I Can't Sing; Behind the Scenes!

Back here I noted Harry Hill and Steve Brown's musical 'I Can't sing' which is currently in pre-production for a West End launch next month. Steve is not only Harry's musical director and the writer of many TV theme tunes (Not Going Out, TV Burp, Pub Landlord, etc) he's also a producer at Atlantic records AND a very funny comedian and writer (he played Glenn Ponder in Knowing me, Knowing you with Alan Partridge for instance, and sang a self-written funny song every week on Jasper Carrot's live TV show).
Well, Harry Hill you all know. Here's a comic strip where I wrote and drew both Harry and Steve into the action, from the Dandy in 2011.

Minnie

Minnie The Viking- well, it's obvious really isn't it. This month's Dennis The menace Megazine features the story- but it's only this one picture, the rest is all about Dennis (well, it's his magazine!)

When does a Lighthouse Look like Dennis the Menace?

When there's a storm at below zero!


See more incredible images here

Simon Hoggart, Beano fan, says Goodbye

The political columnist Simon Hoggart has died. He worked for The Guardian continually from 1968 to 2013. In 2008 He had the unmitigated pleasure of meeting me at the Cartoon Museum in London during the Press launch of the 70th birthday of The Beano, being one of several journalists I met and was interviewed by that day. He was delighted to tell me that he used to look forward to reading The Beano during the late 50s/early 60s, sitting on the bridge by his school, legs dangling over the parapet, and especially liked The Bash street Kids, who he was still able to name! He introduced me to James Naughtie of BBC radio (also a closeted Beano-ite!) and wrote a lovely article about it, mentioning me by name and recounting our converstaion in his next Guardian column. 
I'd been to a recording of his radio show, the News Quiz in 2001, where the guests included then-Spectator editor, now Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, BBC Political editor, John Sergeant, also a Beano reader, and the late Linda Smith, who was surprisingly mute offstage. Anyway, I was sorry to hear Simon Hoggart died yesterday, his dry political commentary was always very amusing.
Read his obituary here

Literally Overnight

Over on Comic Book and TV legend Mark Evanier's blog today, Joe Melchione wrote to ask…"Having read your columns and blog for the last two decades, there appears to be a frequent pattern of employers (both comic book and TV related) asking you to produce a script virtually/literally overnight. I have trouble understanding why this happens so often. . . why such unrealistic deadlines? Wouldn't the whole creative team benefit from a balanced schedule?" To which Mark replied, concisely, "Yes".
To which I would only add to Joe, you wanna try DRAWING a project overnight, and I do mean literally. Our lead times in the 80s tended to be 6-8 weeks, today due to email speeding up communications so radically, some of them are 2-3 days. Every once in a while, maybe once a month or so, it really is needed tomorrow or even TODAY! So that's just the way things are now. It favours the fast guys, of course. Signed, a fast guy.

Here's Mark's always-excellent blog: News From ME

The Lone Menace

A recent rough for production purposes which I'm pretty certain has never been seen before! Of course, it's Dennis The Menace and Gnasher posing as The Lone Ranger and Tonto, in honour of the recent movie. (As you may guess, I found a file of unseen stuff hiding in a corner of the laptop this afternoon!)

Unseen Menace

Here's a page from an unpublished Dennis The Menace (I think- let me know if it WAS printed!) which I was quite pleased with when I did it back in 2012. Colours by the Colourist Of The Year, Nika, of course.

New Old Project

Here's a little glimpse of a project I've been working on intermittently since... er, 1985! Here I am with my friend, Trish, onstage on December 26th 1986, during a live show which was filmed and is part of this scheme. As soon as I get half an hour or so I will press on with it and hope to get it finished for the 30th anniversary in 2015!

Meeting Our Public

Occasionally the publishers loosen our drawing board manacles and allow us to be seen in public- not in daylight though, as you can see in this official D C Thomson photo of me leaning in to disguise my loominess with a family of Beano fans on July 24th 2013, at the Beano exhibition at London's fashionable South Bank. That same night, we were treated to free champagne and canapés and a taste of a colossal Beano birthday cake, photo and further information available at this link here. Anyway, a few Beano readers got to meet cartoonists like me, Paul Palmer, Gary Northfield, Laura Howell, Alexander Matthews and Wilbur Dawburn as well as a host of actual D C Thomson staff, all out of the office for once.

Back!!!

Sometimes you get to draw an old friend- I'm glad to say that mini-est of Menaces is back next week with a brand new mini-strip in The Beano! I drew Bea from 1998 until 2009, 11 years in which Bea aged about six months!