Coelacanth Diaries

2012-01-07T11:59:00.000Z

Temporary Ghost Of Christmas Future

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2012-01-07T11:58:00.003Z

New Year's Eve Excuse-O-Matic 3000

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Guardian NYE cartoon 2011

2012-01-07T11:56:00.003Z

Guardian Christmas Cartoon

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(Obviously these weren't the words that were published!)

2012-01-07T11:54:00.002Z

Emily Charlton's DIY Christmas

This year's Prospect Christmas cartoon

2012-01-07T11:45:00.002Z

Font Love

Guardian Cartoon

(I wrote and roughed this one before learning that a book had come out called 'Just My Type'. Oh well.)

2011-12-17T09:58:00.004Z

A Christmas Cartoon Nicked Off Of My Brilliant Wife

Hannah thought of this one - always hard thinking of new Christmas Humour that's worth doing as it's such an over-ploughed field. So it's nice to have a brilliant and funny wife around who I can take credit off of. (She insisted not to be bylined, I should add).

See Hither

2011-12-10T12:16:00.002Z

Churchill Speech

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The cartoon has biggened this week, swamping up the now defunct 'Guess Who?' on page 10 of the Weekend magazine with a few more frames. I didn't ask for this but was delighted to be offered more space to waffle on. Sorry Guess Who fans - amongst whom is counted my wife Hannah, who was a bit disappointed to see Guess Who go. Anyway cos of the redesign the original cartoon was shorter than the printed one - I had to add a couple of frames in when the page got redesigned.

Oi oi this cartoon is shareable Chez Guardian...

(The pencil originals of most of the Guardian cartoons are available to buy by the way, £150 each)

2011-12-03T10:28:00.001Z

The Enigmatic Novelist's Secret

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Please go here if you fancy sharing this...

2011-11-26T10:13:00.002Z

What Are You Doing You Stupid Moth?

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thisaway if you fancy sharing it...

2011-11-19T10:17:00.002Z

Everybody Has A Book Inside Them

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Shareable on the Guardian website

2011-11-13T10:27:00.004Z

Sorry

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You can share it here if you like

2011-11-05T10:36:00.004Z

This Week's Guardian Cartoon Is About Two Notes And They're Having A Chat

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Click on this to share eh

2011-10-31T08:29:00.008Z

A Cartoon In Which I Accidentally Rip Off Steve Tillotson

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Here's this month's Prospect cartoon. An annoying thing happened here. Once my little story of a tragic pink jelly-like character called Mr Wubbles had been published in the magazine, I revisited the work of the excellent Steve Tillotson of Banal Pig comics - and to my horror realised that he already had a tragic pink jelly-like character called, erm, Mr Wobbles. This does occasionally happen, and it's very annoying. I thought in fact that I'd *avoided* ripping anyone off by calling him 'Mr Wubbles' instead of 'Mr Wobbly', who was a recent Tom Gauld character.

It's genuinely a bit depressing when things like this happen. You think you've come up with a joke or a character, but it turns out it's somebody else's idea that's gone into your brain and you've convinced yourself that you've thought of it. And then everybody thinks you're a big copying bastard.

Anyway, I've apologised to Steve, who was very gracious about it, and urge you to visit his site and buy his stuff, cos he's one of the funniest cartoonists out there.

2011-10-29T09:20:00.002Z

Philip Larkin

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Click here to share on the Guardian's social networking counters please so I don't look like a right loser

2011-10-25T10:30:00.003Z

Melvyn Bragg's Really Stressful Day

This week's Guardian cartoon

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2011-10-20T09:04:00.003Z

Dear World, Can I Have My Vague Scientist Original Back Please

Just a little appeal for whoever currently has my Vague Scientist original painting. Can I have it back please, as it is not legally yours.

I left it with the exhibitor for ages cos I moved out of London, and never got round to going and picking it up. But I always assumed it would still be with the exhibitor as they are very careful with left works. However when I went back on Saturday to finally pick it up, it wasn't there.

It's true that I left it with the exhibitor for far too long. But that doesn't mean it is no longer wanted, or no longer mine. You may have picked it up by accident, fair enough. Either way bring it back please, it is one of my babies and I miss it.

If you have it, and a conscience, you can take it to the place where you accidentally took it from and just hand it over/put it back in the bag, or feel free to email me through this blog and I'll give you my address to post it.

I have a lot of faith in people, and I doubt it was taken in bad spirit. I imagine whoever has it genuinely thought it wasn't wanted, and they liked it, which is great, in a way.

But the thing is, it is wanted, by me. It took me hours to write, and absolutely ages to paint. And it is not yours. Please give it back.

And, here's a bonus - you'd avoid going to Hell!

2011-10-16T17:40:00.005Z

Here Is A Cartoon That Basically Nobody On Earth But Me Thought Was Good

Here, in a spirit of pointless transparency, is a cartoon I did a few months ago which nobody I showed it to seemed to like. I mean really, nobody. Ho hum. I still quite like it, but then I would because I did it.

It's supposed to be a parody of those sort of 'in conversation' interviews you get with artists and suchlike, where their work is taken really seriously and everyone crosses their legs in the same way.

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2011-10-16T13:17:00.004Z

Here Are Some Original Drawings And Paintings

Here's how I do my cartoons nowadays: in pencil, then I scan and colour them in Photoshop.

I'm going to start making the original pencil drawings available for sale soon, as well as the paintings of I'm The Internet and iPad. So if you're interested just email me!

I've also donated an original drawing from The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil, my book due out in 2012, to the fundraising campaign for Solipsistic Pop 4. Solipsistic Pop is a regular collection of British comics, and it is funded by an incentive-based campaign on indiegogo. I think that if you buy the top incentive package (which contains a *lot* of goodies) you get an original artwork from one of the contributors. This is mine. It's a page from the first draft of the book, and it's one of the ones which so far works best as an image in its own right.

