Have been drawing, but nothing fit to show you yet. There are many many deadlines heading my way this month, and as I have just acquired a full-time job so that I can, y’know, eat and live, updates might be a bit sparse on the ground. OR I get super-motivated and work my ass off and you’ll get more than usual. Most likely the former, though.
But! Main reason for update: two super-fun events are coming up, hosted by us lot at We Are Words + Pictures:
It’s Valentines Day. The restaurants are booked, theatres are full and there’s nothing on at the cinema… it’s time for something different. On Sunday February 14th Notting Hill Arts Club plays host to two comic book themed events, brought to you by We Are Words + Pictures. First up…
3 – 7pm: Drop In + Draw
Illustrators, writers and animators of all ages come together for an afternoon day of comic book art and fun. Featuring group-draw sessions, comic-themed activities and one-on-one tutorials, Drop In + Draw is open to all ages and artists of all abilities. You’ll be joined by Jamie McKelvie (X-Men: Divided We Stand, Suburban Glamour), Adam Cadwell (The Everyday) and Eagle Award-Winner Tom Humberstone (How To Date A Girl in 10 Days, My Fellow Americans), who’ll be on hand for sketches, advice and tips. So even if you can’t tell Batman from Manbat, or don’t know which end of a brush pen to hold, come on down and we’ll get you making comics.
Entry – £1 per person to cover materials, under 12’s free.
Flyer design by Tom Humberstone.
7.30 – Late: Modern Romance
A night of sunshine pop and four-color mayhem, Notting Hill Arts Club will be filled with comic art and live illustration while the bands play on. Compered by very special guest Robin Ince (The Office, Mock The Week, Nevermind The Buzzcocks, Radio 4 regular), the acts include confetti-wielding electro-pop heroes House of Strange, Dogtanion – whose single ‘Heavy Talk’ was one of Drowned in Sound’s ‘Singles of 2009′ – and intergalactic folk hero Judas Zero.
Once the bands have finished the We Are Words + Pictures DJs will play into the night, bringing the likes of M.I.A., Lady Gaga, The Flaming Lips and Los Campesinos! to the dancefloor. If you ask very nicely they might even play a slow dance. For more information visit www.wearewordsandpictures.com and www.nottinghillartsclub.com
Entry – £5 per person (£4 concessions)
Flyer design by moi!
***
We’re also going to be at the Electric Sheep event Subterranea, on February 6th (also at Notting Hill Arts Club):
Electric Sheep Magazine hosts a Rough Trade Shops’ RoTa afternoon of film, music and comics in the underbelly of Notting Hill. Free event!
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925) + LIVE DJ SCORE BY DJ DOWNFALL
The earliest film version of the legendary figure and one of the first silent horror films, The Phantom of the Opera stars the great Lon Chaney as the horribly disfigured Erik who leads a secret and lonely existence beneath the Paris Opera. After falling in love with a beautiful young singer, he holds her prisoner in his underground lair. Darkly poetic and full of visual delights, the film creates a startling world of nightmarish beauty while Chaney superbly brings out the terrible humanity of the monster.
The film will be shown with a live DJ rescore by DJ Downfall.
Certificate: PG
Dir: Rupert Julian, USA, 1925, 93 mins
Courtesy of Eureka Entertainment
WE ARE WORDS + PICTURES COMICS STALL
We Are Words + Pictures are a London-based team of illustrators and writers who bring comics to new readers through events, workshops, publications and market stalls. WAW+P will be bringing illustrator Anna Saunders to Electric Sheep Subterranea, where she’ll be drawing alongside the screening, as well as a selection of ‘zines and comics, which will be on sale in the bar. WAW+P are contributors to the new anthology Solipsistic Pop edited by Eagle Award winner Tom Humberstone, which aims to showcase the best in current British small press and underground comic books, and will be available for sale at the event.
+DJS AND SHORT FILMS
Ooh, and I don’t think I mentioned this yet: new Solipsistic Pop book and line-up announced! I am very excited indeed to be part of it again.
If you’ve got nothing to do either Friday or Sunday night, go watch a band, in particular The Filthy Orphans (I hear their lead singer is kind of hot). They’re playing at the Albany, Great Portland Street on Friday and at the Penthouse Cabaret, at The Comedy Upstairs Downstairs on Oxendon Street, Leicester Square, on Sunday (also featuring other acts involving magic and burlesque).
Also, here’s a random blurry picture of my drawing materials (on my very cluttered work space – and yes, I doodle straight unto my desk):
Included in this picture: A “Bamboo Fun” Wacom tablet – one day I’ll get a nicer one – with which I do all my Photoshop colouring. Pentel ProMarkers with which I do colouring when I DON’T use Photoshop for a change, and I can highly recommend these to all – they blend really nicely, and produce really solid, flat colour – a basic set of pencils, a mechanical pencil, a kneadable putty eraser, a soft white eraser, two ink nibs and holders and Indian Ink in black, red, and brown, a black Sharpie, a gel pen to write with, and a Pentel refillable brush pen with which I do my main inking.
