squad YEAH!

So the last-ever-for-now issue of the DFC came last Friday. I'd been putting off blogging about it until the end came, and now that it has... I still don't feel like blogging about it. So there. Many of the other creators involved have written beautifully on the subject already, and I don't really feel I have much to add. I'll just briefly say that getting the chance to write and draw Mo-Bot High really was a dream come true for me, and I'm enormously grateful to have been given the opportunity.

I'll also briefly say that working with Ben Sharpe, Will Fickling and David Fickling in developing the strip was absolutely the best professional experience of my career in comics so far, and I learned a huge amount about writing and storytelling from them that I'm also hugely grateful for.

Okay, and I'll ALSO briefly say that all the letters and bits of Mo-Bot fan art that I received made me happier than I can easily describe, and a couple of them (including a 'Happy Mo-Bot Christmas' card from one reader) are now amongst my most treasured possessions, which I am - again - incredibly grateful for.

But that's all, really.

I have no doubts that many of the strips from the DFC will live again in some form or another, and I include Mo-Bot High in that optimistic outlook. I have huge amounts of story still to tell with the characters and you can be absolutely certain that I'll get to it one way or another. Just as soon as the details about how that's going to happen have been sorted out, I will be sure to share them with you.

In the meantime, go check out Super Comics Adventure Squad, your brand-new one-stop shop for keeping up with what all your favourite DFC creators are up to!

Vampanda Says...

Someone has started a Save The DFC campaign! I find this tremendously cool. Go see the blog! Tell your friends! etc.

Updates

I've just updated www.neillcameron.com with a bunch of new stuff, including some art from Season 2 of Mo-Bot High. Please do go and have a look!

I feel like the second season was kind of where I hit my stride on the strip. The above page, for example, I'd say I'm actually about 90% happy with, which is a new personal best!

There's also a new 'character design' section on the website. See if you can guess what's in there.

I haven't said much here about recent developments with the DFC. Just can't seem to bring myself to type what would probably be a rather downbeat and heartbroken whine. In any case, it has all been covered more eloquently elsewhere. But all is not lost, kiddies. And that is all I will say for now.

Blipping myself silly

I have been getting caught up with all the marvelous new timewasting possibilities offered by the internet under the guise of "social networking"¹, and I have to say my favourite by far is Blip.FM, a rather clever system that lets you kind of build your own radio station and earn "props" for your musical choices.

It's like having control of the stereo at a party, except no-one can tell you to shut up and play something people actually like. (PHILISTINES). It is diverting, wonderful and hilarious, and I've already discovered some really great music via other people's 'blips'. Go look me up on there at blip.fm/neillcameron, it's way nifty.

Here is a mini embedded version of Neill.FM. I think you will agree it is highly awesome. What's that? Too much hip-hop? PHILISTINES.




I am also on Twitter now, at twitter.com/neillcameron but I'm still kind of getting my head round that.


¹ Any clients / editors reading this: only joking, I work VERY HARD.

Illustrious Flair

In addition to my work as an internationally renowned (ahem), award-winning (ahem ahem) and perpetually skint creator of comics, I like from time to time to keep the Clan Cameron in room and board by taking on bits of illustration work. For example, here are a couple of spot illos to accompany a magazine article about traffic safety:The moral here, kids, is not to listen to your iPod while crossing the street recklessly on your bicycle.
Anyway, I just had a bit of good news about another bit of recent work - an illustration I did recently for The Teacher magazine, to accompany an article about the phenomenom of 'cyberbullying':

This won the FlairIllustration competition for December-Jan 09 on the website Creativematch. Hooray for me!

I apologise for this nauseating backpatting, and shall attempt to redeem myself by giving you not one but THREE awesome things to look at on the interwebs:

1. a lengthy and fascinating interview with one of my favourite comics creators, Garen Ewing.
2. ludicrously awesome work-in-progress homemade Doctor Who Anime
3. ...okay, I only had two. Go look at me winning that competition again?
   

HEAR! My amazing talking VOICE!

Over on my 'other' blog Unified Review Theory, my esteemed co-reviewer James and I have recently recorded our very first podcast, in which we debate the relative merits of TV series Quantum Leap and the Cameron Family Motto. I think it is quite entertaining, but then I probably would. Why not go and have a listen and judge for yourself?

Please note that the podcast contains some sweariness, a bit of rudeness and a lot of general nonsense. Probably not for kids!

(Oh, that picture at the top? That was just to get your attention, really. It's for the cover of that traffic-safety comic I was working on a while back. Coming soon to a school near you!)

