NEWS PUNCH

As you may or may not know I have two pretty big books out soon. Up first from Boom! Studios is BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA. I'm working with one of my favourite writers on this - Fred Van Lente - and he's genuinely providing me some of the sharpest, funniest scripts I've ever read. He's done ol Jack Burton proud! Here's a taster from issue 18 

Then in December, JUDGE DREDD issue one from IDW hits the stands. Written by Ulises Farinas and Erick Freitas, pencils and inks by me. Wait till you see this thing - it's going to be incredible. Here's a taste 

And that's all the news that's fit to print - come back soon for more STUFF 

LOVE YOU!!!

- D

HERE COMES THE JUDGE

Judge Dredd piece for A Secret Thing

IN THE DETAIL

I didn't enjoy the Daredevil TV show that much. Indeed I couldn't get past the first episode, which seemed to feature a woman getting abused or threatened with violence every five minutes or so. Want to catalyse your plot? Boom! Here's some sex slaves. But how to get our hero invested? Boom! Here's a crying woman getting half strangled in a police cell. This is schlocky, exploitative shit, and I'm not convinced it's good enough. Maybe it reflects the way the world actually is? God, I hope not.

I'm not saying all depictions of women in media need to be positive - of course I'm not - but geez can we not hit the VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN button quite so damn much in these superhero stories? I'd like to watch one of these stupid things with my missus without having to continually shout "I DO NOT ENDORSE THIS" inside my mind.

Anyway, I still love you Daredevil, and here's a recent DD commission.

UH OH

From Apes issue four - something worrying has just happened off panel

GONE APE!

So where have I been for the last month plus change? I've been drawing the DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES comic for Boom! Issue one came out yester (26/11/14) and I juuuuuust finished issue 2. It's earthy, heartbreaking stuff, just as you'd expect a Planet of the Apes thing to be.

If you haven't read issue one, go and do that now. If you have, click below to see ALL the roughs for issue one, get a look at my behind-the-scenes process... that sorta thing.

Doctor Who - Tuesday

In 2011, the fine bergers (burgers? Whatever) at IDW asked me to contribute to that year's Doctor Who Annual. At the time, I was a bit down on the show - I didn't really "get" Amy Pond, and I still wasn't entirely sold on Matt Smith's Doctor Who... I was reminded of what it was like to be a Sylvester McCoy fan in the late eightes; here I was, thinking that Sylv and Sophie (his companion) were the best thing since sliced bread, then I join the Doctor Who Appreciation Society (DWAS for short) and it turns out that all the sour-puss grown ups think he's terrible, the show's in decline, and things haven't been the same since Tom left. Well, regrettably, I'm one of those sourpusses now. Bah.

But then Neil Gaiman wrote an absolutely belting episode, and suddenly it was love all over again. Perfect timing, as IDW wanted 16 pages filled by RIGHT NOW.

So here they are... RIGHT NOW (click to enlarge):

In case the plot isn't clear from these pages: Doctor Who is imprisoned by an exiled minor royal who is planning to take back the British throne with the help of some evil cyborg cat-type-things. Doctor Who is *slightly* prepared for this turn of events: Amy Pond is on the cyborg cat mothership preparing to stage a revolution, and Rory Williams has used some psychic paper to put himself on the throne as a decoy. This plot was described by Gary Russell as "utterly mad", and I can't say I disagree. But the show - particularly the modern show - is an endlessly active plot factory, so to stay ahead of whatever the production team is planning requires an act of utter madness. And I should know, cos I'd had two (possibly more) different plots shot down for being too similar to something that was coming up.

And despite its superficial eccentricity, I think "Doctor Who - Tuesday" (so called, because Amy is recounting these events to her mum in some sort of - we can assume - Space Time Telegraph, and these events represent a typical Tuesday) pretty squarely represents what the show's like these days: Amy is super-confident, Rory's a well-meaning drip and Doctor Who is, well, the best thing since sliced bread.

So... my art got panned by Who fans (cos it was too cartoony, I think), but looking back I think it's pretty bloody boss. And I had a good time, which is the main thing.

- Dan