1 May 2024
Happy May Day
Because I haven't posted a finished drawing in a while...
17 March 2024
New Pages
For a US comics anthology due out next year.
27 February 2024
Before Dinosaurs
Here is a flip-through of my History Of Paleontology book.
I spend around 90 - 120 minutes a day working on the colouring of these pages. Usually it’s the first thing I do (after walking my dog). After that I switch onto other tasks; writing, drawing, cleaning up scanned pages, learning German, emailing publishers, ETC.
18 January 2024
Ordinary/Extraordinary
Opening today at 4.30pm is the Ordinary/Extraordinary sequential art showcase at @workersgallery in South Wales - which I'm part of.
There are 12 exhibitors : Cai Howells, Michi Mathias, Rachael Ball, Rachael House, John Cei Douglas, Irina Richards, Hatiye Garip, Gayle Rogers, Richard Cowdry, Ian Williams, Myfanwy Tristram and Paulus Linnaeus.
Photo by Gayle Rogers.
18th January - 2nd March.
Thursdays 4.30-8pm
Fridays & Saturdays 10.30am-4.30pm
& at other times by appointment & for special events
workersgallery.co.uk
22 December 2023
End of 2023
Not such a bad year. Definitely better than 2020 - 2022, which were brutal.
I'm grateful to the friends I have in Berlin (and beyond) - they know who they are - and to the people who like my comics. I feel like I'm making progress, even if it’s glacially slow.
It was good to get back into the Berlin comic scene which is a supportive place, at least at the grassroots, street level.
Currently I'm trying to decide what to focus on next. I'll probably do some short projects and then see which I feel most inspired to continue.
Meanwhile I'll have a story in Blab issue 2. That book should be coming out in spring 2024 from Dark Horse.
Right now I'm finishing the art for Blab issue 3. I think this story is the best comic I've done.
I'm thinking of doing a weekly diary comic in 2024. Just to help me loosen up and be more spontaneous and as a kind of therapeutic exercise. Like a page a week or something. Just posting it on instagram. We'll see.
I'm still adding new material to the fossil book, and colouring it when I have time. This is how a finished page looks like.
There were some really great, inspiring books in 2023, plus good podcasts, youtube channels, zines. Despite the wars, mass murders and recessions, the comic scene survives and is even in good shape - at least creatively.
See you in 2024!
21 September 2023
Reynardine
Last Saturday I shared a table at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele for the Graphic Novel Day, which was part of the Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin. I wanted to have something new on my table so I made a mini comic especially for the festival. The comic is an adaption of a folk ballad that dates back at least to the 1700s.
Reynardine is a little 28 page comic (A7 size). If you want a copy you can PayPal me 5€, $5, or £5 and I’ll send you one.
15 August 2023
I’ve scanned the last page of my graphic novel.
I still have lots of colouring, corrections, editing, tweaking, etc. It seems endless!
Meanwhile I’m working on a story for Blab! issue 3, and if I can I want to do a new comic for the Berlin Graphic Novel Day in September.
Better get back to work…
30 June 2023
New Publications
This month (June 2023) my comics appear in two of the “K” anthologies, KUTI and KUTLUL.
KUTI is a quarterly comics magazine from Finland.
The theme of this issue (68) is witchcraft, magic, paganism, and the occult.
There are some lovely pages in it. My favourites have a kind of meditative, poetic quality.
A cool thing is that my story has been translated into Finnish, and the lettering is fantastic. It just looks so good!
If you are not already a subscriber you can download it or read the comic on their website:
https://kutikutisf.wordpress.com/2023/06/15/kuti68/
KUTLUL is a comics magazine published in Germany and Holland. This is issue 15 which is sadly the last issue.
Edited by Dirk Verschure and Joost Halbertsma it features a massive 128 pages of contemporary comics (132 pages including covers).
If you like alternative, underground, personal, funny, expressive comics you'll find plenty of good stuff. I was happy to find strong work by artists I can't believe I didn't know about already.
22 June 2023
PechaKucha
Tonight, 7pm at StattLab - Drontheimer Str. 34 (U7/U8 Osloer Straße) in Berlin.
15(?) comic artists will present their work. 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide.
I like the concept. Lets see how it works!
Event by @antoniocastello at @stattlab
Artwork : Before Dinosaurs by Richard Cowdry. Rough panel.
What I’m Up To (May 2023)
Still finishing my paleontology graphic novel. Just a few pages left to draw but LOTS of corrections and colouring to do.
Hoping to finish it by the time the schools close in July.
Artwork : Before Dinosaurs by Richard Cowdry. Rough panel.
I really hope people like it. I hope it connects. I hope it’s a fun read.
A big question for me now is : what to do next??
