The Phantom tribute picture...

So the Birmingham International Comics Show was just this weekend gone. It was a good fun show, in an interesting venue. I made lots of new aquaintances, amongst whom were Barry & Dave the guys from The Geek Syndicate . If you visit their site you can listen to a very funny podcast about the Con'.

I spent most of Saturday just hanging out at the show, apart from in the morning when I spent a little time on my contribution to a huge art installation devoted to The Phantom, who celebrates his 70th year this year... not bad for a guy in purple striped underpants! Here you can see me working on the piece...in the freezing cold, using the bottom of an empty beer glass as a pallet, what a glamorous life I lead. These photo's were taken by Chris Monk, & if you visit his online gallery you can see more photo's from the show.

The pics of the completed pic, & how it looked once it had a few more to keep it company were taken by Logan181 (don't know you real name,sorry) from the Comic Geek Speak forum.

Sunday saw me pretty much chaind to a table while I signed comics & sketched for anyone who was interested. If I manage to get scans of any of the sketches I did, I'll be sure to put them on here.

Captain America: One Minute Later

This is something I did a while ago, & for some reason I kept forgetting to put it on here. It was a private commission for art collector Michael Finn. The idea was to take a well known cover (preferably featuring Captain America... a big fan of the Cap is our Michael), then imagine what would be happening 'One Minute Later' in that scenario. The original cover dates from the 1980's (by Frank Miller , & I've included it here for comparisson) so I've attempted to do the art in a 1980's style (the approach to the inking etc), & is why, Cap here bears little resemblance to the current incarnation of the character.

You can view all of Michael's One Minute Later commissions here.


If you'd like a Private Commission of your own, you can get in touch via the contact page on the main website .

Kingpin: War Crimes Inks & Colors

Tom Palmer (inker on WarCrimes, & all round decent bloke) recently sent me a couple of pages of his inks, so here they are for your delectation. Also a couple of pages of inked & colored pages taken from the Marvel website.

You'll have seen the pencils for one of these pages earlier in the blog (the one with the rather delectable Agent Hill). The page with the U-Boats goes down as the page which I spent the most (& inordinate ammount of) time on. I'm a sucker for all that WWII stuff, & I really wanted to make sure I got all the details right. Was it worth the effort? Did I actually get all the details right?...You be the judge.

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.