The Hangover Lounge is a lovely post-excessive-Saturday-night haven of good music and good food held at The Lexington in Kings Cross every Sunday from 2pm.

I was commissioned to produce an A3 poster for the club and to DJ a short set on Sunday October 2nd. One hundred copies of the poster will be available for FREE during the afternoon, after which point I’ll have a few copies to sell on my website if you’re interested in having one.

Here’s the poster design:

I also made a version that felt more striking but suggested a two-in-the-morning-on-Friday-night vibe rather than the Sunday afternoon mood I was after so ended up putting it aside. I post it here for the sake of sharing my love of that pink though:

As you might expect from the image for the poster, my DJ set will be formed exclusively of songs with handclaps. Embrace the twee with me on October 2nd and say hello.

(also: Withered Hand will be playing live at The Lounge this Sunday – the 25th September – and you’d be a fool to miss it!)

Been a busy month. One of the pieces I’ve been working on is a self-portrait for Orbital Comics. The fantastic London based comic shop is putting on an exhibition of comic artists’ self-portraits – all of which will be unveiled this Sunday (the 19th September) from 6pm – read the flyer below for further details. The idea of small press comic artists doing self-portraits (many of whom are either auto-bio artists or started out drawing auto-bio comics) is a lovely way of challenging the idea of the self-portrait and challenging the artists to provide something surprising. I have no doubt everyone involved has met the challenge head-on and provided something interesting and unique. I feel intimidated to be involved.

My piece is a relatively standard one page illustration – inked with a secondary gouache ’spot’ colour. Not too dissimilar to the spot colour we’ll be using in the upcoming Solipsistic Pop (but used here for a very different, very specific, illness-based, nausea feeling). Here’s a small preview:

And while I’m talking about Orbital – I was interviewed for their recent podcast and joined the regular hosts (Tom and Simon)  for a discussion about comics, Solipsistic Pop and the weeks releases. I had a lot of fun on the day and I hope that translates to an enjoyable listen. It can be found here and you can subscribe to the regular podcast here.

I’ll also be exhibiting the original artwork from my 69 Love Songs comic (Absolutely Cuckoo) at Flashback Records in Crouch End as part of the We Are Words + Pictures music related comic exhibition (organised by Sean Azzopardi). The private view is on Friday 23rd September from 7pm. Maybe see you there!

Are you free this Sunday (24th July)?

Enjoy comics, comedy, music and/or cake?

If the answer is yes, you should get yourself along to New Cross Turn Left – a wonderful new comics event organised by the equally wonderful Ellen Lindner, Julia Scheele, Nevs Coleman, and Howard Hardiman.

The venue is The Old Police Station – a lovely arts hub only a short walk from New Cross station (as the title of the event suggests, just turn left once you’re outside). It is exactly what the name suggests – an old police station converted into studio space.

All sorts of events will be running on the day, including a comedy set from Nat Metcalfe – a regular of Josie Long’s Lost Treasures Of The Black Heart night in Camden – plus workshops, exhibitions, and a communal table of comics and zines which will be on sale throughout the day. There will be food, drink and an after party – be sure to check out the website for more info.

Lots of great artists will be present and We Are Words + Pictures – on top of unveiling the fantastic Paper Science 5 – will have Michael Leader interviewing artists throughout the day in one of the abandoned police cells. I know right?! Should be a lot of fun.

I’ll be there with Solipsistic Pop and some prints – come say hi and demand a sketch off me or something…

Here’s Julia’s lovely flyer for the event:

So that was TCAF 2011. My third TCAF now and, again, a wonderful experience. I’ve only just got back and I’m still a little jetlagged but I wanted to throw some thoughts up here while they’re still fresh in my memory.

It all kicked off with a dream panel on Friday night which saw Chester Brown, Seth, Chris Ware and Adrian Tomine talk about their work, the state of comics and generally be charming and funny panelists who are clearly very comfortable with each other. I think someone should make a reality TV series in which Chester Brown and Seth have to live together in a tiny bedsit. I’d watch.

I spent the weekend sharing a table with the talented and wonderful Becky Cloonan who is one of the best tablemates anyone can have the pleasure of sharing with. We both sold well, and Becky spent a lot of the weekend excitedly telling me about the new Thor film with infectious enthusiasm. Here we both are (I look extremely scared for some reason):

It was the busiest I’ve seen TCAF (which is saying something) and everyone I spoke to did very well there. The parties were a whole bunch of fun and I got to pick up some fantastic new comics while speaking to people like Helen Jo, Nate Powell, Lucy Kniseley, Dustin Harbin and Sarah Glidden – all of whom are huge inspirations right now and they are, of course, lovely in person.

