Not that I'm in any way condoning this sort of thing, of course...

Sunday, March 07, 2010 1:16:46 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

We just found out our friend artist Carlo Vergara was one of the many people affected when floods hit Phillipine capital Manila after a particularly nasty typhoon.

Carlo drew several stories for Graphic Classics from scripts by Antonella, including Mysteries of Udolpho and The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter.

Carlo has just been in touch to say he's OK, although he's just spent the last few days clearing the mud out of his home. Meanwhile, fellow Philipino comics artist Gerry Alanguilan has started an Ebay auction featuring donated original artwork to raise funds to help fellow artists and others affected by the flooding (his list of "artists known to be affected" has about ten names on it, including Carlo's).

The auction still has a little time to run, so if you'd like to pick up some interesting originals, the auction link is here.

There's more about Gerry's fundraising efforts and the general situation here, and on John Freeman's Down The Tubes newsblog here.

Here's an example of some of the art in the auction, drawn by Gerry for Comics Artist Magazine in 1995:

Tuesday, October 06, 2009 7:04:08 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's episodes 1 and 2 (2 pages each) of  a strip I've started doing for Comic Football's RAMMIE COMIC, the football-themed comic featuring the mascot of DERBY COUNTY FC.

It's a football-of-the-future strip set in space, written by good old CLIVE WARD, and because of this space comic theme I've made it as much as possible like the SPACEMAN SPIFF episodes from Bill Watterson's CALVIN AND HOBBES as my meagre talents can possibly allow (also because I like the strip so much).

The alien president on episode 1 page 1 is a direct steal from Spaceman Spiff. Sorry Bill.

I'll put up more of these as and when I do them ( about once every two months).

Thursday, April 02, 2009 10:51:45 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

ok here's another one...

Thursday, March 19, 2009 10:13:41 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

I swore I wouldn't do any more of these. So anyway, here's the next one...

Thursday, March 19, 2009 12:01:04 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

So anyway, one afternoon when I should have been getting on with something else, I was daydreaming about sat-nav systems, as one does, and I got to wondering what would happen if anybody ever programmed one to find the route to Hell. They'd probably end up in Middlesborough I surmised, but anyway, it seemed like a good idea for a strip.

I developed the idea a bit further so it became the story of a bickering couple on a holiday trip accidentally taking the road to Hell, but I couldn't see what else to do with the idea and I didn't really have time to develop it further, so I put it to one side.

Then the Observer/Jonathan Cape/Comica Graphic short Story Prize came around again, and Antonella and I realised the deadline was almost upon us and we hadn't done anything this year. It seemed a shame to miss out, so I dusted off the idea, Antonella turned it into a proper script with words and everything and I quickly drew it up into the two-page format cartoon required for the competition.

However, we really left it a bit late, I had to rush it, and I didn't have time to colour it (the competition rules require original artwork, not copies, which means if you want colour you have to do it by hand. This is a pain since I do a lot of the artwork process in Photoshop these days, due to the number of times I've slaved for days and produced the BEST ARTWORK EVER, only to have the cat piss on it the night before it was due to be sent to the publisher). So what I sent to the competition at the last minute really didn't do justice to what I thought was a strong idea by me and a brilliant script by Antonella. I'm not saying the strip would have won, but at least the artwork would have been a true reflection of what could have been done with a good idea.

I've been busy since then, but now I've had a chance to re-caption the artwork and colour it properly. So here's what the strip would have looked like if we hadn't left it to the last minute...

...if I'd had the time and hadn't just drawn two pages of A2 artwork in a day and a half, I would have put more detail into the depiction of Hell and made it more, er, Hellish. Never mind. Art aficionados may spot bits of Heironymus Bosch and The Garden of Earthly Delights, amongst other things.

You can get models of those figures in the foreground, by the way. A Dutch company makes them, though I can't find the link. We've recently rebuilt the fireplace in our front room, so perhaps I'll get one as an ornament for out new mantelpiece.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009 6:50:32 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's a style experiment I've been working on whenever I haven't been working on something else. For this I dusted off an old script by Kev. F. Sutherland, featuring a character I invented for the now long-deceased "adult" comic Top Banana.

I apologise for the low, sub-Carry-On movie level of the humour in this strip, but that was pretty much what Top Banana was all about. When I'm working on stuff like this, Antonella always reminds me of an old Italian saying, credited to the Roman emperor Vespasian, which translates roughly as: "Money doesn't smell!"

