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!
Don't forget I'm at the Crystal Palace Children's Book Festival this Saturday, and the following weekend I'll be at the MCM Expo (table C62) - where I'll be selling bargainous vol 1 and 2 bundles and equally bargainous posters.
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Have you heard of Buzz Comic? I think this could be a really good thing as more content gets added, and there are some excellent tutorial videos up from the likes of Bryan Talbot, Warren Pleece, Indra Shann and Kev Sutherland.
A couple of lovely publications have come my way recently - Whores of Mensa 5 is the party issue, and includes strips by Francesca Cassavetti, Ellen Lindner, Patrice Aggs, Cliodhna Lyons, Sarah McIntyre... and loads more. It's an excellent and hefty comic. And I also got hold of a copy of Rob Jackson's Goblin Hall, which I really enjoyed - the tale of a medieval lord who comes home to find his son has married the daughter of the Goblin King! An absorbing read (see Richard Bruton's review here).
There's a new comics news magazine coming out called Multiverse from Mike Conroy and Barry Renshaw. A preview is available for download, and if you like American superhero comics then you'll like this, a very nice production. They'll have a stand at the London MCM Expo so you can check it out there.
Talking of the MCM Expo, I will also have a stand there, so do come along if you want to grab a copy of The Rainbow Orchid volume 2 (or 1!), or just for a chat. I'm at the Crystal Palace Children's Book Festival next Saturday (23 October) and my almost-last event of the year is Thought Bubble in Leeds on 20 November. My last event will be at The Bookshop in East Grinstead as part of the `Twas the Sunday before Christmas shopping day on Sunday 19 December, of which more details to come (still far too early to be thinking about Christmas!).
There have been more DFC Library books released in the past few months, the second wave, starting with the Etherington Brothers' Monkey Nuts, then, just recently, Sarah McIntyre's Vern & Lettuce, and in a couple of weeks time, Neill Cameron's Mo-bot High. All worth adding to your collection!
Another DFC creator who has a new book out at the moment is Jason Cobley, who has just published Bulldog Clips, featuring brand new strips and a super cover by Andrew Wildman.
And I think that's it for now!
De Stripdagen happened to fall on the same weekend (September 25-26) as I'd been booked for the Bath Children's Literature Festival (see last entry), and as I didn't want to miss either of these events, I decided I would attend both, the Bath graphic novel panel on Saturday evening, and then catching an early flight to Amsterdam on the Sunday morning.
So, after just over four hours sleep, a drive to Gatwick, a small parking adventure, a bus to the North Terminal and the usual fun of boarding a plane (which I hadn't done for 8 years) Elyssa and I found ourselves bound for the Netherlands and Schipol International airport. At Schipol we were met by John Wigmans, and off we drove down the autosnelweg to Houten.
John deserves special mention - he first got in touch with me last year, expanding my knowledge of Dutch clear line artists such as Peter van Dongen, Eric Heuvel and Dick Briel, and I was able to meet him at last year's MCM Expo when he was in London doing research. As soon as I knew the Silvester Strips deal was going ahead I got in touch with John again and he put into action an idea he'd mentioned before - that of writing an article on The Rainbow Orchid for Stripschrift, the long-running Dutch comics magazine edited by Arco van Os (who also happened to be one of the organisers of De Stripdagen). This appeared in issue 411, the September 2010 issue, featuring a very impressive deeply researched and profusely illustrated 6-page article, plus the Lily Lawrence story, Sword of Fate, translated into Dutch by Mat Schifferstein (also Silvio's translator for De Regenboog Orchidee). This brings me to something I originally had no intention of airing, but as it got found out and mentioned both on Facebook and, more widely, Down the Tubes, resulting in a couple of emails - and as it happens to be an interesting little aside, I thought it should be addressed... the name Thomas Tipps!
The Adventures of...
Being a resident of Holland, and more plugged into the Dutch comics scene than myself, John was in touch with Silvio at Silvester Strips and very kindly did some proof-reading of Mat's translation. As a result of this, he was a little closer to the production of the Dutch edition and was able to include in his Stripschrift article the fact that, in the Netherlands, 'the Adventures of Julius Chancer' were to become 'the Adventures of Thomas Tipps' (seeing the proof of the article was the first I knew of this).