Now, so much has been said about why TCAF is so much fun for exhibitors and attendees alike – I’m not sure I have much else to offer at this stage. The key thing is having a downtown, public library as your venue. And free entry. It seems to me that if you’re going to put on a comic event that is going to encourage new readers to take a chance on comics and to see what the medium is all about – then a free festival with an easily accessible and prominent venue is the way to do it.

The rest of it – the excellent organisation (I was getting useful information about customs, panels, table layouts etc. every day in the week leading up to the event – that’s just a tiny example of how well run this show was), the inspiring volunteers who ran around offering table cover, coffee, water, change – anything that would make our weekend easier, the amazing panels, the wide-reaching publicising of the event, the fantastic parties and side-events… All of it is a bonus but all adds to the many reasons that every artist had a great time and will do everything they can to come back next year.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We need something like this in the UK. Thought Bubble is the closest we have to it but we need a free comic festival. It just needs to happen.

I was on a panel with the delightful Sam Arthur (of NoBrow Press), Philippa Rice, Adam Cadwell, Kayla Hillier, Joe Decie and Kenny Penman (of BlankSlate) about UK comics. It was titled Her Majesty’s Comics, moderated by American artist Brian Brown and was apparently filmed. It can be watched here if you’re curious. I haven’t seen it and can’t bring myself to watch it but I remember the panel being fun and it may well be worth your time.

Here’s a quick photo I took when people were setting up on the Sunday morning:

I then had a few days to kick around Toronto and enjoy a bit of time off. I spent Monday mooching around bookshops and then enjoyed the sun in High Park. Here’s a quick sketch of a tree I did while there:

As a quick aside, I noticed a poster campaign for a paint company at Bloor station which involved lots of full colour swatches of the various paint colours they offered with minimal text at the bottom detailing the colour code. Such a nice, simple way to advertise your product and also make the train station look designed and pretty rather than cluttered and oppressive. More advertising like this please!

The next day we drove to Angonquin national park and went for a refreshing hike. A world away from the madness of TCAF and much needed. Here’s a photo from our adventures which looks a little like a cover to some prog-rock album from the seventies:

For my final night, there was a special Pen Club (the first one I attended in 2007 was the inspiration for doing a similar thing in London) and I had a chance to speak to Anne Koyama properly after only crossing paths briefly at TCAF. We met back in 2007 and since then Koyama Press has gone on to be an amazing publishing house that continues to delight. It was lovely to hang out and see everyone. Was also the busiest I’ve ever seen it:

I drew a bunch in other people’s sketchbooks but here’s what I managed to do in mine:

And then, before I knew it, it was time to come home.

As always, spending this time at TCAF and in Toronto has left me with a huge amount of hope and enthusiasm for comics. I’m inspired and ready to throw myself straight back into work. Speaking of which… There’s a studio calling my name right now…

Hello there. Gosh it’s been hot hasn’t it? I hope you’ve all been enjoying the weather and the extra days off. Rather inevitably as a freelancer, I’ve been too busy to take much time off although I had a brief break from working and went to Whitstable for a couple of days last week – it was lovely – but I didn’t do much work in my sketchbook so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

I’m also moving into my swanky new studio. Once I’m all moved in I’ll post some pictures up here. It’s all extremely exciting and I can’t wait to get stuck into the screenprinting and letterpress facilities they have on-site. There will be open days and workshops going on throughout the summer which I’ll be sure to flag up here as and when they come up.

In the meantime, here’s a little info on my whereabouts over the next month of so:

First up, is the Sci Fi London festival this weekend at the BFI. I’ll be on a panel with Tony Lee, David Hine and Al Davison discussing the progression from self-publishing to more mainstream publishing (please accept my apologies for the flawed taxonomy here but I’m in a rush). I feel a bit of a fraud being there considering I’m still self-publishing right now but I’ll hopefully have something interesting to say on the matter. I’ll also be helping to run an informal Drop In & Draw session afterwards with the We Are Words + Pictures team. Be lovely to see you there if you’re free on Sunday (April 30) morning. Here’s the blurb from the Sci Fi London site…

11am – Small press to mainstream

Al Davison & Tony Lee (IDW Doctor Who comic), Tom Humberstone (Solipsistic Pop) and David Hine (Batman) talk about how working in small press comics has lead to work for mainstream publishers, but also provided a home to publish alternative titles throughout their careers so far.. Chair: Matthew Badham (Tripwire Magazine)

Followed by ‘Drop in and draw’ activities for first time artists wanting encouragement in creating comics, run by Tom Humberstone

Then I’m off to Toronto for TCAF 2011! Extremely excited about returning to one of my favourite comic shows and the city itself. Regular readers may already be aware of how much I’m in love with Toronto. If you’re going, please do stop by and say hello. I’ll be bringing Solipsistic Pop Volumes 1-3 and may be on a panel or two although that’s still to be confirmed.

