I was already a big fan of messrs Johnson Cadwell and Ball before they joined forces, but this is a gorgeous, hilarious, kinetic treat. Warwick has blogged about the project here.

With the most recent page still fresh in my memory, I was stunned to find this mysterious image in a dusty old volume of medieval engravings.

“Derek d’Anger” could, at a stretch, be a coincidence, but that text at the top? “Si guerrière, celui qui esquive les balles” translates roughly as “So warlike, he who dodges bullets”. WARLIKE Johnson-Cadwell? Robert BALLe? I felt my sanity crumbling at the enormity of what this implied and ran screaming from the library.

Although little-known in the UK, Léo Ferré was a hugely influential musician in the world of French chanson. Unlike his contemporaries Jacques Brel and George Brassens, Ferré’s songs were rarely translated into English. However a new album, Love and Anarchy: The Songs of Léo Ferré by Peter Hawkins features 19 English translations which faithfully preserve the meaning of Ferré’s original lyrics. (If you want a rare chance to hear these songs live, Peter is performing at Colston Hall 2, Bristol, on Thursday, London and Sheffield soon after.)

Considering that chanson typically follows the rhythms of French language, a good English translation can be difficult (as demonstrated by Seasons In The Sun, a bathetic adaptation of Brel’s Le Moribond which was a hit for Westlife). Fortunately, Peter is well-equipped for the task, having recorded his own songs in French in 1960s Paris and published the first academic study of chanson. I worked with Peter on the CD artwork for (on and off) one year, but he has been perfecting these translated songs for 40.

The artwork drew on two main sources; the cover designs of Ferré’s back catalogue and poster art from the May 1968 protests.
We looked at several key Ferré albums, but by far the strongest influence was the simple red and black cover of 1970 double album Amour Anarchie.

The hand-drawn text on Peter’s record comes directly from studying an amazing book in his collection, Mai 68, which reproduces the simple and powerful posters made by the protesting students and workers who brought de Gaulle to his knees. Ferré was a dedicated anarchist and this side of him needed to be represented in the cover design.

These posters also informed the hand-printed feel I wanted for the artwork.

I don’t often have the opportunity to work with a musician so closely and this experience has been a lot of fun. Getting early access to the music was – of course – exciting, and listening to it while working on the design was very helpful. But it was also fascinating to watch the project develop. I have seen how important the contributions of Peter’s collaborators have been, especially co-producer/mixer/arranger Jez Butler‘s. I have also been appalled by the number of hoops a musician must jump through to publish their own work! The concert on Thursday will be the crescendo at the end of all their hard work, as well as being the first opportunity to buy the CD. (I’ll add online shop details here when I know them)

POSTSCRIPT: I should add that Ferre is not the first chanson hero I’ve drawn. Serge prints are still available in my shop!

Cover and interior pages from Darwin: A Graphic Biography

This is the first time a book I’ve co-authored has been available to buy in American bookstores (as well as the usual online places), so I’ve written a post about how it happened.

I had been a fan of Eugene Byrne‘s writing for years before our first book-length collaboration, Brunel: A Graphic Biography (2006). It was soon after that, while we were working on The Bristol Story, that we started thinking about a Darwin comic book.

Pages from The Bristol Story (2008) and Brunel: A Graphic Biography (2006)

Eugene knew the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth was approaching (Brunel had been a bicentenary project) and had told me about the excellent Darwin book by James Moore and Adrian Desmond, which I loved. We could see in Darwin’s life and ideas a lot of potential for another graphic biography. The Beagle voyage, it seemed to me, was perfect comic strip material and Eugene was fascinated by the history of the concept of evolution. We had seen Introducing… Darwin (1982), by Jonathan Miller & Borin Van Loon, but we wanted to use a more story-led format, which had proved successful with Brunel. We put together a proposal, which was commissioned by Andrew Kelly of Bristol Cultural Development Partnership (who had also commissioned both our previous books).

