AVAILABLE NOW!!

Our new anthology, featuring two Brigadier Gerard stories, That Spot by Jack London, and H.G. Wells' The War of The Worlds ~ the story of Orson Welles notorious 1938 radio broadcast!

Just email teamsputnik@tiscali.co.uk for details!!

Tuesday, April 08, 2008 10:20:56 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's the final page of our Brigadier Gerard story, How the Brigadier Came to the Castle of Gloom...

Sunday, April 22, 2007 8:41:01 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's the penultimate page of our Brigadier Gerard story, How the Brigadier Came to the Castle of Gloom...

Saturday, April 21, 2007 10:09:15 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page 20 of How the Brigardier Came to the Castle of Gloom...

Conan Doyle caused me a bit of a problem here, bless him, in describing a long, exciting sword fight. Unfortunately, your actual cavalry sabre is something of a slash-and-run terror weapon, being no good for an acrobatic Zorro-style swordfight since the first blow would be fatal, or at least disabling. The nearest equivalent would be a fight with samurai swords, which start (in Yojimbo at least) with a long period of stillness followed by a sudden, shocking, fatal blow (Samurai Jack's swordfights have nothing to do with reality). OK for a manga comic, but not what's described here. In the end I got most of the dramatic poses in the lower half of this page from various websites about Kung Fu sword fighting. This seems to use a similar style of sword (but shorter) but is all about using your body to outmanouvre your opponent ~ lots of dramatic leaping about, and it looks good in a cartoon strip!

Friday, April 20, 2007 11:20:13 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

This is page 19 of our current Brigadier Gerard story, How the Brigadier Came to the Casdtle of Gloom...

Since the hero of this story is French, I decided to use French comic sound effects throughout the strip. I didn't need Ronan Jouan de Kervenoel, our translator, for this, I just lifted most of them from my copies of Asterix.

Thursday, April 19, 2007 10:47:44 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

And now for the latest page of our on-going Brigardier Gerard story, How the Brigadier Came to the Castle of Gloom...

The labels on the barrels in frame 1 read "gunpowder" in French and Polish. I reasoned that a brigand such as Jean Carabin would have stolen supplies from both armies.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 10:41:38 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's the latest page of How the Brigadier Came to the Castle of Gloom...

Tuesday, April 17, 2007 10:05:54 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page 16 of our latest Brigadier Gerard adventure, How the Brigadier Came to the Castle of Gloom...

Monday, April 16, 2007 9:25:01 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's the latest page of our Conan Doyle Brigadier Gerard story, How Gerard Came to the Castle of Doom...

Sunday, April 15, 2007 9:04:18 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Page fourteen of our latest Brigadier Gerard story, How Gerard Came to the Castle of Doom...

Saturday, April 14, 2007 10:52:01 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

The latest page of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's How Gerard Came to the Castle of Gloom...

I must admit I had trouble with the lady's dress at this point. It's faithful to the regency style of the time, but unfortunately, it looked to me rather like a nightie, making it appear that she had rushed out of bed to meet them and forgotten her dressing-gown - a little immodest for a high-born lady of the time. In the end, I added jewellery and other accessories in the hope that this would make her appear a little less deshabille.

Friday, April 13, 2007 9:43:21 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page 12 of the latest Brigardier Gerard story...

Thursday, April 12, 2007 11:05:23 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page 11 of our latest Brigadier Gerard story, How the Brigadier Came to the Castle of Gloom...

Nick Miller writes: I owe a lot to Jean Giraud, a.k.a. Moebius, in this page for guidance on the rendering of wood and stone surfaces. It was tricky, especially as this was supposed to be night time, but I found that showing the starkly-lit castle against a black sky in frame one was enough to give the impression of bright moonlight.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 8:41:46 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here we go with another page of Conan Doyle's How Gerard Came to the Castle of Gloom...

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 9:35:39 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page 9 of How the Brigadier Came to the Castle of Gloom...

The judge sitting on the right in frame 1 is supposed to be the painter David, who was rather busy during the bloodiest parts of the revolution (though he later denied this).

Monday, April 09, 2007 12:37:17 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's the next page of How Gerard Came to the Castle of Gloom...

Sunday, April 08, 2007 11:05:23 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's the latest page of How Gerard Came to the Castle of Gloom, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, adapted by Antonella Caputo and drawn by Nick Miller...

Saturday, April 07, 2007 9:55:15 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page six of How the Brigadier Came to the Castle of Gloom...

Nick writes: once again we are indebted to M. Prof. Ronan Jouan de Kervenoel for the correct spelling of the French expletives.