After the festival (May 7-8) I’m hoping to go camping with some friends and plan to give my horrifically neglected sketchbook some much needed attention – I’ll throw the results up here if they’re not too embarrassing. Also: check out the amazing poster by Jillian Tamaki:

Then on May 24th I’ll be speaking at the Flash Symposium at Birkbeck University about short stories. Should be a fun evening so do come along for that one.

All of which will culminate with a weekend at the Hay Festival (May 28-29) with the We Are Words + Pictures team again. Running informal comics workshops. Here’s a blurb from the WAWAP site…

Hayfever is the children’s version of the immortal Hay festival. Packed full of all manner of events and activities, WAW+P will be adding to the mix with a two day Drop In + Draw workshop over the festival’s first weekend on the 28^th and 29^th May.

Although it’s a very informal, drop in workshop where you’ll be welcome whatever you want to draw, we’ll be focusing on creating comic characters.

Create your own comic book character

Make stories with words + pictures

What would a character that you made up from scratch look like? Would they have a beard or tentacles or tiny pointed feet? Would they be tall or chubby or have piercing blue eyes? Well, the We Are Words + Pictures team are here to help you decide and put your ideas into practice. With established comic artists and illustrators on hand we’ll get you designing your very own comic book character and developing a story for them to feature in.

Tom Humberstone, Edward Ross and Anna Saunders, Ted Brandt and I will all be in attendance over the weekend. We’ll be positioned in the Hayfever Courtyard, right opposite the Giant Wallbook which, I’m told, will tell you everything you need to know about the earth.

Phew. And with that, I shall leave you with a small section of the first page of Ellipsis which is coming along nicely…

Hopefully see some of you over the next month or so!

I was commissioned to illustrate and design a double-sided flyer for the upcoming Sci-Fi London festival. The front image is advertising the comics side of the festival and the back image is promoting the wonderful Panel Borders comics radio show on Resonance FM.

Here they are:

On the subject of the Sci-Fi London festival – I will be on a panel discussing small press and mainstream comics before helping teach a very informal Drop In & Draw comics session with the We Are Words + Pictures team. More info on this soon.

No time for small talk and excuses about why I haven’t updated this blog for a while – instead, a quick update of what I’ve been up to and what I plan to be doing over the next few months.

Solipsistic Pop
Most of my time and energy has been spent getting the third volume of Solipsistic Pop finished and launched. The launch at The Black Heart in Camden went really well (despite technical problems and a very hot and over-crowded room) and we had a successful UK-wide launch at Thought Bubble in Leeds the following weekend. It’s been an incredibly fun year putting SP together and now, coming to the end of 2010, I’ve had a chance to reflect a little and figure out what i want to do with it in the future. If you’re interested – I’ve blogged over on the Solipsistic Pop website about my plans for year two. Essentially, I’m only planning on producing one SP in 2011 and hope to focus on my own work for a while.

Forgive the slightly scrappy look of the SP website at the moment – Wordpress changed the theme, ruined all my custom CSS and I’ve had to improvise. Will tidy it up when I have a bit more time on my hands.

Website Polish
Speaking of website changes – I’ve had a little bit of a clean over here. You’ll find www.tomhumberstone.com has become a simpler to navigate online portfolio and I’ve tinkered around with this blog a little so I don’t look an entire decade behind the rest of internet. Now I’m about two or three years behind. Let me know what you think or have any suggestions on ways I can make it better.

Some Interviews + Press
I recorded an interview and selected some songs for the WAW+P podcast at London Fields Radio. Host Mike Leader is always a pleasure to chat to and the whole thing was a lot of fun. Closest I’ll ever get to doing Desert Island Discs too – I possibly enjoyed the process of selecting tracks far too much – I think I drove Mike a little mad by constantly changing my mind.

I also recorded an interview for an arts programme on Resonance FM in which a few other SP contributors such as Philippa Rice, Marc Ellerby, Luke Pearson and Lizz Lunney were interviewed. This may be released as a podcast at some point – will edit this blog with a link when I know more.

