this was a bit of a headache i’ll be honest, there were so many good entries for the Bear contest, the problem was they were all so different! so how do you compare them to each other? Amongst everything else we had tattoos, cakes, toys, bacteria and boobs. Which is a brilliant party right there. But in the end, for spreading the Looshkin filth onto unsuspecting foreign shores, the winner of the Bear painting is joda_cast..

please email me your address sir. HONOURABLE MENTION goes to thebitten for the aces banner, can you send me your address too? i’ll try and find something to send yuz!

sorry to everyone who didn’t win, but without exception all the entries were brilliant and the effort put in VERY appreciated. it sucks i don’t have more to give away >_<

this is the mess i use to make picture, if you want to see the Bear painting step by step, then come see my livejournal post!

and lastly, thanks to Margo for showing me this, was Jeff Soto making his own entry to win the Bear competition recently? O_O

stunning Looshkin meester Soto! ha ha!

The new Tshirts up at Bohda Te, including two Fumblog designs and a new Ubu Bubu tee, just aren’t picking up enough preorders to make them worth printing. It’s pretty gutting, I was hot damn proud of these new ones. The response to them too was great, I know people out there are digging them, so if you were planning to claim one in the future, please go there and get it now, because these T-shirts are gonna disappear from existance otherwise!

clicky to visit the store

to be honest with you things ain’t going so great right now (more on that tomorrow), so no i’m not above cheapening myself :p if you’re enjoying the daily random comickery (yes, word) at Fumblog then help support it and pick up a tee? Sorry guys, could do with your help.

It’s a real shame to announce that The DFC is to cease publication, effective within the next coupla weeks. You may have heard about this already across the comicky internet, there have been rumblings about it for a couple of months. Unfortunately it just wasn’t doing well enough for these crazy economic times.

This is genuinely a big loss, to British comics in particular. The DFC was the best comic of its kind, putting out weekly serial strips and one-offs, all of different styles and tones. The variety was at times fantastic, and the art exceptional. They really found a formula that worked, and deserved to become an institution. Not least, all the artists involved were absolutely lovely, and the editorial staff were easy-going yet focused, obviously deeply passionate about the stories they wanted told.

No one knows what happens from here. Maybe a buyer will step in and save The DFC at the last minute, or maybe the rights to our characters will end up being exploited elsewhere. But it was a noble and admirable project, as enjoyable to read as it was to work on. It deserved a lot more.

This wacky economy thing is curious how it filters down, and to be honest I’m starting to become very concerned about how it’s impacting me. With the loss of The DFC that’s half my work disappeared. I still have The Dandy, and a few other things on the horizon, but realistically to stay afloat I need things to turn around, and fast. I can’t afford to spend weeks drawing comic books, so I don’t see myself doing that anymore. I’ve spent the past month in a weird haze, doing occasional work but mostly getting to the end of the day and not being entirely sure what I’ve done. I’m spending huge amounts of time working up projects and sending them out to various outlets, but this is a slow and very wearing process. Fact is, everything’s drying up.

I guess we’ll see. There’s so much I’m pushing into the pipeline, that i’d hope at least one thing would come up trumps. But you lose your mind after a while. I know everyone’s suffering at the moment, you’d think being a freelancer all this time you’d get used to it being precarious :p

Thank you heartily to everyone who pitched in on the T-shirts, initial reports are preorders have risen so there’s a good chance they may go ahead. I do appreciate all your support ^_^

So, what do you do in the face of adversity? You give everything away for free! yayyyy! Come to FUMBLOG tomorrow for HUG CUSTARD episode 2, a free four pager comic! Tomorrow! Be there! Click this thing then! yes!

(or come and have a look today, where upon you’ll see the guest strip i did for the fantastic Lord Likely site). i’m really proud of the work coming up over the next week or so, there’s some great stuff EVERY DAY!

Right, well enough misery. I’m off to Amsterdam for the weekend to chill out, ride a bike and forget the world’s coming to an end. See you on the other side of a special cake.

jx