THE NORTH PHASE

My friend Gavin is part of the group that runs The North Phase - a marvelous North East listings and reviews site.  I used to write a lot for it - film reviews mostly, but with the odd gig thrown in when they were available.  The site went on hiatus over a year ago while they worked on improving the look of the site and I started to concentrate more on comics and illustrating again.

However, it's gradually starting to get back up and running.  I noticed there was the odd gig review and news item getting posted and now Gavin has me down for an event to review tonight.

If anyone is interested in my attempts at magazine journalism or my opinions on the last Indiana Jones film, check out the Rhod Gilbert review and the majority of the film reviews posted on there.  I promise they are way more coherent than my ramblings on this blog!  

Whatever you do, though, check out the site as it has the potential to be a great and relevant guide to North East culture.

EMPTY SHOP IN THE PAPERS

My friends at Empty Shop - the North East's premier grassroots art gallery - had a great write-up in the Sunderland Echo on Friday.  As well as promoting them and the shop, the double-page spread featured examples of art and photography from past shows - including my "Welcome To Hawick" postcard design from earlier in the year.

Lovely!

COUPLEDOM PROMO 2

Thanks to Jack Fallows' bit of encouragement, I've spent the week cracking on with my next comic Coupledom with an aim to actually getting it finished.  I know - who'd have thought it?  Andy actually finishing something!  Yesterday I put in a good 6 or 7 hours work, only stopping to eat a ginger biscuit.  Now that's dedication, my friends.

And I'm pleased to say that all the strips are now completed.  You can see a kind of teaser of them above (as a sequel to the last promo).  Some of the work there - the last strips completed - I would consider some of the best autobiographical illustrations I've done.  Although that's probably not saying much.

All that's left to do is the front and back covers.  I wanted to finish them last night but I hit a major snag and so have to rethink the concept somewhat.  Disappointing, as for a while the cover was the only thing I was certain of!

You should hopefully be seeing a posting about the comic's completion sometime over the next couple of weeks.  Beware!

DANIEL JOHNSTON POSTER

Last month I did this poster for Portions For Foxes, a North East gig promoter who have organised the Daniel Johnston gig at The Sage in November.

The proviso was that I incorporate his Jeremiah frog character into the design. After knocking concepts back and forth for a bit, we settled on a design of Johnston with his characters as his backing band. Being a fan of his I wanted the poster to be as special as I could get it, so I painted it in watercolours. I also wanted it to have the feel of a Daniel Johnston painting, so I recreated his signature for the title.

I hope he likes it!

THOUGHT BUBBLE 2009

Just so people know, this November I will be exhibiting for the first time at the prestigious Thought Bubble comics convention in Leeds. I've got a table booked for myself and fellow Paper Jam cohorts Gary Bainbridge and Paul Thompson. We're representing ourselves mostly, but will be stocking other Paper Jam comics (provided they chip in).

This is quite exciting for me, as I've never done a proper comics convention - with a proper comics crowd - before. What's more, looking at the list, there will loads of my contemporaries there - people I've only spoken to online (Adam Cadwell, Banal Pig, Scott Jason Smith) and those I've admired from afar (Marc Ellerby, Lizz Lunney, John Allison). I hope I don't make too much of a tit of myself.

In order to counteract this potential tittery, I'm working on various exciting projects to sell on the stall - including, but not limited to, the new autobio collection Coupledom. Keep an eye out as I'll be drawing attention to these on the blog.

Anyway, Thought Bubble is on over the weekend of 19-21st November and I'll be exhibiting on Saturday 21st. If you read this and will be there, please come over and say hello. I'll be the beardy one.

TUMBLE AND FALL

My guest strip for Dennis J Reinmuller's fantastic webcomic Tumble and Fall is posted today.

Please check it out and leave nice comments about it.

GUEST COUPLEDOM

Disgustingly talented fellow comics raconteur Jack Fallows has premiered his guest strip for my next autobiographical comic collection on his blog.

I guess that means I'll have to get it finished now...

NARC MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATION (SEPTEMBER 09)

I'm the only illustrator in NARC magazine this month. As well as illustrating the 'opinion' piece, I've done the picture question on the 'pub quiz' page.

The opinion page is about young people treating us older (but not that older) music fans with distain for daring to like the same bands they do. Fucking young people - don't get me started... But anyway, in illustrating the piece I went with a simple concept that I felt summed up the theme...

For the picture question I went for an illustration of Bruce Springsteen, who turns 60 this month and has been doing the festival rounds. My sister and I got my Dad tickets for his 60th, but my Mam ended up going with him rather than me. I'm still very bitter. Anyway, here's the Boss in all his sexy, sexy glory...

NARC is in the shops and pubs now. Make sure to pick up a copy if you see it and show your friends.