Wow, break out the champers, people :)

I've just scripted the rest of 'Chickenheads'!! Woot!

It had to be done, because at this advanced stage the whole 'script six, draw six' approach thing wasn't really working as a dangling carrot anymore. I really needed to know just how much work lay before me, so I could steel myself I suppose. So near yet so far, and all that.

Well, it's 46 pages in total (minus front cover), and today I've just finished colouring/ lettering page 26. That's another 20 to go (19 if you count the double spread as one), which almost matches the amount of work I've done to date!

But there's a lot of pages near the end which will come together relatively quickly (just keep telling yourself that, mister), so I think we're talking another 3 month's work, as I initially predicted. I've had a celebratory bottle of vino tinto already.

I'm really bloody chuffed with the script, it has to be said. TTFN.

A little bit disappointed about things, atm. The 'Comic Book Challenge' I was raving about a while back came good. So, what exactly is disappointing about winning a spot in the Top 50 and being invited to pitch one's concept in San Diego? Well...

Unfortunately the original arrangement of bringing your release form along with you in July was abandoned, and a swift reply (along with signed and scanned attached release form) was required by the very next day...a Saturday. Meaning the reams of esoteric legal speak had to be deciphered by my totally non-lawyer brain, and a signature applied to a document which (British cynicism alert!) potentially allowed corporations to do God-knows-what with me and my concept/ property. I was perfectly willing to pay to have a solicitor look it over...but simply didn't have enough time.

So after putting in the amount of hours that I have into what I'm convinced is a viable concept/ project, I didn't want to be hurried into making a potentially catastrophic decision. To be honest I'm genuinely gutted that I felt I couldn't be part of it. Ah well...probably for the best? Needless to say I've withdrawn my entry. :(

As a plus though, my photographer friend Matt has come up with a potentially cool plan which involves 'comic-ifying' fashion shoots, in the vein of 'Scanner Darkly', and possibly getting a few lucrative ad' contracts that way. Well, it'll be an interesting experiment, if nothing else. I put my Intuos skills to good use, drawing a line art rendition of a model on one layer, then using various effects (posterise/ solarise/ watercolour, etc etc) on various layer copies of the original photo, for model and background. Matt and his editor were over the moon with my initial relatively hurried roughs, and so he's doing a full shoot on the 30th June, giving me 6 pictures to work on for a to-be-published editorial project.

This could be really good! :)

Page 25 (26 actually, seeing as I added a new page 1 a while back!) is done. Which means that in just over a month I've inked 7 and coloured 2 pages. Not bad...but I'm a bit behind my schedule. A couple of days should have them coloured, then a day for lettering...then the next 6 (already scripted) will be tackled.

I really need to script the rest of the book, just so I know how much work I've got left 'til completion. I'm starting to get a little anxious now...so near yet and so far, and all that.

I mustn't let that make me rush though :)

Getting back into it after Paris is slow going, but now I've only got one more page of the current batch of 7 to do, then colouring/ lettering, then the rest of the book.

I've already scripted the next 6 pages + (by '+' I mean that a few bits got scripted in Paris on a few scraps of paper, but I need to work them in sequentially) and in doing so have worked out that there's probably 3 whole more months of work required before 'Last of the Chickenheads' is done.

Maybe :)

I've just come back from Paris. This is a snap of me up the Eiffel Tower.

Me and Jenny (my wife) went to Paris from the 8th to the 11th of June. We stayed at the foot of Montemartre, and could see Sacré Coeur from our hotel window...cool.

On the 9th Jenny and her ker-azy fellow INXS fans (a lovely bunch of people, it has to be said) decided to queue outside the Cigale venue all day, in order to secure themselves front row places. Me? I wasn't having a bean of it, seeing as it was my first time in Paris, so I went on a little trek, for the thing that Paris is most famous for. Yes, that's right...comic shops.

Armed with a copy of the Rough Guide (circa 2001...oh, what a twat) I ventured onto the Metro, and after about 20 minutes in headless chicken mode, I eventually sussed out the system of finding a landmark near a shop via the guide's maps, looking at the Metro chart for the landmark, then finding the right colour/ number for the line, heading in the direction of that line's correct terminus in the process.

The first one on the list (in order of probable importance/ usefulness) was the much vaunted 'Album' at 60 Rue Monsieur-Le-Prince.Shut down. Closed. Totally bloody deserted. Not a good start.

After that I hit Boulevarde St-Michel, searching for the mighty Boulinier at # 20.Fine and dandy if I'd wanted to discuss financial matters with a French clerk. By now I was starting to question the usefulness of the 2001 Rough Guide's data. I had another to look for called Libraire D'Images on St Germain...but I seriously couldn't be arsed to embark on another journey ending in more anti-climax, so I started to walk back up St Michel, gritting my teeth in readiness for a trek to the Latin Quarter's market stalls. But, as it happens, I passed a rather grotty looking bookshop (grotty as in 'bargain basement tat stylee') called 'Gilbert Joseph'.I walked in on the off chance....And inside was this colossal Bandes Dessinées section, full of graphic novels. The selection put anything Ace Comics in the UK has to offer totally to shame. I headed to the Moebius section, and plucked 5 hardbacks off the shelf (not the pikey Epic paperback novels) and a Bilal book too...Bilal is quite similar in style to Moebius, when he tackles sci-fi.

All in all a very successful spree, as I've been hunting down Moebius stuff since the convention, and have so far been thwarted by Ebay bidding gone mad.

One of the cultural events in Paris that caught my eye was a Chinese Circus called 'Monkey, Journey to the West'. the poster was plastered all around the Metro, and I would have loved to have found a smaller printed version to frame as a memento of our trip to France. The artwork was absolutely gobsmacking, and remeniscent of Bolland's Forbidden Planet bag art, with a hint of Manga thrown in.It turns out, on investigation a la Google when I got back, that it's a Damon Albarn/ Jamie Hewlett collaboration...the 'Gorillaz' people, in fact...and that it's showing in England at the moment! MUST check this out in more detail!

Finally, on the Sunday, when Jenny had finished with INXS, and I'd tired of comics, we did the tourist thing, heading for the Eiffel Tower (check the picture above for proof) and the Louvre. Proper Culture Vultures, we were. :)Can't wait to go back to Paris tbh. There's so much to see and do, and I absolutely loved the artistic atmosphere of the city. I might even start learning French in readiness.

Anyway, back to the UK grind....2 more pages of Chickenheads to ink, then 6 to colour. Plus I'm going to be revamping 'Jack in the Box' after getting loads of inspiration for it while travelling around Paris.

Twenty years after drawing this picture, it will be put to good use. Meet 'Komikaze' the mascot for my new company/ website. I hope to unify all my projects under the same roof, @ www.komikaze.co.uk.

Vanishing points, horizons, lines...not my idea of fun, anyway :)

Still, 2 more pages of the current scripted batch to go, then I'll be scripting/ drawing Frank's arrival at BioCORP.