My 24 hour comic about Crohns Disease was mentioned by Scott McCloud over at his blog the other week which made my month. You can read the comic for free here. I’ve sold out of printed copies of this but will put a free PDF version together for people who want to print it out at home.

Sketchy Thoughts
Here are a few sketches I found lying at the back of a sketchbook. On a related note – I’ve just picked up Denys Wortman’s New York: A Portrait of the City in the 1930s and 1940s – such a beautiful book and highly recommended. It got me thinking I’d like to see a comic artist document London right now. Dan mentioned the Lenin quote: ‎”There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen” on Twitter the other day and it occurred to me that someone should be out there transcribing the protests in words and pictures. I’m half tempted to give it a go… Meantime:

Christmas Comics
Finally, with Christmas just around the corner, Eddie Ross blogged about supporting your favourite small press artists and giving the best present you can give to your loved ones – comics! Have a read of his recommendations and be sure to buy his 100 Tiny Moments as it’s one of the best comics reads of 2010.

I also – of course – completely agree with encouraging people to support their favourite artists and local stores. Go down to your local comic shop and buy a bespoke, hand-stapled comic for a friend. Email an artist and commission a piece of original artwork. You’ll be in possession of a unique Christmas gift and also be a patron of the arts. Most artists have prints, posters, cards and other merchandise available on their websites. Go buy some of it!

Convinced but not sure where to start? Why not buy some gorgeous hand-crafted jewellery from Tuck Shop? Sparkplug Books have got some wonderful comics available, so do Picturebox, maybe you need a Hairy Midget Elf in your life or know someone who does – Lizz Lunney has the answers, you don’t just have to support comics – fancy a bit of comedy? how about an awkward Christmas CD from Helen Arney? Julia Scheele is a fantastic illustrator – why not hire her to draw you a card? NoBrow deserve a few of your pennies, as do Self Made Hero and Blank Slate… I could go on and on. But I should stop. Basically – please go spend some money directly with artists, local stores and small publishers!

Merry Christmas.

I’ve been helping organise an exhibition at Orbital Comics for Becky Cloonan over the past month. Most of the details are on the flyer above.

The exhibition lasts from 20th August to 20th September. Around 20 original pieces of work will be on show as well as some limited screenprints, postcard sets and a hand-painted guitar (only on display the first weekend of the show).

Becky herself will be here in London on the 20th and will be available to chat to and sign books/art at the private view. There will also, as with all private views, be some free drink.

The shop can’t stay open very late so I imagine the best time to get there will be between 8pm and 10pm.

If you’ve not had the pleasure of coming across Becky’s work before, go to her website immediately and start picking up Demo from your local comic store.

I first met Becky last year at TCAF when we were placed on the same table to share over the weekend. I was a little intimidated to be sharing a table with a professional – especially one whose work I admired – but Becky was friendly and generous throughout. I fondly remember being nervous before speaking on a panel and getting some encouraging advice from Becky (it involved reciting gangster rap in my head beforehand).

You will not meet anyone with more passion and ethusiasm for the comic book medium than Becky. If ever I feel discouraged or disheartened with comics, I just have to think “What would Becky Cloonan do?” (the answer being: DRAW MORE COMICS!!).

(Flyer illustration by Becky Cloonan. Design by me)

A very quick comic about Latitude while it’s all still fresh in my memory.

I had a wonderful weekend with the We Are Words + Pictures gang. Go visit the websites of Edward Ross, Philippa Rice, Anne Holiday and Matthew Sheret right now if you haven’t come across them already. Talented people. And great festival companions.

A massive thank you to you if you dropped by our tent and joined in with the drawing. It was such a wonderful weekend and so inspiring to see everyone throw themselves into creating comics with complete abandon. The WAWAP site will hopefully have a bunch of pics up for perusal with a proper blog about it soon (Update: It’s now online here).