2011-10-15T09:36:00.003Z

New Cartoon In The Guardian And A Thing About My Stuff

I haven't blogged it yet but I'm now doing a weekly cartoon for the Guardian whoop whoop! It's got a fantastic readership who seem to have a similar sense of humour to me so hopefully it'll go down well. I'm trying to make it a lot less wordy than my usual ones - not least because there's not as much space. It's good discipline.

Here's the first one:

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...and here's this week's:

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And here's the article about my stuff, with a slideshow and all, written by the cartoonist-journalist Becky Barnicoat, whose stuff is fantastic.

2011-10-07T14:21:00.007Z

The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil

Hello Dave:

"Hello"

Dave has been filling my days for the past few months. He is the main character, indeed pretty much the only character, in my first graphic novel which will be completed by the middle of next year, to be published by Jonathan Cape.

I've been drawing him so many times I've had to make a sculpy maquette to keep his head consistent. It's like being a one-person flipping animation studio.

I say it's a 'graphic novel' but that makes it sound rather more grand than intended. It is basically a picture book with some words in it. I think they call them comics. I'm doing it all with pencil, and a lot of rubbing out.

The book is called 'The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil'. It's about this gigantic beard that causes a right rumpus. More broadly, it's about hair and death and chaos and stories and fear and Stuff Just Happening. And the Bangles.

Here are some pictures from it, without the words:

(Oh and also I'm starting a new cartoon in the Guardian Weekend magazine tomorrow which I'm very excited about. I believe they're running a piece about my cartoons by way of introduction. So look out for it if you get the Guardian, though I'm not sure if they'll put it on the website yet. Go on! Buy it!)

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2011-09-25T16:57:00.001Z

Poet Laureate

A new cartoon at the Prospect website!!!!!!!

2011-09-20T10:45:00.001Z

Deidre's Photo Casebook

This, in a blast from the recent days of the News International hoo-ha, is one from the month before last. All a very far cry from my days working at The Times - I don't think I'd have been allowed to do this there...

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2011-09-20T10:36:00.005Z

Ian And Glenda Sisyphus Go On Holiday

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2011-09-19T20:08:00.003Z

Right I Really Am Going To Start Blogging Again Now

Dear me. I always fall off the blog wagon. Apologies. Here, for a start, is a cartoon Prospect rejected recently, for all fans of the transcendentally bland BBC 1 region-fest, Village SOS. Sadly I don't think it'll find a home now the series has ended, ah well.

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2011-08-23T11:29:00.004Z

Hello There Why Not Support Solipsistic Pop?

Just a wee shout out to say that Solipsistic Pop - that marvellous collection of British comics what has helped me in my career a great deal - needs funding help for its next edition.

It's not just charity though - if you contribute to their IndieGoGo pag e, you get various extras such as signed, exclusive postcards and badges to pre-ordered copies of Solipsistic Pop 4, free tickets to launch events, digital downloads, original artwork, limited edition prints, a credit in the book and even extremely rare printing plates.

I'll be contributing an original artwork from my in-the-pipes graphic novel which will go to a high bidder, as well as doing the cover and a page story for the book itself. So hopefully I shall see you at the launch if you contribute.

Do it for Britain... and British comics!

2011-06-23T17:59:00.006Z

Ben Jonson

New cartoon (from the Prospect website):

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This joke is stolen from the brilliant brain of my marvellous wife Hannah, who observed a couple of years ago when we were at the Globe Theatre that Shakespeare would have been well annoyed to be at that theatre as it is today, ie with all these bald pictures of him about the place.

I've been trying to make a cartoon out of this ever since, and recently found out that, not only are the only definite pictures we have of him are when he was really bald, but also most of them derive from the engraving at the front of the First Folio - which his arch rival Ben Jonson took pains to describe in his preface as being his true likeness.

So I reckon that this may actually be a true story.

2011-06-13T18:17:00.003Z

A Very Topical Cartoon

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Have you heard the news about Osama Bin Laden getting got? I'm so on it with my month-old topical satire. This one's a bit old now cos I shouldn't really post them until Prospect magazine's off the shelves, hence the delay.

2011-06-08T14:06:00.003Z

Solipsistic Pop 4

The nearly-annual occurence of the Tom Humberstone-curated Solipsistic Pop is a-comin round the mountain once more. It's less an anthology more a group effort by people who toil at the craggy face of UK comics, and features contributions from about 20 artists each based loosely around a particular theme. This year's theme is Maps.

I'll be doing the cover and a page inside, which is rather daunting as the last three were really rather lovely looking things. Anyway, read all about it here...

2011-05-18T08:13:00.003Z

Penny Dreadful

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I recently designed SFX's new horror columnist character for their newly redesigned magazine.

2011-05-17T08:06:00.001Z

FHM Hospital: I've Got Crabs All Over My Genitals

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2011-05-17T08:04:00.002Z

FHM Hospital: I Can't Stop Dribbling In My Sleep

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2011-05-17T08:02:00.002Z

FHM True Stories: I Went Skinnydipping With My Girlfriend But Got Felt Up By A Jellyfish

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2011-05-17T08:00:00.001Z

FHM True Stories: I Filled A Local Idiot's Car With Bluebottles

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2011-05-17T07:58:00.003Z

FHM True Stories: The Vicar's Daughter Invited Me Round To Watch A 'Girly Film' But I Misunderstood Her With Disastrous Results

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2011-05-17T07:55:00.001Z

FHM True Stories: My Girlfriend's Handbag Got Nicked On Holiday So I Wrestled The Thief To The Ground Whilst I Was Naked

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2011-05-17T07:51:00.003Z

FHM True Stories: I Really, Really Flooded My School

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2011-05-17T07:47:00.001Z

Heating and Ventilation News

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2011-05-17T07:42:00.002Z

FHM Booze Feature

Alcohol feature for FHM: Map spread background for a 'wines of the world' feature and a 'how to carry drinks'/how to do bar magic trick' sidebar. I occasional do these line-only 'how-to' illustrations which are quite a good way of forcing myself to draw things clearly.