Yeah.
Wish me luck with jobness and everything – and hopefully see you on the 6th and the 14th!
Jx
I did another illustration for Electric Sheep! This time, it’s a banner for their website, about weird ballet films.
The films are (from left to right) Dracula: Pages From A virgin’s Diary, The Red Shoes, Ballet Mecanique and Suspiria.
God, this was fun to draw. “So you want me to draw ballet dancers flouncing about in dramatic ways? Hells yeah!”
Three drawings for three sexy songs, just because I can. Hope you’re all having a wonderful 2010 so far.
Thought I’d better do another post before the year is over! Aaaand there’s actually work to show you.
First off, a guest strip for Howard Hardiman’s delightful online comic Badger. It’s a lovely, gentle, and deeply melancholic story about a Badger living in London. To me, the one place in London where all those emotions are felt the most is on Waterloo bridge, looking at the view. Preferably at night, during Christmas time. The lights are breath-taking.
Secondly, Jesse Bowline, acquaintance through Matt Sheret’s Phonogram Fanzine shenanigans, is putting together his own small press zine across the pond and has asked me to contribute. The theme was loosely based around cities and music, and I just had to think about Berlin. My brother used to live there when I was in my late teenage years/early twenties, and I used to visit him regularly, for months at a time during the Summer holidays. When I was 17, it was the first place where I went clubbing properly – having lived in countries like Brazil and Honduras before, there weren’t many indie clubs around, and my parents were understandably strict about safety issues involved with a very foreign-looking girl going out on her own at night.
But the summer after I graduated, when I was in Berlin before I moved to England…oh man. My best buddy Irene and I ran away, last minute, to a music festival (our first!) to see bands like the Cooper Temple Clause, Ian Brown, Gomez, and above all to satisfy our teenage love affair with Belle and Sebastian. Back in Berlin, we’d go out almost every night, either on our own or with my brother’s friends. It was the first time in my life with total freedom, from my very strict household, and from the limited entertainment possibilities of where I grew up. I’m getting misty-eyed just thinking about it.
Anyway! Babbling now. Here’s the illustration:
I also drew something for Hype Machine (probably one of my favourite websites), however the version below is not exactly what will go up on their website (as I drew it in the wrong dimensions first, duh). I’ve always looked at Florence and the Machine with slight suspicion because of her floaty, girly airiness (it’s been suggested to me that I just don’t like girls, hmm), but by god was it fun drawing her. I’m really quite proud of this one. Yeah, I know! Me!
In other news, I’ve opened up the 69 Love Songs, Illustrated project to a bunch of new people, with immediate amazing results, so go have a look. If anyone’s interested in doing a song, there’s still a lot left, so drop me a line. Especially Disc 2 of the Love Songs is looking particularly unloved. I wonder if that is because Disc 1 is the most listened to because people don’t like listening to the entire album in one go (it IS a long album), or whether it just has the best songs. Anyway. I’m really happy with the renewed enthusiasm in the project. All credit and thanks, of course, goes ultimately to Mr Stephen Merrit and the Magnetic Fields, who have not shut me down yet!
We Are Words And Pictures have a Christmas message for you. One infused with lies. I’ve not been stealing pennies to fund my art habit, but performing sad ditties on an accordion around windy Berlin street corners instead, and Sheret is in fact allergic to water, which is terribly ironic since he was born with webbed feet.
Tom Humberstone is continuing to brave Josie Long’s 100 days project by drawing a comic a day for 100 days.
And Laurenn McCubbin, an excellent artist, is still raising money for her incredibly interesting Speaking to Las Vegas in the Language of Las Vegas project:
In February, I’ll be presenting a gallery show that I’m calling Speaking to Las Vegas in the Language of Las Vegas. This is going to be an art installation that combines sculptural elements, performance, audio, video, photo documentation, and illustrated portraits of Las Vegas sex workers. The purpose of this show is to investigate the connections between the Las Vegas economy & the legal & illegal sex work that happens there.
Go on, she only has 15 more days to go!
That’s it from me this year. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and yadda, yadda, yadda from me to you.
Julia x
(triumphantly withholding from commenting on RATM as Xmas No.1)
So last weekend, Team WAW+P plus Solipsistic Pop travelled up to the north to sell our comicky wares at the annual Leeds Thought Bubble Festival of Sequential Art.
It was a fantastic time – Tom and I arrived really late on the Friday, but managed to find a little hole-in-the-wall indie club filled with the drunkest and happiest indie kids I’ve ever seen, after much confused wandering around Leeds town centre at 1 in the morning. It called out to us like a homing beacon. We even danced a little. Sober!
