A visual gag that no-one will get to see for a year, and most people won't even notice when they do, these are a couple of backgrounds from Sickly Come Dancing, a 4-pager I've just finished drawing for the 2017 Dandy Annual.
There are few things as satisfying as delivering a finished piece of artwork last thing on Friday night, getting home in time for tea, and this week I had that pleasure. A 4 page strip shouldn't take 4 days to do, but I enjoyed putting in the details, and had fun throwing Dandy characters into the backgrounds, so the colouring took as long as the pencilling and inking. And I drew the whole thing as A2 pages, God knows why, just giving myself elbow room.
So, as well as getting Fowlers Christmas card roughed out on Monday (I'm awaiting instructions to totally redraw it from scratch next week, it's an annual ritual), and redrawing one of my recent Bible Society cartoons (there was a theological issue over elephants in Noah's ark so I had to replace them with cows), it took me two days to layout, pencil and ink the 4 page strip, and a further two days to colour and letter it. Drop-Box to the Dandy and home by 6, joy.
It is a rarity these days for me to spend five consecutive days in the studio drawing, with no schools, no Socks gigs (the October mini-tour ended last Friday in Canterbury), and no Socks videos (I could have, but art deadlines are art deadlines, and I'd forgotten how much I like meeting them), and I have enjoyed this week. Next week three days of Comic Art Masterclasses beckon, and after that we have international travel to look forward to.
Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here.
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