Neck and neck

A new social media has hit Lakeland, all the way from Australia. It's called necking.

To play, you 'neck and nominate' a contact on social media,; first you down an entire drink (a pint of beer, pint of vodka, meths, domestos, your choice of tipple), then you undertake whatever you have been challenged to do by the last person who contacted you to do this.

It's a sort of chain mail for the modern age. And the brain dead. So far, local kids have been seen jumping off high bridges dressed as Batman, diving into icy rivers. One young optimist even issued a 'neck and nominate' to local MP and LibDem president Tim Farron.

Local health experts have issued warnings against this new craze but of course, that will only make it cooler to do. Let's hope none of the kids make the Darwin Awards.

Below are the ideas I pitched to my steamed editor. One was deemed unlikely to get past legal (I wonder if you can spot which). One made the front page of The Westmorland Gazette.

Post your vote in the comments for which you would have liked to see on the front of this week's newspaper. Then dive over to my website to see if you were right.

How to Draw a Reindeer

This post was inspired by author David Hewson. On Twitter this morning, he commented: "Fine. So I can't draw a reindeer. Will go to work then."

Now, I don't want to distract him from writing any of his splendid novels but here is a simple way to amaze your friends with your own, hand-drawn reindeer.

Almost any animal* can be drawn from a combination of these three basic shapes.

(* possibly not an amoeba)

So start off with a squished circle for the reindeer head.

Add a rectangle for the neck.

Another oval for the body.

Some lines and triangles for what one of my students memorably called 'thread legs' (thereby avoiding the trickly problem of knees).

Three more slightly pointy squished circles for ears and tails (don't let the technical language put you off).

You'll notice that so far all the lines have been drawn in blue. I use a Derwent Studio 33 pencil - it's easy to ink over without rubbing out pencil lines. Now we can ink in the lines and add some color. And a few squiggly lines for the antlers …

… some yellow lines for mane and quiff, couple of dots for the eyes and a couple more legs for added realism. Whilst we're at it, let's change the color of the hooves. Finally, a big red circle for the nose with a splotch of white to make it shiny …

… and we're done. Now draw it on card and post to your loved ones, who will treasure it forever.

(More tips and tricks on how to cheat and draw almost anything are available in my book, which is an ideal present at ANY time of year.)

A-Fracking we will go …

Christmas is upon us so this week’s cartoon for the super, soaraway Westmorland Gazette had to have a festive air. But which story to choose? There were two main candidates:

Hawkshead GP Surgery is under threat of closure. It’s in a rural area, falls below some arbitrary limit for the number of patients and is going to have a support grant withdrawn. It’s also top of an NHS survey into patient satisfaction.

A good story but one I’ve covered before. I had a solitary go at it and you can see the result below. Difficult to see how I could shoehorn Rudolf into that one.

The front page lead was more alluring. Fracking comes to South Lakes. Specifically, Milnthorpe, Levens and Kirkby Lonsdale. Given that the threat of windfarms caused a deafening rustle of Barbour jackets in Kirkby Lonsdale, I can’t see fracking being popular.

I had several punts at this story, including one which I knew wouldn’t get in but which would ensure my steamed editor was paying attention.

I also ran foul of the censors with use of the word ‘fracking’. Some potty-minds in the newsroom thought I was being rude. As if.

Below are the cartoon candidates. Feel free to vote for your favorite by appending a comment (preferably to the blog rather than on the moon or Facebook). Then whoosh to my website to see the editor’s choice in high-definition, 3D technicolor.

Clumsy Charley - a blog about a book

This book sneaked up on me. Jane Binnion, a social media trainer, sought me out after a business networking event to ask about book publishing. I directed her to the inestimable (but now sadly defunct) Writer’s Handbook. Off she went and I thought no more about it.

Skip forward a year and she had written her book, found a publisher, the seriously hip Funky Gerbil Press … 

… and they wanted to know if I’d like to illustrate it.

It was an unusual idea (the book, not me illustrating one - I’ve done over 200). It was about a boy with dyspraxia, a little known condition which is often misunderstood, particularly by schools, carers and parents. The book is designed to tell a story, engage the reader and help those with the condition to feel good about themselves. I was in.

