I have been thinking about doing some Tozo fan art as an appreciation of a superb comic strip for quite a while, and so it became this morning's warm-up/procrastination sketch.

If you're not aware of Tozo, go and get reading, and you can also see the interview I did with David O'Connell, the strip's creator, here.

It has long been the intention to use my own lettering font for my comics, rather than one 'off the shelf'. With this in mind, I have developed GarenHand.

It's perhaps not quite as slick as WhizBang, which is what I have been using so far in The Rainbow Orchid, but it does have a slightly more hand-lettered look, which I prefer, and, more importantly, it is my own style of lettering. It's also slightly clearer and a little bigger. I'll probably be tweaking it further over the next few weeks, but here it is for now.

Well what an exciting Sunday it's been. I'm feeling rather tired from a karate weekend (seven hours on Saturday, three hours today), but then a friend, Harvey, came round, and brought this...

Harvey is a model aviator and agreed to make a model of the scarce Breguet 280T that appears in The Rainbow Orchid. It's going to be very useful indeed, as for the Egmont book (part one) I will be slightly expanding the scene where the plane takes off from Cherbourg (and one other scene is getting some extra material too). It's so skilfully made, I'm totally delighted with it - massive thanks to Harvey for such super work.

I was up in London on Wednesday for three appointments, two of which I will share (along with a bag full of links).

Mid-morning I met up with Sarah McIntyre (of Vern and Lettuce fame, for one thing) and also with Ellen Lindner (of Whores of Mensa and Little Rock Nine fame, for two things). So I had tea with two very distinguished London-based American comic creators, at a distinguished, if over-priced, café - Maison Bertaux. And then we marched off to the Wallace Collection in Manchester Square for a quick look round - a wondrous place, and one to which I must return when I've more than an hour to spare. Below is a very quick sketch I did in answer to Sarah's marvellous Teapod drawing of a few weeks ago.

In the evening, having now met up with Elyssa, I went to the French Institute in Kensington for one of Paul Gravett's terrific Comica events, in this case a talk and interview with two of France's most interesting auteurs: Ted Benoit, who has just seen his 1996 Blake & Mortimer adventure (in collaboration with Jean Van Hamme) published in English, and Emmanuel Guibert, who's work I know from the sublime The Professor's Daughter, and he has just had his book, Alan's War, published in English too. It was an excellent couple of hours, and I may just cheat and point you to Sarah's far more observant report right here. With Elyssa on a magazine deadline, we had to rush away to catch the train home, but I had a lovely day away from the drawing board, and in most excellent company.

As it's the 90-year Armistice anniversary, I thought I'd do one more little WWI remembrance entry.

The above postcard was written from my great grandfather while he was on service in Germany in 1919 as a driver in the Royal Army Service Corps. He was writing to my gran (second from the right) when she was 6 - she died just last year, aged 93. He addressed it to "My Bonnie wee auburn haired lassie, Maggie" and says:

"Well my Hen, can you read yet? Have you learned anymore songs? If so I'll be needing you to let me hear them all when Daddy gets home. You'll be having rare fun now. No lessons and play all day. Ta ta xxx Daddy."

Peter McDougall Cameron returned to civilian life later that year to work as a chauffeur in Dundee. Sadly he died only four years later when a routine operation on his appendix went wrong. His last son, David, was born a few months later.

If I were to make a little war memorial dedicated to those from my family who died in the First World War (that I am currently aware of - I know there are others as yet unconfirmed), it would look like this...

