Steve Beckett's Brassneck

The above drawing was drawn for me by Steve Beckett when he was taking part in Sleep Easy, a charity where you sleep outside in the freezing cold for one night to raise money for people who have to do it every night! 

The reason Steve drew Brassneck is because that is one of the characters he is drawing in the 2013 Dandy annual! And he does a splendid job of it too, heres a sneak preview:

If you haven't yet got the 2013 Dandy annual (and if so - why not?), don't worry - because there is still heaps of time to grab a copy! You can get them from D.C. Thomson's website, Amazon, and other bookstores online and nationwide! It costs just £7.99, and cheaper if you shop around!

If you'd like to find out more about Steve, I wrote a short biography covering his career here:
http://www.wackycomics.com/2012/04/spotlight-on-artist-steve-beckett.html

Beano Beginnings - General Jumbo!

There were no adverts for General Jumbo, he just appeared inside Beano #583, and the impact he was to cause was huge! He still appears today, with recent strips in annuals drawn by Steve Beckett, although the original artist was Paddy Brennan!

Crumbs! It's a new/old comic!

Dandy artist Steve Beckett recently announced Crumbs comic, a brand new web-comic in the classic style of 70's comics! Even the pages are yellowed! So far it can be found on Steve's site by clicking here, but later on he plans to give it it's very own website - once enough material is drawn!


Go and take it look - it's fantastic!

Frame from Ratman!

Spotlight On An Artist: Steve Beckett

I'm starting a new series of posts (not a regular thing, just every now and then), where I basically take a comic creator and write a biography about them. This time, it's Steve Beckett.

Steve first got into comics back in 2004, when he launched Sam119 - a four issue series about a group of people in an abandoned city. He worked with Simon James on the project and the comic was launched at the Bristol Comics Expo, where he shared a table with The Etherington Brothers! They were also launching their first comic - Malcolm Magic.

After Sam119 finished, he featured in FutureQuake and DogBreath fanzines, in which he hopes to return to one day. He mostly freelanced for a big multimedia broadcaster and recently drew a book called Tough Guy for Mohawk Media(not the best name for a character though??).

In 2010, Steve sent off a few page Billy the Cat story to the Beano ed, and recieved a reply the very next day! The ed was very pleased with the sketches and offered him a slot in the 2011 Beano annual, and s Steve got the chance to draw General Jumbo!

Then he moved to The Dandy. Before it revamped in 2010, he was asked (because of his contribution to The Beano annual) to draw a comic strip for the 'Strictly Come Laughing' series. He sent off Daredevil Dad, and the series was completed and pitched before the comic revamped. Although his first comic strip appeared in #3534, his first Dandy doodle appeared the previous week in the 'Next Week' page - Dandy issue #3523, dated Feburary 26th 2011.

Since then, he has drawn many strips for The Dandy, including Sea Dogs, Ray Fears and Frosty! His second story for the comic appeared in the 2012 annual, where Steve brought back a much loved classic character - Brain Duane! He currently draws Blundercats, a weekly full-pager.

You can visit Steve's website here:
http://sjbeckettdesign.wordpress.com/

Or follow him on Twitter, his name is: @sjbeckettdesign

Thundercats and Blundercats!

This week has not just one piece of glorious Thundercats news - but two! First of all - Blundercats! An all new strip that will appear in The Dandy, drawn by the hugely talented Steve Beckett! The above image is Steve's original character sketch, which he sent off to the Dandy Ed! The cover art is seen below, accompanied by the final cover - which is on sale NOW!

And guess what?! A new Thundercats comic has been launched by Panini Comics UK! It goes on sale tomorrow (Thursday March 22nd), will have 36 pages, costs only £2.99 and comes with a free Sword of Omens! Here's the cover, but for more information head on over to Lew Stringer's brilliant blog here!
And since it's all about Thundercats, here's a Carrotty Kid story from a little while back!

New Month, New Look!

