One year on, the corpse is online.

I wrote a post a while back, around a year ago about a Narrative Corpse-type project that a bunch of us were working on, and I'd forgive you for thinking that nothing might come of it because it was a pretty big project, put together for and by the cartoonists themselves.

The Narrative Corpse-type Project thing

Those of you who have worked on projects that involve ftp-ing the hi-res files and the lo-res files into the editor, know that all sorts of communication problems can develop even on a small individual project; let alone one on this scale. When you add those problems to the difficulties people often have fitting the actual work into their busy schedules, and around anything else that happens over the course of a year, you can understand why some larger projects just never see the light of day. That this one did survive was a testament to all the cartoonists involved, of course, and to Mister T, who nudged us over the finishing line.

I'd like to post every page here, but then why put it on its own blog, right? So I've chosen of few examples of my favourites pages (except mine which I have to add because it's my blog) from the project, which involved many of my favourite indie cartoonists. I think this list is fairly comprehensive, but if you are looking in and you took part and don't see your name here, drop me a line:

Fufu Frauenwahl

Sean Aaberg

Tobias Tak

T. Avery

Hans Rickheit

Fufu Frauenwahl http://www.fufufrauenwahl.com/
Sean Aaberg http://lambiek.net/artists/a/aaberg_sean-p.htm
Cheese Hasselberger http://www.houseoftwelve.com/
Hans Rickheit http://zeitgeist.numachi.com/chromefetus/
Tobias Tak http://www.tobicomix.co.uk/
WW Craghead http://www.wcraghead.com/weblog/blog.html
Brent Smith
Thayer Bray
Maurizio
Ian Murphy http://www.greathugethings.com/
Alex Buchet
Mark Campos http://lambiek.net/artists/c/campos_mark.htm
Hack http://www.hackcartoons.com/
Levi Jacob Bailey http://www.noeyescabinfever.blogspot.com/
Blaise http://www.slashart.com/
Juniper Tangpuz
Giles O'Dell http://www.zoonbats.com/
Kletz
Peter Rapp http://www.peterrapp.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/index.html
Rod McKie
Shannon Smith http://www.shannonsmith.net/
Michael Canich http://uselessweaponry.blogspot.com/
T. Avery (Ed) http://www.cheatingatsolitaire.net/
Matt Furie http://mattfurie.betternonsequitur.com/
Brian McKenzie http://www.bdmckenzie.blogspot.com/
Zeke Clough http://shoogooble.blogspot.com/
David Paleo http://monsterwithoutacause.blogspot.com/
Dale Martin
Aeron Alfrey http://www.skeletoncave.blogspot.com/
Hunter http://www.webcomicsnation.com/hunter/
Dan Steffan http://lambiek.net/artists/s/steffan_dan.htm
Alejandro Alvarez http://www.mackwhite.com/BushJunta7.html
Chris Pottinger http://chrispottinger.tastysoil.com/
Ray Frenden http://frenden.com/
David Robertson http://berserkotron.piczo.com/?cr=1&rfm=y
Andrei Molotiu http://www.blotcomics.blogspot.com/
Barry Rodges http://www.capeday.com/index.php/site/story/barry_rodges/
Jon Chandler http://bonehousebooks.co.uk/
Christopher Mostyn http://squatthrust.wordpress.com/
Marc Palm http://swellzombie.blogspot.com/
Mat Brinkman http://lambiek.net/artists/b/brinkman_mat.htm
Ian Harker
Eric

Okay, here is the theory, the cartoonist before me sends the Ed (the heroic T. Avery in our case) a rough of his final panel, that final panel-rough is sent to me and I write my page, or pages, based on the events in that final panel. I then send the rough of my final panel into the Ed who sends it along to the next cartoonist. While both the cartoonist that precedes me and I are inking our pages, the next cartoonist writes his narrative following on from my final panel-rough and then sends his or her final panel-rough into the Ed, and on it goes. Here is the sequence that I was in the middle of, sandwiched between Shannon Smith and Peter Rapp:

Shannon Smith

Me

Me again


Peter Rapp (this is a cool page, I think)

Coyright, 2007-2008, all the respective Corpse players.

A (comic) book of delights, that's Nick Mag.

I hate posts on noticeboards and websites where people say 'a lot of people ask me' and you think well who? Who are they who ask? I don't know people who ask. Why do they ask you? More often than not they are just making it up, I think. I mean, I've been doing this a long time and the only time 'people' ask me anything is when I'm in the pub and they say 'you're a cartoonist, do you know ...?' and I answer 'he/she is dead'.

However, other cartoonists ask one another things all the time, but usually in a round-about way, so as not to arouse any suspicion. Like this: 'How are you, I hear such and such a publication is now taking emailed submissions; are you aware of this?' This usually means that they have picked up an unsubstantiated rumour, but if you verify it and maybe supply a contact address, they can check it out. I think that the maroons who send out those Nigerian banker-scam 'phising' emails could learn a lot from cartoonists.

Anyhow, I am often asked (I've been asked twice now) 'what do you consider to be the best cartooning publication out there'? Well, in terms of sheer creativity, and energy, and space and for experimentation, I'd have to say, Nickelodeon Magazine (US). Susprised you eh? I've never failed to be astonished by the sheer energy in the magazine and I know of no other publication that so successfully mixes artists, illustrators and cartoonists from the indy and mainstream scenes. In any one issue you might find work by Kaz, Sam Henderson, Johnny Ryan, Charles Burns, Robert Leighton, Aaron Reiner, Dave Pilkey, Raina Telgemeier, etc, etc, etc. It is like, at times, a barely contained whirlwind of artistic styles and talents, which is a big testament to the skills of the editors involved. I just wish we had something like it over here (whisper: the British version blows).

Got a new Prospect in the post today

I did some real slap-happy painting with this cartoon for the January 2007 issue of Prospect (Good Heavens, the new year jobs have begun already). I've done a bunch of art-related cartoons over the years, but not too many Magritte's, which is odd because he strikes me as the most cartoony of artists, well, outside the Lichtenstein, Warhol, Blake pop art circuit. I mean, c'mon, that's a skyful of Herge's Thomson Twins, no? Or are the Thomson Twins really an homage to Magritte?

Prospect came today.

My contributors copy of Prospect came today, and I've got it on ice. I look through magazines very quickly at the cartoons, then at the snippets and headlines and then at the letters page and then I put it away until the evening when I will read it from cover-to-cover. I've always done this, grazed first and then put the material away until later. This applies to comics, books, novels, comic books, cartoon collections, even the ones I have cartoon in. The illustrator/writer, Eddie Campbell, has spoken of almost entering a different space and time for reading comic books but with me I think it's a case of delayed gratification. If I delay the full act of reading as long as I can, I can always look forward to reading the thing. I have to delay it this way because the moment I've turned the last page it's as if all the joy is sucked out of me. I visibly deflate and almost go into a state of depression, unless I have more things to read, that is.

I've looked at all the cartoons and I found one or two very funny. I can't laugh at mine (above), because it's mine and the joy went out of it when I finished it. I enjoyed the cartoons by my friends and colleagues Mike Lynch and Srini Bhukya and one that I'm sure is by one of our old friends whom we haven't seen a lot of recently, Ralph Hagen, it's about lawyers discovering America. Very funny gag.