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2011-05-17T07:38:00.002Z

Professional Manager

For Professional Manager magazine

2011-05-14T10:22:00.001Z

Our Wedding Invite

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I am pleased to announce the marriage of Stephen Collins (me) and Hannah Clarke. Well I say "announce", it actually happened last August but I've only just got around to posting the invite I painted for it. It was inspired by those lovely romance stories you get in Woman's Weekly and the People Friend.

I won't post photos cos I don't want to annoy friends and fam, but we had a marquee in the field out the back of Hannah's parents' house, and it was the best day ever. We didn't dress like this.

2011-05-14T10:11:00.002Z

Emily and Jon

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Just before Christmas our friends Emily and Jon got married and I did this painting in acrylics for them (Emily's Australian, Jon's English, in case you were wondering). It doubled as their invite card.

2011-05-14T10:08:00.002Z

Hannah and Rob

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Front and inside of an invite I did to our friends' wedding. Ink and goache on paper

2011-05-14T09:51:00.001Z

Accountancy Age

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Cover illustration for Accountancy Age magazine

2011-05-14T09:46:00.002Z

Frank Zappa

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Every so often I do a cover for La Repubblica's arts section. This was about a classical reinterpretation of Frank Zappa's music

2011-05-12T14:24:00.001Z

Spectator Again And A New Cartoon

Lorks I've been lax again with the old bloggery. Here's this week's Spectator what I did...

...and this month's Prospect cartoon:

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2011-03-23T18:15:00.003Z

A Cartoon About Professor Brian Cox

I bloody love Wonders Of The Universe and this is my fan letter to it:

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2011-03-23T16:43:00.008Z

Brands Of The Future

Well, 'Brands Of The Future', my monthly back-page contribution to Wired UK, is one year old (which is about how long it took to draw all of them). I don't write BOTF - Wired do that in house - but the drawings are the kind of thing my 10 year old self would be delighted to choose as a career option. The detail is always the thing with these, so if you want to read them you'll have to click on the images to enlarge, THEN click again to zoom in (at least that's what you do in Firefox...), and THEN scroll round the image in your browser. Even then you might also need a magnifying glass, as well as a lot of spare time.

I'll be interested to see whether any of these products come to pass.

2011-03-22T15:26:00.003Z

Ooh

Prospect have started putting my cartoons up again on their site!

Hither: http://tinyurl.com/5stbjmq

‎...and thither: http://tinyurl.com/63bp67z

...Subsequent edit: I might as well put them up on this blog too. Click to enlarge...

2011-03-14T21:13:00.004Z

Queenface

Here's the cover I did for this week's Spectator, which benefited from the 'reveal' element of their new New Yorker-style cover flap. I amused myself by having Queenie peek round at the horrors behind. Still awaiting the Beefeater's knock at the door...

2011-03-07T09:00:00.001Z

Animal Sounds

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2011-03-04T08:28:00.002Z

Radio 4

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2011-03-03T21:43:00.003Z

Hello Again It's Me

Hello. Bad blogger. Sorry blog. I haven't died. I've got married and bought a house and tried to write a book with pictures in it. It's all been a bit distracting. I'll tell you more about it all later if you like. But for now here's a cartoon, which is from Christmas.

Back soon

Me x

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2010-11-06T16:04:00.005Z

Jonathan Cape / Observer Graphic Short Story Competition

I recently found out that I'd won the Cape/Observer graphic short story compo, which I was extremely pleased about to say the least. It's in the Observer today, along with a very nice article by Rachel Cooke.

The story is really designed to be read in print cos of the layout. So please buy the paper if you're interested! But in case you can't, here's how it looks in its printed double page spread format.

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2010-10-20T09:37:00.009Z

A Depressing Story About A Sad Hand Dryer

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I've got a thing about hand dryers. I don't know why. It probably goes back to childhood when my dad used to dry my hair after a bath and I would kind of zombie out. Since then I've always been fond of machines that blow hot air at me. My mum used to find me sat in front of the tumble dryer vent, looking like a crackhead. I remember we went to some old lady's B and B on holiday once and she'd left a fan heater in my bedroom, so I decided to use it to create my own bedroom sauna. I must have nearly bankrupted the poor woman.

It's odd. I guess I just kind of feel like, if a machine blows warm air at you, it must have a soul. Hand dryers just seem like loving sort of machines to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to be discovered in flagrante with an X-lerator in Nandos or anything. (Although I do think that the height they mount The Execrable Dyson Airblade in men's toilets is just asking for trouble). No, it's not a fetish. I just kind of feel like they're conscious, that's all. I think hand dryers are basically people. Is that so odd?

I mentioned The Execrable Dyson Airblade just then. Let me just get this off my chest. The Execrable Dyson Airblade is not a hand dryer. The Execrable Dyson Airblade is an evil cuckoo shit. It takes all the warm-air fun out of the hand dryer experience. It uses *cold air* to bash your hands around inside it so you touch its inner areas against your will. And what's more, its inner areas, on account of all this hand bashing-about, have just been touched by men who have themselves just touched their willies and bums. This is totally against the ethos of hand dryers. Also, I've always been deeply suspicious of machines that ask you to 'put a bit of your body inside me'. It's like those creepy machines you'd get in British amusement arcades in the 80s, where you had to put your finger in them and it'd tell you if you were sexy. That was fucking creepy. If it's not a CAT scanner, or a car, or a photo-me booth, no bit of me is going inside a machine. Do you understand me, you pushy robotic bastards?

Anyway. So yeah, I love hand dryers. If you think about it, we spend large parts of our lives in a sort of intimate communion with them. Added together over a lifetime it must be months. I mean, whenever you're out in a social situation, you'll get a few moments of contemplative privacy with this faithful, comforting machine. Just you and the dryer, having a quiet moment like old pals. It's a moment of reflection, of quiet in the hubbub. A moment which you might have just before you go back to the bar and meet the love of your life or whatever.