There's another four pages of this stuff if I ever get around to drawing them.

Monday, February 02, 2009 4:47:43 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [1] 

And now, the animated version...

Eat your heart out, Terry Gilliam...

Wednesday, December 24, 2008 11:18:44 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Merry Christmas everybody!

~ Nick and Antonella

Saturday, December 20, 2008 2:24:04 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Just something I'm working on.

Thursday, October 30, 2008 10:41:47 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

More escapees from the secret wing of the OED...

"TU QUOQUE: The retort so are (or did etc.) you. [Latin, = you too]".

"TULCHAN: Calf-skin stuffed with straw or spread on mound beside cow to make her give milk".

Monday, June 09, 2008 10:51:18 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

"FRICANDEAU: 1. Slice of fried or stewed meat, esp. veal, served with sauce".

Saturday, June 07, 2008 5:55:50 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

"Humbug: 1. n Fraud, sham; deception; impostor. 2. Kind of hard-boiled sweet usu. flavoured with peppermint. 3. Delude (person into, out of, thing or doing). 4. Be, behave like, impostor". 

"Matrass: Long-necked glass vessel with round or oval body, used for distilling".

Friday, June 06, 2008 3:39:53 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

In an effort to generate some kind of creative impulse, I've taken to choosing words from the Concise Oxford English Dictionary at random, sketching whatever comes into my head, then going back to the OED and checking the definition to see how close I came. Here's the first two...

"JAGER: Var. of JAEGER:German or Austrian rifleman; kind of woollen clothing-material excluding all vegetable fibres as unwholesome; garment of this".

"RETROGRESSION: backward or reversed movement; return to less advanced state, reversal of development, decline, deterioration".

Thursday, June 05, 2008 10:30:26 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Just a little something I've been messing about with, when I should have been doing something else. The lyrics are a single verse from Tom Waits' song Reeperbahn. As with the Team Sputnik version of Frank's Wild Years, I didn't get permission from Tom Waits, his agent or his lawyers to use his lyrics this way. Don't rat me out.

Monday, June 02, 2008 11:04:07 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

And now for a special announcement...

Is your nose really fashionable? How can you tell if you're infested with chameleons?Should English dictionaries contain the word 'znooj'? If you've got a little too much calm in your life, here's eighty ways to ruin your day, all contained in a handy pocket-sized manual.

Contact nick@teamsputnik.co.uk for details of how to buy!!

Thursday, April 10, 2008 10:57:11 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

The Worry Man is back! Yay!

Sorry about the extended break over Christmas, but we were having a lovely holiday sunning ourselves on a beach in the Bahamas. But seriously, we've been looking for a place to live. Funny time of the year to be doing this, I know, but if anyone knows of a nice place in Lancaster (UK) we can let, please let us know.

Monday, January 14, 2008 2:39:19 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

We're taking our Christmas break now. See you in the new year!

~ Antonella Caputo and Nick Miller, a.k.a. Team Sputnik.

Saturday, December 22, 2007 4:02:15 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Via a link in the Drawn! illustrators blog we came across a public Flickr group called Bears in Ill-Fitting Hats. They're inviting all and sundry to contribute pictures of bears wearing hats that don't fit them at all well. Here's the Team Sputnik contribution...

Thursday, December 13, 2007 5:12:57 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Some style experiments for a forthcoming project, featuring myself at various ages...

Tuesday, December 04, 2007 7:23:23 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

We've been surfing the wossname today and discovered quite a lot of activity amongst artists who entered the aforementioned Observer/Jonathan Cape/Comica Graphic Short Story Competition. Artists have been posting their unsuccessful entries, linking to each others' work (including ours - thanks!) and posting comments on each others' blogs. Some have been compiling lists of posted entries - the most complete lists we've come across are on Myfanwy Nixon's drawanyway.com and Jeremy Dennis' cleanskies.com. Check them out ~ they're all worth a look.

We liked all the ones we've seen so far, but especially pages by Peter Bearle, Daryl Cunningham, Adam Cadwell, John Cei Douglas, Martin Simpson, Paul Rainey and Jessica Freeman. Apologies to anyone we left out.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007 10:03:38 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

So anyway, the winners have been announced for the Observer/Jonathan Cape/Comica graphic short story competition, about which more here. Sadly, it wasn't us (boo!) nor were we the runners-up (boo!) but anyway, as promised previously, here's our entry (yay!)...

