Here's the latest FRET cartoon. I redesigned it to be more in keeping with the usual style of a daily newspaper spot...

Today's headline - Russian spy activity in the UK is "as high as the Cold War".

Friday, March 16, 2007 11:59:29 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's the second episode of our weekly-running strip NICK MILLER, SPACE HERO...

Friday, March 16, 2007 11:04:30 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

This is a strip Antonella wrote around the turn of the millenium. It's a space adventure set in the futuristic world of 2000 AD (the time period, not the comic), as imagined by the SF writers of the '40's and '50's.

Antonella wrote it in the format of a daily newspaper strip, with 24 daily episodes and a climax or a cliffhanger at the end of every three frames. I haven't drawn all the episodes yet, but we'll be publishing these on a weekly basis from now on. Don't forget to check out this blog for new episodes!

Friday, March 16, 2007 10:51:36 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's page two of Edgar Allen Poe's short story King Pest, adapted by Antonella and drawn by Anton Emdin...

Anton writes: Before I started this strip, I was given instruction by the editor to keep my text small. I have a habit of making the speech almost as big as the artwork (a habit that's stuck from years of gag cartoons). Actually, I see handwritten text as art in itself. And a dying art, to boot. But who am I to talk? I've used a computer font for the narration in this one. "Mary-Jane Windlin" or something like that.

Antonella writes: I'm used to dealing with Victorian authors and Poe has something in common with the rest, in that they all use a lot of words! I always try to be concise, bearing in mind that the artist then has the task of fitting all those words into boxes. Early on, I set myself a rule: no more than three lines per box. I try to stick to this, if only because as a reader of comics, I like to enjoy the artwork without having a load of text getting in the way!

BTW I have always envied artists like Anton who have such clear handwriting.

Friday, March 16, 2007 10:41:18 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Headline: Chiquita Banana company own up to paying Columbian guerillas for "protection".

Thursday, March 15, 2007 2:01:51 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here's the new story we're running: King Pest by Edgar Allan Poe. It's the story of two lads looking for a beer and finding love. Ok, put this way it looks like chick-flick stuff, but since Poe is the author of the story, and it's known that he wasn't a cheerful chap, in fact he set it during the Plague of 1348. Not cheerful at all! For all those people who like splitting hairs,  he described things that didn't exist at the time, for instance there were no caretakers as such and funerals were something for very rich people. Anyway. Apart from the historical inaccuracies, this story is a lot of fun.

The artist is a very nice guy from Sydney Australia, Anton Emdin. He has been able to grab the spirit and give the right twist to the story. I hope he had as much fun drawing it as I had writing it. Anton does a lot of other things, check them out at www.antongraphics.com

I hope you enjoy reading it ~ Antonella

Thursday, March 15, 2007 12:43:55 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Headline: Government's proposal to renew Trident missile system leads to protest on roof of Scottish parliament.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 10:37:14 AM (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 the 8th Greatcoat strip in the 'Student Party' sequence...

Tuesday, March 13, 2007 3:16:10 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Headline: BBC finally allowed to reveal contents of email connnected to 'cash for honours' affair.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007 11:09:30 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] 

Headline: Tories propose new air travel taxes. This is described by newspapers as "Taxing the air".

Monday, March 12, 2007 4:03:43 PM (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] 

Really sorry this is a couple of days late. Here's part 7 of the Really Heavy Greatcoat story we're currnetly running. Enjoy...

Sunday, March 11, 2007 7:55:16 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Headline: New EU proposals to reduce carbon emissions include banning old-fashioned filament light bulbs.

I wasn't planning to do these over weekends, but Antonella thought of this one yesterday evening and it was just too good to pass up...

Saturday, March 10, 2007 12:05:45 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] 

Headline: many TV phone-in competitions shut down after accusations of fraud.

Friday, March 09, 2007 11:29:24 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]