This blog began in 1997 as a single news page called Nucelus. In 2005, during a long wait to move into a new house, I decided to learn some php and MySQL and write my own blogging system, which became inkyBlog and which now powers this, my own Webbledegook blog.
Thank you to my brother, Murray Ewing, for help with some of the more challenging aspects!
The first appearance of Julius's SSK in 'Orchid' and the Lorraine Dietrich in 'Samurai'
In The Secret of the Samurai, which is set a couple of years earlier (when the SSK had not yet been built), Julius drove a blue Lorraine Dietrich (for which I also used a toy model for reference). But for The Brambletye Box, Jules is back with his red Mercedes.
The SSK followed by a Hispano-Suiza in The Brambletye Box
These days there is way more reference available online (I even visited an actual SSK at Beaulieu a couple of years ago), so I've been able to be a little more accurate with some of the car's details. I'm not going overboard - I don't need the drawings to take any longer than they already do. As I've improved I don't need a model for every car - Lily's gold Bentley 3-Litre is drawn with just a sheet of photo reference at hand.
Lily's gold Bentley 3-Litre
An editor once asked me what I found most difficult to draw - my answer was "cars". A month or so later I submitted the first chapter of my comic for him and there, on page one, panel one, was a big white Bentley Continental. "I thought you wanted to avoid drawing cars?", he asked. But that's kind of why I put it in there. I have this little bee in my head that says "you can draw anything", and when I know something will be difficult I find myself writing it in, almost as a challenge.
A Bentley Continental from 'Charlie Jefferson and the Tomb of Nazaleod' for The DFC
This is something that so-called 'A.I. artists' will never understand, and A.I. can never reproduce. It is not just the finished result, it is the process, the choices, the mistakes, the challenge, the struggle, the effort, the evolution - the human being - that makes the finished art. (And, still on A.I., beware the amount of A.I.-rendered cars now online - they're not accurate!)
That Bentley was more modern, and I do find them particularly hard, all curves and streamlined. 1920's cars are a little more boxy - but also more beautiful in my eyes. The SSK is a work of art.
The Mercedes SSK at Beaulieu, once owned by Sir Peter Ustinov
Only recently I discovered the SSK featured as another comic character's car of choice - or in his animated version anyway (I'm not sure about the original manga) - Lupin III drives, and regularly crashes, a yellow Mercedes SSK. This has been eclipsed somewhat by the Fiat 500 he drives in his most famous outing, Miyazaki's Castle of Cagliostro.
Lupin in his yellow SSK
I'm very happy to have that link, in a similar way to when I chose the Breguet 280T as the aircraft that takes Jules and co. to India in The Rainbow Orchid, only to discover, on a later visit to Angouleme, that this uncommon aircraft had also been featured in pioneer French comic character Bécassine's adventures (Bécassine en Aeroplane, 1930).
Bécassine with a 280T, and Nathaniel Crumpole with a 280T
Anyway, in line with this bee in my head to challenge myself, I've crazily written a car chase into The Brambletye Box (a Hispano-Suiza H6 chasing the SSK down the A22), and that's what I'm drawing at the moment. It's enjoyable - but definitely another challenge!
Now there's quite a few characters on that page (from The Brambletye Box, The Rainbow Orchid and The Secret of the Samurai) I have rewritten it so you can show and hide the various character sets from the stories - let me know if it's not working!
Logos For Shows is my little side-business of providing theatre art for schools, amateur companies and professionals to use for their show publicity. It started back in 2011 out as a reaction to seeing my Oliver! logo being stolen and used all over the place (sadly that still happens) and a chance to license my artwork and make it affordable for those on a budget.
The next thing to do is to increase the number of shows I have available. I already have a second Grease design and some Peter Pan artwork at the sketch stage, and plans for quite a few more to come - it's just a matter of making the time for it!
Actually I do have one copy left, and my plan is to do a nice drawing in it (rather than just a quick sketch) and put it on ebay in the near future as a little fund-raiser. Watch this space.
If you want to see more than this then you can become a Patreon supporter, or it's waiting for the book. I can't yet say when that will see publication, but I can tell you that The Brambletye Box will be two volumes, and vol. 1 should be completed well before the end of the year - all being well!
