lucytheoctopus.net will kick off with a week of daily strips before settling into regular weekly installments every Wednesday.
In the mean time have a look at some of the characters in Lucy’s world!
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Category: Comics
Lucy, ?uestlove and Nuno…
Okay – I’ll be frank. I’m posting this old Lucy the Octopus comic strip, because one of my musical heroes ?uestlove, drummer for the Roots mentioned another of my musical heroes Nuno Bettencourt, guitarist for Extreme in a recent tweet and I remembered I’d done a strip where the two of them jam with Lucy! So this post is basically made to tweet back to ?uestlove!
Lucy's Dream Team
Personal ?uestlove related story!
5 years back, my pregnant wife and I were chatting over baby names. She wanted an Arabic name (what with her being from Iraq and all), and we’d narrowed it down to about five. I didn’t really feel a connection with most of them so it was going to be hard to call the fruit of my loins something that didn’t spark. I was talking this through with a couple of friends before the show at a Roots gig (who are battling with Tori Amos over the act I’ve seen live the most – around 8 times a piece I reckon) at Somerset House and it clicked that my musical inspiration ?uestlove’s full name is Ahmir Khalib Thompson. One of the names on our short list was Emir. Different spelling but close enough for it to suddenly gel. After the Roots rocked the house I went home and let my wife know we had a baby name we could both get behind!
Anyway, the strip was made as part of the program of the Oxford based 2009 Caption Comics Convention. It’s a bit hard to look at three year old artwork when you hope you’ve improved but what the hell!
Free Comic Book Day 2012
Had a great time heading into Gosh Comics today. Other than picking up my usual standing orders of monthly comic goodness (Marvel and Dark Horse stuff), I got hold of a lovely lot of free stuff, what with this being Free Comic Book Day and all!
Free Comics FCBD 2012
Check out my freebies: the Top Shelf Kids Club, Bongo Comics inc’ SpongeBob Comics, Dark Horse‘s Buffy / The Guild and Serenity / Star Wars, Papercutz‘ The Smurfs / Disney Fairies, Marvel‘s Amazing Spider-Man and Claude TC‘s mini comic, Immortal Ewan and the rod of Rasputin. Claude is a good man and makes hilarious, brilliantly drawn comics.
Ray Friesen and Sarah McIntyre FCBD 2012
Aside from getting to catch up with comic scene buds Karrie Fransman, Mike Medaglia and Josceline Fenton, I got to sit and watch my 4 year old boy Emir draw comics alongside the supreme talents of Sarah McIntyre and Ray Friesen. It was great being introduced to Ray and his wonderful kids comic Pirate Penguin vs Ninja Chicken which me and Emir enjoyed on the tube on the way home. Ray also impressed us with this sketch of Emir’s favourite animal (for today anyway), the anteater…
Anteater by Ray Friesen
Sarah did a brilliant bit of comic work featuring Emir. Click here to see it plus Sarah’s other thoughts on the day!
All this fun inspired Emir to draw his first ever comic strips…
Emir's first comic strip: Two Monsters
Emir's second comic strip: Dinosaurs
When you’re into comics, it’s not hard to get your kid to share your passions!
Spring Comiket 2012
Had a great time at Spring Comiket in the Bishopsgate Institute, East London on Saturday. The Comica organisers Paul Gravett, Peter Stanbury and Megan Donnolley did an amazing job, as always, pulling such a big shindig together, and bringing in the crowds.
The bustling Comiket floor. Where's Timothy Winchester?
I’ve been to Comiket for the last four years, starting back when all I had to sell was Delicate Axiom and the Lucy the Octopus Mini Comic, when Comiket consisted of around twelve tables of creators selling their wares in a relatively small room in the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Good to see how its snowballed!
This time around I wasn’t selling, but catching up with old comic scene friends and meeting creators. I also managed to pick up a lovely bounty of small press comics…
Suki Kabuki displays small-press comic goodness
Top row:
Sevillana featuring the Alien Battle Monkey of Doom by Marina Williams
Jumping the Shark by Sammy Borras
Middle Row:
Panic Attacks 1: In the Beginning by Francesca Cassavetti
Places I Left You by Douglas Noble
Cafe Suada Vol 1. by Jade Sarson
Wu Wei by Mike Medaglia
Bottom row:
The Human Beings and Social Notworking by Sofia Niazi
Fecal Depot 3 by Aaron ‘Smurf’ Murphy
The Life of Noise by Emma Mould and Andrew Godfrey
The Phoenix Issues 14 & 15
Alex "Smurf" Murphy holds Fecal Depot 3
Very nice running into Aaron ‘Smurf’ Murphy and picking up the latest volume of his compendium of work, Fecal Depot. The issue contains Zardok Infiltration, a story that I’d written for the hugely talented Aaron to illustrate. It was great to see how good his art for the story looks in print.