Friday, April 06, 2007 10:02:45 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's the latest page of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story, How the Brigadier Came to the Castle of Gloom, adapted by Antonella and drawn by Nick...

Thursday, April 05, 2007 9:42:38 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page four of the latest Brigadier Gerard story, How the Brigadier Came to the Castle of Gloom...

Nick writes: for the record, I disagree with what Conan Doyle says about this area being the "poorest and ugliest country in Europe". I've been to many parts of Eastern Europe, and much of it is quite pretty. Just don't get out of your car.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007 10:45:19 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page three of How Gerard Came to the Castle of Gloom, written by Antonella and drawn by Nick...

Nick writes: The story begins. Some worried people have asked me what the old woman intends to do with the scissors and the cat in frame three. Don't worry, I thought it was obvious - she intends to castrate him.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007 9:30:00 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page two of our latest Brigadier Gerard story, How the Brigadier Came to the Castle of Gloom...

Nick writes: Page 2 frame 1: the entire Grand Armee passes in review before Napoleon, including accurately researched and drawn uniforms for chassuers, cuirassiers, lancers, dragoons and granatiers, plus portraits of Ney, Lefevbre and Lannes. Page 2 frame 2: the retreat from Moscow. I enjoy being a cartoonist and I like a challenge, but sometimes Antonella likes to keep me on my toes...

...anyway, all this is just scene-setting. I promise the story proper gets underway tomorrow!

Monday, April 02, 2007 9:40:24 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here, as promised is the first page of our second Brigadier Gerard story, How the Brigadier Came to the Castle of Gloom...

The edition of Graphic Classics: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that this story appeared in is still available, and you can buy a copy by going here.

Nick writes: Although they appeared in different editions of Graphic Classics, we actually did this story back-to-back with the first one - they took us about six months in all. Antonella intended Gerard to be dissatisfied with his retirement, bullied by an old woman and preferring to reflect on past glories, but she also had him sitting in the garden of a cottage in rural France. I am an Englishman, and all Englishmen dream of retiring to a little place like Gerard's, so I couldn't help drawing the scene as a little sunny and romantic idyll.

If you think drawing a mob of charging French infantry in frame two was hard work, you should see what's on the next page! (to be posted tomorrow).

Sunday, April 01, 2007 10:52:51 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Calling all Gerard fans! To our suprise and delight, the first Brigadier Gerard strip, The Crime of the Brigadier, or, How Brigadier Gerard Slew the Fox, generated quite a bit of interest amongst fans of this kind of thing. As it happens, we did another Brigadier Gerard story for Graphic Classics: How the Brigadier Came to the Castle of Gloom.

We had intended to run another strip first, but due to the interest shown in the first Gerard strip, we've decided to press ahead and start running Castle of Gloom from Sunday. Thanks for showing an interest in our humble efforts, and we hope you enjoy the strip!

Friday, March 30, 2007 7:59:45 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's the last page of the Brigadier Gerard story we're currently running. To see the whole strip in one go, click on the Brigadier Gerard category on the right.

From tomorrow, we're going to start posting daily episodes of King Pest, a short story by Edgar Allen Poe, adapted by Antonella and drawn by brilliant Aussie artist Anton Emdin.  Enjoy!

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 10:33:35 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page 17 of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Crime of the Brigadier...

I had a lot of fun doing the 'reaction shot' faces in the middle frame!

When Tom Pomplun, the editor of Graphic Classics, (who is an American), gave Antonella and me this strip to do, he didn't get the joke. I had to explain to him that in fox hunting, you're NOT supposed to kill the fox yourself. This is considered unsporting. You're supposed to let the hounds tear it to pieces instead. Much more efficient, and fun to watch, too. The 'crime' of Gerard was in actually killing the fox with his sabre. Without this basic knowledge, the humour of the situation is missed. In the end, Tom suggested Murray's line: "And what is left for my poor dogs?" to explain things.

Don't let the Countryside Alliance fool you into thinking fox hunting is a real sport, and don't let them con you into thinking everybody in the country supports them. In the small Shropshire village I grew up in, there was a local fox hunt. It always took place during a weekday, just so you'd know none of them actually had to work for a living; although it was the 'local' hunt, none of the members were from our village (or from our social class) and we never saw them otherwise; and most of the local farmers wouldn't let the buggers cross their land. Consequently, the fox usually escaped. Go, fox! 

Tuesday, March 13, 2007 11:04:05 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's Gerard page 16...

The background in frame 1 is based on the gallery of mirrors at Versailles.

