Primitif Painting

A colour painting of Primitif, undated, prob. from the mid-1980s. I used this image at least once inside a Primitif anthology book, but it’s never been printed or seen in full colour. Gouache, or water-soluble acrylic paint, with indian ink on top.

Drawing for The Ash Tree

In 1988 I worked with Savage Pencil on a series of drawings for The Ash Tree, the ghost story by M.R. James. The work was commissioned by the editors of Escape magazine and appeared in Escape 17 (the “Spellbound” issue) in 1989. This was one of the smaller spot-illustrations; the main event was a grisly…

The Big Sneeze by Phoenix

Here we have the cover for an early small press comic The Big Sneeze by Trevs Phoenix (now Woodrow Phoenix), published under his Catopants imprint. This “Sumo Conceptual Comic” comprised drawings of sumo wrestlers and starred Henry Sumo Sumo as the main character. The cover is brown A4 card folded lengthways, like a greetings card;…

Fragment of an Astorial Anecdote

Around 1994 or 1995 I wrote a number of short Astorial stories (stories set in the imaginary Astorial Hotel) and sent them out to fellow cartoonists and friends, in hopes they may wish to draw them up as comic strips. Denny Derbyshire, Chris Reynolds and Ros Garbles all responded, and their completed strips were published…

French Graphiste Stickers

No idea about these…I found them in a glassine envelope with “Comme Image” printed on it. It contains these stickers / postage stamps drawn by various artists. I recognise one of them as the work of El Rotringo, so I’m assuming for now they’re all French graphistes from some time in the 1990s. Any information…

Some Fear-Fraught Occasions

Original art for a one-pager “Some fear-fraught occasions of Charley Dome, related by himself”. I’m 90% sure this is Caspar Williams under an alias. From 1986, this is probably a submission to Fast Fiction magazine. Good gritty atmosphere in the drawings, nice shadows, use of Letratone. The Totally Evil Insect Kid is a potentially strong…

New Year Greeting from Placid

This is a drawing, or perhaps a two-colour print, from the French underground cartoonist Placid (Jean François Duval). I think I may have met him and had supper with him in Paris, but that would have been entirely due to Paul Gravett. I recall Placid as a very polite and courteous fellow. I have one…

Glenn Dakin Theatre Flyer

Glenn Dakin drew and hand-lettered this flyer for an amateur production by the Travelling Theatre, of this well-known Victorian melodrama The Red Barn, Or The Murder of Maria Marten. He also played the part of Tim Bobbin, a rustic simpleton. I saw the play and have fond memories of it. Undated; probably around 1984-1988.

Sun Jam

Here we have scans of Sun Jam, which was an improvised comic strip made by Darryl Cunningham, Paul Schroeder, and myself. Drawn very quickly in one single session. No pencilling, just inking right onto the page (though some TippEx afterwards!) The rules were that each artist would start a page with the first two panels,…

A postcard from David Hewie

I received this hand-drawn message from David Hewie of Dundee in January 1993. I seem to recall he was a regular reader of small press comics and a frequent customer at the Fast Fiction mail order service. I always like to receive mail-art and we don’t seem to see so much of it these days….