Pinch, punch, first day of the month! So, to start things off I've done a little revamp of my own! Well, what do you think of the new look website? For the moment it's only temporary (I'll take it off in a week's time) but if you like it and want it too stay please comment below! If you've the time, check out the different styles of the blog, including classic, magazine, snapshot and more!

In other news - this week's selection of comics is on sale NOW! In The Beano Minnie the Minx stars in a play she was supposed to be watching, Dennis gets put into the cooler and Ed chews some gum in The Numskulls! Meanwhile, Dave the Squirrel stars in the first of many in a new series called Ray Fears, drawn by Steve Beckett. Both of these fantastic comics are avaliable to buy today! Only £1.50!

Help support the Dandy!

Ever since the revamp of The Dandy back in October last year many nasty comments from bored and mindless critics all over the world have been popping up on this thing we call the internet. I'm not here to rewrite what Desapeate Dan artist Jamie Smart wrote here - http://www.fumboo.com/blog/an-open-letter-to-the-internet/comment-page-1/#comment-5826 and here: http://www.fumboo.com/blog/criticisms/, or what Lew Stringer, artist of Postman Prat, wrote here: http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2011/09/days-of-thrills-and-laughter.html, but it'll probably end up as pretty much the same message. As we all know the Dandy sales have dropped dramatically since last year, but personally (and I know I'm not alone here)I'm fed up of hearing: "...The Dandy will fold..." or "..It will merge with The Beano..." etc. because there is currently no evidence towards this and before that happens D.C. Thomson will probably do their best to save the much loved title anyway.

Another revamp perhaps?

But what they did was a very brave and bold move - removing all the free gifts, having 100% comic strips and making it come out weekly! Surely they deserve something for that? Oh, and Desperate Dan did NOT start being drawn by Jamie Smart at the revamp as many state - it happened four years ago! If readers hadn't liked it I doubt Thomson would have kept good ol' Jamie for that long! No, comics aren't like they were back in the 1960's, but these days they have to make themselves heard above the charm of iPods and video game explosions! Just walk into your local Tesco's today and if your lucky you'll probably find The Beano or The Dandy hidden somewhere behind a hoard of girls and baby comics. Visibility is another problem! It is often very hard to find comics in shops with crammed shelves (I've read that many WHSmith stores rarely have The Dandy and Beano). There was a useless author in a recent Sunday Times who made up facts and stole artists comments from their websites. Surely newspapers should be helping to support Britain's comics - not making up nasty comments. I'm going to stop moaning now, it wont help anything!

So, on a lighter note...

Over on The Dandy facebook page some artists and fans have been posting "Save The Dandy!" posters. I thought they were quite nice, so I've downloaded them to share with you here!

Steve Beckett

Steve Beckett

Wayne Thompson

Conan McPhee

Andy Fanton

Stu Munro

Wayne Thompson

Karl Dixon

Keep it up guys! I'm loving these an I hope you post many more!

So, help the Dandy (and the Beano) by buying a copy (or two) every Wednesday, reccommending to your friends and family and sharing your copies around to get others intrigued! Cheers!

Klank! Comic is back!

Well over a month ago Rick Eades, the artist for the online Klank! comic, posted two (but each one had only three boxes) new stories, both titled David Hassel-Moth! We thought his comic was fianlly going to get going again... but it didn't. We had to trundle on through June, then most of August as well - until finally he posted again! His new strip - Max's Marvellous Mobile Phone - was DEFINATLY worth the wait (In my opinion at least)! All that I am going to say at the moment is that it goes from washing up a plate to an invasion of purple aliens! You can read the full strip here:-http://klankcomic.blogspot.com/2011/08/maxs-marvellous-mobile-phone.html.

Rick has been posting his comics all over the net. Here is a Carrotty Kid strip he did waaaaaaaaaaaay back in November last year!

http://www.carrottykid.com/search?updated-max=2010-12-14T13%3A06%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=1

In related news, Steve Beckett has done an excellant job on a geust comic strip for the very latest Carrotty Kid adventure! Check it out at www.carrottykid.com!