The Down the Tubes article mentioned that this was because the Dutch found this name easier to pronounce, which was indeed my first thought as it reminded me of a letter I received back in 1997 from Andy Konky Kru (as he was then known), who was one of the handful of people I sent early black and white pages of The Rainbow Orchid to, several years before it saw serialisation in BAM! Here's a little extract of what he sent me:
19 Feb 1997: "... the name Chancer is confusing, especially to a German public. If you make your artwork look as perfectionist as Jacobs, that type of strip would sell all over the continent, more so than here [the UK] ..."
And again, in his reply to my reply ...
7 Apr 1997: "... The name Chancer still looks weird. True, Tintin is named differently elsewhere, but wouldn't be nowadays! (In German it's Tim & Struppi, Struppi being the dog, pronounced Shtrooppy). There are so many English names which are perfectly easy on foreign ears, I'd think about it some more. It's much easier to remember a name where you don't have to wonder how it may be pronounced correctly. I'll ask others, but more important is what the French/Belgians think of it ..."
Well, I stuck to my guns, and although I never actually discovered the reason for the Dutch name change, I asked several people in Holland if pronunciation was a problem, and none thought so. My guess was that it may have sounded more British, an aspect Silvester might have wanted to play up as a marketing strength, or maybe - less likely - it was because Dick Briel's Professor Palmboom character also had Julius as a christian name. I did push for keeping the name Julius Chancer - if only because my website would keep its relevance to an international audience.
Stripschrift 411 had already been printed and included the Tom Tipps info, plus an advert declaring 'the Adventures of Thomas Tipps', but when I saw the Silvester Strips September catalogue available for download a few days later, it was Julius Chancer on the banner. On the way to Houten I asked John what he knew - he zipped his mouth and said he'd been sworn to secrecy!
Houten
So after a while we reached the Expo centre at Houten, not the most attractive of environments, seemingly an industrial estate of some kind, though the venue itself was much nicer. We collected our guest passes and made our way to the Silvester Strips stand - one of the biggest of the show - and there it was, De Avonturen van Julius Chancer: De Regenboog Orchidee, deel een. Despite not being dead-set against the Thomas Tipps idea, as long as it was for good reason, I was, after all, relieved to see Julius retained.
Silvio van der Loo, Garen Ewing, Mat Schifferstein, John Wigmans.
It was great to meet Silvio at last and also some of his family, plus the other Silvester Strips employees, including Patrice van der Linden who had worked on putting the actual book together. And I was very pleased with the book, a large size hardback using the maps from volume two as endpapers on stylish antique-brown sheet. In pretty much all other respects it's the same as the UK Egmont edition. Later on I met Mat Schifferstein, the translator, and was able to thank him for his hard work and also, with John, to make a plan for working more closely together for the translation of volume 2.
Most of my time at De Stripdagen was spent sitting at the Silvester Strips table, signing - actually for about four and a half hours. Although I did start to droop a bit towards the end, I was really happy to meet new Dutch readers and see the enthusiasm for the book. There's such a difference in attitude towards comics on the European mainland and in the UK. Here in Britain The Rainbow Orchid is mostly marketed as a children's book (which I'm perfectly happy with, by the way), whereas that's not the case in Holland - not that it's marketed to adults, it's there for both, just a book. Comics as a whole are not seen as primarily a juvenile medium, which is still the prevalent attitude in the UK, I'd say.
I did get to have a brief walk around the Expo (though only some of it) and to see tables bursting with lovely comic albums, with all kinds of material available. I got to meet Rob van Bavel, dedicated editor of the bi-weekly Eppo Stripblad (see Rod McKie's excellent Eppo piece here), and Eric Heuvel, a true master of klare lijn comics who I had sent The Rainbow Orchid to last year. Eric presented me with a signed copy of his brand new book, De Terugkeer (The Return), the third book in his series of Dutch World War II stories. The first two have been translated into English by American publisher Farrar Straus Giroux - De Ontdekking (The Discovery, known as A Family Secret in the English language edition) and De Zoektocht (The Search).
These were produced in conjunction with the Anne Frank Foundation in Amsterdam and given to all Dutch middle-school pupils (the same with a German edition, an event which made international news). The new book, created with Ruud van der Rol, deals with the Dutch colony in the East Indies, its independence movement and the Japanese occupation of the territory and its internment camps, a slightly more obscure (though no less fascinating) corner of history that may mean translation into English is less certain - though I hope that's not the case. By the way, Eric is well-known for his strip (with Martin Lodewijk), January Jones, a strip closely related to The Rainbow Orchid in era, subject matter and adventure - fantastic albums if you can get hold of them.