The convention itself was long and exhausting, but went really well for us – lots of interest in both Paper Science and Sol Pop, lots of interesting conversations with punters. I had a little wander around, unfortunately I was a bit short on money this year so I couldn’t pick up too much stuff…but I did pick up the highly-anticipated issue two of Marc Ellerby’s Chloe Noonan (which is great fun and I highly recommend it!), the B.A.S.T.A.R.D.S anthology by the London Small Press All-stars, a print by John Allison, and a My Cardboard Life mini, Super Colin, by Philippa Rice. I was also super happy to come across Andi Watson, who very kindly signed my copy of Little Stars and even did a little sketch. Hooray! I then made a fool out of myself by giving him a copy of Paper Science with the eloquent words: “I-have-a-stall-over-there-and-we-made-this-and-I’d-like-to-give-you-one-thanks-for-the-sketch-I-really-like-your-work-ok-good-bye-now!!!” Then I ran away.
…
I’ll get the hang of this stuff some time.
The best part was, of course, the Phonogram after party. Matt, Anne, Tom and I had a really nice dinner and then rushed up to set up for DJing – Tom and I did the first 3o minutes, unfortunately we weren’t allowed to turn it up too much to begin with but it went down rather well (shout out to Oliver Lamden, Jake Harold, and Sean Azzopardi, the first heroes on the dancefloor!). Actually, I’m just going to link you to Kieron’s write-up about it, he puts the awesomeness of the night in much better words.
Here’s a little doodle of us dancing:
Might post little Thought Bubble inspired doodles over the next few days. I’d like to draw a little portrait of everyone who DJed that night!
We had a lovely time, and I think every single one of us came back full of enthusiasm and new ideas for the future, which was sorely needed, I think. We’ve been drifting around on a little cloud of comic-love ever since. Which is what these things should be there for, so success all round!
Jx
Leeds Convention Report – I owe you guys one. It’ll be a goon ‘un. But for now, I have a cold and am still shattered from the weekend’s many excesses. The comics crowd knows how to party.
SNIFFLE SNIFFLE COUGH SNEEZE
Things! Thingsthingsthings.
Comiket on Sunday was amaaazing. Sold well, met lots of awesome people, had many interesting conversations, Solipsistic Pop sold well (if you weren’t there, you can purchase it here!), and the launch party afterwards was fun, fun, fun. Matt posted a nice write-up of it, and so did Mark.
So! Below is a new comicky thing I drew yesterday, but in this post, I’m just gonna go ahead and link you to some things.
Firstly, the Guardian. There’s an article about Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasking Corruption here, and an article about Comiket here. The only deplorable thing is the headline on that Ctrl.Alt.Shift article – “Pow! Comic-strip heroes fight against corruption”. Siiigh. And of course, the first line – “it is a comic book collection without a cape, dodgy mask or death ray in sight. There are, though, plenty of baddies”. Double-siiigh. Is there really still a need to mention “pow” and capes in every single article about comics that have nothing to do with superheroes?
Moving swiftly on.
Things from my tumblr, which I am getting quite addicted to and am trying to keep interesting (though the Share on Tumblr button in my browser lately has been an excuse to just lob anything up there which amuses me for more than two seconds).
Maya Deren! I re-discovered my undying love for her. She was an American avant-garde filmmaker, choreographer, dancer, poet, writer, and photographer. She has made one of my favourite short films of all times – Meshes Of The Afternoon – which can currently be seen at the Tate Modern. She hung out with people like Duchamp, Breton, and John Cage, and adopted Voodoo as a religion after travelling to Haiti to film and partake in Voodoo rituals.
She distributed her films herself, and blamed Hollywood for the stagnation of film as a creative fine-art form (you see how, as a small-presser, this would appeal to me. Yes?).
Her films are things of beauty, in choreography and sheer playfulness with the medium. I can’t quite describe how elated I feel after watching them, without letting on just how much of a film geek I secretly am. My film work towards the last half of my second year and the entirety of my third year was strongly influenced by her (but you don’t get to see it, because it’s not very good).
“I make my pictures for what Hollywood spends on lipstick.”
This is Ritual In Transfigured Time, from 1946. It’s 14 minutes long, but stick with it. Anaïs Nin makes an appearance.
Talking about Anaïs Nin, the comic earlier was kind of inspired by her:
I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger than reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn’t impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.
That and this, from Marguerite Duras’ The Lover, one of my favourite books ever:
When it’s in a book I don’t think it’ll hurt any more… exist any more.
One of the things writing does is wipe things out. Replace them.
That last one is a sort of mantra for me, really, with all my comicking.
Whilst we’re on the subject of writing, Katie West’s tumblr is full of great, touching writing, and beautiful photography, and if you don’t already know who she is you should definitely go check it out. Frankly, I love her especially for the “come for the breasts, stay for the heart” tagline.
