TEMPEST UPDATE

Well im on course to finish the Tempest graphic novel this weekend after 56 weeks working on the book to celebrate im going with friends for a curry and to the flicks to see Wolverine can't wait...

ARTWORK COPYRIGHT CLASSICAL COMICS LTD 2009

DESIGNING SNEDRON THE DEVIANT DEMON

Snedron was designed for a TALES OF TELGGUTH story for 2000a.d anthology comic in 2002 the writer Steve Moore asked that he had goat legs like Pan and horns.
in the story he lusts over a young daughter of a mighty wizard so i started thinking ''horny demon'' and here are my designs ,i laughed alot drawing them and as you can see my first few drawing are very over the top .
i really enjoyed working with Steve on the Telguuth stories he's an amazing creative writer.

SNEDRON / TALES OF TELGUUTH COPYRIGHT REBELLION A/S 2002

LASER ERASER AND PRESSBUTTON HEAD STUDIES

from 2004 enjoy...
colour pin up pencils Jon Haward inks John Stokes computer colouring and 3d graphic background David Pugh 2004
characters copyright Steve Moore

CAROLINE MUNRO PROJECT 1997

I had the pleasure to meet Caroline at a memorabilia show in birmingham in 1997 we where both guests at the event, she was charming and i admitted i was a big fan of hers since i saw her in the Golden Voyage of Sinbad movie (when i was 10yrs old) anyway i told her i drew comics and also that i designed stuff for theme parks, computer games etc ,i had a brainstorm and said why didn't she have a comic, as most of her career she had played fantasy characters ie at the earths core, hammer films, james bond (the spy who loved me), so we communicated and here is the result .

i asked my friend Jim Alexander to write a two page intro pitch which was the following:

SHE IS CAROLINE MUNRO

FORCES BEYOND OUR RECKONING HAVE BESTOWED UPON HER SEVEN LIVES.

SO THAT,OVER THE GENERATIONS, SHE HAS DEDICATED HERSELF TO FIGHT AGAINST EVIL...IN ALL IT'S MYRIAD FORMS.

SHE HAS HUNTED DOWN THE VAMPIRES OF THE PAST.

SHE FOUGHT AGAINST THE FORCES OF BLACK MAGIC USED BY THE NAZIS.

SHE HAS PITTED HERSELF AGAINST GANGSTERS POSSESSED BY DEMONS.

SHE HAS HUNTED DOWN THE VAMPIRES OF THE PRESENT.

i drew the two page spread and asked John Stokes if he would be interested in inking it , he agreed and did a beautiful ink job on my pencils ,i art directed my friend Dave Alexander to paint a dummy cover and i showed the end results to Caroline and her agent they loved it ,then nothing it fizzled out due to lack of funding.
still it was a great try and it was a fun little project to work on plus it was very cool to meet Caroline and her husband who at the time was trying to get a DR WHO movie made.

MACBETH / MUSIC FROM THE ELDER

Here's a close up of one of my fav panels from the graphic novel, i remember at the time playing some kiss music from ''the elder'' cd while i was drawing it ,i guess this is the closest i'll get in comics for a ''conan moment''

by the way music from the elder by kiss is one of the best lp's ever produced in my book ,it's a concept album from 1981 if you've never heard it give it a try, it's a shame they never followed it up with a tour and movie its a great concept.

CHANGE OF ART STYLE FOR SPIDEY 2006

My Editor on SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN ADVENTURES wanted me to draw Spidey in a more cartoonish style than my more classic marvel retro style ,Andie Tong a young and very talented artist had come on board the good ship spidey and was drawing some fantastic looking stuff so i changed style ,here's my Spidey sketches showing the new style and my last two Spectacular Spider-man Adventures covers using that style the covers where inked by Lee Townsend and coloured by John Charles.

after a 30 issue run i had run out of steam drawing Spidey and my editor knew this i was sad to leave the title after 5 years but i had nothing left i had drawn all the main villians i had drawn the strip in animation style /retro style/then manga-ish style ,i'll always be proud of my time on that title it was a dream job and i made alot of good friends working on it.

SPIDER-MAN,DR OCK,GREEN GOBLIN COPYRIGHT MARVEL CHARACTERS INC /PANINI UK LTD 2006

CAT WOMAN 1996

This pin up was drawn for my friend John Stokes as a birthday present way back in 1996, i still like it

BATMAN, CAT WOMAN COPYRIGHT DC COMICS INC

ETERNAL CHAMPIONS 1994-1995

Eternal Champions was another comic strip based on a SEGA computer game i drew them for Sonic the comic and for a special here's a couple of my covers again drawn in markers and pencils

BLAST FROM THE PAST SHINOBI MASTER NINJA 1993-1995

Shinobi master ninja was based on the Sega computer game
 
Shinobi appeared in SONIC THE COMIC published by Fleetway Editions way back in 1993-1995
I had the pleasure to work with ex 2000ad editor Alan Mckenzie (writer)on the comic strip .

