I look forward to seeing you there.

Badger has a new home!  I’ll be abandoning this site soon as I’ve now updated the main Cute But Sad website so it will work as a web comic.  Please can you update all your links to point there instead of here and you’ll be able to catch up with Badger every Tuesday.  See you at the new site!

Well, if that floats your boat, then here’s the paypal button that would help save my soul:

Thank you!

Free Hugs is a bit creepy.

 

So, this weekend’s been the London MCM Expo, where comics, computer games, anime, manga and cosplay all descended on the ExCeL centre in East London. I don’t think I’ve been a part of a busier event! Yesterday was frantic; we barely had time to play Cosplay Bingo (luckily, it was exceptionally easy to get close to a full house, thanks to there being so many cosplayers out) and we sold out of copies of Badger by the early afternoon. I’ll have to order some more from the printers now, I think! We also sold quite a few badges and framed art from Badger, as well as quite a few comics, but we really missed a trick with not having more toys on the table for people to buy. I’m hoping that by this time next year, I’ll have come up with more than a few awesome plush wonders for people to have.

The Comics/Anime village was lovely, if a little swamped by the noise from all the other stuff going on. It’s hard to work out what shy people are saying when there’s screaming cosplayers, panel debates and computer games nearby. That said, we managed fine and everyone was lovely whenever I admitted I’d no idea what they’d said, or when I had to show off my scar to answer why I wasn’t doing sketches for people. The staples were annoying me, catching on my clothes and the edge of the table. I’m really looking forward to them being taken out of my arm soon.

I got to talk to so many people whose work I adore, in particular, it was great to get to talk to the lovely lady who wrote Prick and to tell her how sad the stories in there made me with the brutal woodland philosophy of love, death and the sorry fate of a cucumber. She’s wonderful and so is her work, so hunt it down if you’ve not seen it already.

It wasn’t until this afternoon that I plucked up the courage to go and talk to one of my absolute idols in the comics world, Nick Abadzis, the creator of Laika. I bought a poster that he signed and it’s already up on the wall. I adore his work, the level of detail that goes into the script, the way it’s so obviously a labour of love and the wonderful way it’s all constructed to move towards the only part of the story we all really feel we know, that shadow making the whole book all the more heart-breaking.

Much to my surprise, he and I got talking and I did the totally sad thing of showing him my portfolio. He made some really positive and constructive comments about it, which has given me an incredible boost and just five minutes chatting with him has given me a lot of useful insight into the industry that I’ve been struggling to work out on my own. I’ve got a lot to learn, I realise that, but when people you idolise say they like your work and that it’s really worth pushing yourself to carry on, then it makes it all seem far more worthwhile.

I’ve got one hell of a To Do list at the moment and I’m glad that there’s a little break before the next comics event (the London Underground Comics event at the 176 Gallery next month) because it gives me a bit of breathing space to try to get my house in order. I’ve had quite a lot to reflect on this weekend, about the industry, about how I need an identifiable brand and style, how I’ve published some things in a bit of a hurry and how much I’d like to slow it down a bit and be able to put a little more care and love into what I produce so I can really keep pushing myself to produce better and better work.

That said, I’m coming to realise that these crises of confidence where I sit there and contemplate just giving up and that I should go and get a job stacking shelves where I’d have more money than selling comics, these little blips that feel like nadirs, are actually a really important part of the creative process for me. I think it’s making me realise that I do make a choice to keep doing this and that it’s important to me and that I do gain something from it all that actually matters to me.

And then, from nowhere, I started drawing something I never thought I would – more of Badger’s story. I need to sort out my website first, my web shop, my stock of stuff to sell and everything like that, but I’m pleased to sneakily announce that I’m working on a prequel to the book that I made last year. Badger broke your heart? Wait until you see him growing up.

Fingers crossed I can work out a way of putting it online in a format that works well. Be prepared for a few plaintive twitter messages as I get stuck working out how to do it and I’m sure I’ll throw my ergonomic keyboard out of the window a few times before I have an online portfolio, but I can promise you all now:

There’s more to come from badger and, hopefully, it’ll come soon.

What a good weekend, eh?

It’s finished now.  I could carry on tinkering with it, but I’m satisfied that it’s at a good stage where I can happily stop.  It’s been a fascinating experience to do this project, full of technical challenges to get the colour onto the wall, transferring from sketchbook to something this scale, not dribbling ink everywhere and also bearing in mind that it’s a commission, so it’s only part what I want, part what I’m being paid to do.  The guy whose wall I was painting on was very clear that the project was for me to be exploring what I would do with something this scale, so I knew I had to go with what I do and not to try too hard to re-shape myself in an attempt to please.  I think the result looks and feels like it’s very clearly my own work.

