Just finished reading this short, 3 part series where everyone’s favourite wall crawler teams up with Dr. Strange in a story called ‘Fever’. I’m not a big superhero comics fan, Superman, Batman, X-Men etc. don’t do much for me. I generally prefer the more leftfield end of things, in fact I think this is the first Spiderman comic I’ve ever bought outside of the watered down kind for my boys. So, why the special occasion? Brendan McCarthy. One of the demi-gods of UK comic book art, 2000ad veteran and, in the last 2 decades, storyboardist and character designer to Hollywood.

I’ll buy pretty much anything with Brendan’s name on it as he’s a unique talent, rarely repeats himself but has a visual language all of his own. Sometimes copied – Jamie Hewlett’s early work owes much to McCarthy – but never bettered, he is one of the few comic book artists who can portray psychedelia effectively on the printed page, Savage Pencil being another example. He mainly left comics behind after getting his foot in the movie making door and who can blame him, I’m sure the pay is better. But recently he’s been active again here and there and this Marvel Team Up is his first major comic book for some time.

This time round he’s writing as well as illustrating too and seems to have been given quite free reign with the character, something he dives head on into conjuring up a Spider-themed story that incorporates magic, other dimensions, soul-snatching and even references Spidey’s origins quite neatly. It all serves to provide material for a great big acid trip of a story with nods to Steve Dikto and a thinly veiled Alistair Crowley. If you like your comics dark, camp and sporting all the colours of the spectrum then this is for you. In fact one of my only criticisms (aside from the shortness of it all) is the colouring ,which has been done via computer. Some of it works but, knowing McCarthy’s painted work from the past, there’s something lacking in some of the pages. Also for some reason, I’m guessing meddlesome middle management, the covers are pretty awful, really badly laid out with muddy colours which is a shame as his work is usually so bright and bold.

Ninja Tune artists seem to have a love of comic art and one particular comic in particular has played host to various artists who have also graced Ninja Tune sleeves - 2000AD. The first was The Herbaliser’s ‘Wall Crawling Giant Insect Breaks’ 12″ back in 1998 with a cover painting by Jason Brashill -aka graffiti artist Jase – who used to paint with Req and She One in Brighton. His design of a robotic bug perched on a pair of decks and a mixer is one of my favourites of that era.

My own DJ Food EPs from last year featured new work from Henry Flint who has been a regular on both the weekly comic and monthly Judge Dredd Megazine for over 10 years. He kindly gave me some of his personal work, highly detailed abstract ‘doodles’, to colour for my sleeves (you can see one to the left of this post) and there will be more for the third EP and album.

FInally we have the latest addition: The Qemists have enlisted none other than Glenn Fabry to paint their new ‘Spirit In The System’ LP cover in what looks like a homage to Stanley Mouse’s Grateful Dead work. If you’ve been paying attention to the recent Qemists releases you’ll notice that the first two are sections of a large ‘logo-ified’ version of the painting, I hope Ninja press a vinyl LP of the album too.

For the hundredth post: the first in an occasional series, miscellaneous shots from around the studio…

You’ll find a poster wrapped around the vinyl and inside is another of Henry Flint’s amazing illustrations – done specially for this release. He only provides the line work though and I colour each image in Photoshop using a combination of photos, transparency and colour balancing.

It’s a painstaking process involving many layers, minute mouse work and multiple options and variations. I did several screen shots of the work in progress as I went this time (see below) and I’d estimate it took roughly 2 weeks of intense work.

It wasn’t helped by Photoshop bugs flattening the image for no reason after saving a session. I’d wake up the next morning to find a whole session had been lost and I had to use Time Machine to go back a stage to un-flatten the thing.

Another setback was ‘the orange juice incident‘ after a weeks work on it in the evenings on holiday. That seems an age away now and I’m at work on the final installment, due out around May. Not sure what the cover to that will be but I have plenty more of Henry’s work available to use and then there’s the album cover…

There will be a Shape Of Things Reader mix up on Soundcloud later this week featuring music from the EP plus influential tracks I was listening to whilst making it and other favourites from 2009.

This has got to be a dream.  No one makes better toys vs the best weekly sci-fi comic in the galaxy.  I think I might be very poor over the next few years.

Ashley Wood is one of my favourite artists, he is ridiculously prolific, can draw and paint like a demon and designs very unique robots. They manage to look both futuristic and retro and they’re always battered, scratched, rusty and dirty. Not only does he draw and paint them but his company 3A makes them a reality in various different scales (1/6, 1/12 and a forthcoming 1/32 scale series’).

His Bramble bot in 1/12 finally arrived the other week, well actually three did – Merc, Medic and Deep Powder variants, all perfect miniatures of the existing 1/6 scale Bramble. The detail is unbelievable and each is articulated in a multitude of places. I’ve ordered a set of Berties in 1/12 too which should be ready for xmas. All these sets sell really fast and are then made to order although some are starting to make their way into retail chains as well as being flipped on eBay.

No one makes better robots, 3A are slowly revolutionising the way toys are made, designed, packaged and painted.

Just received a bumper package from my man Jim Mahfood aka Food One in LA. We did a swap of goodies and he really outdid me with the contents of his box. Aside from the comic books, T-shirt, stickers, cards and mix CD he also signed the inner covers of all 3 Mixtape collections AND included the limited edition Paul’s Boutique comic he did about the Beastie Boys’ classic album. Yep, I’m gloating here…

I met up with Jim Mahfood , Scott Campbell and friends Saturday night at Cafe 1001 off Brick Lane on Saturday night in the midst of a live painting session. They had covered a corner of the cafe as well as several flattened cardboard boxes and seemed to be having a great time. I had feared that their trip over would be marred by the tube strike but it seems like the show opening on Thursday was packed and they sold nearly everything already. I’ve been a fan of his work for  a while now but this was the first time we had met and we hit it off immediately, resolving to collaborate on something in the future. Food One vs DJ Food, it has to be done…