The process of illustrating a book always has ups and downs. Whatever they tell you, all authors secretly hate their illustrators. Illustrators secretly hate authors. As I am an illustrator and an author I secretly hate myself. 

Once the character designs were fixed, no one interfered with the drawings (a rare and wondorous thing). 

There were a few tweaks from the publisher (all publishers like to tweak things to justify their lavish lifestyle) but they redeemed themselves by doing a splendid job on the design. And off it went to print.

This being the brave new digital age, it went to print on demand, first at Amazon and then at Bertrams. The Amazon version appeared on their website yesterday evening.

And here it is. What are you waiting for? Go and buy it NOW!

Mapping a Legacy

I have drawn a few maps, including the world-renowned Lap Maps. Usually they are a cartoon take on geography, occasionally the map is more idiosyncratic.

Earlier this year I was contacted by Emily Brewer of Legacy Storybooks. Emily is based in the USA and has just started a rather unusual business. She works with clients to assemble a story about their lives which can be produced for her clients' children, friends and local community.

Emily is writer, designer and history enthusiast who has found a way to launch an exciting new business by drawing the additional talent she requires from around the globe.

Her first book is Howard the Boy and it required a map of Pennsylvania which had a storybook look to it. Emily found me via my website and got in touch with a very detailed brief.

The project was great fun to work on. I know some of the area being covered and working with US clients is always a delight for a number of reasons: They're unfailingly enthusiastic, I get 5 hours extra on the daily deadline and they spell color sensibly (go away UK spell-checker).

This is the result (click the map for a larger image):

You can find Emily's website here.

And a few more of my maps on my site here.

Cartoon workshop - Neolithic Art

I'm pleased to be able to announce that I will be running another workshop for the Natural History Museum, London. It takes place on 9 March 2014 and will tie in with their exhibition: A Million Years of Human History.

As part of the pre-publicity, I've just drawn a cartoon for the Museum's Evolve magazine.

It started out with my customary Derwent blue pencil scribble:

That was imported into Illustrator and the main lines inked in with a brush tool:

Another import, this time into Photoshop to add flat color:

A bit of background color for the cave and we're almost there:

To jazz it up, I added some patterns to the neolith cave-artist's bearskin, some shadow and finally a thin white highlight, to make our two stars leap out:

Keep an eye on my workshops page for how to book and I hope to see you there.

PS If you can't wait, I will be running two workshops at the International Comic Art Festival on 19 and 20 October 2013. And don't forget my competition to win free tickets to one of the inaugural evening events.

A Tale of Two Captions

Last week's front page cartoon in The Westmorland Gazette was a tad unusual. 

Due to mysterious influences from beyond our galaxy, the cartoon appeared without its caption, giving it a zen-like quality which baffled millions of readers across the globe. Angry tweets were tweeted, grown men were seen openly sobbing in the streets  and questions were asked in Parliament.

Here is how it appeared:

Compare this with the glory days of 21 March 1986 when the following cartoon appeared in response to Kentucky Fried Chicken opening in Kendal:

A veritable essay. And the cartoon was bigger. But then so was the newspaper and it came out on Friday … (all letters on that subject to the editor of the newspaper).

You can see the real caption for last week's cartoon on my website here. 

This gives a unique opportunity to have An Exciting Blog Competition. 

The best alternative caption entered in the comments below will WIN TWO FREE TICKETS to one of the opening events for the International Comic Art Festival on 18 October. 

The event is a talk by Ed Brubaker and Kurt Busiek, two of the USA's top comic book writers. It's a unique opportunity to hear award-winning writers discuss their work.

Full details here.

Add your caption in the comments below and I'll judge the one I think is best.  

And don't forget that I will be running two Family Cartoon Workshops during the International Comic Art Festival. Details here.

COMPETITION RULES:

No alternative prizes will be given.

No correspondence will be entered into.

It may be possible to bribe the judge but be warned that my expectations are high.
Tickets to be collected from The Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal.

Closing date for entry is midday, Thursday 17 October (UK Earth time).