Penelope Bagieu at Institut Francais

There have been so many good comic events and siginings this past couple of weeks! I really didn't know where to start, so I decided to pick the one which had most impact on me. Some of you might know that I've been making the yearly pilgrimage to the Angouleme Comics Festival in France. It was there that I discovered a graphic artist Penelope Bagieu, here is a selection of some of her books...

And here is some inner artwork of Cadavre Exquis which has been made into a film.

Imagine my excitement when I discovered the lady herself would be doing a talk as part of the BD & Comics Passion Festival, so off I went to learn a bit more about french comics.

 Here is Penelope talking with Paul Gravett, I discovered she studied Animation, like I did, but gave it up to persue comics making. Bagieu stated that animation taught her how to draw and how to be an actor. We were even lucky enough to watch her draw as she spoke with Mr Gravett.

Penelope told us she gets frustrated by the tag 'Girly BD' and insists that they are good comics, with good stories and good characters. She also said that if she has a ten line bio in an article, within the the first two lines will reference to the fact she is female, to which Penelope exclaimed "Get over it!"

Here is Bagieu drawing a girl wearing a 'London style' look. 

Penelope rose to fame with her blog about her life which she drew in comics, she posted it EVERYDAY! What an inspiration, Penelope also revealed that once it was posted she would never look at it again. Maybe this is good advice for those of us making diary comics, that way you can make sure you don't censor yourself and you are writing real heartfelt accounts of life.

I was brave enough to give her some of my diary comics, here she is having a look at them.

I feel really lucky that I got to sit down and talk to her about making comics and what it is like to live in Paris, what a delightful lady she was to meet, very funny and charming, I was also lucky enough to get this amazing sketch in my book!!!

MCM Comic Expo 2013

It's been many years since I last had a table at MCM but Francesca  and myself decided to give it another go. The last time we were there, our table was right next to a stage which had crazy drumming and really loud Jpop music all day. It sent us insane! Within minutes of arriving this year, it all came flooding back to me. It's really loud, loads of people, and swelteringly hot, it's too much! Here is half of the venue...see what I mean!
                  

That said, I quite liked it this time around. Once you get used to the constant barrage of cosplay and free hugs its fun and you just have to go with the flow. Here is a picture of the comics I had on sale

                   
I was selling my new all ages, full colour comic The Monsters of Rock! Also I had the second issue of Edible Comics, which is also in full colour and fully edible! Nom nom nom.
                                        
Many familiar faces selling their wonderful small press goodies, I wish I had taken more pictures, here is the fabulous Richy K Chandler
                   
                                                Here is Sean Azzopardi full of beans! (coffee)
                   
                         I love the Cosplay at this event and there were some super examples this year
                                          
                             
                              
                                      
                
                          
                                      
                            
                       
Phew! Thats a lot of dressing up! I found this amazing video that Sneaky Zebra made of all the outfits, it really captures the day, can you spot all your favourite characters?  

                     

On Sunday I went to the Letraset Manga School and did a colour blending workshop with Laura Watton-Davies. I can't believe I've been using promarkers for years and didn't know about the blender pen, ahhhh it would have come in so handy for so many things! So then I spent about a million pounds on more promarkers, aqua markers and more pens, pens, pens. I actually bought some comics to!

Look at all those lovely colour comics! I got to meet Robert (Kryten) Llewellyn from Red Dwarf, he signed that lovely book there on the left. The next MCM comic expo is in October at the Excell centre and it's worth a visit for the cosplay alone! Get your outfit ready!!

History Week.

Last week was 'History Week' at school and to celebrate in true artistic style, I helped design a picture timeline of Finchley. The aim was to show our school at different parts of history and what the area would have looked like in the past, starting in pre London swamp times and including World War Two. Here is the whole thing on the wall in the hall!

Several groups took on different eras with the help of the other adults in the class, I will focus mainly on the parts I was involved with. I started off in Roman times and with a little help from a great book called 'A Street Through Time', and took my group on a journey through time! The children quickly became obsessed with the funny looking toilet but I managed to get some wonderful drawings. One of my favourites was a Roman kitchen, here is a close up..

I got the children to draw themselves in Roman clothes!

Our next stop took us to a time of plague and fire, 1666. Again there were some fantastic drawings, particularly the plague infested corpses lining the streets!

Up next for my group was 1912, the year our school was built.

Time was running short now so the school is shown as part built, I really liked the builders that we decided to put in at the last minute, here is a close up.

We decided to draw a school of the future, I think the children enjoyed this part the most, they were imagining really crazy things! Here is a collage of the whole piece......

Loads of ideas, the ones I really liked were, the rat rockets and the flying teachers! See below!

Well, that was History week, I hope you enjoyed all of 2C's hard work, and I hope you learned some good facts about the past!

I have been really busy this Easter, eating loads of eggs! I did do a few drawing bits. I'm in the process of writing an all ages comic about a rock band who happen to be a bunch of monsters. I drew all the characters individually and layered them in Photoshop. Here is that artwork

I then used Promarkers to add colour. I wasn't happy with how the background came out. It was quite streaky and at the moment I'm obsessed with really flat colours, so I sampled the colours I had used and filled in the background digitally. Here are the results!

I'm working on the comic now and will hopefully have it for MCM comic expo next month!

Laydeez Do Comics

Last week I was bestowed the great honour of being the guest blogger for Laydeez Do Comics. For those not in the know, Laydeez Do Comics is the first woman led graphic novel forum in the UK. It is run by Nicola Streeton and Sarah Lightman who are authors, illustrators and curators in their own right. The meetings happen once a month on a Monday evening in Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road. They have guest speakers talk about the work they produce aided by a slideshow depicting paintings, panels and this month even rugs!

They have had amazing guests in the past including some graphic novel royality such as Posy Simmonds, Alison Bechdel, and Darryl Cunningham to name a few! The guests' work is usually has an autobiographical twist supporting the new wave of graphic novels and comics that aren't just men in tights! It's a lovely evening and always inspiring to creators and non creators and of course there is the cake!

Laydeez Do Comics has become so popular that branches have sprung up worldwide, so if you are near Chicago or San Francisco be sure to make a visit! If you are closer to the UK shores then please try Leeds, Bristol, Glasgow or London. All the information can be found on the Laydeez Do Comics website which can be found here and if you have time please look here for my guest blog I drew this month.

Golden Gesso Frame!

This is a bit of a different post today, I wanted to share my lovely frame with you. It has a 1960s 'High Art' copy of a Doors concert poster inside! I've been looking for ages for the Janis Joplin poster in black and white where she is only wearing love beads...but I cant find it anywhere. So I picked this one instead.

The print is A3 in size and the whole thing is sitting over the record player, shrine like! Paul very kindly put it up today using his shiny new hammer. Also as this week has a music theme, I thought I would share a video I put on Youtube a while ago. It's a cover version of a Mazzy Star song called I've Been Let Down. I can't believe I'm drawing attention to it by putting it on my blog aahhhh!

Here it is!

The finished rugby piece.

Here is the finished rugby commission!