SUMO RIDDLE BOMB!!!

Occasionally I like to draw something random, to cheer myself up / warm up / get the juices flowing / blah blah bah. Anyway, today was such a day, so I put out the call for Twitter to tell me what to draw. Leenygma suggested:

A cross between a Sumo Wrestler and a heroic version of the Riddler. With a jetpack.

Combining as it does two of my very favourite things to draw (obscenely fat guys, jetpacks), this was clearly a no-brainer for me. His name is SUMO RIDDLE BOMB!!! and I think you will agree he deserves his own Saturday morning cartoon series immediately.

More nonsense like this - next week? Oh, probably.

Displacement Activity

Today is my annual day to tidy up my studio! There is, I admit, a case to be made for making it a slightly more regular occurrence. Anyway, I don't want to do it, so you - you lucky people - get a blog post instead!

I've been flat out with work lately, getting everything together for the Mo-bot High book. I'm really happy with how it's all shaping up, can't wait for you guys to see it. Will post about it all a bit nearer the time, and show you some of what I've been up to...

Anyway! Couple of things I've been meaning to mention.

Firstly: Hashtag Funnies! I can only apologise to anyone who was enjoying these (and I include myself in that) for their complete disappearance - it's just down to workload, really. They were always supposed to be just a quick warm-up exercise, but I always ended up going over the allotted hour once you factored in the time for lettering, saving files, uploading etc, and I just really haven't got that kind of wiggle room at the moment. I do intend to get back to them - or something similar - as I kind of discovered I really, really enjoy doing the gag-strip-a-day thing. I've got half a notion to print a bunch of them off as a mini-comic at some point, so look for that in 2010! Mmmmaybe?

Secondly: while I often mention / whine about how busy I am with work, it occurred to me that I haven't actually blogged anything work-related in like a year, so thought I'd chuck a few sample pages of recent projects up on here. A lot of recent and current work is all under wraps, but here are some recently completed things that are OK to blog...

First up, here are a couple of educational maths-y comics, part of a series I've been working on for the BBC as part of their raw numbers project:

And here are some pages from a comic strip I did for a road safety mag aimed at kids starting secondary school:

And finally, continuing the public awareness theme, here are a couple of pages of 'pencils' from a comic aimed at reducing the incidence of Chronic Indigenous Disease amongst aboriginal communities in Australia:

You can't say I don't have a varied workload.

Right, and with that, these mounds of paper, unopened bank statements and printouts of old Lois Lane covers aren't going to organise themselves...

Superchap

This is a poster I drew as a private commission in December - someone got in touch asking for a picture of their boyfriend as Superman as a Christmas present for said boyfriend, which struck me as a rather lovely idea and one I was very happy to help out with.

Anyway, apparently the guy loved it, and it was a fun little job to do that pretty much paid for our Christmas dinner, so that all worked out nicely.

May you all have a thoroughly super new year! I am back at work, busily trying to kick the artwork for Mo-Bot High Book One into shape. Feels so nice to be drawing mo-bots again, I can't even begin to tell you. And lots more on that subject soon, I have no doubt...

Merry Christmas from Gun-Toting Penguin Santa

Because really, what sums up the spirit of Christmas like a penguin with a handgun?

Little Hashtag Funnies callback for you there.

Due to the miracle of advance-scheduled posting, I am off stuffing a Turkey right now... unless I've been like hit by a bus or something in the day or so between typing this and Christmas Day. God, that would be morbid, wouldn't it? Why am I being so morbid? It's Christmas, for God's sake.

Merry Christmas, everybody! I hope I don't get hit by a bus now.

Vampire Santa

Here, to strike terror into your hearts on this dark, icy, Christmas Eve... it's Vampire Santa!

Only one more door top open on the Advent Calendar of Awesomeness! I am setting it to advance-post for tomorrow, so check back for that and the final, finished advent calendar.

Paul Erdős Santa

Here's today's Santa! It's... Paul Erdős Santa!

This one's for my Dad, who has an Erdős number of 1. Yeah, that's right, you heard me. 1. I have provided illustrations for various of my Dad's books and lectures over the years, and so I have arbitrarily decided that this means I have an Erdős number of 2. If you have no idea what Erdős numbers are, there was a little piece on the subject on a recent episode of the wonderful podcast Radiolab, or you can just, y'know, look on wikipedia or something.

And to the 99.9% of regular readers of this blog who I have just completely baffled / alienated: it'll be mutant crabs or zombie pirate lizard-men or something again tomorrow, promise.

Giant Robot Santa

Hey, shall we open today's door on the Advent Calendar of Awesomeness?

It's... Giant Robot Santa! I had a feeling he might show up.

Giant Robot Santa actually visited our house early this year, and brought with him the best Christmas present imaginable, which is the news that my comic Mo-Bot High is going to be published in a collected edition in 2010 by David Fickling Books / Random House. To say I'm excited would be woefully inadequate - I'm doing everything I can to make sure this is the best-looking and most crammed-full-of-awesomeness book I can possibly manage.

More details in the new year! And another Santa tomorrow!