And getting back to Comiket, in a loop, I discovered and had a chat with some of Nobrow there, who produce beautiful, beautiful small press publications and are definitely worth checking out. They’ve got a launch party on Thursday which I’d love to go to, but turns out my friend has tickets to a Robert Crumb exhibition and I made other plans for afterwards, as well. Sigh. Hopefully they’ll be around small press fairs a lot more, though.
Sleep now. I did some more drawing which I’ll post up soon.
Jx
(click to enlarge)
Hello hello hello,
I got commissioned to do an illustration for Electric Sheep magazine, on an article about the film Day Night Day Night. Here’s a short quote about the film from the IMBD website:
A 19-year-old girl prepares to become a suicide bomber in Times Square. She speaks with a nondescript American accent, and it’s impossible to pinpoint her ethnicity. We never learn why she made her decision — she has made it already. We don’t know whom she represents, what she believes in – we only know she believes it absolutely.
And here’s my illustration:
In my last post, I talked about the Lazarides Gallery exhibition for the Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasking Corruption comic book. Turns out Thursday is just the private view, but it will be open to the public and run for a month from Friday, the 6th of November. Check it out!
And I know I already talked about Comica Comiket and the Solipsistic Pop launch party a LOT, but have some pretty flyers to remind you nonetheless:
(Flyer by the ever-talented Mr. Tom Humberstone.)
Woo, very exciting. Hopefully my talented photographer friend Derek Bremner will be around to take photos of the event, as well.
Aaaand, that’s all. For now.
Jx
Phew. That was a long weekend.
I had a table at MCM Expo this weekend, MCM being probably the largest and most mainstream convention I’ve ever attended. It was an interesting time, and it was lovely to see the usual faces again, as well as meeting lots of new ones. Unfortunately, my wares weren’t really geared towards the manga/anime audience, but I made my table money back and can’t really ask for more. It was worth it just for the experience. Thanks so much to Anna and Emma for organising it, both of you are (super)heroes. Heroines.
I’ve got photos on my phone, but annoyingly, I can’t get them off of it. However my booth babe for the weekend, Del, has taken loads and because he is an incredibly talented photographer I will link you to them as soon as he lobs them up on his blog.
Meanwhile, here’s a photo of Del and I taken by Carly Roberts, who has also taken lots of awesome pictures at Expo:
I’m holding up Sarah Gordon’s amazing little Beard Zine, of course.
Anyhow! More news! I got shortlisted to be one of the final five (hur BSG reference) contestants for the Ctrl.Alt.Shift comic competition. They’re putting together a book called “Unmasking Corruption” and the competition part was to illustrate a script by Dev Hynes, otherwise known as Lightspeed Champion. Here’s a first-page preview of my entry:
Unfortunately I didn’t win (the winner is Luke Pearson who I recently found over the internets, and who deserved it without question because he is insanely talented), so my comic won’t make it into the book – however, there is going to be an exhibition on Thursday the 5th of November, where my entry will be on the wall and available for sale. For anyone who wants to come along, here’s the details for the event:
Thursday November 5th, 2009
Lazarides Gallery
8 Greek Street,
Soho,
London W1D 4DG
Exhibition from 7pm – 9pm
Hope to see you there!
Next up, of course, is Comiket at Comica on the 8th of November, where We Are Words + Pictures will have a table. In even more exciting news, it will also be the day of the Solipsistic Pop anthology launch, and there will be a launch party downstairs in the bar after the fair during the day. Here’s some info from the Comica site:
Solipsistic Pop, the new biannual anthology spotlighting the best in alternative comic art from the UK, is officially launching at the Comica ‘09 Small Press and Self-Publishers Fair, Comica Comiket, at the ICA on 8 November. The Solipsistic Pop stall will have copies of the book for sale and a selection of work by the contributors. Most of the contributors will be there on the day to sign books. Comica Comiket will be open between 1pm and 6pm. A post-launch party will take place in the ICA bar from 7.30pm until closing and there will be live drawing and DJ sets from contributors during the night.
Hooray!
November is a busy month, because on the 20th and the 21st we will be at Thought Bubble in Leeds – words + pictures are sharing a table with Tom Humberstone, and we’ll be selling Solipsistic Pop there as well. There might be some DJing going on at the after-party, as well. If you’re near there or can make your way up, I highly recommend it: Leeds was our first convention last year and it was an absolutely lovely experience. It’s well organised, has a long list of high-profile guests, talks, and events, and is in general a whole bag of fun.
…I think that’s all I’ve got for now. With all this mad organising, there seems to be no time for drawing! I will update on other projects soon, though, have lots planned. I will attempt to be the busiest bee in comics for the rest of the year…
Jx