It's an epic piece of cinema, and with the IMAX format you're right up in there, almost on stage with the band, helping to make it an intimately personal portrait. The sound is incredible, particularly John Paul Jones's fantastic crunchy bass.
The level of research and hard work that went into the project is evident, including wonderful seldom-seen footage and creative use of photo shoot sequences. Vitally, all three surviving members of the band, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, agreed to take part (after a little persuasion), but drummer John Bonham (who died in 1980) also has a voice thanks to a remarkable unearthed Australian interview, making this as complete a telling of Zeppelin's formation as you're likely to get on screen.
Even as a Led Zeppelin fan of 40 years there were a lot of little things I didn't know. There were some great insights into John Paul Jones's vaudeville-working parents, and I particularly loved the scene telling of his and Jimmy Page's session with Shirley Bassey on the recording of Goldfinger. The interviews are really interesting, especially as I think they'd all gone through a long patch of not wanting to discuss Zeppelin, but now talking about it from a more objective distance and with conspicuous fondness.
I didn't know that Robert Plant claimed his mother was a Romany - this stood out as I am descended from Romany families in the Midlands and have been researching and writing on them for a number of years. I had to have a look and see where she might fit in, but, I must say, I looked and found no obvious evidence of a Romany or Gypsy background for his mother within a few generations.
One pleasing aspect of the film is it gives the music plenty of room, not just keeping it to short snippets, so you can really indulge. For many years the only live footage of Zeppelin available was for 1976's The Song Remains the Same at Madison Square Garden, but there's some terrific material here from 1968 and 69. Actually, much of it I had seen - for instance the excellent 1969 Danish TV appearance - I stayed up late to record this on VHS off television when it was shown sometime in the late 80s or early 90s. And I've always enjoyed the French TV appearance with its very bewildered looking audience.
My introduction to Led Zeppelin was through a friend lending me his Led Zeppelin II record. I played it again and again, back to back, until I had to get my own as I was worried about wearing my friend's copy out. I quickly followed that up with the first album - both still provide a thrill as soon as the needle crackles down, and the crown-jewel in my Led Zep collection is a wonderful bootleg on white marble vinyl from June 1969 for the BBC. Obviously I never saw them live, but I did get to see Robert Plant at the Hammersmith Odeon for my birthday on his 1990 Manic Nirvana tour (which included a number of Zeppelin tunes).
If you can get to see Becoming Led Zeppelin at the cinema, especially on IMAX, please do - an inspiring experience.
Last year was a good one for getting on with the new Julius Chancer adventure. This has partly been thanks to my Patreon supporters (who are a few pages ahead), which provides just enough of a sense of obligation to keep going with things. I now feel I've reached a tipping point - I'm in this far, so let's keep going!
I began 2025 by completing page 20 - that's now as long as The Secret of the Samurai (a few copies still available, by the way). For The Brambletye Box I'm looking at two volumes, each about 40-48 pages long. I really want volume one to be done this year, so that's a lot of work. I don't know how some artists produce so many pages - on BlueSky Matthew Dow Smith just said his goal is to produce 1000 pages this year. Yes, I know some pages can't be compared with others, but even so. Tezuka apparently averaged 10 pages a week. Sigh.
Still, the important thing is to keep going.
My interest in things Japanese goes back to the 1980s when I got into martial arts, and through that developed an interest in Samurai, and through that an interest in Japanese film, and that led also, eventually, to an interest in some Japanese manga and anime.
As a karate teacher (I'm testing for my 5th dan next weekend, gulp!) I have some Japanese already, so it's nice to work out from there into more of the language. Also, as an artist, it's nice to be able to write it, the kana forms are very satisfying. At the moment just hiragana, but I'm currently working on katakana, and then I'll dive into some kanji.
a page from my workbook - Japanese names and karate kata written as hiragana
Years ago I came up wih the name for our karate club, Kanzenki, which consists of three characters for kanzen (perfect, complete, whole) and ki (spirit, life essence), reflecting the idea that through karate you can improve all aspects of your life.
This past summer one of our club members went to Okinawa to train with Hokama Sensei, whose bojutsu (staff) sytem we practice. Whilst there Hokama Sensei brushed calligraphy for our club - at the same time confirming my Japanese was correct (phew!). We now have banners featuring the kanji (Kanzenki dojo).
Kanzenki dojo banners and Hokama Tetsuhiro Sensei brushing the calligraphy
