18/03/2011

Items of recent newsworthiness

There are several important (well, not that important) items of Oscillating Brow news. Check it, yo:


Numero uno, the Paper Jam Comics Collective are presenting an exhibition at the Made In Newcastle shop/gallery running from the 19th-27th March. It's partly the 'official' launch of the most recent PJCC anthology, History... And That, and partly just a general showcase of PJCC members work - so expect a mix of material with a loose history/comic theme, all of which will be tremendous (I've been hard at work on a mind-blowing piece made specially for the exhibition called The Present And The Future Then The Past And The Present). The exhibition is free and if you like anything you see, there will be many prints and comics (including all of my current publications) for sale, as well as some of the original art itself.


Numbero deux: despite being hampered by hastily composed theme music by me, the unstoppable juggernaut of small press comics reviewing that is the Small Press Big Mouth podcast, hosted by the gorgeous Stacey Whittle and the lovely Lee Grice, has been nominated in the 'Best SF Podcast' category of SFX magazine's Blog Awards. Clearly they recognise excellent theme music when they hear it! And excellent witty talking or whatever it is they do. Vote for it now!


Numero C: There has been drawing going on. North-east superhero comic 'Sugar Glider' by Daniel Clifford and Gary Bainbridge is ruddy good and you should buy both the first issue and the brand new 'Sugar Glider Stories' anthology immediately. The character design is great and a bunch of talented people have been doing fan art. For a bit of a laugh, I did too. You can see all of the fan art, including mine, here.

I really like the comic's semi-realistic tone and just how tough the central character comes across as being - not so much physical toughness (though obviously that's required, being an urban vigilante and all) but mental toughness; she has tremendous grit and determination to keep doing what she's doing without help or support. A lot of the other fan art is amazing and far superior to my own inept efforts, but none of it quite seemed to capture that toughness, so I tried to do something that did. I even had a bit of a play around trying to add digital colour.

Anyway, there might be a few more pictures from me at some point, either posted here or on the PJCC 'Paper Jams' blog (I already have a little bit of stuff up on there), but don't hold your breath.