Santanaut, plus DFC-website-proliferation

It's your Special Spacey Santa of the Day!

While I'm here, I would just like to draw your attention to a couple of websites that have sprung up recently for two strips that are coming soon to the DFC, both of which I'm really excited about:

FRONTIER is a 'weird wild west' strip by my good buddy Jason Cobley and Andrew "dude used to draw Transformers!" Wildman which looks some rip-snortin', tobaccy-chewin' GOOD TIMES.

MIRABILIS: The Year of Wonders is a whole period epic magical fantasy extravaganza by that, I kid you not, looks absolutely amazing. Really can't wait to read this one.

There's a whole bunch of other stuff coming soon to the DFC that I'm all kinds of excited for, including the returns of Kate Brown's gorgeous manga fantasy The Spider Moon and Ben Haggarty and Adam Brockbank's prehistoric folk-tale opus Mezolith which is honestly so good that every single episode has made me want to give up drawing comics because I am just not worthy. Not to mention the imminent start of Charlie Jefferson and the Tomb of Nazaleod by one of my very favourite comics creators in the whole wide world, Garen Ewing.

Oh yeah, and a second run for James Turner's fantastic Super Animal Adventure Squad, and...... ah, seriously, go and subscribe already!

DFC-day

How cool is that? A reminder, courtesy of the wonderful Sarah McIntyre of Vern & Lettuce fame, that issue 26 of The DFC goes on sale in Tescos all across the land from today!

A snip at £1.99 - and it's a pretty cracking issue, too. A great new story starts - The Mighty M by Laura Howell, there's a new Monkey Nuts adventure by the always-jaw-dropping Etherington Brothers, and... look, it's just pretty great, alright?

Anyway, it turns out it's a nice way to mark six months of The DFC! Good lord, has it been that long already? Over on the Forbidden Planet blog they're running a series of posts to mark the occasion, which is nice.

While I'm linking, apparently Sarah and Jim Medway just happened to bump into Matt Groening the other day, and Jim gave him a copy of the DFC. Good work, dudes! I think if I had been there I would just have stammered, mumbled incoherently about how I, y'know, really like futurama and stuff, and generally embarrassed myself and everyone in the room. Good job I wasn't there, really.

Please excuse all the linkage and general uncharacteristic air of enthusiasm, I just received a totally awesome bit of mo-bot fan art from a kid that has made my week, if not year.

Couple Things!

• I will be at the Birmingham International Comics Show this sunday (5th October) - I'm on a panel about the DFC at 3pm and will be otherwise hanging around the DFC booth or just generally floating about the place looking confused and a little tired. (Going on past form at comics conventions).
• There is a feature about current developments in British comics in the latest issue of the Judge Dredd Megazine which features an interview with my fellow DFC creator Garen Ewing (and a tasty little smidgen of Mo-bot art). Garen posts about it here.

There was something else. I forget what.

Brief Encounter

I recently won a competition on the highly enjoyable movie review podcast Filmspotting, and got to pick a film for the guys who host the show to review. I went for Brief Encounter, as - well, it's just awesome, isn't it? A perfect marriage of script, performances and direction. Also, everyone talks hilariously posh, and there's a highly entertaining moment where the kid playing the daughter looks straight into the camera by mistake. Many chuckles!

Anyway, why not go and listen to the show? (The review starts a few minutes in).

Top 5: Albums (July-Aug 2008)

In order of how heavy their rotation has been on Neill's-drawing-board FM! (note: this is albums I have bought / been listening to a lot this month, not necessarily ones that came *out* this month...)

5) Portishead - Third
4) Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
3) Beck - Modern Guilt
2) The Roots - Rising Down
1) RZA as Bobby Digital - Digi Snacks.

Seriously, can't stop listening to that Bobby Digital album. The track 'Don't Be Afraid' may be the single catchiest piece of music ever created by mortal man. I've had it stuck in my head non-stop for, oooh, about three weeks now, and - weirdly - don't seem to be sick of it yet.

Garen's (Awesome) Mo-Bot!

There I was having to work late on a Friday night and feeling all sorry for myself, when what should pop into my inbox but a notification of this...
Garen Ewing draws a Mo-Bot. That's pretty much made my week, right there.

Seriously, how great is that?

Why not have a go yourself?

Hyperbole? Nah.

Garen's A-Z of Comic Strip Characters is just about the coolest thing I've ever seen.

Just wanted to mention that.