Cover and pages from the 2006 Darwin proposal

The first edition was only available in certain UK towns and cities, but there was demand for it from around the world. In the USA, librarians and teachers wrote requesting copies. In the Netherlands there was sufficient interest in the book for VPRO to invite me to take part in their documentary series Beagle, in het kielzog van Darwin.

Cover of the BCDP edition. Talking to Redmond O’Hanlon for Beagle: in het kielzog van Darwin

In Washington DC, Brian Ireley of Cornell University recognized the value of the comic book format and tirelessly championed Darwin. Thanks to his efforts, Smithsonian Books saw it and approached us about publishing a new edition for U.S. readers.
To have our biography of Darwin associated with the Smithsonian Institution, home of the most visited natural history museum in the world, seemed the perfect fit. Eugene and I spent several weeks last year revising the text and creating new artwork.

One of the panels created for the Smithsonian Books edition.

After more than twenty variants were considered, a new cover design was created using elements of my artwork. I’m really pleased with the cover and also with the paper quality inside.

My author copies arrived on Christmas Eve – good timing.

Reviews started appearing in January:
Publishers Weekly highlighted “its sense of humor and its novel approach to telling the life story of one of history’s most famous and misunderstood scientists“.
Graphic novel review site Grovel said “a fantastic springboard into the life and scientific times of the world’s greatest biologist“.
Multiversity called it “a slim but engaging account of one of the most influential scientists of the 19th century“.
Shortly before the publication date, Eugene was interviewed by The Graphic Novel Reporter, and Smithsonian Books collaborated with the National Center for Science Education to publish an online preview of a key section of the book.
And then finally, last week, Darwin: A Graphic Biography became available, from bookstores all over America and online from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million and others.
I’ll add links to more places to buy, more reviews and other activity around Darwin’s anniversary as I find it.

If you’re in Western Europe, I’ll need your order by the end of Tuesday 11 December (UK customers have until the end of Monday 17 December).

This is a good opportunity to thank everyone who has bought prints and originals from us in 2012. It has been a difficult year for a lot of businesses and we are no exception. In fact, if it wasn’t for the individuals who have bought directly from us – online and at exhibitions – we might not have made it to December. Thank you and best wishes for 2013.

Simon & Julia
http://gurr.bigcartel.com/

Dr Chenko from Wild Tundra by Noel K Hannan

This year I’ve drawn a couple of spooky strips: a mad scientist tale for 2000AD and the adventures of ‘Ghostbusters in tweed’ Lionheart and Dunning in The Scarifyers. So for Halloween I decided to dig up some mouldering monsters and maniacs from my archives, and I’ve been posting them on Instagram for the last week.

Arthur Gride for illustrated edition of Nicholas Nickleby

Vampyr for Arcane magazine

Unexplained duppy

Clown for Arcane magazine

A scene from the illustrated edition of The Woman In White

The Master, for Doctor Who Magazine

“Cartoony” is such an ambiguous adjective, not helped by the word “cartoon” referring to either animated or static images. I used to rankle at the label cartoonist, but I’ve come to embrace it. Partly, this is due to changes in my own reading tastes, but also through the work of Scott McCloud et al I’ve come to appreciate the immediacy of the simplified image. Besides, “cartoonist” is less of a mouthful than “comic strip creator”, and infinitely preferable to “graphic novelist”!

Within my own work, some is a lot more cartoon-like than others. My most recent artwork for 2000AD is probably my least cartoony comic strip art, but Joggers (3rd example below) was drawn in response to a brief that specified a cartoon style. In between, in degrees of cartooniness, is the facts-tempered-by-humour style of historical books like Darwin: A Graphic Biography and the more atmospheric combination of humour and horror required for The Scarifyers.

The Scarifyers #1 by Simon Barnard & Simon Gurr

Brunel: A Graphic Biography by Eugene Byrne & Simon Gurr

Joggers

Pup Fiction

Darwin: A Graphic Biography by Eugene Byrne & Simon Gurr

ELT comic strip

For more cartoony drawings, take a look at my tumblr.

