July 2020

Friday 31 July 2020

More soon...

After a couple of months in pandemic furlough I have been called back to my day job starting on Monday, so unfortunately won't be able to do comic art stuff and keep up the Monday-Friday schedule here. So moving forward I'll be dropping the schedule to once a week, every Friday @4PM GMT, but rest assured we've got more great stuff coming up.

Until next Friday then, here's some comic and arty stuff-

This was one of Mondo's Daily Doodles over on Facebook a couple of years back and now dedicated to CGUK's Commie Mark.

It was going to continue and build into a story- just haven't got round to it yet...

Here's a couple of rain pics... The idea was to show mood and atmosphere, both are digital in Photoshop.

I know I've plugged it before, but if you're interested, Commie Mark's comic- 'The Adventures of Kim Il Sung and Best Korea' is still available to buy in demand on Indiegogo here-

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/adventures-of-kim-il-sung-and-best-korea/x/23632294#/

Next Time- Quink Ink Illos

Stay safe everyone.

https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/funky-punk-comics

JonathanOdds

http://www.comicfleamarket.com/brands/Abbot-Comics.html

Coming Soon- Fred Fortune: City of Tomorrow

If you like what you've seen of Funky Punk so far please follow, subscribe, comment and share. If not, thanks for reading this far and we'll be back with some more comics and other stuff real soon.

#comicsgate
#cguk

Monday 27 July 2020

++Digital Visual Information Process++

Drawing corner. Part the first.

Here's a quick piece drawn in traditional pencils...

... to inking digitally in Clip Studio...

... with some quick digital colour...

... and the finished illustration.

What do you think? I still gotta get to grips with digital colour, but improving bit by bit.

Elsewhere in CGUK, 'Shades' is a two-volume, action-packed graphic novel from David A J Berner at Broken Voice Comics. It's set in the UK in the closing years of the Twentieth Century with a story spanning five thousand years of British history. It asks the question “What makes a hero?” and examines the characteristics and traits that have come to define the British national psyche.

Available in both print and digital on Broken Voice's Comicsy shop, here:
http://www.comicsy.co.uk/brokenvoice/

Next Time- More!

Stay safe everyone.

https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/funky-punk-comics

JonathanOdds

http://www.comicfleamarket.com/brands/Abbot-Comics.html

Coming Soon- Fred Fortune: City of Tomorrow

Friday 24 July 2020

Woolley Jumper #1

John Woolley was a Mondo legend. His crazed cartooning graced Mondo's pages from the beginning right the way through to 2004. His unique cartoon style brought many hoots of laughter to Mondo readers with his superhero parody strips Massacre Comix, which later morphed into Murkle Yarns. He's also known for providing art for other Mondo stories such as Lord Thunder and inks on Gladiator and Fred Fortune. John is not online and in our last correspondence told me that he is retiring from small press comics as he's 60 and finding it increasingly difficult given his disability which I fully understand, but is still a shame. Most recently he drew several Fred Fortune strips including 'The Sirius Job' and 'Hooray For Hollyworld'. You can read 'The Sirius Job' in Fred #s 2 and 3 (link below). and they will all be reworked to appear at some point after the upcoming 'City of Tomorrow'. But his stuff will not be forgotten as we have his Mondo collaborations, 60+ pages of his own stuff and 5 complete issues of Murkle Yarns which will see the light of day at some point. So without further ado I give you Mr John Woolley's Massacre Comix- This is the earliest strip I can find and dates from Mondo #11 back in 1993. The pages are scanned as is and haven't been tidied up (don't worry- that's coming). Enjoy-

Next Time- Something else

Stay safe everyone.

https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/funky-punk-comics

JonathanOdds

http://www.comicfleamarket.com/brands/Abbot-Comics.html

Coming Soon- Fred Fortune: City of Tomorrow

Monday 20 July 2020

Oops

Due to unforeseen circumstances the post planned for today will be delayed for now. In the meantime here's some pictures...

#istandwithcecil

Join the mailing list for Charlie's London- an officially licensed comic biography of the life of Charlie Chaplin here-

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/charlie-s-london-from-east-lane-to-the-limelight/coming_soon/x/23632294

Next Time- The planned one.

Stay safe everyone.

https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/funky-punk-comics

JonathanOdds

http://www.comicfleamarket.com/brands/Abbot-Comics.html

Coming Soon- Fred Fortune: City of Tomorrow

Friday 17 July 2020

Wheels Of Fortune

Just some Fred Fortune stuff today.

