So, we've not made a film in frickin' ages. What's the point, thought I. Everything awesome is too hard to do, we have no money, and no cool equipment. Well, fannies to that! I've been traipsing through the internet to find ways to make Final Cut work a bit harder for me. Turns out that gunfire, bullet hits, explosions, and all manner of other awesome stuff is not only for the rich nerds who can afford squibs and blanks or bajillion-pound computer set-ups. No, dear reader! Peasants like me can do this stuff too! I've been fannying about with this stuff for a couple of days and studying John Woo's actiony stuff for inspiration.

Those are the gunfight effects! Some of it is just photos copied, pasted, and jiggled with in Final Cut! It'll look better when I spend a bit more time on it. This was just to see if it could be done. Don't mind the ghostly pip-boy in the second one. I tried some compositing, but because I used a black background (a t-shirt) it took out all the black in pip-boy too (including shadows!) so he looks a bit odd. Proof, though, that it can be done. Just need to get some green cloth! (Nice effect for ghosts though!)

Need some red and blues to watch this! I wondered if I could make 3D using final cut. Well, I can! It's not amazing because nothing's happening and the image quality is terrible. I also used 1 camera and filmed the sink or whatever twice from a slightly different angle. With 2 cameras running side-by-side, this'll work much better.

If you're interested in doing it yourself, there are some very easy to follow tutorials online. I found them just by googling. This awesome dude has a great how-to video for muzzle flashes. These guys have a massive library of gore and explosion effects you can use, a lot of them for free.

I wish I'd known about all this crap years ago!

Posted up some new comics! There's a new installment of Robot Dinosaur Police Department! (I almost typed Robert Dinosaur Police Department then... I'll have to save that!) It's the first one done with a fancy schmancy tablet gizmo! As such, it's a bit sketchy, but I hope to get better at it. The other new addition is an upload of a 5-page one-shot I made for Bristol Comic Con. I won't be going to any cons for a little while and I quite like how it turned out, so I thought it'd be a shame to just forget about it. (If you disagree: sorry!) That below is a clipping of some dead animals! I like the bear's face the best! ("Rowr?")

Other exciting news!

Comic News Insider, a very cool podcast (about comics, of course!), were kind enough to say nice things in Episode 270 about Attackosaur Comics! Jimmy Aquino, one of the show's hosts, picked up A Rope Around Your Broken Neck and The Mutilated Dead from Bristol Comic Con and selected them in their Top 3 of the week feature! Seriously!

Also, Forbidden Planet! They're doing an amazing thing where they're stocking indie comics free of charge on a sale-or-return basis! Stores in Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham (I think) are doing it. I've sent a stack of A Rope Around Your Broken Neck and The Mutilated Dead along to hopefully see some shelf time! (I'm running low on Paralysis at the moment.) Unfortunately, I live pretty far away from all of these places - I don't think my mum's poor car will make it that far - so I can't check. If any of you awesome, lovely people see an Attackosaur comic in a proper shop please let me know so I can do some backflips and send you and e-high-5! Anyways, I hope this finds you all brilliant and happy. Peace!

For all interested parties, the Forbidden Planet scheme can be found here!

Dudes! Went to Bristol over the weekend to share some comics and see what all the cool kids are doing. Very awesome! The Attackotable was placed in the fabulously well air-conditioned Mercure hotel. The convention was split between us small press ladies and gentlemen in the Mercure and the big-time Marvel and DC folks in the Ramada. I was a bit worried that nobody would bother coming to the independent bit after getting their Spider-man on in the Ramada, but at times it was packed tighter than a crocodile in a cuckoo clock.

I didn't take any pictures, sorry! It would've just looked weird to sit there photographing everybody as they walked past. It's OK in a massive sports-hall type of place, but a bit creepy in what was essentially a big conference room. (There was another massive bit of the indie side a little way down the hall, past the Nintendos.) So, yes! Everybody was mega-nice and some people walked out with a little attackosaur comic under their arms. Very happy!

I bought a few things while I was there! Yes, I did! From my very cool neighbours, I got an issue of Semiotic Cohesion and The Armadillo's Tale. (Click to go to their sites!) Semiotic Cohesion was bought from the cave of a thousand wonders across the way; it's a brilliant anthology of utterly mental comics from South Africa with giant sharks on the cover! The Armadillo's Tale is an awesome children's story with ace-looking art (and a cameo from Harvey Keitel) about the adventures of Armand Armadillo! Tom, one of the creators of Semiotic Cohesion, gave an impassioned reading of The Armadillo's Tale on Sunday afternoon which was an thoroughly entertaining diversion from the perfect storm of air-conditioning that was beginning to freeze our insides. Later on I was asked to give a mumbly, holding-a-half-eaten-muffin sort of interview about Attackosaur Comics to camera by a chap from Redeye magazine. (He didn't ask for the mumbling or the half-eaten muffin, but I improvised.)

Anyways, if you were one of the kind people who took away one of our silly comics - or if you were just stopping by to say hello - then may Odin bless you and keep your fingers and toes very warm indeed.

First of all, we went to Wales Comic Con 2010 in Wrexham! Ace! Managed to sell a few comics and get random friendlies to draw in Paul's book! (He's trying to fill a book with pictures of Mexican wrestlers done by random people. The results might eventually end up on here. Mine is especially rubbish!) Best of all, we got to meet Neil Marshall! Neil Marshall, for those who don't know, is one of only 3 reasons to be proud of the British film industry (the other 2 are Danny Boyle and Shane Meadows). He directed Dog Soldiers, The Descent, Doomsday, and just now Centurion. The first 3 are mind-blowingly awesome and I'm gonna see Centurion soon.

Anyways! Where was I? Yes! A new web-comic is on the way! It's about the daily struggles of the Martian police force. It's like The Shield, but with dinosaurs! Check the poster! It doesn't lie! (It does lie about the weekly bit actually. That's far too often. Maybe bi-monthly...)

Hello! I've been reading more lately, so I figured I'd start up a random feature on the site where I blather about how ace something is. I'll stick to comic books for now, because Lord knows there are enough movie reviews out there. I don't fancy ragging on other people's hard work either, so it will be purely things that I think are ace. I'm gonna start it off with this one!

Why Are You Doing This? is a very brief graphic novel that riffs on Hitchcock's classic innocent-man-on-the-run scenario. I've never read any of this chap Jason's stuff before, but apparently he's Norwegian and his stuff before this was almost all silent, black-and-white comics. There are some wicked suspense scenes in this with barely a word uttered, so that makes perfect sense. The characters are all dog-people. They walk and talk like regular people, they just have dog heads. It puts an awesome distance between the reader and the characters, I think, like taking that Hitchcock movie and giving it over to Stanley Kubrick. Hey! That's what this reminds me of! Eyes Wide Shut! Very similar vibe. Anyhow, the dog-people look awesome! The book as a whole looks unbelievably cool with little flappy bits on the cover that you can use as bookmarks (though you can read it all in one go really easily) and a massive picture on the inside. It's made out of really nice cardboardy paper too. I'm not sure why that matters, but it's part of why the book's awesome so I'll mention it. The main character is a 20-something who's just been dumped by his girlfriend and, normally, that's the kiss of death for a comic book where I'm concerned, but the writing is great and the character is not so mopey and smartassy that it kills the story. Why Are You Doing This? is flipping brilliant, and with titles like I Killed Adolf Hitler I imagine the rest of this chap's stuff is just as cool.