While drawing frame 2, I remembered a documentary about film director David Lean. During Doctor Zhivago, there's a sequence in which Omar Sharif's character witnesses the massacre by cavalry of a crowd of protestors. We don't see the massacre itself, just a mid-shot of Sharif's shocked reaction, with the screaming crowd on the soundtrack. According to Sharif, to get the right expression on his face, Lean told him to imagine he was making love to a woman, and was just about to reach the moment of climax.

If you check out the film and watch the sequence, you'll see what he was talking about. Lean wanted to show, I think, how extreme emotions can become confused. In frame 2, I tried to get the same expression, the ecstasy of violence. 

Monday, March 12, 2007 10:45:08 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page 15 of the current Brigadier Gerard story...

Sunday, March 11, 2007 7:57:48 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

The next page of the Team Sputnik adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story, The Crime of the Brigadier, or, How Brigadier Gerard Slew the Fox...

While drawing this strip, I was lucky enough to get hold of a DVD of Sergei Bondarchuk's film of Waterloo (Christopher Plummer as Wellington, Rod Steiger as Napoleon), which includes a slow-mo sequence of a famous point in the battle, the charge of the Scots Greys (itself inspired by a famous painting by Lady E. Butler). The ecstatic nature of the sequence, portraying the moment when excitement and sheer terror lifts one onto a higher plane of consciousness, was so close to the feelings Gerard describes in frame 1 that it gave me all the inspiration I needed.

...which just left me the problem of how to give the impression of slow motion in a still picture! 

Saturday, March 10, 2007 11:56:59 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Oh dear, it's a Friday, and this is Brigadier Gerard page thirteen...

Friday, March 09, 2007 11:26:51 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page 12 of the currently-running Brigadier Gerard story...

Thursday, March 08, 2007 10:09:24 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page 11 of the current Brigadier Gerard story...

Sir George Murray (frame 1) was Wellington's quartermaster general. Sir Stapleton Cotton (frame 2) was Wellington's cavalry commander. Both characters are based on portraits I found in the National Portrait Gallery website, although now that I come to check again, I can't seem to find the same ones I used.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007 10:43:41 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Another page of the Brigadier Gerard story...

Credit is due to M. Prof. Ronan Jouan de Kervenoel, our neighbour, for the accuracy of the French swearing on this page.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007 9:21:34 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's part 9 of the first Brigadier Gerard story...

The inn Gerard stumbles upon is based on a photo of a building that featured in a tourist website of the Torres Vedras region. The site was in Spanish, and I have no idea what the building actually is, it just seemed suitable.

The British officers Gerard sees from the hayloft are (l-r) a light cavalry officer, a staff officer and a Scots' Grey. The "Sir Stapleton" they refer to is Sir Stapleton Cotton, 1st Viscount Combermere, who was Wellington's cavalry commander at the time. In other words, Gerard has just discovered that he has chosen to hide in the British cavalry HQ.

Monday, March 05, 2007 4:07:02 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's the next thrilling installment of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Crime of the Brigadier, or, How Brigadier Gerard Slew the Fox..

Although I found plenty of reference on Napoleonic uniforms on the Internet, I could never find anything for cap badges and other insignia. Ironically the best reference for British uniform badges I could find was for the South Essex, the entirely fictional regiment featured in the Sharpe TV series starring Sean Bean. In the end, I made most of them up. I know I could have gone to greater trouble to find these things out, but I live in Lancaster and the Imperial War Museum is a bit of a schlep from here.

Sunday, March 04, 2007 11:01:29 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

The latest Gerard page...

Depictions of the landscape around Torres Vedras are accurate, but I got the British fortifications completely wrong - Wellington had 30,000 men building the lines at Torres Vedras, much of which is still standing today. Something a little more substantial than the rough picket fences depicted here then.

Please don't get the idea from all this that I am fascinated by war, or approve of it. Conan Doyle wrote the story as a "boys' own" adventure typical of the time, something that would have gone down well with British readers since the seige at Torres Vedras was a notable example of Wellington's military skill, which resulted in a British victory. Certainly, British histories of this action tend to focus on Wellington's brilliance in having the fortifications built a year in advance of his actually needing them, or the fact that the whole job cost only £100,000, making it one of the most "cost-effective" military manouvers in history. 

But any patriotic pride British readers may feel swelling in their breasts at this point should be modified when I tell you that, due to Wellington's scorched-earth policy, 50,000 Portrugese civilians and 20,000 French soldiers were to die of starvation and disease before Massena was forced to retreat to Spain.

C'est la guerre.  

Saturday, March 03, 2007 11:21:33 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

The next Gerard page...

The pitcher and mugs in the last frame are based on a set designed by my father, and the some of the faces in the same frame are inspired by some of Goya's grotesques.