Marina Williams and Sevillana featuring the Alien Battle Monkey of Doom, plus cup cakes
Nice to meet Kiwi, Marina Williams and get a copy of Sevillana featuring the Alien Battle Monkey of Doom. Note to the Comics Industry: Free gourmet cupcakes with every comic is an excellent idea.
Jade Sarson hides behind Cafe Suada
Next up I spotted future comics megastar Jade Sarson. I’m loving Cafe Suada!
Douglas Noble holding Places I Left You
Picked up a cool looking stand alone comic from Douglas Noble. After the show in the pub, we reminisced about growing up playing games on a ZX Spectrum (coincidentally 30 years old today). We both agreed Horace and the Spiders kicked monkeys compared to Horace goes Skiing.
Andrew Godfrey holdsThe CF Diaries 1 while Emma Mould holds Secret Language 1
Good to see the lovely Andrew Godfrey and Emma Mould again, who despite hailing from Bristol seem to manage to make it to all the London comic events!
Hooligans, Sally-Anne Hickman and Francesca Cassavetti
At every comic show there’s always a few bad apples who spoil the tone for everyone else. See Sally-Anne Hickman and Francesca Cassavetti above.
Alex Fitch interviewing James Turner
My final pic is of the great comics journalist / interviewer Alex Fitch having a chat with Super Animal Adventure Squad creator James Turner. Alex did a marathon session totaling four hours on interviewing various comic talents. You’ll be able to hear the results on Panel Borders (the UK’s only weekly broadcast radio show about comics), broadcast on Resonance (104.4 FM in London and available online everywhere).
It was a good day – always inspiring! In fact, I’m off to draw a comic right now.
New animations and other website updates complete!
Phewee! After months of nabbing a few hours here and there to update my website it’s pretty well there! I think I’ve tampered with every page trying to bring you a top quality Tempo Lush website that you deserve!
Maestro the Cat Animated Gif
The biggest leap forward is a newly built portfolio section showcasing the cream of my drawings. I’ve also been working on a tonne of new animated pictures. Check out every section of the site to see them all!
Space Themed Animated Top Panel
A Southbank Chat with Simone Lia
Today I had the pleasure of interviewing one of my biggest comic creator inspirations, the hugely talented and as it turns out, great fun to interview, Simone Lia.
Aside from creating some fantastic work in newspapers and magazines, setting up a small press comic publisher Cabanon Press with Tom Gauld, writing and drawing four children’s books (Billy Bean’s Dream is on a constant loop at my son’s bedtime right now) and churning out weekly strips for children’s comics The DFC and The Phoenix, Simone is probably best known for graphic novel Fluffy about an extremely cute bunny and the build up of crises that his human parent has to deal with.
In Simone’s new graphic novel Please God, Find Me a Husband!, she tackles the theme of looking for a new partner while relying on her spirituality for guidance. She also introduces a new protagonist… herself, sometimes depicted very much like Penelope Cruz for reasons you’ll have to read the comic to find out!
With Simone Lia on the Southbank
The interview is due to be broadcast at 8pm on Sunday 15 April on Resonance (104.4 FM in London and available online everywhere), as part of Alex Fitch’s Panel Borders (the UK’s only weekly broadcast radio show about comics).
You can also listen to the interview online whenever you like here…
http://archive.org/details/PanelBordersDepictingThePersonal
Despite my rambling questions and less than slick interview technique, Simone gives some great insite into the creative process of the graphic novel and what’s behind the story.
The Book of Dad Jokes
Ever wondered where dads get their bad jokes from?
I’ve been sorting through art for my ongoing website overhaul and came across this 4-page comic that has never seen the light of day. I drew it for the Observer 2010 Graphic Short Story Competition, where it came precisely nowhere! Still, thought it should get a public airing…
If you liked this (or didn’t) and fancied reading another comic about parenting, definitely check out Francesca Casavetti’s small press classic The Most Natural Thing in the World.