And they're always of different makes with different performance skills. They have their own personalities really. You get the flashy chrome one called stuff like 'Xelerator' or 'Typhoon', the pompous World Dryer who's desperate to tell you all about how it's saving the planet, and the myriad beige plastic fag-burned misfits who've seen it all and have a drying performance like the warm sigh of a depressed cat. I love them all, and do so hope the Airblade won't ever kill them off.

Anyway. A lot has happened since I last posted. I've got married is the main thing. My wife's brilliant. End of post. I'll put some bits and bobs up as they occur to me.

(PS Come to think of it, 'Halogen Nights' sounds like a song Brett Anderson might have written if he were a hand dryer. That would be a brilliant hand dryer.)

(PPS Prospect are now putting my cartoons up behind a paywall online, so it's only polite that I post last month's cartoon each month, after the mag is off the shelves. I'm all for paywalls, by the way. We need more paywalls in this world.)

2010-08-28T10:00:00.001Z

Academics

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2010-06-28T18:07:00.002Z

Woop Woop!

One of my heroes Alan Moore (!!) talking about one of my comics on R4!!!! (It's about 14 mins in if anyone's innerested)

:))

2010-06-23T11:42:00.003Z

Post-Apocalyptic Newsnight Review

I enjoyed doing this one.

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2010-06-03T15:48:00.002Z

The Pope

I did the Pope for the cover of the Spectator this week:

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2010-05-29T10:07:00.002Z

New Prospect Cartoon:

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2010-05-21T10:30:00.003Z

The Spectator - Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson for the cover of this week's Spectator. Acrylic on paper, had to do it in a few hours, but it was good fun to do because Boris is such a good subject. They wanted the bike to be sort of disintegrating. It looked slightly different on the actual cover cos they had to tweak it a bit in house I think.

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2010-05-21T10:20:00.004Z

TFL 'Cycling For London' Competition

This is my entry for the Transport for London 'Cycling in London' competition. The brief was to come up with a poster which shows cycling to be fast, fun, freeing and increasingly popular. I also quite like drawing pigeons cos I think their funny, and I found it amusing to imagine what people's reactions would actually be if they did just start cycling around one day. It would force us to question everything we know about the world and our place in it. It would be absolutely fucking horrific.

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2010-05-21T10:14:00.003Z

Wired UK: Crowdsourcing

This started out life as a large brush and ink illustration as a present for Hannah's birthday (if you look closely we're in there). But half way through doing it Wired commissioned me for a piece about how to crowdsource ideas for business from social networking sites, so it made sense to tweak it on the computer once it was finished, colour it in and adapt it for the article. Below is the Wired version.

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2010-05-21T10:07:00.002Z

Wired UK: DIY Haircuts

This was an acrylic painting on paper. I'm doing more paintings nowadays, and using the computer less and less, if at all. It's infinitely more satisfying than using Photoshop, and I think it looks better. My vision of the future of illustration is kind of luddite - I believe that the more people get used to the perfection of computer art software, the more they will want to see brushtrokes and human details in the creation of the image. We're inundated with Flash and Illustrator images nowadays, but I feel there will always be a bit of the human brain which responds to imperfections and accidents in art. Also, it means that after the commission is finished with, I have a painting left over which is much easier to sell than a print.

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2010-05-21T10:05:00.001Z

Piers Morgan for the Spectator

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2010-05-21T09:51:00.007Z

Wired UK: Products of the Future

For the past couple of months I've been going detail-mental on the back page of my favourite magazine, Wired. It's a monthly series imagining products of the future. The copy isn't written by me, but I'm enjoying trying to cram tiny oblique references to this entire future world in - too small to read here are bits like 'NanoGroomers are proud supporters of the Zombie Rehabilitation program' and 'This Product is guaranteed free of all known zombie viruses'. I also wanted to show these products are being sold in some weird post-Euro currency, the EU dollar, whatever that is.

The text for this stuff takes ages, as I refuse to use typed fonts. Fonts in illustrations always just sort of pull me out of the world that the illustration inhabits, if that makes sense. So I always hand draw my lettering, which for something like this is enormously time consuming - but worth it, I think.

[Click on image to enlarge, then click again to zoom in to readable size!!!]

2010-05-21T09:48:00.003Z

Clash Magazine

I've started doing a monthly caricature for the newly redesigned Clash magazine. Here's the first two, the Killers' Brandon Flowers and the Libertines.

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2010-05-21T09:46:00.000Z

Wired UK: How To Microsleep On The Go

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2010-05-21T09:41:00.002Z

Camouflage Magazine

Illustrations a 'how to survive in the forest' feature for Camouflage magazine, the recruitment mag of the British Army. The second one is about how to prevent yourself sneezing when hiding from enemies in a bush, in case you were wondering.

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2010-04-30T23:14:00.006Z

A Big Strip

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This is an elaborated version of one that was rejected by Prospect last month (though the one that made it this month has a similar joke in it). I think it didn't work originally cos it needed loads of space to work. Anyway here it is. I love the gentle cricket-commentator like rolling news sometimes acquires. It's a very British type of drama.

2010-04-30T08:23:00.002Z

All Hail The Clegguloid

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2010-03-29T06:39:00.005Z

New Prospect Cartoon

Slight break with style and delivery this time:

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For added value here though, I shall post an old rough that Prospect rejected last year but which I still liked. (You kind of need to be familiar with British TV weather forecasting):

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Oh, and I make no apologies for my use of lovely Comic Sans. I always use it in my roughs. Take that, nerds!!!!!

2010-03-08T09:37:00.005Z

A Miniature Comic

Hallo Monday morning fans hope you're having a great morning where you are ok let's GO

(I should have been on radio.)

Here's a mini-short-story / musing comic I did for Solipsistic Pop last year.

Solipsistic Pop is a biannual anthology of what some Americans call 'sequential art' and all Brits call 'The Beano'.

