Something new for Dennis

When I'm not drawing weekly stuff, I'm doing other things. Clearer than that I cannot be. Here's a little sneaky peek at something I did a while ago which I'm told may burst forth into fruition soon. More details as and when!

Stamp it out with Dan

Recently I drew this special one-off for a Royal Mail event when the Comics stamps were issued. It's just one of the many thousands of pages I have drawn but unlike the ones in the weekly comics or annuals, it's proabably not been seen by many comics connoisseurs. Hand coloured by me.

Go Bananas!

 If you like bananas, then the Dandy is for you. Not only does it feature Bananaman himself as drawn by Wayne Thompson, but it also now has a healthy dollop of The Banana Bunch, written and drawn by me and coloured by Nika. While it's not true we're renaming the comic 'The Banana', it IS true you have to BE bananas to work for it.

Ssh! You Know What

It'll soon be time for The ********, you know, The *******  Games, the ones in London next month. It's just that we're not allowed to use the actual word ********, believe it or not! Back in 2008, The  ********* were held in China, so that year's Dennis The Menace annual had these endpapers of the Softy ********* (Prince Charles, patron) and the Menace *********, Princess Anne at the helm.
Drawing by me, hand colours by Ruth.


Sorry about the poor copies. I couldn't locate the originals. So, ebay, look out.

Dennis and Dan. . . and Korky

 Waverley Publishing house in Edinburgh (of course) have joined in the lenticular notebook craze with these two nice items coming out in september. I drew them back in March and was pleased with the end result... especially Nika's computer colouring that looks just like hand colouring.

Waverley have published several Beano and Dandy books over the years and they do a nice job.

I Had a Dream...

I had a really odd dream last night. I went to the shops to get the Dandy and right next to it was a new comic called 'The Bucket'. (I know, worst name yet!) It was only 99p for 32 pages and was printed on slightly off-white, creamy paper, mainly in red and yellow. Upon opening it's pages it turned out to be quite good (I'm keeping the titles and content of the strip to myself! It's easier than thinking up new ideas!) and was edited by someone I know at DC Thomson. It was all rather exciting till I realized 'it was all just a dream'...
Or...

I Wonder

I've just realized that I've done 30 episodes of 'Fred's Bed' , piggybacking it if you like, with the unstoppable David Sutherland, for The Beano over the past year and never mentioned it here! Well, here's a sneak preview of either next week's or the following week's, featuring a nice historical castle.

Oh! Calamity!

No, it's not a Robertson Hare anecdote (there's one for the teenagers!) it's an UNPUBLISHED Calamity James page intended for a Beano book a few years ago. I thought it looked OK but I must have done something wrong as it's remained unseen since I drew it. Who knows!

My first Beano annual job

In 1997 I finally got to work for The Beano after many years of trying! The late Ken Cummings was the canny lad who offered me work, and after a handful of 'Comic Libraries', then-Beano editor, Euan Kerr, gave me this- my first annual job!

I thought maybe one or two readers may like to see this, one of the very few examples I have of script/rough/finished work I still retain.

1. Euan's letter including the script.
2. Euan's quick sketch of what he wanted. This wasn't a regular occurance- but Euan did do this when he had a specific layout in mind.
3. My initial rough- really a working out of characters and positions and so on.You'll see that I rejected some ideas while others are virtually finished.
4. The final black and white page.
If you want to see what it looked like once I'd coloured it- it's in the Beano Book for 2001!

Today's DANDY

I finally found something I wanted to do, it's The Banana Bunch!  We did a couple recently for the 2013 Dandy annual and it seemed that it went well- so here they come in the weekly in all-new widescreen full colour adventures! You won't know quite what to expect next- I didn't, and I wtite 'em, too!  So, don't walk, RUN to your nearest stockist and have a look. Or preferrably buy a copy! It's what Wednesdays are for!