This was all done in a bit of a rush because we only found out about the competition due to a passing mention in the Gad, Sir! Comics! blog about four days before the final date for entries. But it was fun to do, and we like it... 

Sunday, October 14, 2007 3:01:35 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's something Antonella and I just produced for Adam Grose at Clown Press, who is putting together a charity comic to raise funds after all the flooding this summer, in Britain and in other parts of the world. More news about this when we hear more from Adam...

Friday, October 12, 2007 10:29:58 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Illustrator and occasional filmmaker Clay Sisk has just completed his latest film, Motel, and to help promote it is inviting other illustrators to participate by downloading a piece of stationery from the fictional motel of the title, drawing on it and emailing it back to him.

The results are being posted in a fast-growing gallery on the Motel website. Artists have contributed drawings, notes, doodles, some have pretended to have stayed at the motel - basically, anything goes. Here's the Team Sputnik contribution...

Friday, July 20, 2007 5:28:55 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's a strip Antonella and I did for a while for the Italian magazine English4Life (Casiraghi/Jones, pub.) This was a magazine aimed at teenagers, using a unique method for teaching foreign languages, in this case English.

We came up with the concept for the strip, a horrible, flea-bitten hotel (based closely on a three-star seedy flophouse I once spent a night in in Kensington), run by a constantly bickering married couple not unlike Margaret and Dennis Thatcher... 

The original idea of the strip was that in each issue, a hotel guest from a different part of Europe would turn up, and thenceforth have a terrible time because we Brits just aren't very good with foreigners, are we? However, we soon abandoned this concept in favour of humour about the everyday goings-on in a seedy hotel.

Part of the concept of the magazine was that each issue had a free CD featuring an actor reading the lines from all the cartoons. It was a odd experience, hearing an actor reading out the lines Antonella had written and I had drawn, especially when he did the voices. When I drew the Margaret character, I had Thatcher's false emphases and strained low tones running in my head, but for some reason the actor chose a screeching falsetto, something like Monty Python's "pepperpot" female characters. I don't know, but somehow I feel that if Thatcher had actually spoken like that in real life, she would never have been elected and we would all have been saved a great deal of trouble... 

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 9:34:36 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's something I did a couple of years ago. It was written by Clive Ward and produced for Smut, and easily maintains the stadards of decency and good taste readers of that esteemed organ have come to expect... so be warned - ADULT CONTENT!

Saturday, June 23, 2007 12:06:41 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

This is another randomly-selected scribble from my sketchbook...

It's not really the season for it I know, but it's a sight more festive than the sort of stuff I was doing last year when it was Christmas...

Gloomy as it is, this one must have struck a chord, because it was picked up by the Forbidden Planet blog as well as featuring in John Freeman's Down The Tubes blog. Perhaps I should be grumpy more often.

Saturday, June 16, 2007 9:24:44 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's another caricature I did about a year ago, this time a rather more respectful portrait of the late James Doohan, a.k.a. Scotty, for Star Trek Magazine...

Thursday, June 14, 2007 1:06:07 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's some portraits and caricatures I've done recently...

First, three portraits of my good mate John Freeman as various characters from Star Trek, done for Star Trek Magazine, of which he was then editor...

more stuff next post...

Thursday, June 14, 2007 12:47:23 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's something else from my sketchbook...

I'd like to say I use one of dem Moleskine sketchbooks like wot them proper artists do, but I just use any scrap of paper I have lyin' about. Sorry. Maybe I'll get a proper Moleskine sketchbook for me birfday...

Thursday, June 14, 2007 10:27:20 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Sorry Team Sputnik fans, but pressure of work means I haven't had time to organise the Mark Twain comic strip as promised. Normal service will be resumed next week. In the meantime, here's something silly I did a little while ago...

It's from my sketchbook, which I occasionally resort to when I have an idle moment. Why I was doodling Brunnhilde I don't know, I'm not an opera fan.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007 10:18:04 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

This is a two-page strip we did for fun. I was listening to Tom Waits' album Swordfishtrombones which includes the spoken-word number Frank's Wild Years. As I listened, I thought "Hey, this would make a great comic strip". So Antonella wrote it and I drew it...

I should point out that this was done strictly for our own amusement and we haven't made a dime from it. We wrote to Jalma Music for permission to use Tom's lyrics but never got a reply. Don't rat us out.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007 10:27:14 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0]