There are still copies of the first edition available here. I've got a few other things besides this in it, and there's some fab stuff from people like Tom Humberstone, Julia Scheele, Anna Saunders, Matt Sheret, Daniel Locke and many more. A second issue is in the works, to which I'll be contributing the very first couple of pages of a longer-format story, as well as a few strips.

[Click on each image to enlarge. This will require a bit browser back-and-forthing. Sorry.]

2010-03-05T13:56:00.007Z

New Comic And Stuff

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Above cartoon featured in the current issue of Prospect magazine. A reader complained to me that my 'f's look like 'p's. Hence Jobs saying it looked 'kind of... pussy'. Which is probably funnier anyway. Do my 'f's look like 'p's to you?

Oh, and: More comics here (and for those who've asked me, shareable non-flash versions are dotted about this here blog).

My illustration work's got quite busy lately, with the new tweaked style allowing me to do more painting in acrylics and gouache, as well as the usual brush and ink work I use on the strips. amongst other things I've been drawing a lot of politicians for the upcoming election. This of Cameron the blushing bride for Abu Dhabi newspaper The National:

I've started doing the odd caricature for The Spectator, this week's is Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg:

... and I also did the cover of this month's Prospect magazine:

I also did an interior illo for it - yet more Cameron - which was originally designed as the cover but they decided to do a switcharoo in the end.

And this for Wired (UK edition), for a piece about how to make yourself taller:

2010-02-03T21:48:00.003Z

Here's A New Cartoon For You

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Sorry I've been a bit absent lately. All my efforts are currently focussed on massaging my illustration work. Bear with me...

S

2009-12-30T11:10:00.003Z

Christmas Decorations For Us

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This was my Christmas card this year but the damned printers didn't get them to me until Christmas Eve, rendering them useless till next year.

Hope you had a good Christmas dear reader. I'm off to Cornwall today to spend New Year by the frozen sea. Happy new year!

2009-12-08T20:18:00.005Z

My New Illustration Website!!!!! !?? !?!?!! (And A New Comic)

Hello.

Well, it's all change on planet Collins. But first, here's a cartoon about Ellen Macarthur's appearance on Desert Island Discs for this month's Prospect:

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(I've never understood how great achievements can be inspired by not-so-great music. I find it disturbing on some obscure level - it suggests that music is in some way pointless, or divorced from life. I don't like that.)

Anyway. So I've been quiet lately, largely because I've been working on redirecting my illustration career of late. I am, as they say, 'rebranding'. Please visit and comment / criticise: www.colillo.com

To bring you up to speed: the daily job I did for The Times finished a couple of months ago - the editor decided to get rid of the diary page which carried my illustration - which has meant both a hole in my income (bad) but also the opportunity to do something I've wanted to do for ages - change my style a bit without pissing a regular daily client off (good).

The new stuff, you may have noticed, is not all new - some of it is old stuff I've reworked to fit the new look. But there's outlines and hatching and it all feels a lot more 'me' - a blending of my comics and illustration work, more lines, more hatching, and for the first time it doesn't look like my portfolio is trying to do three things at once.

Annoyingly December is the worst time to start promoting yourself, with most Art Directors inundated with Christmas stuff and therefore unwilling to commission. So I'm going to start pushing it in January, back on the meet and greet portfolio-showing trail - which is something I haven't really done since 2003. Still, it'll get me out of the house...

2009-10-28T10:47:00.004Z

Chained To My Desk

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For this month's Prospect magazine. This one is is sort of a confession, as I have been guilty of producing this kind of editorial wallpaper in the past. But the persistence of the 'Millions Of Zeros And Ones Flying Into A Massive Eye (It's An Article About The Internet)' school of illustration - largely funded by cheap, loveless stock photography agencies - still surprises me.

2009-10-22T14:24:00.004Z

Solipsistic Pop

Hello again, long time no blog. Ah well I have been busy, you see. Partly with putting together my contributions to Solipsistic Pop.

Solipsistic what?

Ah, yes. Solipsistic pop is the attempt by a gaggle of comics artists to produce a small press comic collection with posh production standards. It's a thing made with love, full of comics, mini-comic inserts, a newspaper pullout and lots of short stories by people who make really lovely work. I've contributed a new six page short story exclusive to the book and two pages of strips (some old, some new). The print run will be limited to 500 copies. You can browse a preview PDF of the book above.

The idea is basically to make something which has an American or French approach to small press comics - ie, something that has been made with careful production values and not so much in the style of a fanzine. You can even hear us ranting on about it on Resonance FM (104.4FM) tonight at 5pm if you're in London, or streamed at www.resonancefm.com if you're not.

Ultimately we'd like it to turn into a regular outlet for alternative comics in the UK - something which you get in America and France but not here for some reason.

We're going to be selling it at the Comika festival at London's ICA on Sunday November 8th from 1pm, and we're having a launch party for the book from 7pm in the ICA bar. Do come along if you're in town!

2009-09-30T14:07:00.004Z

Sunday Columnist Adventure Stories

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Here's my cartoon for this month's Prospect magazine, on shelves now. Annoyingly, last night's episode of the excellent Mitchell and Webb Sound featured a weekend-columnist-goes-to-Ikea themed joke, so now everybody will think I nicked it off that. Ah well. I hadn't heard it, cos it hadn't been broadcast, so there. (Even more annoyingly their sketch went on to make a lot of much better jokes than mine about weekend newspapers, but ho to the hum hey nonny no... At least mine has a Space Octopus in it... Everybody likes a Space Octopus... ).

I've not posted anything for while - there is an Exciting Reason for this. And that is, most of my efforts have been focused on drawing a six page comic plus new strip for Solipsistic Pop, a forthcoming anthology of British small press cartooniness. It's depressing and miserable but also hopefully a bit funny too. It's about swimming lessons and songs. But I won't post it up here because we want to sell copies of this thing when we get it published in November. I'll post notice of its availability when it's out and hopefully someone who comes here might buy it!

2009-09-04T18:00:00.005Z

HALLO HALLO IT'S ME AGAIN LOOK AT MY PICTURE

Hello! It's me.

