Tag: Lucy the Octopus

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Lucy, ?uestlove and Nuno…

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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!

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Spring Comiket 2012

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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.

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Lucy the Octopus in 16 pixels squared

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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

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Dino-Saw-Us Passport Stickers

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This year at the Web & Mini Comix Thing, the fabulous Lizz Lunney and the equally fabulous Timothy Winchester have organised a fun little something known as the Dino-Saw-Us Passport!

The first 180 Visitors to the show can pick up a special passport when they come to the show and many of the comic creators exhibiting will give away free stickers for the passports! Very cool! You can see a list of all the lovely artists taking part here, and a sneaky peaky of the Tempo Lush stickers below…