Eric Heuvel, Garen Ewing.
Klare lijn
The clear line has a very strong home in the Netherlands. Besides the work of Eric Heuvel described above, Joost Swarte is one of the style's foremost names, indeed he coined the term ligne claire, is largely responsible for its resurgeance in the 1980s, and identified its close cousin, the atom style (atoomstijl). To give you an idea how much comic art is respected in Europe, Swarte was awarded a knighthood from Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 2004. Other Dutch klare lijn artists include Henk Kuijpers (Franka), Theo van den Boogaard (Sjef van Oekel), Peter van Dongen (Rampokan), Dick Briel (Professor Palmboom), Michiel de Jong (Operatie Hanuman), Henk 't Jong (Willem Peper), Jan Vervoot (Lila & Merijin, Elno), Erik Varekamp (Agent Orange), Erik de Graaf (Scherven) and Teun Berserik.
Amsterdam
The day at De Stripdagen whizzed by, and afterwards John, Elyssa and I went off to get something to eat, finding ourselves nearby at the curious Asian Tower. We'd been sitting for 15 minutes before John pointed out that the top floor was slowly rotating, a very curious sensation once noticed. Despite our changing view consisting of primarily a car park and the neighbouring McDonalds, it was a lovely meal. John then went above and beyond the call of duty and drove us all the way into Amsterdam to our hotel, for which, after a long day for all three of us, Ellie and I are eternally grateful!
Our hotel was lovely - the Eden Amsterdam American Hotel, built in 1900 and very stylish on the outside (not too shabby on the inside either). On Monday Ellie and I treated ourselves to a day of tourism. We'd both been to Amsterdam before, visiting several main attractions, so after a breakfast of bacon and apple pancakes (for me) and a fruit pancake (for Ellie) we made our way to the previously unvisited Rijksmuseum. This enormous depository of Dutch art and history was having an equally large renovation, so only a small portion, consisting of its most important pieces, was available to view, which actually made it a very manageable visit, and totally fascinating, especially given the strong Dutch and English connections throughout the seventeenth century and beyond.
The weather, unfortunately, was very wet, but after a walk into the city centre, and a quick lunch, we decided to take the weight off our feet and have an hour's canal tour, which was just the thing. In the evening Silvio came into the city to take us out to dinner - a lovely Italian restaurant where we talked comics, publishing and life in general, a highly enjoyable evening.
Elyssa in Dam Square, Amsterdam.
Tuesday was our day for travelling home. We caught an early-morning bus from just outside the hotel back to Schipol, and by lunchtime we were back at Gatwick, then another bus to the car park, and finally back home (after a quick stop at Sainsbury's for supplies).
It was a tiring but lovely couple of days, and I am so grateful to everyone who looked after us and helped to give us such a warm welcome to the world of Dutch comics - first and foremost John Wigmans and Silvio van der Loo, who were both gracious and generous in spades. Thank you also to everyone who bought De Regenboog Orchidee, and thanks for chatting and letting me scribble in your books! And finally, a big thank you to Arco van Os for giving over so much space in Stripschrift for John's article. Next year De Stripdagen will be in the historic southern city of Breda, and with all three volumes out in Dutch by then, I hope to make it over to see what the reaction is, and to see if there might be a possibility for more Julius Chancer in the Netherlands.
The Guildhall was filled with a mixed audience in attendance as we each presented a quick slideshow and talk on some of our work. Dave talked about his new book, Slog's Dad (written by David Almond) and also explained his mask exhibit at the recent Hypercomics exhibition. Of great interest to me was his new children's book with Richard Dawkins, The Magic of Reality, which looks wonderful. I gave an introduction to The Rainbow Orchid and shared some of the inspirations that went into making the adventure - silent films, classic adventure novels, European ligne claire art and grounding the whole thing on a solid base of realism as a juxtaposition to the more fantastical elements which are revealed later on. Robin gave some fascinating insights into the creation and background of Monkey Nuts, The Lore of the Things and Baggage (which I'm really looking forward to) and also a new project - Freaky Giblets - the title alone makes me impatient to see it!