Parallel Lives Launch
On Monday I went to the Laydeez Do Comics evening off Brick Lane (that’s in East London for all you non-locals) and got to hear a little about all six of the very talented interns of the London Print Studio Comics Collective: Lily Rose Beardshaw, Abraham Christie, Shamisa Debroey, Merlin Evans, Susan Yan Mach and Jade Sarson.
The amazing Karrie Fransman devised and taught on the comics internship program, and crammed it full of workshops, meetings, exercises and experiences, honing the skills of the young comic creators and preparing them for professional life. It sounds like an intensely rich 6 months in which the interns must have picked up tips and knowledge that would normally take a decade of going to comic events to discover.
This lead to tonight’s launch party and exhibition at the London Print Studio celebrating the end of the internship and the launch of the collective’s anthology Parallel Lives…
Here’s Shamisa Debroey who’ll sadly be heading back to Brussels in a couple of weeks…
Shamisa Debroey
Susan Yan Mach with some of her amazing comic pages…
Susan Yan Mach
Abraham Christie and Shamisa Debroey putting on a brave face at the end of all their hard work.
Abraham Christie and Shamisa Debroey having a laugh!
Jade Sarson and the main character from her wonderful looking upcoming graphic novel Siddown!
Jade Sarson
And here’s a drawing Jade did on the studio window…
Jade Sarson's impressive window drawing
Finally here’s my efforts on the window. It was fun drawing with interested people walking past outside, and there’s not many parties you can to where you can draw on the windows without being chucked out!
My less than impressive window drawing
Lucy the Octopus in 16 pixels squared
I’ve been working on some updates for the Tempo Lush website, like the new blog header above.
One fun but incredibly tricky element of tweaking the site was making a new favicon. For those who don’t know, and trust me – I didn’t until I really had to, a Favicon is the tiny icon that appears next to the web address in many internet browsers (certainly in Safari and Firefox). The trick is to get an image into a 16 pixel squared space. It’s kind of like the graphic design equivalent of writing your name on a grain of rice.
For my favicon I depicted my character Lucy the Octopus listening to some kick ass tunes on her favourite over sized headphones. For those of you reading this on a browser that displays favicons you can see the 16 pixel version in the address bar now, but here’s a larger version to see Lucy in all her pixelated glory!
Lucy the Octopus Favicon
Goodbye Monsterville and Hello & Goodbye Illuminate!
I had a fun filled weekend visiting two exciting illustration / comic events, cultured kind of guy that I am.
Friday evening found me hitting the library, which was not as studious as it sounds. The inside of the British Library was almost unrecognisable as for one night only it was transferred into Illuminate! A celebration of Illustration. With music provided by Mr. Scruff, there was excellent and eclectic company as work of Quentin Blake hung next to the drawings of Jamie Hewlett and a host of other amazing artists.
It was good to see many of my buds from the London comic scene rubbing shoulders, including the very talented Karen Rubins who I’m currently working on a short but exciting comic project with. It was great to see her work displayed in such a fantastic venue.
Ink drawing from Tales by Ghost Light by Karen Rubins
My photo doesn’t do her line work justice so best to check out Karen’s online portfolio here!
Death Do Us Part: Comic Sculpture by Karrie Fransman
Likewise, the picture above taken on my iPhone fails to capture how cool Karrie Fransman’s work is. As well as displaying her comic art, Karrie ran one of the many workshops that was taking place on the night. In her case this was a popular 3D Narrative Life Drawing workshop which included Karrie dressing up as a horse for the benefit of the surrounding artists who all grabbed the chance to draw live Medieval characters. Here’s my own efforts…
3D Narrative Life Drawing Sketches
On Sunday I headed to a rare event that appealed to my 4 year old son as much as me. Illustrators Sarah McIntyre and Ed Vere not only gave readings of their fantastic children’s books Morris the Mankiest Monster and Bedtime for Monsters, but had a nail-biting monster drawing showdown too! You can see more on the event on Sarah’s own blog here.
Ed Vere and Sarah McIntyre drawing in books at Monsterville
Sarah McIntyre and fan with "Vern & Lettuce" and Ed Vere's "The Getaway"
It was brilliant for me and my son to meet and chat with these illustration greats! It’s only a shame that the event was marking the final weekend of Monsterville after 6 months at the Children’s Story Centre in Stratford. The planned Comics / Superheroes event there looks like it should be good too though!
