The Banner Story.

We've been noticing of late, mostly at the MCM events, that the people who pass our stall think that we're a publishing house, and don't realise until we get into conversation with them, that
Colin and I are actually creators too.
We need, we realised, to re-establish our own names within the Accent UK brand and help bring out the fact that we've written almost all of the comics on the table, and drawn some of them too.
So, what better way of doing this then to retire some of our banners and produce some new ones that highlight this fact.
I turned to Andy Bloor of course to help me pull mine together.
What to put on it though ?
I wanted Stephenson's Robot, Josiah Black, Jigsaw Girl, something from Strange Times ... hmmm ... that should do it.
I routed through my comic files and sent samples off to Andy for him to work his magic on.
Sorting out suitable images ... images that showed enough .. images where the character wasn't cut in two by a panel or some other character ... not easy. I had to use Gary Crutchley's Jigsaw Girl for example as I couldn't find one by INDIO! that fitted what I had in mind.

It looked pretty good, but Andy had dropped the Samuel Close image that I'd sent him, in his time travelling bubble...

Andy thought it too distracting and I found that I had to agree.
I also asked Andy if he could make Kingdom's smoke fade into The Leyton Angel's wing, which might look nice.
What Andy did though was to fill the space with Eddie Doyle, which seemed only appropriate as it was the comic with him in it that won the Eagle Award.

I like this one a lot, so I sent it to Colin and Gary for feedback.
Gary, rightly, pointed out that saying I was 'Artist' implied that I'd drawn all of the images on the banner, not that he had a problem with it himself. Whilst I'd love that to be the case I didn't want to mislead anyone, and more importantly I didn't want to face people asking me to draw Kingdom (Stephenson's Robot) just like on the banner.
I decided it would be best to change it.
Also, I was concerned that my name, being half way down the banner, would be obstructed by people standing behind the table, and so asked Andy to move it to the top.
The result still has me smiling.

I love it.
Thanks Andy.