When asked for some general advice on starting out, Dave cited his experience of having his eyes opened at art college to a wide range of styles and techniques that he may not have considered beforehand, and how this can help you to eventually find your own unique style and voice. Sitting next to him on the stage, I felt something like an example of almost the opposite of this! I dropped out of art college because I was very sure of what I wanted to do, and furthermore, I have immersed myself in a style of cartooning that is very much influenced by a small school of European comic artists. But we all have our own paths and experiences, and I would actually agree with what Dave said because I'm very aware of my artistic shortcomings in several areas, painting and craft for instance, and sometimes wish I had a better grounding in those disciplines. Then again, I love what I do and how I do it - I'm doing exactly what I always wanted... but I've been lucky. I do change my style somewhat to suit various commercial art jobs, which further backs up Dave's assertion that it is good to have more than one string to your bow.
One funny moment came about when Robin mentioned my old blog entry about things I don't like in comics, which included monkeys and robots! Still, I totally stand by this! I hope it's clear that I meant the casual use of 'cool ingredients' with which to make a comic, where, without a decently thought-out plot to back the concept, it has no actual satisfying content and quickly runs out of steam. Comics such as Monkey Nuts, with its high quality character comedy, or the intelligently written Mo-bot High are a far cry from the zombie-robot-gun-monkeys I was thinking of!
After the talk we took to the signing table which is always highly enjoyable as we get to meet and talk to people who have a genuine interest and love, or just a great curiosity, for comics and graphic storytelling. One very nice woman even gave us a lovely chocolate each (I think her name was Marjorie... thank you, Marjorie!).
It was a very enjoyable event, and we were really well looked after by Eleanor and the rest of the Bath Festival crew. It was great to meet Dave McKean, someone who is not only a giant of the comic medium, but of book illustration, fine art and film, and also Robin Etherington, the embodiment of enthusiasm for comics and a great entertainer both on the page and off. Inspirations!
Afterwards Elyssa and I went for a quick dinner, and in contrast to a very laboured journey down, had a lovely easy drive back, getting home at about 11.30pm. Still, getting to bed about an hour later, we had to be up at 5am to catch a Sunday morning flight to Amsterdam, of which more in the next post!
Stripschrift has been going since 1968 and I believe is the world's longest-running magazine about comics, so it's a real honour to appear in it. A huge thanks to John for all the work and research he put into the article.
I had an article of my own appear in a magazine recently - nothing to do with comics though. I wrote a piece on a little-known local ruin, Brambletye manor, which has held my fascination for years. It included a few pictures from my own collection, most of which you can see online here, and appeared in the September 2010 edition of East Grinstead Living.
Back to comics - this weekend sees the launch of De Regenboog Orchidee at De Stripdagen in Houten (Netherlands), and I'll be there on the Sunday (26th). Before that (tomorrow, Saturday 25th) I'll be at the Bath Festival of Children's Literature, on a panel with Dave McKean and Robin Etherington called Graphic Novels: the new revolution.
I've been wanting to post little extracts of artwork from volume 3 (which I am now busily drawing away at), but am finding it difficult to choose bits that don't give too much away! Let's try this one...
Yes - that is Julius Chancer in a pith helmet - I get some strange requests sometimes!
I've been using a Sharpie for these, which is great the first couple of times but then they blunt really quickly, so I'm thinking of changing to something a bit closer to my dip pen - though I need a pen that is convenient for the quicker versions I do at comic shows and book festivals. A bit of trial and error required, I think...
I will be appearing at De Stripdagen in Houten on Sunday 26 September, and the Dutch comics magazine Stripschrift will include a feature on RO by John Wigmans in its September edition.
Actually, book-related stuff had started on Saturday as my publisher, Egmont, held an authors' dinner at the snazzy Atrium Restaurant, and treated us to a posh evening out. I met so many new people that I can't carry all their names and am liable to drop a few... Samantha Mackintosh (Kisses for Lula), Andy Stanton (Mr Gum), David Benedictus (Return to the Hundred Acre Wood), Julia Golding (The Diamond of Drury Lane), Jan Fearnley (Mr Wolf) ... oh, loads! It was particularly nice to meet Jenny, Jo and Lara from Egmont who have all helped with The Rainbow Orchid over the past few months.
Monday saw another tasty meal, this time lunch with a couple of Ellie's work colleagues at Wildfire, and then it was off to the Adventure Comics Workshop - my first event of the festival. This, amazingly, had sold out within 12 hours of tickets becoming available, and it was a packed festival tent that kept us out of the rain for an hour of creating heroes, villains and treasures with which to build a story. I even had three parents join in, which was marvellous. This was only my second workshop and, as with the first one, I came out feeling as though my brain had been whisked! I went straight into a book signing where it was great to meet a few long-time Rainbow Orchid readers who had come along to get their volume twos signed.