It's just you and me in here. Creepily intimate, isn't it. I've scared off all my new readers by disappearing on holiday for about twenty years. I just wanted to get you on your own. Would you like a biscuit?

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2009-07-28T21:16:00.001Z

God

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For this month's Prospect magazine.

2009-07-28T13:45:00.004Z

Prospect Cover

I also did the cover illo for the magazine this month:

Oh, and I'm trying to engineer a bit of a redesign to my comics site - make it more web friendly and shareable. Less like an illustration portfolio, and more like a web comic. Previously I've had a more illustration-style approach to my work, but the weekend before last visits to my comics site increased by 7,000 per cent in the space of three days - mostly due to social bookmarking. So I thought, ah, maybe I should start doing that. See below for Digg, Reddit etc links - hopefully I'll be able to sort them out on the comics site soon. I'll also be adding a couple of the original artworks for some strips to the shop, including the Vague Scientist one.

2009-07-02T15:27:00.004Z

A Cartoon For Prospect Magazine And An Unrelated Bit Of Text Explaining My Absence From The Cyber Realm

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For the past two weeks I have been living in the early nineties. Not in the 'thinking Jellyfish are the future of music' sense. No. But rather, in the no-internet sense. I am moving house. Or, as British Telecom would describe it, 'holding on to my career by the skin of my teeth because BT are the multiverse and I am but a mere end-user wormy clown man, say it, say it, WORMY CLOWN MAN ha ha ha'.

It's quite nice, actually. Quite stressful at first, but I rather like it now. The library is the king of my info-world. I come here to do my job. Well, here and my girlfriend's parents' house. ANd her school. (Where she works, I'm not - oh never mind).

It doesn't help that my Mac laptop - bought partly to ease the changeover from London to Hertford - started farting its soul out on my first day of the changeover. I was left stranded. So I've had to devise a system where I do the work at home, scan it at home, work it up, then run red faced and mad-eyed around this lovely country town, deadline ticking past, trying to find an internet connection. Generally I end up pelting it into Hannah's classroom to use her computer (after hours of course, I think I'd get arrested if it was before 4).

Anyway, today I am at the Library, and tapping this out furiously to keep my blog-oar in. No more am I able to instantly satisfy a vague curiosity as to whatever happened to Tanita Tikarem, or read entire Wikipedia pages about things I already know about. (Why do I have to read the Wiki page of every book I've just read? Or every album I am currently listening to? And why doesn't it really feel like they exist unless I've read the Wikipedia page? Does anybody else think like this?)

So yes, I am an info-vagrant. Scurrying around, picking up unwanted bits of internet connection wherever I can find them. I actually have to list in advance what I want to look up, and then queue for the internet. Whilst reading a book. It's almost... civilised. I think I'm going to make a habit of it. No more internet dawdling. Instead I'll just list everything I want to look up as it comes into my head. Then at the end of the day look at it and be glad at all the time I've saved.
I'm a bit worried I'll end up with too much time to do, you know... real stuff.

Hmmm. What did happen to Tanita Tikarem. I can't find out cos I've got no time left. Answers please.

X

2009-06-19T13:34:00.004Z

Big Issue Cover

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I did the cover of this week's Big Issue, which was nice cos I got to draw one of my personal heroes, David Attenborough. I love the man. His DVDs are the ones I watch most, often to the exclusion of anything else for long stretches. He's probably one of the only famous people I'll be genuinely upset about when he dies.

Once I actually spoke to him. I was a newspaper interview-fixer and had tried to 'get' him, and he was the only person who ever actually called me back in person and apologised instead of just turning me down with silence. It was like getting a call from God. Imagine that voice coming down the phone. "It's David Attenborough here..." I actually nearly wet myself.

So if he sees this, I hope he's not horrified. I wanted to get his hair and the way it flaps about all over the place. I also managed to get a Cassowary in. I'm not sure if he's ever met one but they're my favourite insane massive blue headed evil bird.

2009-06-10T19:43:00.002Z

Choice

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2009-06-03T13:59:00.001Z

WWJD

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2009-06-02T18:07:00.003Z

New Strip / Cartoon / Whatever For Prospect Magazine

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Prospect magazine recently gave me a strip-sized slot to fill with a strip or cartoon or whatever works. It's wonderful to be doing paid cartoon work again, though I'd forgotten how long one of these things takes me from writing to completion. Still, it's certainly my favourite part of my work and the part which I feel is the most mine, my 'thing' whatever that may be.

2009-06-01T17:29:00.003Z

It Just Occurred To Me That That Last One Didn't Make Sense Because It Would Probably Have Been Destroyed So I've Rewritten The Title Look These Things Bother Me OK

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Oh by the way I'm on Twitter. I'm still not sure about it really but if you'd like to say hello I'm here. My friend described it as "another word for howling at the moon" which I thought was quite good, but as that's what most of my life involves anyway I might as well relent.

2009-06-01T10:28:00.002Z

I Love Apocalypses

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2009-05-11T23:13:00.001Z

Paris

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2009-05-08T11:18:00.004Z

My First Attempt At A Sort Of Short Story

Well this took a long time to make.

Nearly a year ago now, Steve Tillotson of Banal Pig comics told me he was putting together a little self-published anthology of comics under the loose theme of ‘Landscapes’. I’d wanted to try at something a bit more narrative-y and less gag-driven for a while, and had never really attempted anything resembling [shudder] ‘graphic fiction’ before. So I thought about it, a lot, drafted the script, rewrote the script, rewrote it again, designed it, rewrote it, redesigned it, ummed, ahhed, and generally buggered around with it for weeks on end. I sensed a growing concern from friends and loved ones who gradually watched me get obsessed by an essentially unpaid, five-page labour of love for a small press comic. I was enjoying it, I guess, but I didn’t realise how essential editorial deadlines are to stop me from devoting the rest of my life to every panel I do. Seriously, if you let it, this funnybook stuff can take over your life.

