MCM this weekend! Flyers!

This weekend I will be at MCM Expo in London. Sadly it clashes with Alternative Press Fair AND the opening of the new Get A Grip shop in Birmingham also this weekend, so those events will have some of my comics and stuff for sale on the communal tables but I won't be attending in person. I also have new flyers for all three events (images above and below!) See you at MCM Expo (and in your imagination at the other events)

Things I will be bringing to MCM expo include:

• new patches
• magnets
• badges
• mini comics
• other comics
• packed lunch (not for sale)
  

I might also bring some blank cards and sell drawings. I'm not sure what of but probably cats or unicorns I would expect. And I may or may not wear fancy dress.

From rough designs to FINAL designs+WINNER!

Ok so remember that post I made about patches?.... I ordered 3 of the designs: Rad Ride, Triplet Peaks and Depressed Cat and a new design: Laptop Boy (to sew on your laptop case) Here they are!!! (ignore the duck, it just wanted to try and get on the internet)


And as for the competition results- I wrote the names down on neon stars and asked my cat, Ollie, to pick a winner:



CONGRATULATIONS!! You win one of each patch! Mega thanks to Bryony for editing the footage for me :o)

It was nice to have a competition so expect another one soon, I will have more winners next time and more prizes. I love prizes.

The patches will be for sale this weekend at MCM Expo, Alternative Press Fair and Get A Grip shop opening- details on all three events on Thursday. They will be in the shop in a couple of weeks!

Proofs!

The proofs for my book soon to be out in Germany published by Zwerchfell...

Changes

I've been having a rethink of my comics on the internet, you may have noticed that my online comic hasn't been updating much lately- partly because I've been unwell and because of other things I've been busy sorting out. Therefore I have decided to create a new tumblr so I can update more frequently (every day you hear!) and make them easier to share with your friends online!

TUMBLR TUMBLR http://lizzlizzcomics.tumblr.com/ TUMBLR FUN OH YEAH

I will still update the regular comic with new stuff but I'm hoping eventually (when all the old ones are up on the tumblr) the two will be in sync. I'm still planning to run the one a day comic in August too.

SO- here is a simple diagram to explain all that waffle, places you can read my comics online:

TUMBLR

LIZZLIZZ.COM

TOPSHELF 2.0

And here is Changes by David Bowie for you to listen to while you read.

The Poetry of Drawing: Pre-Raphaelite Designs, Studies and Watercolours+John Salt Exhibition

I thought as a change from comics I'd write a bit about a couple of exhibitions I've been to lately. This may not be of interest to people who are only into cute animals and humour but if you are interested in fine art read on...


This week was the opening of a John Salt Exhibition at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham.

I've been a fan of John Salt's photo-realist American car paintings for a long long time. Me and my friend used to go to the Gas Hall Gallery and Birmingham Art Gallery to look at the painting above every Wednesday afternoon when we had free study lessons. I must have a million postcards of this image as I bought one nearly every week for about two years!! I'm not sure what it is I like about the painting so much, something about the atmosphere created by the colours I guess but I just remember being amazed by the fact this is a painting and that something so photographic can be captured in paint. The exact opposite of my comics really. So I was especially excited to go to the current Ikon exhibition which is showing the most comprehensive survey of paintings by John Salt from collections in the UK and abroad. Salt was actually the first artist to exhibit in the Ikon in it's original Bullring venue and he used to teach in Birmingham and the West Midlands before moving to America.


Another exhibition I went to a few weeks ago was The Poetry of Drawing: Pre-Raphaelite Designs, Studies and Watercolours at Birmingham Art Gallery.

Birmingham is known for it's extensive collection of Pre-Raphaelite artwork but most of the collection is kept in storage and only shown every few years (such as the amazing Burne Jones tapestries) The thing I like most about the Pre-Raphaelite artwork is the way the paintings tell a story and in that way they relate to comics in their consideration of composition and what to show to create a character. This exhibition in particular was a collection of the studies and drawings which would have been created before the final painting began. The above image is a pen and brown wash over pencil on paper titles "View from San Miniato al Monte, Florence, 1845" by John Ruskin.


I especially liked this joke sketch by Dante Gabriel Rossetti "Of course!" caricature of William Holman Hunt and "Slosh" caricature of John Everett Millais from the early 1850s. They suggest a conversation between the two artists. "Slosh" was a word used by the Pre-Raphaelites to dismiss the work of Sir Joshua Reynolds- they referred to him as "Sloshua" and his paintings represented everything they despised about academic art. Early comic art perhaps?

There is an amazing online resource of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery collection of Pre-Raphaelite artwork here.