Death

Here, for your reading enjoyment, is one of my early “published” works (from when I was 7). This was created for a school assignment. The idea was that we had to create a character using the ever-popular (at least while I was in primary school) computer art program called Kidpix (I really loved that program). I created a character called “Death” (I think my folks had just started reading Terry Pratchett books to me). This masterpiece includes some of my finest illustrative work (poo brown clouds with a variety of emotions) and features Kyra, who is still my friend to this day .

I’m impressed that I already had a grasp of what is “cool” (see: the sun wearing sunglasses).

George Rex Comics: The Early Years, Part 2

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. 

 

Add about 8 years of spare-time sketches and reading a tonne more graphic novels and you have modern-day George Rex Comics.

I hope you enjoyed having a laugh at some of these terrible works of 'art'. I sure did. 

See ya next week. 

Gx

George Rex Comics: The Early Years, Part 1

For the next couple of weeks I will be away from the studio, learning up a storm with my mentor, Pat Grant. So I thought for a treat I would share some of my comics from when I was just a young cartoonist trying to make her way in the world. First up is the very first superhero I designed: Menu Man.

Actually signed by Menu Man himself!

Actually signed by Menu Man himself!

Menu Man (he fights food with food!) was a modern-day bushranger (note Kellogg's cereal box helmet and banana gun - it shot grape bullets) with a fondness for Tetley's Tea and the Enjo cleaning line. It was inspired by my best bud at the time, Tom, who would wear the menu board at our school soccer game sausage sizzle. This was a time when I only drew three-fingered hands and the only comics I'd ever read were Tintin and Calvin & Hobbes. This portrait would've been drawn around 2001/2002.

This little beauty below was my first foray into sequential storytelling with pictures - each page a panel. I believe this would have been in my first year of high school, so 2004.

After starting high school, I started learning to play percussion (which I then went on to study at uni). My first percussion teacher, Mr James, also happened to be a comics nerd and lent me some of his beloved comics and sparked my interest in making my own fully fledged stories. Unfortunately for him, I started doing comics all about all the music staff (it was a special interest music school, so we had quite a few music teachers). My very first teachers comic was 'Fashion Victim'.  

Bent Drummer Comics. Yep, I thought that was a good art name to sign my works by. I really did.

Bent Drummer Comics. Yep, I thought that was a good art name to sign my works by. I really did.

Each teacher had their own alter ego/superhero that they turned into and most of them had at least one strip to themselves. Mr James and Ms Kwok were the most keen (and most represented in the comics) and would photocopy each new comic and have a folder on their desk. This unfortunately encouraged me to keep making these (painful for me to read) comics. 

My teachers comics went on for three years (years 8-10). By the time I got to year 11, however, either I realised how big a nerd I was by making comics about the music staff or study just took too much of my time. 

In the end there were about 40 teachers comics. Some short, some long, some I never wish to read again. At one point a chicken (who was an evil mastermind) became the main character and the volleyball unit tried to get rid of the music department (it was also a special interest volleyball school).

Anyway, that's it for part one of the early years. Next week we see snippets of the comics of my late teens, experiments with colour and my overuse of cross-hatching.

See ya then!

Gx