ISLAND OF THE SIRENS

Island Of The Sirens was written by Keith Temple and was published in the Dr Who Storybook 2009. The Doctor  and Donna are found floating in the Aegean in the Tardis by Jason and his Argonauts. This was probably my favourite of the three stories I illustrated for the Storybook range , mainly because I'm such a fan of mythic stories and films. It gave me yet another opportunity to work in a more textured style attempting to evoke old style storybooks in feel. I'm pleasantly surprised that I still like most of this artwork after not looking at this since I did the job. Such a shame the Storybooks stopped as these were dream jobs.

REVENGE OF THE CYBERMEN!

Ever since watching the video of Revenge of the Cybermen before a UKCAC convention in the 1990's I've had a soft spot for these versions of the Cybermen. I'm not exactly sure why - they aren't the scariest but they did inovate the black headed leader idea , seen most recently in the latest series. The story itself is set inside Voga , the planet of gold  , though in reality it was actually Wookey Hole in the Mendips in Somerset. Of course it's the only time Tom Baker's Doctor met the Cyber race , which might hold the key to my affection.

I wanted to give them a stoic quality , feet firmly planted in the limestone dust , sorry gold dust , as the Vogans are attacking.

Vote Nelson for Eisner!

Last year I was invited to join over 50 of the UK's best comic storytellers to work on a project called Nelson. Each creator was given a single day in the life of Nel Baker to produce a chapter around , starting in 1968 and continuing at one day a year up to the present. The proceeds  going to charity. The idea was dreamt up by editor Rob Davis , who with fellow editor Woodrow Phoenix  gently steered the course of the book as each creator came up with their installment. My story took place at a fancy dress party on June 14 1986. Nel is first seen wearing her Nelson costume at the party , she's drunk , wandering around the garden being stalked by a batman...

Following are the sketches I sent to Rob before starting drawing the story. Originally I was going to draw it on paper and in fact started pencilling the first page ( included below). I changed midtack on this , transfering it to Manga Studio. To this day I'm not sure I made the right call - but that's how things sometimes roll. I've included a few of the unlettered finished colour pages below as well. You can get a copy of the book from the publishers Blankslate and if you are a fellow comics professional you are able to vote in the Eisner ballot. Nelson is under the Anthology section - we'd all appreciate your support especially since this is a great chance to show what Briti creators are capable of.

http://www.eisnervote.com

Thanks

Ade