In the meantime, here are some extra bonus sketches. To start with – some drawings I did during the workshops. Most of my drawings from the weekend were sold during a mini-exhibition we held at the end but here are the remaining images…

Actually… a brief explanation: One of the ways in which we tried to get everyone started with an activity was to ask people to draw a comic or illustration based on their experiences of the festival or previous festivals they’ve been to. We wrote simple prompts and provided them to people if they looked lost. Here, by means of providing an example, was my first one…

And another…

This one was just a doodle during the last stretch of Sunday…

Outside of the workshops, I didn’t get much of a chance to sketch. But here’s a quick one of a couple in the literary tent…

And a brief sketch of some people at a nearby bench…

Finally… a few photos! Here’s us setting up and a pic of Anne and Philippa…

A couple of shots of the workshops in full swing (this is during the quieter moments when we could actually take photos)…

Here’s Matt with a hand-made speech balloon (did I mention we had customisable speech balloons so you could star in your own photo-comic?!) and a small section of the make-shift exhibition we had at the end…

Before I go, just a quick mention to say that if you make comics or are interested in promoting comics at all – make sure you get in touch with the WAWAP team immediately. They’re always looking for new artists to work with and new events to organise. Anything to help spread the joy of making and reading comics. So email them right now if you want to help!

Phew!

And that’s it. One hundred comics. In one hundred days (with, of course, a little hiatus in the middle).

Hope you’ve enjoyed the ride. It’s been a very interesting and exciting challenge for me. Definitely learned a hell of a lot along the way. I’ll probably write a proper postscript about it all next week when I have a bit of time.

In the meantime, I’m off to Latitude festival on Thursday with We Are Words + Pictures to help run a comics workshop in the Pandora’s Playground area. If you’re coming to Latitude, make sure you stop by and say hello!

I’ve had such a fun time with the daily comic that I have a feeling I’m going to continue doing it. I won’t do it every single day – just now and again when it feels right. I expect I’ll do some drawing at Latitude so will try and have something to upload when I get back. Essentially – this isn’t the end of my daily comics.

On my return, I’ll be doing a bit of housekeeping on this blog and my website to make it all more up-to-date with the kind of work I’ve been doing over the past year or two. It feels like the right time to do it.

Orbital Comics will also be rehanging an updated version of The Art of Solipsistic Pop exhibition this weekend with new art from both volumes of the book. Do stop by if you’re in London and curious to see some original comic art.

I’d just like to say a huge thank you for reading and for the lovely feedback and support you’ve all given during this whole thing. It can be a tough slog doing a daily comic sometimes so those emails/comments/tweets all make a massive difference when I’m scanning in lineart at 2am and doubting my sanity. Do leave comments on this post with your thoughts on the whole thing – very interested to hear what you all made of this exercise. And hope you stick around for any future comics!

Until I get round to doing a proper overhaul on the blog – here’s a nice, easy way to read through all one hundred days (and here’s a quick Spotify playlist to listen to while you read… indulge me…)

Day 01 | Day 02 | Day 03 | Day 04 | Day 05 | Day 06 | Day 07 | Day 08 | Day 09 | Day 10
Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17 | Day 18 | Day 19 | Day 20
Day 21 | Day 22 | Day 23 | Day 24 | Day 25 | Day 26 | Day 27 | Day 28 | Day 29 | Day 30
Day 31 | Day 32 | Day 33 | Day 34 | Day 35 | Day 36 | Day 37 | Day 38 | Day 39 | Day 40
Day 41 | Day 42 | Day 43 | Day 44 | Day 45 | Day 46 | Day 47 | Day 48 | Day 49 | Day 50
Day 51 | Day 52 | Day 53 | Day 54 | Day 55 | Day 56 | Day 57 | Day 58 | Day 59 | Day 60
Day 61 | Day 62 | Day 63 | Day 64 | Day 65 | Day 66 | Day 67 | Day 68 | Day 69 | Day 70
Day 71 | Day 72 | Day 73 | Day 74 | Day 75 | Day 76 | Day 77 | Day 78 | Day 79 | Day 80
Day 81 | Day 82 | Day 83 | Day 84 | Day 85 | Day 86 | Day 87 | Day 88 | Day 89 | Day 90
Day 91 | Day 92 | Day 93 | Day 94 | Day 95 | Day 96 | Day 97 | Day 98 | Day 99 | Day 100
The Pledge

I don’t think this will come as much of a surprise to anyone, but every single one of these one hundred comics is dedicated to Harvey Pekar, whose death was sadly announced today. It’s almost impossible to overstate his importance and contribution to comics. When I heard the news, I think I felt much the same way as I did when Joe Strummer died. The art that both men created had affected me in such a way that I thought them immortal. As Douglas Wolk remarked on twitter – “America is a little less splendid today”. A true original and a huge inspiration:

“Essentially all I’ve wanted this to be is a journal of a life, because I think that sort of thing is worth recording” – Harvey Pekar

UPDATE: You can now buy the full 100 Days comic – over 150 pages – as a digital eBook here for just £1.