Howdy!

I meant to post this last week while picking up hot comic-making tips from Pat Grant, but I ran out of time. So here ya go!

Let's take another look into my early comic work that to me is so alien from what I do now.

Christmas Reminds Me Of God was my first longer story (16 pages) and was heavily inspired by a BBC 4 radio comedy show called Old Harry's Game (about an super lovely but atheist science professor who is sent to hell and befriends the devil). I've never been religious, I just remember my friend Caitlin once saying "Christmas reminds me of God!" and I thought, "Hey that would be a good title," and then I wrote this.

You may notice that I hand drew thin black lines for all of my backgrounds. I can't really remember why; I have a hunch it was to save ink in my pen.

I was also really proud of how straight I could hand draw lines.

A constant inspiration for comic stories has been my friendship with my pal Kyra. When she went away for her gap year between school and uni, I wrote the following little tale because I missed her. Note how I was very optimistic and thought I would write more issues.

This is also the first time I tried to colour one of my comics. I chose watercolour because I liked watercolours. Unfortunately I have no skill in watercolouring.

Kyra has also inspired a more recent story that you can read in full here. That one was also inspired by her moving away. You are probably picking up a pattern.

Now below we find a rare George Rex Comic sighting indeed: snippets from Gee-nah's (my art pseudonym before George Rex) magnum opus Say Hello To Lapland. It was a girl-next-door rom-com with just a touch of unreality in that when the hero sat on his couch to watch TV, he would be transported into a TV-based alternate reality. Also his two best friends were two sock puppets that he constantly talked to and wore on his hands. Featuring cross-hatching out the wazoo (my favourite artist at the time was Jhonen Vasquez) and more shouty speech bubbles than the Hulk.