Here's a couple of old ones-

Next up is a cover/poster/splash page for a 1995 team up strip I did with Steven Corps and his Phantom Bog Roller character published as a one shot/special issue by Steven that year.

Steven has a very British cartoony drawing style that's akin to the art in UK kids anthology Nutty (original home of Bananaman) back in the early 80s and did tons and tons of fun comedy small press comics back in the 90s. Here's one of his covers-

I don't think Steven does a lot of stuff these days, but you can find him on Twitter here-

https://twitter.com/StevenCorps

This next one is from 2001. Pen and ink and lots of dry brushing- a precursor of my art style today?

Here's a bit of it!!

If you've got a spare few minutes please go have a look at the links below for early Fred comics and merch, thank you.

Next Time- Woolley Jumper #1

Stay safe everyone.

https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/funky-punk-comics

JonathanOdds

http://www.comicfleamarket.com/brands/Abbot-Comics.html

Coming Soon- Fred Fortune: City of Tomorrow

Monday 13 July 2020

The Listening Post #1

Like most of us creative types I like to have some background noise while I'm working. Depending on what I feel like that day sometimes I listen to YouTube live streams or audio dramas like Big Finish's Doctor Who, but mostly it's music, so I thought a series of posts about what bands and musicians I like might be fun. From prog to punk to pop my tastes vary a lot and chop and change all the time so expect a lot of contradiction.

Also, a couple of Christmas's back my wife gave me a turntable so all the old vinyl records I had back in the day came down from the loft. Some I hadn't played since the 80s, some were badly scratched and jumped quite a lot and others were damaged down the spine of the cover where our first pet cat had used the records on a bookcase at the time as a scratch post (!). Since then I've replaced quite a few and bought some new stuff on the modern heavyweight 180g vinyl. To be honest, take note mainstream comics industry, I probably spend more of what little disposable income I have on vinyl than I do on comics these days.

Each post will focus on one artist/band and today it's modern prog rock genius Steven Wilson. I'd never heard of this guy until I saw a YouTube music critic talking about his 2012 album 'The Raven That Refused to Sing'. The review didn't play any of the songs but it sounded good do I and blindly took a punt and bought the album. I'm glad I did as it's a fantastic album. Check these out-

I guess some of you will be wondering why someone who calls his publishing venture Funky Punk comics likes prog rock. I like how it can move from hard rock to classical to jazz to folk to industrial to electro to blues and back again all in one song to evoke a mood and tell some sort of story. That's it really... stories.

The other favourite album is 2015's Hand Cannot Erase.

I love the artwork for these covers by the way... That paint splatter for her hair on Hand Cannot Erase is damn clever and the moon drawing on Raven puts me in mind of George Melies' 1902 Rocket To The Moon.

Steven Wilson's new album, The Future Bites, will be released in Jan 2021. That's some biting satire right there.

As you'll see in future posts I do like punk too.

Here's a new panel from Fred Fortune- City of Tomorrow. It's from page four that I finished this week. All the tone, textures and rain fx take ages to do but are well worth it because it's exactly the affect I had in mind when I started this story. Spin on it lazy boring Marvel and DC- this is what comics can be!

Check out Only Death Can Save Us by Russ Leach and Tim Quinn. It'll be funding on Indiegogo soon, but here's it's site-

http://www.onlydeathcansaveus.com/

There you'll find character bios, creator bios and a downloadable preview of the book.

You can sign up for the Indiegogo mailing list here-

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/only-death-can-save-us/coming_soon/x/23632294

Next Time- Wheels Of Fortune

Stay safe everyone.

https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/funky-punk-comics

JonathanOdds

http://www.comicfleamarket.com/brands/Abbot-Comics.html

Coming Soon- Fred Fortune: City of Tomorrow

Friday 10 July 2020

Turn Left To Nowhere.

Here's another project... Coming soon...

A story of life, shopping and a really terrible band!!

Meet 'Beneath Contempt', a very poor approximation of amateur death metal...

On drums and beer it's Cosmo Block!!

On guitars here's Gator Gravel!

... and last and least, on vocals and lazing around it's Gavin- urrm sorry, it's a legend in his own lifetime, the hero of the hour, I give you the supreme lyricist Rooster!!!