Category: Autobiography & Memoir

First Steps in Comics

A New Blog Series Leading to Thought Bubble 2025

This year, I’ll post a series of blog posts leading up to the release of Life’s a Party Vol. 1, which will debut at the Thought Bubble Festival in November 2025. These posts will explore my 20+ years of drawing, publishing, and distributing comics.

Themes will include:

• First Steps in Comics

• Phatprint Comics and the Indie Journey

• The Struggles of an Autobiographical Cartoonist

• How Life’s a Party Started

and more.

This series will be a backstory to my publications and chart the history and development of Life’s a Party.

First Steps in Comics

Early Inspirations and DIY Publishing Struggles

My earliest memories of comics are fuzzy. But, like many creators, comics were an ever-constant part of my childhood. I can’t remember when they weren’t in my life—whether in physical form or my imagination.

Comics seemed to arrive magically. As a kid, I didn’t fully grasp that they came from shops; they just existed. Eventually, I realised they were on newsagent shelves. The Beano, Dandy, Roy of the Rovers, Battle, Action, 2000 AD, and various Marvel titles, Spider-Man and Hulk.

19, and the real turning point arrived in the form of Swamp Thing, a comic recommended by my friend. From there, it was Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, RAW, and more from 2000 AD.

It’s hard to reconstruct my reading progression, but I know one thing: I always wanted to draw comics. Even before I had the skill, I had the ambition. I saw comics as being produced from this mysterious place—somewhere I desperately wanted to be.

That fire stayed with me, though my understanding of what I wanted from comics evolved. At first, I wanted to be a monthly cartoonist, working for publishers. That changed. But in those early years, cartoons, album covers, book illustrations, and posters filled my mental library. Visual storytelling consumed my waking thoughts.

The Cartoonist Arts Trust – My First Published Work

Comics became real for me at a Cartoon workshop held by Portobello Arts Trust in 1986. This workshop was for unemployed young people, and we sat, drew, talked comics. learned from industry professionals like Nick Abadzis and David Lloyd.

It was an incredible experience—my first window into making comics. It also led to my first published work in an anthology titled Deadline, (Not that one).

My contribution was Head Trip, a three-page horror comic.

I’m still impressed that I pulled it off. It took enormous effort, but I’ll never forget holding my finished comic and knowing I was published.

The workshop was successful, and we planned a second anthology. I started another story, but personal struggles pulled me away from comics. I left the course and drifted into fine art instead.

Coming Back to Comics – Grey Sky

Fifteen years later, I had a now-or-never moment.

Even while studying fine art, comics had never left my thoughts. I was still a reader. They found their way into my paintings, prints, and drawings. But I hadn’t committed to making a whole comic in years. I knew I had to give it another go.

So, with little knowledge or experience of self-publishing, I started what would become my first full-length comic: Grey Sky.

It took months. The early pages were slow, glacial work, requiring plenty of ink and a bucket of Tippex. Eventually, I had over twenty finished pages. I photocopied them at my workplace, stapled them together, and made an ashcan version.

That was it—the moment I became a self-publisher. Grey Sky was the first step, but it led me here. To Phatprint Comics. To Life’s a Party. And now, to Thought Bubble 2025.

Looking Ahead

This post is just the beginning. In the next installment, I’ll explore Phatprint Comics and the Indie Journey—how I carved out my space in independent publishing.

If you’ve ever struggled with making comics or if you’re starting, I hope this series will resonate with you.

See you in the next post.