The Lost Emperor.

This is what I shall be doing with my spare time this year. I'm very excited about it:

(click to make bigger, as usual)

Here are a couple more previews. They're miles from being the finished article.

Love and Murder

Oh hello, I hope 2011 began in fine fashion for you. I intend to fill this year with some exciting things, and so I've spent much of the week having Ideas. A few of these relate to things I'll eventually be able to post here, but not all, and none are yet ready.

In the meantime, here are a few pictures:

There were three(!) new Marples on over Christmas and New Year. I not nearly so much of a fan of any of the versions over the years as I am of Suchet's Poirot, but I felt a quick doodle was in order anyway. For some reason, in my head, Marple should have very beady eyes; at least when she's sleuthing anyway. 

In this case I just felt like drawing something sincere. A little nervous sincere person to love you all. (Well, to love someone anyway). 

This is a very rough sketch done from memory of a photo I once saw. If anyone knows where it's from, or has seen the photo, it'd be great if you could let me know. For some reason her clothes fascinate me. (I'm not sure how accurate it is, so anything half-similar might be the picture I'm thinking of.)

These two come as a pair, and they are intentionally drawn and coloured in a simple way, particularly the chap with the green t-shirt. You'll see why soon. 

I'll be doing a new comic this year by the way. Adventures in the Airtrade, all four pages of it, isn't something that's going to take off (ahem) for me right now. I still know the story, and I'm sure I'll come to it one day, but there are a few things I didn't think through beforehand that I need to work on. It was, however, a great learning tool, and has helped me a lot when it came to writing this new story. 

The only thing I can promise so far is that I'll be breaking what seems to be one of the main rules of comics and doing lots of small panels to a page, Hergé-style.  Almost all of them will be rectangular. How you'll cope I can't imagine. 

Bowties are cool.

The yuletide brought with it, as it has done the past few years now, the Doctor Who Christmas Special. Which I quite enjoyed.

So I drew some pictures:

As companions go I like Amy and Rory a lot. Certainly more than any of the others since the programme restarted. I don't really remember the original run. 

Merry Christmas

Also here's Mike and Antonia: 

Man how we used to tear apart this town.

Here's a quick M. Ward, as promised, to complete the She & Him set.

Edit - I've since put the two in one picture: 

"She was not one for emptying her face of expression."

It was suggested I try draw a cartoon of Zooey Deschanel, and lo:

I think at the next opportunity I'm going to complete She & Him and draw M. Ward, because why not?

After that I may redraw Zooey with a better expression (an actual expression would be a bonus).

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

To begin, it is my brother Kieran's birthday today. Hopefully he'll have a terrifically acemazing day, but the poor chap's at school so who knows?

I haven't really drawn anything otherwise, as I've been dealing with this university thing. I do however have this to offer you, which is essentially a straight copy of this photograph. 

Hopefully I'll be picking up the pace now though, at least for a while.