CAMERON, Mark William
HMS Invincible - 31 May 1916 age 32

EWING, Alexander
14th Bttn. Black Watch - 4 Dec 1917 age 21

EWING, James
3rd Bttn. Seaforth Highlanders - 2 Mar 1917 age 32

HOLLAND, Henry
5th Leicestershire Rgt. - 29 Aug 1918 age 32

PHILLIP, William
8th Bttn. Black Watch - 19 Jul 1918 age 23

PHILLIP, Alexander
205th Field Company Royal Engineers - 17 Dec 1917

SHERRIFF, Thomas
2nd Bttn. Lancashire Fusiliers - 1 Jul 1916 age 24

STEWART, Henry Walter Betsworth
5th Bttn. Highland Light Infantry - 14 Jul 1915 age 20

STEWART, Andrew Phillip, MC
9th King's Own Scottish Borderers - 2 Jun 1918 age 21

You can see a page dedicated on my website here, with Commonwealth War Graves Commission links for each name [update 2018: it currently contains 31 names]. Not all of these men have been fully researched yet, but one of the latest I have learned about is the last on that alphabetical list, Andrew Phillip Stewart, who was the second eldest son of my gg-aunt Betsy. He is also the only relative I know of (so far) who won a gallantry award, the Military Cross.

Andrew was born in Glasgow in June 1896 to Samuel Stewart (a gymnastics instructor and teacher) and Betsy Phillip (who had worked in her father's home-run market garden store before getting married). When the war came he was already a Private in the 5th Scottish Rifles, and after joining the Expeditionary Force worked his way up to Lieutenant in the 9th King's Own Scottish Borderers. As far as his MC goes, I have found the citation in a supplement to the London Gazette from July 1918, but as yet have no real context (or date) for the action...*

"For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in a difficult rearguard action, when his tactical handling of men caused the enemy to suffer heavy casualties and enabled his own men to withdraw with a minimum of loss. He was wounded just as the last remnant of his command had reached safety."

*Edit: I have since discovered this event took place at Combles on 24 March 1918 and the MC was awarded posthumously.

Andrew was invalided home, and after his recovery he made his way to Ireland where he accidentally drowned while bathing in Loch Corrib on 2nd June 1918. He is buried in the Western Necropolis of Glasgow Cemetery. There is a great photograph of Andrew that I came across in my late great-auntie Jean's photo album, which I saw for the first time a few months ago, showing him wearing one of the emergency issue winter goat-skin coats (also known as 'woolly bears') that were first issued in the winter of 1914-15. His cap badge shows this was taken when he was with the Scottish Rifles.

Through researching Andrew, I discovered that his elder brother, Henry (known as Harry) also died in the war, being killed at Gallipoli, while serving with the 5th Battalion Highland Light Infantry, on 14 July 1915.

This is my fifth annual Remembrance Sunday post, you can see the previous years' entries from 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004.

The reality, in a couple of months, will be a test - but for now... it's been a long time since I've felt like celebrating the stars and stripes.

Last Friday I went up to the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art where New Writing North were hosting one of their roadshow events - a one-day workshop for writers that included an afternoon slot on graphic novels and getting an agent. I was to talk a bit about writing comics, and Oli Munson (of Blake Friedmann, and my agent) was to discuss the business of agenting and how they deal with publishers.

It was a valuable and interesting experience for me, and enjoyable too. Most of the questions from the writers early on were about getting an agent, and how you could get on to their books (and Oli was very enlightening on this subject). I got the impression (and I may be wrong) that most of them weren't too interested in the comics aspect, though when I got to explain a bit about how comic creation could work, with someone else as the artist if you yourself couldn't draw, and how the comics market was a very different creature from the generally perceived one of superheroes and children's funnies, there was a lot more interest in the subject, I think. I take the world of comics for granted sometimes, and forget it can be a completely alien world to the uninitiated. Having said that, quite a few of the writers who spoke did have some kind of experience of comics and 'graphic novels'.

Information I disseminated included that it is now quite acceptable for almost any kind of story to be told in comic form (referencing Alice in Sunderland as we were in the north-east), that there are numerous markets for writers to find a place for their scripts (adaptations for Classical Comics, stories for children in The DFC, 'comics-lit' for Jonathan Cape, small press opportunities for experimentation and testing the water), that manga is not all about sex, and that, yes, Persepolis was a story told in comic strip form before it was an animated film.

