Long Gone Don Book TWO is DONE!

That's right, the final episode of book 2 of Long Gone Don came out this week, and to celebrate, here's a few snaps of some of our favourite moments....

On with book 3!

Lorenzo!

Transformers is a Knock-Out!

Time for another installment of everyone's favourite Cybertronian heroes. Yep, it's all new Transformers Prime action, courtesy of Titan comics and ME.  How delightful.

Issue 14.4 of the regular series sees Bulkhead, Prime and Arcee facing off against Knock Out and Breakdown (yes, that's right continuity fans - this story takes place BEFORE the demise of Breakdown). When the deadly Decepticon duo hijack a television station during the recording of a popular game show, Prime and the gang are forced to run a deadly gauntlet of traps and trickery if they are to stand any chance of saving the beleaguered hostages. "It's a Knock Out" features artwork by series regular, Horacio Domingues.

Grab a copy from your nearest comic retailer, newsagent or supermarket, or you can order your subscription online HERE.

- Robin!

Oxford Children's Comic Festival and Hay show updates!

Apologies if you are coming to this news late and were keen to catch us in action at the Oxford Children's Comic Festival on Saturday 4th May, but unfortunately our afternoon workshop has now sold out.  We'll still be at our stand from 10am-3:30pm however, where we'll signing and drawing in copies of Monkey Nuts, Baggage, The Phoenix and Lorenzo's mighty 600-page sketchbook, and chatting about comics and life in general so be sure to come down, grab a book and say hi.  We've lots of hints and tips to share and we always love to see YOUR artwork, so please bring it along.

In other show news we had also sold out of tickets to our Hay Festival performance on 25th May BUT, due to popular demand (boy it's fun to write that!), we've been moved from the Starlight Stage to the Digital Stage which means there are more tickets are available.  Hooray!

GO HERE to pick up your Hay ticket for a slice of afternoon Etherington-led giggles and fun. You might even learn something about the way our minds work.  Yikes!

52 Imaginary Video Game Character Concepts!

If I made games, not comics, this is the type of critter they'd be populated with. RPG, anyone?
600 more pages of stuff like this in my giant sketchbook, which you can buy HERE!

Lorenzo!

Phoenix children's comics festival tickets now on sale!

Following our post last month, I'm pleased to announce that you can now go HERE to read all about this festival and BOOK YOUR TICKETS for the show and workshops!

Oh, and there's more details on the poster below, click to see it LARGE!

See you there!

Lorenzo!

Our Hay Festival Tickets are now on sale!

There are a number of wonderful book festivals in this country, but the annual Hay Festival, with it's 25-year history of bringing writers and illustrators and READERS together, is a very special event indeed.

And this May will be even more special because it marks an Etherington HAY-trick (as in hat-trick) of appearances!  Yes, for the third year running we'll be returning to the mighty tent city that marks the festival site in Hay-on-Wye, to perform a brand new presentation for both the schools programme and the public programme. 

If you would like to catch us in action we'll be taking to the Starlight Stage on Saturday 25th May at 5:30pm. Tickets are now on sale and you can grab yours HERE! 

This is your first chance to witness our BIG ADVENTURE SHOW ... and it's going to be a hoot.

We hope to see you there.

The VERY BEST of the Etherington Brothers - only on Tumblr!

Hey folks, just wanted to let you know that there is now an official Etherington Brothers Tumblr! This will not be a direct feed of what's on the blog, instead it will be a heavily curated collection of the very best artwork from our various projects. So far I've uploaded a small selection - more to come in the following weeks, months and years! Click, share, enjoy, tell your friends!

See the best of the Etherington Brothers on Tumblr  HERE!

Lorenzo!

Holidays are fun ... but they can be dangerous!

As many of you may know, I've been a snowboard addict for fifteen years and last week's trip to Austria marked my official 365th day of sliding, grinding, carving, ripping, yelping, shredding, nailing, failing and falling around the mountains. Which means, for an entire year of my life I've been eating snow.  I think that deserves a celebratory synchronised dive through the air with a cartoon character, right?

Nice.

Though it's fun to travel, it's always nice to return home, especially when lots of exciting things have been happening while you've been away (Easter, for one!).  In particular Lorenzo has now commenced work on the final chapter of our latest graphic novel.  Ooooooh - it's an absolute peach!  More on that very soon...

Announcing the UK's FIRST children's comic festival!

We're very excited to announce the UK's first ever CHILDREN'S comic festival! On the 4th of May (Star Wars day - May the 4th be with you!) the Oxford Story Museum will host an entire day of activities, workshops, book signings and more, all centered around children's comics! We Etherington Brothers will of course be there, signing books, meeting our young readers and performing one of our shows! Other awesome creators appearing include Neill Cameron and Adam Murphy, as well as publications LOAF and the DFC Library! Tickets are limited to this very special event, so stay tuned to The Phoenix for news of when they go on sale.

More info about this most awesome of festivals HERE!

See you there!

Lorenzo!

Von Doogan Character Designs!

A little collection of character designs from The Great Air Race. In order of appearance: Marlin, Karmann, Abbey, and the Doog himself! Enjoy!

Lorenzo!

Long Gone Don - from script to page

This morning I thought I'd show you a little behind-the-scenes process for how we create pages of Long Gone Don, hope you enjoy!
Lorenzo!

Step 1: Robin creates the script for the page. He works in a format similar to that of a screenplay, with scene descriptions, all dialogue, and panel count. This is how it looks when I get to see it for the first time:

Step 2: Using the script I create the rough page of artwork. I may make tiny tweaks here and there, but by and large I keep pretty rigidly to the script. This rough page then goes back to Robin, who checks it over and adds his superb lettering, sometimes re-writing the dialogue a little as he letters. Getting the lettering down at this stage is vital to the overall composition of the page, and helps tremendously in marrying up word and art in a visually balanced way.  
*Click Image to see at a better size*

Step 3: With the page lettered, I can set to work on the final art. I begin by putting all the speech bubbles in place, to make sure everything fits nicely and the bubbles don't feel "stuck on" the final page. I have a slightly unusual process for the final artwork, in that I like to fully paint each panel one at a time, instead of inking all panels in one go, and then colouring all panels together, as many artists do. When everything is ready, the page goes back to Robin one last time for final checks, and then it's off to The Phoenix! 
*Click image for larger version*

Long Gone Don book 2 - Deeper into Broilerdoom!

A few more shots from Long Gone Don book 2, which is well over halfway through it's serialisation in the The Phoenix as we speak...!

Lorenzo!