Mo-Bot Santa Presents...

I suddenly felt like it's way too long since I drew either of my two favourite things:
(1) Mo-Bots
(2)) stupid nonsense for my blog when I ought to be doing real work instead.

Anyway, as a bit of an early Christmas present to myself, I'm going to spend this week making up for it with Mo-Bot Blog Week, where I shall be posting all sorts of fun drawings and bits and bobs with a Digital Mobile Combatsuit-y flavour! Do stay tuned - hopefully there'll be at least one cool thing a day, and if I manage to get it all done, the thing I'm hoping to post for Friday should be a bit special.

While I'm here: question I've been asked a lot lately is "when's Mo-Bot High Book 2 coming out?" and, while I am unable to give you a concrete answer to that question (it's complicated, and I have rather a lot of pirates and dinosaurs to draw first), I thought I'd offer a list of things YOU can do to help it happen as soon as possible. Undertaking any one of these actions will qualify you for entry in Team Mo-Bot, and earn my eternal undying fondness.

1. Go 'Like' the new Mo-Bot High page on Facebook! Just set this up; I'll be posting all sorts of stuff here, and thought it'd be a good place to try out some fun ideas I have for the future - go along and Like the heck out of it now to get on board early!
2. Write a review on Amazon! I mean, assuming you liked the book. If you hated it: well, it's a free world I suppose, buddy.
3. Tell your friends! Your actual real-life friends. Hey, you could even give them a copy for Christmas, right?
4. Develop the technology to actually create real digital giant robots that launch out of mobile phones, and then lead an army of them marching through central London, waving 'Mo-Bot High' banners.

Extra points if you manage that last one!

Anyway, check back tomorrow for our first bit of Fun Stupid Giant Robot Nonsense!

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Some Christmas Shopping Ideas That You May Wish To Consider

Many people, myself included, find this a very difficult time of year, as we are supposed to not only PART WITH MONEY to buy things for our "loved ones", we are expected to actually "think" about what they might "like". Exhausting.

Anyway, I am here to help any other lost souls stuck in this terrible predicament by offering the following suggestions for AWESOME THINGS that would make EXCELLENT CHRISTMAS PRESENTS!

1) A subscription to THE PHOENIX

The big one, the greatest, the gift that keeps on giving. Head over to the Phoenix site to check out subscriptions ranging from a £10 'taster' to a full year's worth of issues - £99 for a years' worth of fantastic comics!

And hey, every week you'll be getting a double-dose of my own work, with weekly instalments of The Pirates of Pangaea and How To Make (Awesome) Comics! If you happen to like that sort of thing.

2) Mo-Bot High: BOOK ONE

So maybe you want something to actually open and read on Christmas morning? Why not buy this rather excellent graphic novel - "a fantastic, uncontrollable riot of a story, absolutely brilliant fun", in fact*.

Pick it up for a snip on Amazon, or better ask your local bookshop or comics shop. Or you can always get a copy direct from the author who might even draw a nice little picture in it for you.

* review by Richard Bruton, Forbidden Planet.









3) Christmas Cards

Okay, you'd better be quick, but there's still just about time to order a few of these delightful, if nerdy, Christmas Cards of Awesomeness! Perfect for the Giant Robot / Gorilla / Batman / Cthulhu / Kierkegaard / Kitten fan in your life.











4) ORIGINAL ART!

Look, I have Christmas presents to buy too, so while I probably shouldn't, I'm opening up a couple of slots for commissions. Say perhaps you, or someone you know, enjoyed my A-Z of Awesomeness series, and would like your very own bit of original art of your favourite comics character doing something ridiculous. Well sir / madam, I can make that happen for you.

This week only, and they'll be drawn and posted by the weekend, so get in quick!

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.