Useleus on cover of this week's Phoenix

Our ancient Greek idiot makes the cover of the Phoenix this week. There's a 4-page story inside, plus loads more great comics by, y'know, other people. 

New Useleus in The Phoenix

Yup, it's Useleus time again in the super-smashing story comic The Phoenix.
In this one, the Argonauts come to the island, and our um, hero meets that well-known bebop combo The Sirens.
Penned, as usual, by the mighty Alexander Matthews. Find a copy in Waitrose, comics shops, or get the app.

More Jack Silver

It's been a crazily hectic start to the year for me, I've been too busy to blog, but things are calming down a bit, so it's time to tell you a bit about what I've been up to.

For starters, remember I did a one-page Jack Silver strip for the final print issue of the Dandy?
Well, following on from that I was asked to do an 8 page Jack Silver story for the Dandy annual 2014 to go with the three Winker Watson two-pagers I've already done for it.

It's a bit of a mad story, full of wacky Marsuvian gizmos, high drama, and Lesser-Spotted Floogly Flaaatstipplers. I had a ball.

Oh, there's also a related extra double-page spread.

Here's a pic. The book should be out in August. It'll fly by.

Let it snow...

This was actually in the Christmas edition of Private Eye, but it seems apposite...

Review of 2012

Yep, it's time for my annual selection of topical pocket cartoons from the past year, some published, some not.

Let's dive straight in...

A bit of technology that caught my eye...

The government carried on with its privatisation programme...

(They've privatised the yellowbrick road!)

...and its war on drugs...

A new building was unveiled in London, as the weather closed in (Cartooning pal Royston Robertson beat me to this one in Private Eye, the blighter, with the very same gag)...

Newspapers continued to struggle, as the recession rumbled on...

Bankers remained unpopular and discredited...

And the cuts to, well, just about everything continued...

That book (and more wet weather)...

Those Olympics...

(Me? I'm Legacy)

The big supermarkets squeezed the profit margins for dairy farmers ever tighter...

A film came out of one of my favourite books...

That Jimmy Savile business...

(Yes, Savile was my patient for many years. He talked a lot about his

sexual misdemeanours, but of course, you assumed he was joking...)

...and the fall-out from it...

That's all folks -- Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas! -- and be thankful it only comes along once a year...

In future Roy would be more careful what he wished for.

The Dandy is dead! Long live the Dandy!

Yes, the final print issue of The Dandy is now on the shelves, on its 75th anniversary -- featuring 75 strips plus a pull-out facsimile of the first ever issue. This one's got collector's item written all over it. (Probably shouldn't have done that to my copy -- it's going to reduce its value, isn't it? Gah.)

My contributions to the final issue include a reprise of Robin Hood's Schooldays (which I first drew for the 2013 Dandy annual -- also on sale now), a Mr Meecher the Uncool Teacher mini-strip, plus...

Unlike Robin Hood's Schooldays, The Badd Lads and Billy Whizz, where I've tried to ghost the original artist's style, with Jack Silver I've made no attempt to draw like Bill Holroyd, and have drawn the strip in my own style. I wanted to do a gentle spoof of the original, and reinvent it with a wacky humour and a more cartoony style. It was a lot of fun.

There are tons of great strips, old and new, in there -- reportedly (I haven't actually seen a copy yet, reports are it's quite hard to get hold of -- so don't waste any time!)

The good news is, The Dandy is carrying on in digital form, boldly going where no comic with a 75 year history has been before -- and today also sees the launch of the new online Dandy. I'd take a day or two to soak up the final print issue and then check it out, if I were you, it seems a little buggy just now, but I'm sure they'll soon get it all running smoothly.

I'm working on a strip for that, too, as we speak. (Or rather, I should be, if I wasn't writing this)

The Dandy is dead! Long live the Dandy!