Leeds Guide Interview.

I recently spent a couple of hours talking to James Wilkinson of The Leeds Guide (the magazine to read to find out what's hot & what's not in the Milan of the North....ahem, okaaay), & an embarrasing half an hour dodging customers in OK Comics (Leeds) while photographer Mark Newton attempted to make me look cool...a lost cause, that one.

Anyway, if you click on the pic, the scan of the page should be big enough for you to read the interview.

Hero Initiative Spiderman charity sketch covers

I was asked by Jim McLauchlin of The Hero Initiative (a charitable organisation set up to help comic book artists who have fallen on hard times) to contribute to a huge Spider-Man sketch cover project. Marvel Comics have donated one hundered blank-cover copies of Ultimate Spider-Man #100, & the Hero Initiative have managed to track down every surviving artist who has ever drawn Spider-Man to provide a sketch on one of these blanks. These will then be auctioned off.
For some reason, your's truely was asked to do two...maybe they thought I'd f**k up the first one(Heh-heh), & here they are at left for your perusal .

Upcoming Convention Appearances

I'm going to be appearing at various conventions in the next few weeks/months. As is customary at these affairs, I'll be available to sign comics, do sketches, give crits on your own work if you are an artist or just chew the fat over a beer (my favorite part).
As per my normal practice, I will be making a small charge (these rates apply to convention sketches only) for sketches, these are:
£5- for a headshot
£10- for a full figure.
The image at the left will give you some idea of what you will get for your hard earned cash. The confirmed appearances are:-

DreddCon 6.5% Proof - Saturday 18 November 2006 Jericho Tavern, Oxford, UK.

Birminghan International Comics Show - December 9-10, Custard Factory, Gibb Street, Birmingham, UK.

Transforce 2007- 17th March, Fairfield Halls, Croydon. UK.

The Birminghan show will be the biggest of the three, & will be attended by comics professionals from around the world, click on the show's name above to visit their website.

The Transforce event is particularly interesting, it's a gathering of devoted Transformers fans. They have been kind enough to invite me, despite the fact it has been 15 years since I was an artist on the Transformers comic, the cover art (from 1991) to the side was just about the last thing I did. It should be a fun event, the much awaited mega-buget live action Transformers movie opens in cinemas a week or so after the event, & as a result I imagine the movie's publicity people will make sure that Transformers will be everywhere.

The DreddCon is the smallest of the three, but may well be the most fun...it's being held above a pub!!!

If you manage to make it to any of these events, make sure you come over & say 'Hi'....then buy me a drink.

BBC Interview

Here's a short video I did with the BBC recently about the Kingpin gig. If you're wondering why the BBC would be interested in putting me on the news, fairly simple really, it was a really bad news week & they felt like they needed something light & fluffy to ease the tone of the broadcast. Despite not being used to being classed as light & fluffy, I'm a bit of a media tart, so I thought 'Why not'.

Kingpin: War Crimes

My current gig, this is a one shot which ties in with Marvel Comics big muti-part multi-title crossover Civil War. It focuses on the Marvel Universe' top organised crime boss, & I find myself re-united with the writer Frank Tieri & inker extrordinair Tom Palmer, both of whom I worked with on the mini-series Underworld earlier this year, & are stella guys of the first order.

For obvious reasons I can't give too much away, but check it out when it hits the shelves of you local comic store in December to see how even when he is locked up in jail, The Kingpin (Wilson Fisk to his friends..although he doesn't have too many of those) can control the lives of not only his fellow prisoners but the forces of the government (including S.H.I.E.L.D.) on the outside. Here's a couple of pages of pencils to whet your appetite...

A warm welcome.....

Welcome one & all. If you came to this blog from my website StazJohnson.com, you'll probably know who I am. If not, well, this is the brand spanking new blog of professional comic book artist Staz Johnson.

Hopefully I'll be keeping this thing maintained, & I'll be giving you guys up-to-the-minute news on what's happening with me, showing you work in progress, sketches, some older stuff (if anybody wants it) & whatever else I think might help to pass five minutes of your time while you're surfing on your lunchbreak.