His Name Is Prints, And He Is Funky

Jeepers. Look at the state of the place; I know I’ve been away, guys, but would one of you not think to tidy the gaff? What the hell is under that festering mound of Oxo cubes over there…? I don’t even eat Oxo cubes, so one of you must have left them there. Squalor. Fucking squalor you’d have me dwell in. Well, while I tidy this place up this mess, I shall leave you with a few updates…

ITEM: The wedding was shit. Yet I still did not resort to eating muffins. Thank Frederick for Whittle’s buddies (except the ones getting spliced) for they kept me sane. It was revealed through the ‘speeches’ (I think it was speech…the Corkonian honk brings to mind a reanimated goose begging for the release of death) during the reception, that the groom first espied his future victim in the photo section of the local newspaper, and, rubbing his hands, set out to nab her. Jesus in a haystack. It’s a newspaper, not a fucking catalogue.

ITEM: Made Christmas puddings with Whittle, and her charming sibling, Little Whittle. They taste a-fucking-mazing. The puddings ain’t bad either. (Boom-TISH! Itenkyew!)

ITEM: Going to Australia in March for a fortnight. I shall elucidate further upon this in a later entry.

ITEM: I made a minor concession to my need to draw a girl, any girl. A quick doodle between Dino panels brought forth this:



It seems to be a kind of Kim Possible inspired effort, which to my mind, is no bad thing. I shall have something slightly more finished, and yet female, to upload next time, even if it ends up being a lesson in folly.

ITEM: Got two new housemates. Welcome, my brother Egg and his girlfriend/emotional punchbag Clare. Now we have two Roches, two Wiis, and two Optimus Prime voice-changing helmets in the one house. Don’t be jealous, reader; sometimes good things happen to bad people. Our old housemate, a lesbian freedom fighter, upped sticks and went on manoeuvres elsewhere. It has nothing to do with my insistent efforts to indoctrinate her into the world of rampant, musky, rippling heterosexuality, (they don’t call me Ted ‘Turner’ for nowt, folks) or at least, so I am told.

ITEM: Dear America,

Re: Barry O’ Bama

Well Done.

Love, Nick

ITEM: Dear Britain

Re: Brand and Ross

You knee-jerk fools. You’re better than this.

Love, Nick

ITEM: Having the time of my life working on Maximum Dinobots, even if it seems to be taking up all the time in my life. And Scorponok gets no easier to draw. Nor does his army of Sunstreaker clones. I know I’ve been promising previews for yonks, but it’ll have to be later, rather than now.

ITEM: Are you a Rain Man-esque, Transformers completist type? Who isn’t, in this day and age?You would do well to check out boltax.blogspot.com. Set up by Jim Sorenson, one of the authors of the Ark range of books from IDW, it gives a home to the odd model sheet and character design that didn’t quite make it to the published stage of his (and Bill Fortser’s) superlative Transformers reference compendium.

ITEM: And finally…I’m appearing at the Dublin City Comic-Con, (http://www.myspace.com/dublincitycomiccon) this weekend, at the Park Inn Hotel, Smithfield, Dublin City. It’s the third year of this great event, and my third year at it. Check the afore-linked Myspace page for them details as to who else is showing up. All credit to the Brothers Hendrick, John and Dave, who haul this thing together every year, as they manage to pull in some proper high profile names. Ireland seems to be the place to be for all this stuff right now.

Anyway, to celebrate, I am selling stuff, kids. No, still not original artwork (I’m waiting for the Comic God to take away my backstage pass to the industry at any stage, so I wanna have the original pages as keepsakes. Or insulation, as I bunk up on a park bench.) but instead, lovely, lovely, plush, primo format A3 prints of my colour cover work for IDW’s Transformers, all laid out on really swanky heavy stock paper. Think of it, chisellers- you can now own some Nickishness to hang in your own home. There are 5 prints in the set, my four Revelation Covers, (including the unused Hardheadcount image) in all their angular, abstract (for Transformers, anyway…) ‘style’, and my variant cover to Transformers: Infiltration #1, with Starscream looking smug, while his mates do the dirty work. Price to be determined (and if I determine it before Saturday, I’ll let thee know) but I assure you they’re affordable, and collectable, and there’ll be a discount if you buy all five. If they sell, I may look into doing a mail order job for my foreign cuzzants. Until then, check out a snapshot of the set below.

So, hope to see some of you there. I’m doing a panel at 10.15 am on the Saturday, with free sketches for all of robots, Timelords, Turtles, or your own choice, over the course of the weekend. Come and say hi. Unless I’m weeping. Then, back it up, Spangles.

Thanks guys. Hope to get another entry in before Christmas…2009.

You’ve been Nicked.