There’s a lot of really interesting projects coming my way at the moment; I’m looking forward to having a stall at the MCM Comics Expo in a week or so at the Excel centre in East London, I’m drawing comics for a couple of musicians, which is a really interesting collaborative way of working and I’m really looking forward to see how that works out.

Before all that, though, tomorrow I have surgery on my arm to correct the trapped nerve that’s been causing me so many troubles over the last year.  I really, really hope it works.

Go vote yourselves silly, people!

I’ve no idea who I’m voting for, other than people I know and like, I just can’t remember what was published when!

Well, it’s not just work, but life stuff in general is piling up a bit – waiting to hear if I got a job at a gallery, but probably won’t get it, having surgery on my arm on Friday where I’m having a chunk taken out of my arm, just moved flat and have no money of my own to speak of.

Drawings wise, I’m painfully aware of how naive I am in this field and how I’m still tentatively finding my own voice and too worried about pleasing other people or proving that I can actually produce worthwhile art. It’s hard to get away from a pecuniary sense of worth when all the success I felt at selling out of the first two print runs of my new comic can be undone by a financially unsuccessful con like Bristol.

Bristol was great for networking, was silly and funny, but lost me quite a lot of money that I can’t afford to miss out on at the moment just because visitor numbers aren’t as good as had been hoped.

I got an email this morning from a publisher saying they like the pterodactyl book I’ve pitched to them, but that they can’t afford to put out the books that are already in the can and ready to go out, so they can’t take on anything new right now.

It’s heartening to know that if times were better then they might have been interested in taking the project on, but it’s cold comfort at best when I can’t pay my bills without help. I know there’s no intrinsic shame in that, but I used to be well off when I was interpreting and even with the op on Friday I can’t really risk going back to doing that kind of work regularly in case my arms fuck up again and I’m left with another eighteen months of agony like I’ve had the past year and a half.

I know I’ll manage and I know I’ll adapt and survive pretty much anything that life cares to throw at me, but I’m sick of trying to backflip each time I feel like the rug’s pulled out from underneath me. I love the comics I’ve made in the past year and I’m enormously proud of them and delighted at how they’ve touched the people who’ve read them, so I’m not about to give up on creating work like that, I just need to think realistically about whether I would have been better off as a plumber than as an artist. No great surprise there, it’s part of the deal with the creative industries.

So, I’m here in a cellar in another country, facing a blank wall and trying to make the leap of faith to make a lasting mark on the wall and the world. Disheartened, afraid and desperately hoping to make something I’m going to be proud of and that others will sense the same thing in it in a time when the market for art is a quagmire of fear and insecurity.

This is where my head’s at. Pencil in hand, I’m turning to the wall. Wish me luck.

http://ping.fm/smLtD

Currently, the comic’s available in OK Comics and Travelling Man in Leeds, Orbital in London, Here and Now gallery in Cornwall and hopefully will be in a few more places, soon. Any ideas for other people to approach would be very welcome!

Went to a Thingbox party on Saturday night and was really pleased to find that it was heaps of fun with loads of lovely friendly people to talk to. Less pleased by the two hours it took me to get home, so I only had four hours sleep before getting up to get ready for the London Zine Symposium, which, it turns out, was next door to the party the previous night, more or less.

So, I wasn’t as perky as I’d hoped to be when I got there, but it turned out to be just fine. I was posted opposite the food stall so had a mug of bitter tar that seemed to have coffee in the sludge and then could get on with the selling of comics!

There were so many great people selling stuff there I can’t really remember, so I’m officially a very bad person, but a zine about bulimia that a girl gave me made me feel like crying on the tube today, so I’ll have to write more about it later.

The new comic sold well, as did badger and the badges. I got very embarrassed when a hot punk boy asked me if I drew the badge that said “Punk boys are hawt” and it was obvious from my blushing that I most certainly had. He was hawt. Oh, the shame of it!

An interesting thing was that a few people read the new comic and then came back to talk to me about it, showing genuine concern, particularly those people who read the mini-comic thing about the murder in Leeds. I really wasn’t sure how to respond to it. I’m always a bit flustered when shown genuine sympathy by strangers. The temptation is to laugh it off, but it’s obviously not something I could laugh off if I’m making cathartic comics about it eight years later.

I’ll have to get ready for that when I make some further stories in the same line. They’ll be sad, too, and perhaps a little more personal, too.

Of course, I dealt with it well by going to a fetish club that evening and spending most of it chatting to strangers about whether or not we should be using coasters and whether or not we like doilies. Gay fetish clubs are delightfully gay sometimes. Swapping gimp fashion tips is good for the soul.

I’ve got so many interesting things to try to draw in the next couple of weeks. I’m ever so excited.