Calvin & Hobbes

I'd never realised how brilliant the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes is/was until last week when it came up during some research. It's one of those things that I was dimly aware existed but had never paid the slightest bit of attention too. I've missed out. 


These adventures of a six year-old boy and his pet/ toy/ imaginary-friend tiger are philosophical, satirical, thoughtful and witty in a way unlike any other comic strip I've ever seen. All backed up by masterful inkwork. And very funny. I picked up a compendium book of the strips (There's Treasure Everywhere) in Oxfam for £1.50.


A couple of strips from this book. I love the innocence captured in this one, which gives the book its title:

Crosswords:

After 10 years in newspapers, Bill Watterson, the strip's creator, admirably knocked the whole thing on the head in 1995, and always refused to merchandise the characters.

Here are a top 25 Calvin & Hobbes strips from a blog names Progressive Boink:

http://www.progressiveboink.com/archive/calvinhobbes.htm

Comp

My Rocky comic entry was one of the 16 to make it into the mini-digi edition of Little White Lies, which is here. Pretty chuffed with that, particularly as there were some really good and witty entries. Have a look!

6 Panels

The results of the Little White Lies Kick Ass comic competition came out the other day. The winner is a real stunner, take a look. The winner and 2 runners-up (not me) have been announced on the Creative Review site, a long with a few other favourites. Mine can be seen along with a few more on the Bleeding Cool comic blog (I found this through Andrew Waugh's blog, so thanks for that), which has run a feature on the competition. So I'm crossing my fingers I might still sneak into the selection published in the mag's digital edition, out on friday.

There were some really stunning entries, I've got to say, and a lot of different approaches. Go and spend a while checking 'em out!

Yo Adrienne!

Been busying myself with a couple of competitions. This is another one run by Little White Lies Magazine to portray one's favourite film within a black & white six-panel comic strip template, the idea being that someone who's never seen the film could interpret the full story by reading this comic. Tricky. I chose the mighty Rocky. I tried to show the central events and scenes while also communicating the tone and overall message of the film, and also to allude to it's supporting characters and motifs without distracting from the main story.

A bit of a rush in the end, but I enjoyed this loads. Quite a departure from what I usually do, but I learned a lot of stuff that's definitely feeding into my more everyday work already.