Friday, March 02, 2007 11:41:43 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Antonella found something funny this afternoon. If you go to Google, then type in "gerard teamsputnik" as your search string, you get the Jazma Online interview we did recently. This is the only hit - in other words, we're a googlewhack! Well, strictly speaking we're not a googlewhack because it's not our website, but we're at least the subject of a googlewhack.

The thought of it kept us amused this afternoon, anyway.

Thursday, March 01, 2007 7:09:23 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's the next Gerard page...

I hadn't drawn horses in any great detail before this strip, just cartoony horses, which are basically made up of cocktail sausages joined together with sticks. I needed something more realistic for this strip - you'll see why later - and I owe a lot to Walter T. Foster's Horses, part of his how-to-draw series (now 80 years in print), for guidance. I also found Edweard Muybridge's sequence photos of horses in motion useful. The big frame, in case you missed the reference, is based on David's painting Napoleon Crossing the Alps.

Thursday, March 01, 2007 10:35:13 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's the next page of the Brigadier Gerard story...

This was the first page in which I had to draw Napoleonic uniforms in any great detail. By the end of the strip, I'd become something of an expert. Reference was easy to find - there are an awful lot of war gamers and model-makers out there on the Internet - but I had a problem because Conan Doyle didn't specify which brigade of light infantry Gerard was in. The uniform differs slightly in detail from brigade to brigade. In the end, I decided on the 3rd brigade, since this was the uniform I had the most detailed reference for. It was a lucky guess - in the second story we did, the 3rd Hussar of Conflans is specifically mentioned by the author.

Gerard has never appeared in colour, but his uniform should be a really bright orange with a dark blue coat and blue and red shako (it helps if you take LSD at this point). Unless it's dark blue all over. I've also seen versions of the uniform with cream trousers and a red coat, and a painting of Gerard, by Eric D'Antin, with a uniform that was bright blue with red bits all over. God knows which one is correct. I decided to stop worrying at this point and get on with drawing the strip.

Later on in the story, Gerard wears a busby rather than a shako. It's black.

Credit is due to Tex Avery or possibly Chuck Jones for the corny joke in frame 3, by the way. I think it comes from a Bugs Bunny cartoon. If anybody knows which one, please don't tell me.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007 10:53:47 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page three of the Brigadier Gerard story...

The French general Massena (the one using the telescope) is based on an engraving I found on the internet. I can't remember where I found it so no link this time, although there's a nice entry about him in Wikipedia.

It's basically a nineteenth-century publicity shot. Apparently he had these printed up so that people would recognise him. By the end of the Torres Vedras stalemate, which was the French disaster in which this story is set, he may well have wished he had remained anonymous.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007 10:20:45 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page two of the Brigadier Gerard story The Crime of the Brigadier; or How Brigadier Gerard Slew the Fox.

You will notice as the story progresses that Etienne Gerard is a man unencumbered by false modesty. Therefore, we decided to give him a big entrance, with a whole third of the page to himself. In fact, the frame 2 entrance is inspired by a popular series of adverts for a French car, starring Catherine Deneuve, which Antonella remembered from her days in Italy. The tag line of each ad was "Oui, je suis Catherine Deneuve!" When she writes, Antonella always works out the page layouts very carefully, and credit belongs to her for the appearance and pace of the story.

Monday, February 26, 2007 10:23:59 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's a strip Antonella wrote and I drew which was published last year in Graphic Classics in the US. It's an adaptation of one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's comical Brigadier Gerard stories, in which he has an encounter with an English fox-hunting party.

This is set during Napoleonic times, during the Penninsular War ("Sharpe's war"). Conan Doyle seems to have done quite a bit of historical research when he wrote the original story, and because the action takes place during actual historical events, I tried to make things like uniforms and kit as accurate as possible. Some actual historical figures are included, like Wellington, Massena the French commander, even minor figures like Sir William Murray and Sir Stapleton Cotton, Viscount Combermere, and I based these on portraits I found in places like the National Portrait Gallery's website. Other characters are based on people whose images Antonella and I found elsewhere on the Internet: the older Gerard, for example, is partly inspired by Gerard Depardieu as he appears in Cyrano de Bergerac (but without the nose!

Our French cultural advisor was M. Prof. Ronan Jouan de Kervanoel, a French academic who quite usefully happened to be living next door to us at the time we were doing this. Credit is due to him for all the French swearwords, which but for him we would not have known how to spell.

Anyway, there's another 17 pages of this, and I'm going to post one every day until somebody tells me to stop.

Antonella and I did another Brigadier story, 21 pages this time, for a later edition of Graphic Classics, and I'm thinking of posting it after this one is finished. Consider yourself warned.

Sunday, February 25, 2007 8:25:41 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0]