It was done in brush and pen and ink at A2 size, labouriously scanned on an A4 scanner and then coloured on computer. I’m quite pleased with how it’s turned out I suppose, though I have found that without the gags to keep it ‘me’, I’ve ended up showing my Chris Ware influence somewhat. Still, it was nice to try something new.

So anyway here’s the finished result. Steve’s going to start selling the anthology tomorrow at the Bristol Small Press expo. He’ll start selling it at his online shop soon no doubt also, which I’ll flag up here as and when. There's some amazing stuff in it from other contributors, it is well worth a diggle.

I’d love to hear any comments people have at all. And no, the character is most certainly not me.

S

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2009-05-08T00:41:00.003Z

From My Sketchbook

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2009-05-06T23:23:00.003Z

How To Date A Girl In Ten Days

I have just finished reading How To Date A Girl In Ten Days by Tom Humberstone. It is ace, and you should read it too.

Tom got me into comics, basically. I first met him in 2006 when this story was in its infancy, and I was mucking about with single panel cartoons which weren't really my best work, and unfortunately I knew it. Tom, and this comic in particular, inspired me to pull my finger out and start having fun with the whole thing.

How To Date is basically a London love story. The love isn't that evident in the relationship exactly - which is, as the title suggests, pretty shortlived. It could be a love letter to London, or to comics, or both. Certainly a lot of love has gone into every page. It's a warm, funny and touching book. Oh, and it won an Eagle award in 2008 - which is basically like the BAFTAS of comics. Lookee here.

2009-05-05T20:20:00.005Z

Sausage Sausage Would You Like A Sausage

I’m coming to the end of my time in Whitechapel now, as I’m moving to Hertford in June. This is both sad and not-sad, but one thing I will miss when I move to my new, more spacious third floor flat in the ‘shires is my annual birthday barbecue.

The past three years have seen me annually work myself up into an extreme state of stress and anxiety as I try to cater for thirty-odd full sized humans in my little garden. I’ve gradually acquired an ability not to blow my mind with the panic of it all, as well as vast armoury of barbecue kit such as tables, chairs, Mr Gazebo the Celebrity Gazebo, my 22 inch chrome steel catering-level tripod barbecue which looks like something out of War Of The Worlds (if you crouch and put your head on the ground and look up at it and squint and pretend that the rosemary bush is a tree which it’s blasting with its Heat-Ray, - though I’ve not tried that), and an array of utensils big and plentiful enough to cope with a zombie apocalypse, which is a very real prospect on a Saturday morning in Whitechapel. Anyway here I am, pictured with my sausage pronger and steak cutter, or, as the police would call them, ‘swords’.

The third and last barbecue was on Saturday, and it was most enjoyable. Astrid made me an incredible barbecue-themed cake (see below), everybody got fed, I got to see most of my pals in one place, and at the time of writing nobody has yet died from pork related diseases. There is, however, still time - so fingers crossed!

Talking of sausages, can anybody explain what is going on in this advert for Herta frankfurter hot dogs?

I saw it at the Imperial War Museum. It was probably the most upsetting exhibit in the whole place. As far as I can tell, the sausage seems to be under attack from its own tomato ketchup. It is apparently a tableaux of some kind of internecine conflict within the product itself. You can clearly see the impact explosion and the resultant smoke from the ketchup’s mutinous attack on its unsuspecting former ally. At least I think that’s what’s going on. Let’s have another look.

On second thoughts, the slogan might be a clue as to what is happening here. It says, ‘Fun Filled Here!’. We might therefore surmise that this image is meant to depict a sausage having fun. The sausage is so filled with fun it has literally become animated. “Make it, you know, jiggle about, Klaus” says Karl, the product manager with no visual imagination whatsoever, to his weak-willed graphic designer. “Make it look like it is, how do you say… filled with fun! It is a fun-sausage!”

“But sir,” says Klaus, nervously. “Won’t that look a bit… creepy?”

“How do you mean Klaus?”

“Well, won’t it look a bit like they’re having, you know… rough sex?”

“Shut up, Klaus!” says Karl, lustily. “This is a sausage at play, having a playful wrestle with its old friend, the ketchup. That is all!”

And so we are left with a piece of commercial art far more disturbing than anything hanging in a modern gallery: The queasy sepia colours… the sweaty sheen… the anaemic, corpulent bun… the writhing, arched back of the dominant ketchup as it subdues the pliant torpedo of flesh...

Anyway! That’s enough of that.

Just Show Us A Drawing Steve, Anything Other Than That Weird Sausage

OK then: here’s some stuff I’ve been doing for the back page of Wired UK, the newly launched transatlantic cousin of the legendary US techie’s mag. It’s the back page funny bit, wherein a writer imagines a gadget they’d like to have, and I draw the blueprint. It’s fun to do. The mag’s great too – this issue I’m actually in the same magazine as a Chris Ware piece, which is exciting, though it does put my efforts in perspective somewhat.

The first one was a pocket device for getting tourists and pedestrians to move out of your way: tempting people away with fish and chip smells, projecting Peter Mandelson onto screens to make them flee, etc:

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...and the second one was a device for beating the credit crunch blues; interrupting people who mention the credit crunch, playing D:Ream's 'things Will Only Get Better'; engraving 'half full' marks onto your pint, etc.

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That's enough for today. I'm going to read one of the many apocalypse-based books I got for my birthday. It's about zombies. It's ace. Nunnight.

2009-05-01T17:38:00.003Z

Hooray Hooray It Is My Birthday

Hooray! Hooray! The sky is blue, I’ve got all my work done, I’ve got a new fridge being delivered tomorrow, I’ve just drunk some delicious water from my tap, and IT IS MY BIRTHDAY. Hooray!

I am 29. This , I feel, is close enough to ‘news’ as to make it worthy of re-re-re-re-resurrecting my creaky old blog.

