I'm currently redesigning and building my work website - after nearly three years of no updates. Anyway, I came across these mole concept drawings I did for Curious Expedition 2 - I don't remember doing them, but I like them, so thought I'd post them here before February vanishes.

This year saw the 50th anniversary of the Festival de la Bande Dessinée d'Angoulême, just known as Angoulême to most comics folk, the town where publishers and creators alike gather annually for one of the largest comics festivals in the world.

I've only been once, a very memorable trip back in 2014, but The Beat has included my brief views as part of their Angoulême Memories piece, including some who have been nearly 40 times (such as Paul Gravett).

For a trip down (my) memory lane you can read my blog report from the time here.

Just in case you haven't checked for a while, there have been a few new Brambletye Box strips put up over Christmas and the new year.

Progress has not exactly been zooming along, but it is being made, even while I'm having a very busy January with other work (I'm doing a lovely project at the moment with the Museum of London - I'll show some when I can).

Don't forget you can help support and encourage such progress by joining my Julius Chancer Patreon page, if you're able to. Thank you!

Here it is, the final DLC for Maschinen-Mensch's Curious Expedition 2. Previous DLCs have been paired with the (British) Avalon Club and the (Chinese) Taishi Academy, and now it's the turn of (the American) Lux Labs with The Robots of Lux.

There's a bit of a difference with this one as the three new featured characters are all from another computer game called Steamworld Heist, which I'm not familiar with, but had to learn a bit about of course in order to draw them - Piper Faraday, Billy Gill and Valentine Butterbolt.

Other new features include the Naturalist (who can train any animal in the game), the robot chameleon (which was super fun to create), the plasma spiders and the yeti, not to mention a number of new items and bits of equipment, as well as a new location, the old theatre (complete with not-so-hidden Tintin reference).

This DLC features the final bits of art I drew for CE2 towards the end of last year and the beginning of this one. The base game on its own is a very rich experience, but add these modules and its scope just becomes enormous and varied. It's an incredible game and I'm still in awe of how it all came together, and privileged to be a part of it.

The game and its DLCs are available on PC at Steam and GOG, as well as for XBox, PlayStaton and Switch. And if you're quick, they're heavily discounted as I post this!

A couple more Brambletye Box strips have gone up, and you may recognise this character from a previous meeting ...

It's Mr. Arthur Privett, a fellow historical researcher who made an appearance at the beginning of The Secret of the Samurai. He's not as impressive as he likes to think he is!

Here are a few character sketches for the current Brambletye Box scene (the Glinck's auction). If you want to see more behind the scenes work like this then please consider signing up to my Patreon page here - thank you!

Work on The Brambletye Box is proceeding nicely. I've just scripted the next scene and all the layout and roughs are completed, and drawing has begun (in fact the first strip is already up).

This scene sees the reintroduction of Lily Lawrence (learn more about her here), so I've been sketching and drawing her to get reacquainted. Here she is, announcing her up-coming appearance.

It's quite unusual for me to preview a project I'm working on when its so early on in development, but following the lead of publisher Fabled.One I can share the news that I'm doing the artwork for a new board game called Calleva.

Set in Britain in 20 BC around the city of Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester), it's written by Mat Humphrey - who has a number of really interesting and excellent games in the works, including the also announced Chickens 'n Aliens and Tomb of Akhenaten. I can't wait to see how this turns out and to share more with you. You can follow our progress on the Facebook page and Twitter. Here's the artwork for one of the Calleva cards, already completed.

My announcement of The Brambletye Box a couple of weeks ago was met with a lovely warm wave of enthusiasm, and that has really helped to get things going again with it. Obviously it does sometimes have to take a back seat to my commercial work, but already I've scripted the next scene and completed the thumbnails and A4 roughs for it, and I'm about to commence drawing, so hopefully you'll see those strips going up online very soon.

Remember you can support the comic further at my new Patreon page where I'm previewing sketches and other bits and bobs. A number have already signed up and I'm incredibly grateful for this, it's all kindling to keep things moving forward. Thank you!

I've been blowing into the cooled ashes of the world of Julius Chancer, and a little flame has sprung up and started dancing around. Enough that I feel it's time to open up and get Julius out in front of you again. So here is the start of his next adventure - The Brambletye Box.

At the moment I'm just making the first 5 pages (19 web strips) available to read (start here). More will follow as and when I'm able to put them up. I'm not going to promise any consistency just yet as it will be at the mercy of my work schedule - but by publishing them now I am making a commitment to getting this done as best as I can.

You can help ensure more work gets done by joining my Patreon. This is all new to me, so I'm starting out with low expectations and asking for very little (if anything) - just to gauge support and see how it goes. Your feedback on whether this avenue is worth pursuing will be most welcome.

The Brambletye Box takes place immediately after the end of The Rainbow Orchid. I will publish as much as I can online, with the ultimate ambition of it eventually appearing in album format as a single volume. Here's the promo blurb ...

The theft of the mysterious Brambletye Box from a controversial auction sets in motion a race to discover, not only the thief, but the story of an ancient Sussex ruin, three powerful stones lost to history, and a fantastic island where legends of strange beasts and a magical meteorite originate. Julius Chancer returns in a quest to discover the truth and save the world ... if he can!

As ever, I am incredibly grateful for your support and your patience. Julius has another big adventure ahead of him, let's see where he ends up this time!

Maschinen-Mensch have just announced the next expansion pack for Curious Expedition 2, called The Shores of Taishi, taking us into the realm of the East-Asian influenced islands of the Celestial Shores.

This DLC contains some of my favourite art for CE2, particularly the new Peacock tribe and their village. Other features include a recruitable red panda, a range of new enemies, such as the Ushi Oni and Dangkang, the animal shelter of the Tanuki, and a host of new items, trophies and locations.

Check out the trailer here, and add it to your Steam wishlist here. The Shores of Taishi is released for PC on May 19th, and soon after for consoles.

If you have any awareness of the comics world at all then you'll know that George Pérez has died, aged just 67, and after an illness about which he was very open, and seen out with an incredible spirit of generosity and grace. By all accounts, this was his character anyway, and he was hugely loved and admired throughout his almost 50 years as an artist.

I mark his passing because he was principal artist on one of my favourite comics from the early 80s, The New Teen Titans (co-created with writer Marv Wolfman). My relationship with superhero comics lasted only a few years - from about 1980 to maybe the mid-80s, and The New Teen Titans was the one comic I made sure to seek out every issue, and is pretty much the only run of superhero comics I still have in my collection today (including many of its offshoots and rarities).

I was totally absorbed in those stories - Brother Blood, Deathstroke, Terra, the Brotherhood of Evil, Trigon, the Vigilante, the runaways - just some that have stayed with me after decades. I carried on with the Teen Titans after George left - but it was never the same and my interest quickly petered out (though I did go back and collect the original 1960s Teen Titans run with the also-fabulous Nick Cardy, and I was very happy when José Luis García-Lopez made a guest appearance on art chores of The New Teen Titans too).

But the work and style of George Pérez is forever impressed into my brain from those early-80s formative years of comics reading, in the same way many of the classic 2000AD artists are, Joe Colquhoun from Battle, or the best of the contributors to Warrior. His work went way beyond the Teen Titans - including memorable runs on Crisis on Infinite Earths and Wonder Woman, which I also encountered to a much lesser degree.

So thank you George for the joy and inspiration you added to a very happy period in my own life. It's sad he's gone, but what a fantastic legacy - I'll be digging out some of my old comics for a re-read.