Heard from Bob Corby earlier today, and he has asked me to do the cover for this year’s edition of OH Comics!, the long running small press anthology! I’m feeling rather  excited about it.  This will actually be my second cover for this series; I did the Travelling Travelall cover for issue #8, way back in 1995:This cover was the very first drawing of mine that ever appeared in any kind of color.  I was very proud of it at the time, and although I see a lot of problems with it now, it still looks good to me.  The basic composition is sound, and the drawing has a lot of rhythm and bounce to it. That’s probably the classic drawing of Rose, jumping and barking.  Looking at this again wants me to experiment more with second color, and to write some more Travelling Travellall stories.

OH, Comics! has come a long way from these early days as a hand folded digest.  More recent issues have been perfect bound, with color covers.  All the issues, old and new, are very good reading regardless of the format.  You can learn more about this wonderful project, now in its 20th year, and order back issues (including the “classic” #8), at backporchcomics.com .

The theme of this year’s anthology is “Magic”.  I have no idea what I am going to draw yet, but I’ve taken as my theme Arthur C. Clarke’s famous “Third Law” : Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.   I didn’t want to draw stage magic or the “real” kind that you find in fantasy stories; I thought I’d stick to the kind we are all familiar with, especially those of us with a few miles on the odometer.  If you had showed me the internet, this blog, and a few of my pet gadgets when I was 12, I don’t know what I would have thought.

All I can say about my cover is that it will probably be primarily a figure drawing, and it will almost certainly have a corgi in it. As soon as I have some sketches, I will post them here.