29 years old. Nearly whole three decades closer to dusty oblivion than I was when I first slithered into the maternity ward of Dulwich hospital one sultry afternoon in 1980. My dad says a blackbird was singing when I was born, but I’m not sure of his ornithological skills and he might have romanticised it a bit. It was probably the portentious qwaaar of some rangy old crow. “Qwaaar qwaar put him back in”. My sister says I had jaundice and a stretched face and the first thing she thought was that I “looked a bit like Zippy”, which must have been thrilling for a five year old single child but horrifying for my mother. Still, how the bud has bloomed!

Anyway, as this life-year will be an exciting jamboree of blog mania, I’ll start it off by posting some bits what I’ve done lately. Here’s some of the caricatures that I’ve been doing for the Times diary page every day. They’ve had to change shape slightly for space reasons, and I’ve had to introduce more line work so they don’t get lost on the page (they’re printed very small). But this is a good thing really, as they’ve become a bit more integrated with my comic work and it feels a bit more natural drawing like this.

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I’m off to get fish and chips and hijack my friend Tom’s comic launch* party with my birthday celebrations. Happy day!

* More of which in my next post

2009-03-26T23:34:00.004Z

The Queen Comes To My House!

The queen came to my house yesterday. It was quite surprising. When I say 'my house' I mean round the corner, or a couple of corners, from my house. Still, it was the proper queen, and really near my house. She was visiting the Whitechapel Bell Foundry for some reason, perhaps to buy some bells. Maybe she'd been disappointed at the lack of activity on my blog lately and wanted to give me something to write about, using the bells visit as an excuse.

It was exciting.

I made a special sign to welcome her with:

In the end I forgot the sign when I left the house, which was a shame as it might have put her at ease. I remembered my camera, though. I was hoping to get a picture of her, my ultimate aim being something like this:

That would have been good. I genuinely, honestly thought it might be possible. The Big One: mother of all celebrity photos. But it didn't happen.

There were only about twenty or so people to greet her at first, as not many people had heard about it. It was only briefly mentioned on GMTV so I wouldn't have known if Hannah hadn't phoned me up all excited in the morning.

A nice posh man with a sword sort of mooched about at first:

Then there was lots of exciting police motorcade action as her big car came along.

She had a blankie on her knees which she left in the car:

Then she darted from the car to the Bell Foundry as quick as an octogenarian can. Imagine the sound effects here - WOOSH:

...and half an hour later darted back, Philip in tow, giving us a bit of a smile as she went. I got excited and photographed the floor. You can just see her heel at the top of frame here. Disappointing to see someone had left a fag end in the fire hydrant. What must she have thought?

Then I got my shit together for some amazing action shots:

By the time she left a rush hour crowd of about 200 or so had gathered all down the street. My camera skills were not really up to the occasion, sorry. But still, it was pretty unexpected and cool.

Anyway.

Here's a couple of other things I've found on the internet lately.

"She's a woman! And I love her."

Do you remember 'Dance of The Goblins'? It was the movie pitch that insane lady on Dragon's Den made back in 2007. Well, it's made it to the trailer stage:

I am very excited about this film.

Stephen!!

Just coming. Fans of Adam and Joe's 6 Music show on Saturdays will be delighted with Rubapedia, a probably-quite-illegal archive of everything they've ever done. I've been listening almost non-stop to the old shows, and I'm not yet tired of them. It's interesting to hear how the show has developed since 2007. If you've not heard it, this is the embodiment of that saying (I can't remember who said it) that it's better to be amused than to be amusing. Adam and Joe are seemingly possessed with the pure joy of just being amused - by everything. It is infectious. Visit the site before the Castle closes it down.

That's it for tonight, but I'll endeavour to pick up my blogging threads tomorrow. Who knows what excitement might occur? Maybe God will pop by to visit Hussain's Cash And Carry. Watch this space.

2009-02-11T19:33:00.005Z

Obama Loosens Up

A period of unforseen work-blizzards has rendered all non-paid drawing impossible at the moment, so I'll have to just post things that have made me laugh, or have left me amazed, or, in this case, both.

I haven't read Dreams Of My Father, Barack Obama's autobiography. But apparently there is a guy who pops up in it, a contemporary of Obama's, who has a rather colourful manner of talking. And when Obama came to record the audiobook himself, he naturally read the quotes of his friend's speech out verbatim.

Which, taken out of context, are brilliant.

The result will undoubtedly be issuing forth from mobile phones and Garageband efforts the world over very soon...

Follow this link to see what I'm talking about

2009-02-06T15:02:00.004Z

Worrying Times

This was a sketch I did for the US magazine Institutional Investor the other day: I wanted to give a sense of 'the City' being in a state of fear. (It's the financial district of Manhattan, in case you were wondering). It was rejected cos it didn't really convey the point of the article, so I thought I'd re-start my daily blogging by posting it here. I imagine I'll use it one day: Manhattan does lend itself to looking like a face in profile - well that's what it looks like to me, anyway.

Things have been horror busy lately, but I'll be back posting daily as usual on Monday. Have a good weekend y'all

S

2009-02-02T23:01:00.003Z

Not A Day Off For Me Oh No

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2009-01-31T15:32:00.004Z

I Love Local Papers

Sorry about the lack of daily cartoon for Thursday and Friday - things have got very busy but I'll pick it up again this week. In the absence of drawings I'll just share with you my findings in the East Herts edition of the Herald, local newpaper for Hertford and its environs. Having started out my illustration career working for a student paper, I've always had a fondness and sympathy for the British local paper's quirks, non-news, design hiccups and typos. But sometimes they throw up genuine, only-in-the-UK oddness that just makes me cry. Consider, for instance, this innocuous looking advert for a beds shop:

Nothing unusual, right? Now look closer:

Closer

CLOSER

I also rather like this story of a ghostly occurence in a tower. Rigorous journalism. You'll need to click the image to enlarge to read the whole thing:

And only in a British local paper would you find a headline like:

I'm moving to Hertford this summer and am looking forward to my weekly fix. The East London Advertiser is a bit too slick for my liking.