I’ve been meaning to blog here about quite a few thing recently, things I’ve tweeted about and intended to create a more permanent archive for, but with the new year gathering pace it felt odd to dedicate posts to each bit of activity, so I’m putting it all in this one round up, staring with the most recent.

Richard Bruton over at Forbidden Planet International, wrote a hugely positive review of The Everyday Collection Four.

I was asked to contribute an illustration for Hype Machine’s Zeitgeist 2010 rundown of the top 50 Musical Artists of the year. I drew one of my favourites, The National who ranked at number 3. I’ve added this illustration to my Gallery too.

As part of Dan Berry’s wonderful ‘Snapshot Interviews’, I was interviewed over at his blog The Comics Bureau. Many of the comic artists and writers he interviewed were asked the same questions, so it’s interesting to compare the different backgrounds, processes and views on the current UK scene.

One of the Dan’s questions was “What does your workspace/studio look like?” so instead on describing it I took some photos of my studio in my new(ish) flat. Here’s a Flickr slideshow of them all.

I was also asked a single question as part of Avoid the Future’s One Question Interviews. On the back of my story in Solipsistic Pop 3, the question was about the influence of video games.

Speaking of Solipsistic Pop 3, since it’s launch at Thought Bubble Festival last November, I have completely neglected to promote it here on my blog. Well, if you’re a regular reader you should know by now that SolPop is the foremost anthology of UK comics talent. Volume 3 has an all ages theme inspired by the comics of our youth, The Beano and The Dandy etc. I have a 2 page autobiographical story drawn in a Beano style called ‘The Best Day of My Life (So Far)’ which opens the book, after Marc Ellerby’s wonderful Chloe Noonan cover comic (concluding on the back of course). I’ve put page 1 of my story in my Gallery.

The book got numerous reviews back in November, of note are the FPI review and Paul Gravett included it in his ‘Great British Comics Now’ feature saying my story was “A strong opener” and “…warm without being sentimental.” All 3 volumes of Solipsistic Pop are available in the SolPop Shop.

I’ve redesigned the site a little bit and added a Blood Blokes section with a fancy preview  of issue 1 which will be coming out sometime this year. I’ve also added a few recent illustrations to my Gallery, the complete 6 page comic ‘The Tears of Tommy Cooper’ from Solipsistic Pop 2 and a few pages of a Lego Pirates comic I did for Lego and Kickers.

This came about through We Are Words + Pictures who organised a comics workshop at Legoland Live last Summer. Myself, Kayla Hillier and Mike Leader were paid to go to Legoland in Windsor for 2 days one sunny weekend in July and encourage kids to draw comics. It was awesome. There’s a full report on the WAW+P blog. After which I added extra story and activity pages and coloured it all, ready for kids to download. Though now it’s finally done I’ve not be told where online Kickers have put it! I could write a whole other blog post about the back and forth involved in dealing with two large companies at the same time, but I won’t. Instead here’s a photo of the Lego I just had to buy for reference and one of me at Legoland (more photos at the WAW+P blog).

“Aarrrgh, me hearties, we’re tax deductable! Aargh!”

I think that about covers it for all the 2010/very early 2011 news. Thanks for reading my humble blog and I hope you enjoy all the work I’m planning on unleashing in 2011.