There’s a more general portfolio here.

My corner of the convention’s Art Show has a theme of ‘pirates and scientists’ (a theme inspired by a certain Bristol-made film from this year) and will have more work on display than I’ve ever exhibited before, including watercolours and 90 pages of comic strip art.

I’ll be showing new artwork from the forthcoming and revised U.S. edition of Darwin:  A Graphic Biography, and for the first time I’ll have limited edition giclée prints, too.

Here’s a selection of the work I’ll have for sale tomorrow:

And of course The Scarifyers issue 1 will be on sale, I’ll be happy to sign copies and show the original artwork.

If you’re coming, please do say hello. Bristolcon has a reputation for being one of the friendliest conventions, and meeting people is one of the main reasons I go!

I was not disappointed. In fact, a day hasn’t gone by when I didn’t wish I could see it again. It’s still in cinemas here in the UK, (having debuted at no.1 in the box office) but it only opened this weekend in the United States and I’m envious of Americans who have more opportunities than me to enjoy this visual feast!

The central performances were excellent. Olivia Thirlby is one of the film’s great strengths and I was inspired to draw her as rookie judge Anderson.

(I was so overwhelmed by cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle‘s inoxicating colours that I decided to stay safely in black & white for this!)

The main setting of the film, Peach Trees city block, was a wonderfully evocative location. Here I felt I could see most clearly the influence of comic artist Jock, whose interpretation of Judge Dredd I’ve always admired, and who worked on the film. (I’m lucky enough to own a page from Jock’s Dredd debut strip and even then he completely understood how to show Dredd and his world).

It was Peach Trees which inspired my next drawing. I’ve ended up including Dredd, but I started off trying to capture a sense of the space contained by the mega-building. Dredd just marched into it. [Please, click on the image to see it at a decent size.]

I decided to use this ‘digital woodcut’ style after revisiting an old portrait of Dredd drawn a long time ago but which I think is the closest I’ve come to capturing his character.

Dredd

Anyway, if you’ve read this far and haven’t booked tickets to see Dredd, do it now – it’s worth it!

Darwin approaches the Galápagos Islands, from Darwin: A Graphic Biography, by Eugene Byrne & Simon Gurr

On this day 177 years ago, HMS Beagle introduced Charles Darwin to Charles Island. It was here that Darwin was told about the tortoises on different islands of the Galápagos having differently-shaped shells (one of many clues which led Darwin to the theory of evolution by natural selection.)

Galápagos tortoises, from Darwin: A Graphic Biography, by Eugene Byrne & Simon Gurr

25 years later, On The Origin Of Species was completed and in the hands of readers. As one of the most famous and discussed books of  the last one and a half centuries, it has been joined by countless satellite islands – each with its own differently-shaped interpretation of Darwin’s theory.

Now, JF Derry has come up with a book which charts these differing views. The Dissent Of Man is built on more than 50 interviews with thinkers as diverse as Richard Dawkins, Noam Chomsky and Susan Blackmore: it will show how far Darwin’s ideas have been transformed by others. For more information on this fascinating book, visit Unbounders website, where you can pledge your support. I hope you will, I was sufficiently impressed with the project to contribute a new Darwin portrait, which will appear in the book.

Portrait of Charles Darwin by Simon Gurr

That portrait has been made into a print, as has my Punch-style cartoon of Thomas Huxley’s famous battle with Samuel Wilberforce. Both are available as pledge incentives.

“Huxley vs Soapy Sam” by Simon Gurr

There are plenty of other reasons to support this book, but ultimately it’s a brilliant idea for a book, put together by an extremely capable and knowledgeable writer. I for one want the chance to read it!

Post script: Charles Island (now called Floreana Island) was once nearly destroyed by fire, thanks to a careless sailor from the Essex, a whaleship which was later sunk by repeated headbutts from a gigantic sperm whale, in a famous incident which inspired Melville to write Moby-Dick. Moby-Dick is currently being podcast in free daily instalments.