Afterwards there was a bit of mingling and Q-and-A-ing. One chap had brought along his comic for some advice. It had been drawn on computer with a mouse, with characters drawn once then copied and pasted at different magnifications for close-ups and full-length shots. It wasn't of a professional standard, but from just an endurance point of view I was impressed with the mouse-drawing! And to show how things have changed over the past few years, it's just the kind of thing that would probably get some kind of following as a web-comic - though maybe it was a little text-heavy for the screen (I know... look who's talking).

The train journey home had an interesting moment when a girl on her mobile phone gave away the plot-twist to the novel she had just finished reading, rendering the book (title clearly announced) unreadable to an entire carriage of south-bound travellers. I did try to get a bit of scripting done, but was starting to nod off a bit by then. I had been up that morning at six-thirty and got back home just after nine, with most of the day spent on trains. Huge thanks to Oli for the enjoyable company all day, and to Liv for inviting me to New Writing North.

From Newcastle University's Courier and Pulp... those darn 'goblin and cyclops' comics!

Not a lot of work/comic-related news here recently, and I've been a bit low on energy for blogging - but I really shouldn't leave it for too long. It doesn't take much for people to start wondering if you've disappeared off the face of the earth when there's nothing new on the website for a while!

Last Wednesday I went up to London and met up with fellow comic creators David O'Connell (Tozo) and Sarah McIntyre (Vern and Lettuce) at a nice little place called Teapod by Tower Bridge. We had a good two hours of talking comics and stuff, and I came away with signed comics and goodies. When I got home, I found a big bit of cake stuck to the cover of my DFC issue 1, which I got Sarah to autograph (the comic, not the cake). Later, Sarah drew the picture below of the three of us at Teapod - wonderful. And David drew me a sumptuous Evelyn Crow, which I'm afraid I rather gushed over - but it deserved it! I'll put that at the bottom of this entry, and on the readers' art page.

Thanks to a few delays on the Circle line (it's always the Circle line) I was half an hour late for my meeting at Egmont (note to self: must say my name more slowly to receptionists - I'm often put down as 'Gary Newman'), but it was great to meet up with the team who'll be helping to get Rainbow Orchid in to book form. I think there's a basic plan of action taking shape now, and there's stuff to be getting on with. I'll keep you updated as much as I can - but you're going to have to remain patient for a little while yet. Good things come to those who wait :-)

And the day wasn't over yet... next it was off to Sloane Square where I met up with Colin Mathieson (Accent UK), and after a nice cup of tea (third of the day), we went off to the National Army Museum to see Ian Knight give a talk on various aspects of the Zulu War (1879). Colin did a comic strip set in that campaign a few years ago, and was able to re-stock the NAM shop with copies. We also managed to get in a bit of local exploring, coming across the impressive Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park (across the river) and all the blue plaques down Tite Street - I was especially impressed that Oscar Wilde had lived there.

Colin returned to East Grinstead with me, where I put him up in the spare room. The following day we inspected my comics, some of my original art pages, and my Afghan War (1878-80) collection - something I rarely get to show off, but Colin, being a Zulu aficionado, showed generous appreciation. Even my light historical tour of East Grinstead's High Street didn't seem to phase him too much, before we enjoyed a pub lunch at the Dorset Arms, and then a browse of the graphic novel section in Waterstones.

So, a very nice couple of days, and a nice break from the usual routine. And there's another break this Friday, when I'm up at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art as part of New Writing North's Autumn Roadshow.

In the new year I'm planning on a fairly major overhaul of this website, but in the mean time I thought you might be interested in a little look back in time...

Below, on the left, is a screenshot of the first Rainbow Orchid website from 1997 (click it to see a bigger version), when the actual strip was only 3 pages long. On the right you can see the 2003 Flash version (click to see it, though it's not fully functional).