Shinobi was voted 2nd fav strip by the readers and SONIC 'S sales in those days reached 250,000 copies every 2 weeks .

I remember attending a Glasgow Comic Con in 95 and the Sonic table got swamped with parents and kids wanting their comics signed and for sketches ,Japanese people where there filming and we got attention from some U.S guests as to all the excitement (sigh those where the days)

any way i found these old bits and bobs to show, in those days all my covers and comic strips where drawn in marker pens using colour markers and coloured pencils no photoshop or wizz bang graphics just old school drawing.

i loved drawing Shinobi and its nice after all these years i still get young people come up to me at cons saying they loved my work and ask me for a sketch .

IMAGES COPYRIGHT FLEETWAY/SEGA

SHOCK OF THE NEW COMPETITION 1998

In 1998 i drew a four page black and white comic strip for a competition called ''shock of the new'' for Cartoon County it was 100years since Aubrey Beardsley had died so the theme of the exhibition was ''shock''(adult themes) ,two of the judges on the panel where David Lloyd and Steve Bell
this work has never been seen outside of that exhibition until now ,at the time i was very into Frank Miller's Sin City work so i tried to draw the strip in a similar style.

ARTWORK/STORY COPYRIGHT JON HAWARD 1998/2009 (NOT TO BE PRINTED IN ANY FORMAT WITHOUT MY PERMISSION)

COCA-COLA ANIMATED TV COMMERCIAL FOR THE U.S.A

I've recently had the pleasure to work for Nexus productions ltd on a animated tv commercial for Coca-Cola ,i was contacted by producer Pip Malone to work on the project as the main theme of it was that it should look like loads of different comic strip styles cut out and put together ,i had a blast working with the directors Mark and Tom Perret.

basically i drew enviroment stuff buildings, trees, bridge, giant snowman ,coke van, cars,characters black boy with ice cream ,clark kent spoof, hot manga guy, girl with the fan ,chap with the watering can ,the background crowd sadly the traffic cop we worked on got edited out.

the animators would draw the characters doing the action and then i would redrew them in black ink line which is called clean up so what you see looks like a comic strip cut out but moving ,i worked on everything on the commercial apart from the sky and monsters.

it was great seeing my drawings move for the first time as i've always loved animation since i was a very young boy.

the crew who worked with me on the commercial where great too, we had a lot of laughs and i enjoyed working with them alot ,any way the commercial is on view on the Nexus website just click on the link directors and click on to Tom and Mark
and click on to the pink monster head .
here's some screen shots to view.

captain britain the lion and the spider plug!!

just bought captain britain the lion and the spider published by PANINI UK LTD
featuring work by chris claremont, john byrne, steve parkhouse,paul neary,john stokes,jim lawrence, larry lieber, ron wilson
intro by dez skinn

original character design roughs of CB included as well (always love seeing the behind the scenes stuff)

what im really happy about after waiting 30 yrs !! yes 30 years they have reprinted the black knight strip that featured in the u.k 's hulk comic weekly featuring the return of captain britain beautiful art by neary and john stokes ,it really is great stuff

the other stuff is great too especially the byrne marvel team up story

all i can say is thanks brady webb, reprint editor for a fab package

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Captain-Britain-Vo...2577&sr=1-1

photo's by lew stringer

OF ANCIENT BLOOD PART 4(never published) 2004

Of Ancient Blood book 1 was never completed as the comic Warhammer monthly was cancelled after part 3 was published ,originally the writer Mitchel Scanlon had the saga running for 6 parts in a graphic novel and 6 graphic novels in total ,here is part 4 i finished the artwork but im only showing the pencils plus the finished first page on this blog ,as you can see my pencils are rougher if i ink them myself .
i enjoyed drawing this series it was like conan meets kronos vampire hunter and i enjoyed working with Mitch alot way back in 2004 .
Mitch now mainly writes novels and i can't understand why he's never got a gig working for Marvel comics usa or DC comics he's a great talent.

i still get asked at conventions ''how did the story finish?'' to tell the Truth i don't know, it's a shame the story was never finished.

ARTWORK COPYRIGHT GAMESWORKSHOP 2004

WARHAMMER COMIC COVER PART 2

Here's my finished inks for the cover and the finished colour image, the colouring was done by David Pugh (artist on DAN DARE, SLAINE, MASK) David did a terrific job on the cover ,as you can see there are bats flying around on the finished cover i drew them on a seperate sheet so the bats could appear flying out of the comic logo to add a 3D type effect.

i reckon this would have made a cool poster image too, it's still one of the best things i've drawn in my 20 plus years drawing comics.

ARTWORK COPYRIGHT GAMES WORKSHOP 2004