It’s hard to imagine the “British Invasion” of talent into American comics – Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons, Kevin O’Neill, John McCrea, Duncan Fegredo, Glasgow’s own Grant Morrison, Mark Millar & Frank Quitely  and a host of others – without 2000AD being there to showcase their work.  For a brief time we played a tangental role in the history of the comic; former “art droid” Alex Ronald was with us for couple of years and produced pages for 2000AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine in our original premises .

Hats off to Pat Mills, John Wagner and the host of “Thargs” who followed.  Long may the title continue.

Chris Sommerville has combined his love of football and caricature in a book featuring contributions from guest artists and an introduction by Frank Quitely, illustrator on such world-famous comics as New X-Men, Batman & Robin and the forth-coming Jupiter’s Children. So whether your first love is the beautiful game, you’re an aficionado of cartoon art or you simply like a laugh, WORLD CUP LEGENDS is the book for you.
62 pages, paperback, £9.99
Fully revised and updated for 2012
E-book version available soon!
All images © Chris Sommerville

From the current issue of Glasgow Museum’s What’s On brochure:

Join us at GMRC for our BIG comic weekend! Each day, you can enjoy an interactive tour, a workshop by a professional comic artist and storytelling.  Plus – lost of vintage comics to look through, and the chance to dress up in our comic costumes and pose for photos in front of a comic book backdrop!

Saturday 11th February, 11:00-14:00

Sunday 12th February, 12:00-15:00

Places are limited, so it’s recommended that families contact the Centre in advance of their visit.

In these drawings you can see the development of a family of Rab C Nesbitt or Shameless style robots.  It is interesting to see what ideas stuck and which were rejected by comparing these roughs with the finished article.

The Botz © Jox Vox

Halfway between two World Cups Chris has decided to revisit his first volume, refreshing the layout and format of the book and including some previously unseen artwork too.  It’ll be available later this year.  All the details will be posted here.

More than a few of you will have heard the familiar refrain of Auld Lang Syne last weekend.  Rabbie Burns looms large in the Scottish mindset at the  beginning and end of every January, as we remember our national bard around his birthday on the 25th.

Burns will be the focus for a series of caricature workshops we’re doing which school children from his home county of North Ayrshire.  We quoted Burns in the introduction to our Fizzers book:

O wad some Power the giftie gie us. To see oursels as ithers see us!

We argue that power lies in caricature, the act of observing and exaggerating – or distilling – the physical aspects of another’s face and getting it down in a drawing.    The Wha’s Like Us? workshops are for P6/7 pupils and will run at the Harbour Arts Centre, Irvine; the centre has invited classes looking at the topic of Burns to participate.

We’ll write about further projects in communities around Scotland throughout 2012.

Season’s Greetings from everyone at the Scottish Cartoon Art Studio.

In 2011 we opened our new Studio workshop and now we have a new website too.  Be sure to come back in the New Year; over the coming weeks we’ll be unveiling new parts of the site featuring never-before-seen artwork.