Describe the place where you write/draw.

What is your most treasured possession?

What times of the day do you work?

What distracts you?
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Boats are so much fun to draw. I love keeping lots of little models around me. I got these boats at the National Maritime Museum’s Toy Boats exhibition, that was AWESOME.

I had fun imagining what little characters could look like, having adventures in the boats. Here’s a squid in a submarine! I love my job.

Here was the original toy I looked at: Read the rest of this entry »

I know we’ve been asked to blog about something we’ve experienced in order to write about or draw it. But I’m going to be cheeky and write about something I DIDN’T experience, and was hugely aware of not experiencing.

It was Dagenham. 1973.

Remember England in the ’70s? …Well, I don’t. I’m American and I was only born in 1975. But just while I was in the middle of a crazy deadline for a picture book, a bunch of friends from The DFC days (remember that fine comic? I DO!) decided to undertake a huge comics project, involving more than 50 creators. And my task was to draw a day in the life of the book’s main character, with that day set in 1973 Dagenham. I knew I’d be tapping into a lot of nostalgia British people had for that era, and since I couldn’t time travel, and didn’t have a lot of time to research it, I was a bit nervous. But the project was too fabulous to say no. And the proceeds would all be going to support Shelter charity.

So I tapped into my experience from my DFC days, when I was writing Vern and Lettuce. Whenever I got stuck with that comic, I would ‘phone a friend’ on the team for help. And often that friend was Woodrow Phoenix (creator of the DFC’s Donny Digits, Horse of a Different Colour). And as luck would have it, my two editors on the project were none other than two DFC buddies, Woodrow and Rob Davis, who’d come up with the concept while chatting on Twitter. They’d both lived in Britain in the ’70s and are generally good at period detail. Read the rest of this entry »

I love story retellings because they’re a great excuse to play fan girl AND make a comic! When I was a teenager, I had a terrible crush on Cyrano de Bergerac, the French film version played by Gerard Depardieu, and also related to him entirely, having no success in my own little love life. I saw the film three times in the cinema and I still often play the soundtrack when I’m making books in my studio (in fact, I’m listening to it right now!)

So when I got back into making comics, it was not much of a leap of the imagination to write myself into the story. I play Sister Marthe, the little nun near the end who tries to feed the wounded and exhausted Cyrano some soup. It was a comic I wrote and drew in a couple hours, then posted on my blog. I had no idea where it would go when I started, but making it was so incredibly entertaining.

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My embarrassing moments happen almost every time I do an event where there’s live drawing. Drawing on a big flip chart in front of people is SO different than drawing in the privacy of my own sketchbook or creating illustrations with all my favourite materials in the cosiness of my studio. In events, I’m drawing with fat markers (which usually work) and trying to draw fairly quickly so it stays entertaining and not like watching paint dry. So my flipchart pictures are anything but polished, and still, there’s usually someone who wants to keep the drawing to hang up at their school or library. I’ve had to learn to overcome the urge to say, ‘But wait, I could draw you something so much better!’ and be happy letting them have it. It still makes me blush sometimes, though.

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This is the very last installment, I can hardly believe it! Here are the earlier parts in case you’ve just arrived:
comic 1 | comic 2 | comic 3 | comic 4 | comic 5 | comic 6 | comic 7 | comic 8 | comic 9 | comic 10 | comic 11

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comic 1 | comic 2 | comic 3 | comic 4 | comic 5 | comic 6 | comic 7 | comic 8 | comic 9 | comic 10

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comic 1 | comic 2 | comic 3 | comic 4 | comic 5 | comic 6 | comic 7 | comic 8 | comic 9

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Hope you had a good weekend! We’re back, in the town of Xiahe, in Gansu province.

comic 1 | comic 2 | comic 3 | comic 4 | comic 5 | comic 6 | comic 7 | comic 8

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Are you coming to Caption Comics Festival in Oxford this weekend? It’ll be amazing! You can see a comic I made from my first year here, and other blog posts I’ve made in subsequent years. I’m gutted not to be able to go this year. Please let me know how it went, I want a full report!

comic 1 | comic 2 | comic 3 | comic 4 | comic 5 | comic 6 | comic 7

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