That evening Ellie and I made our way to the Pleasance Courtyard to see Tim Vine's Joke-amotive, which was brilliant. So many comedians resort to nastiness and moaning about life, which can all-too-often be an easy route to cheap laughs (I can't bear programmes such as Mock the Week!) - Vine's material is clever and fun, and by the end my face ached from laughing so much.
Tuesday couldn't have started out in a nicer fashion - a lovely breakfast with multi-festival comrade Sarah McIntyre and her husband, Stuart, who were staying at the same hotel as us (preview copies of Sarah's brilliant comic, Vern & Lettuce, were available to buy in the children's bookshop). Just after lunch it was off again to the authors' yurt to meet up with Jenny, from Egmont, in time for my schools event, brashly titled Comics with Garen Ewing!
I was a little apprehensive about this as I had to talk about the history of comics and there was no accommodation for any audio/visual equipment - and you can't really talk about comics without pictures! My solution was to spend a large part of the previous week making up a series of A3 boards to show - as well as giving myself a crash-course to brush up on my comics history. The result was better than I'd expected, the kids seemed really engaged and asked lots of questions. I kept the history aspect fast-moving and down to 25 minutes or so, and then used the rest of the hour to explain how I made a page of comic strip and answered more questions. As an example of a simple comic style I'd introduced the class to Lewis Trondheim's Mister O, and ended up giving his book a bigger plug than my own!
The signing afterwards was brief (school kids don't have much money!) but enjoyable as they were funny and seemed like a really bright and interested class. Thanks so much to everyone who filled up both my events.
Next up we had tickets to Steve Bell interviewing Alan Moore (I sat two seats away from Gary Trudeau) which was very enjoyable, though I didn't learn anything particularly new having read most of his recent online interviews - except it was more positive in tone. Frankly, it was enough to bask in the presence of the author of some of the greatest comic strip material this country has produced, and I got even closer to him afterwards in the authors' yurt - though not brave enough to approach and say hello!
Our last evening in Edinburgh saw me being far more sociable, however, as we met up with various comics people and ended up eating at the surprisingly good Wannaburger in the excellent company of Jeremy Briggs (Down the Tubes reporter, and more), Joe Gordon (master of the Forbidden Planet International blog) with his mate, Brendan, and Graeme Neil Reid (ace comicker and illustrator). Elyssa and I had thought of taking in one more event - our friend Martin White's musical, Gutted, but we were disappointed as Tuesday turned out to be its night off.
Wednesday was a lovely sunny day as we made our way along Princes Street to the station and eventually back to London where the heavens were in the process of soaking everything in sight. One more train journey south saw us home at six, where I had an hour before I was off to karate, ensuring that I slept very well that night!
Thanks Edinburgh Book Festival, and thanks Egmont for a fabulous few days. See Sarah's report here and Joe's report here for more.
A special thanks to Barry at the Geek Syndicate podcast for a lovely review of volume 2. (Now there's a few volume 2 reviews around I have updated the reviews page).
If you look on the interviews page you will see a brief Q&A I did for an Egmont promo leaflet on my book. And speaking of Egmont - they are currently selling RO at just 4.99 (that's £2 off!).
Elyssa and I went to see Toy Story 3 on Tuesday evening. I absolutely loved it - the quality hasn't diminished once throughout this series.
I've just finished reading Jason's latest book, Werewolves of Montpellier - wonderful, understated and dryly funny as ever. Did you know Jason has a blog?
A. F. Harrold very kindly sent me a copy of his new novel. I haven't had a chance to get reading it yet, but the back cover made me chuckle, so that's a good sign. It's called The Education of Epitome Quirkstandard.
And now, or as soon as I've cleared my current crop of book and t-shirt orders, I'm going to get as much work done as I possibly can before I hit the Edinburgh Festival!
A huge thanks to everyone who braved the rainy morning to come along, I really appreciate it. And another big thanks to library staff Sue Young, who put in all the effort to get it organised, and Sophie Worthington, who looked after me so well all morning.
Also today, the Forbidden Planet International blog put up a piece about the process I go through to make a page of The Rainbow Orchid - all my secrets revealed! You can have a look at it right here.
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