Artwork : Before Dinosaurs by Richard Cowdry. Approx. p.112
What I’m Up To (January 2023)
Basically I’m working on finishing my paleontology graphic novel. I’d like to have it done and dusted by this summer (2023).
Artwork : Before Dinosaurs. Approx. p.93
I’m writing and drawing the last chapter right now, then I have the epilogue to draw. After that I have a few one pagers that need to fit into earlier parts of the book. Meanwhile I’m scanning pages, cleaning them up & colouring them.
Before Dinosaurs. Approx. p.89 (?)
It's fun seeing how the pages look different when the colour starts going on - how certain parts of the drawing get emphasised, etc.
Before Dinosaurs. Approx. p.97 (?)
I’m also about to start working on a story for the third issue a very cool comics anthology. More about that later…
Best wishes.
NOV 17
Berliner Fenster Comics (Series 5)
I recently submitted a (fairly silly) new strip for ComicInvasionBerlin’s new series of U-Bahn comics. Hopefully it appears on their screens sometime next year.
AUG 16 2022
The Historical Comics Collective
This is a coin I drew for The Historical Comics Collective who are a group of international artists put together by Geri E. Gallas. We are all drawing history based comics. The coin is for a poster being made for this year's @spxcomics on September 17 and 18.
JUN 30 2022
The Secret History Of The Comix Reader
The alternative comics newspaper I founded and edited. Read All About It!!! But here not here.
JUN 13
Fossil Folklore on youtube
Fossil Folklore
This is a short "film" adapted from a 2 page comic which I made last year for ComicInvasionBerlin. It's simply made, just using iMovie, but I kind of like it.
Nov 27
Berliner Fenster Comics
A few years back, some time before 2015, when I first lived in Berlin, I saw the comics of Marc Seestaedt on the Berlin U-bahn. They were shown as a slideshow, instagram-style, on the double television screens that you see in each carriage of the U-bahn. One screen displays information about your route, while the other, where the comics appeared, features mainly news stories and advertising. I thought this was great and wondered how he was able to organise something like this.
Marc must be good at organising things: he is the founder of Berlin's annual comics festival ComicsInvasionBerlin... some people are able to do this stuff.
I have great memories of tabling at the early ComicsInvasion's. They were the most fun I ever had at a comics festival. Plus the artists and guests in attendance seemed to genuinely appreciate my Comix Reader anthology, which made me feel really good about being involved in comics.
When I moved back to Berlin in 2019 ComicsInvasion had grown from a DIY, punky, alternative thing into a bigger, more established festival. The festival was also running "seasons" of Berliner Fenster comics to be shown on all the U-Bahn screens. Any comics person in Berlin could submit strips. I drew one and sent it. Hooray! But then ... Corona.... I'm not sure if that season ever happened but there was a new call for strips in 2020. This season did happen. I waited a long time for my strip to be shown and the day it was finally scheduled I was heading out of town. But I had like a 10 minute journey on the U-bahn to get to the train station. Perhaps I could still see my strip...??? I didn't see it... although I THINK I might have caught the last panel of the strip for a split second just as I got on the U6. NB the photo I posted here is fake, I just pasted my art over the screens.
Anyway, I just submitted a strip for a NEW season of Berliner Fenster comics. So maybe I still have a chance to see my comic on that screen. Then I will really feel like a Berlin Comic Artist.
Artwork : Bears In Berlin by Richard Cowdry
CIB2021
This weekend (4 and 5 Sept 2021) is the ComicInvasion weekend. Many events are happening.
Join the event virtually or book a visit to the museum. Visit my virtual table and have a look what other great comic artists have done too.
https://youtu.be/ccTn1SP_GOk
https://www.comicinvasionberlin.de
Aug 21 2021
Wonders and Curiosities Exhibition
Giants, Elephants, Crocodiles, Stone Seeds… See the bizarre and colourful theories used by early scientists to explain the existence of fossil bones and animals.
This exhibition presents selected pages from a documentary comic series about the prehistory of paleontology.
Written and drawn by Richard Cowdry.
ComicInvasionBerlin Satellite Event.
30 August - 30 September 2021.
https://comicinvasion.de/events
https://comicinvasion.de/event/wunder-und-kuriositaeten/
https://www.berlin.de/stadtbibliothek-mitte/bibliotheken/bibliothek-am-luisenbad/
April 8 2021
Save Berlin’s Renate Comics Library!
Rette Renate! • All Berlin Comic professionals, sign our letter to the Berlin Minister of Culture!
As most of you will know by now, Renate, our beloved comic library and the cornerstone of the comic community in Berlin is in danger of closing down in the next two months. My flatmate and esteemed colleague Sebastian Strombach and I have decided to take action and mobilise the whole comic community to save Renate!
To this effect, we have written a letter that we will give to the Minister for culture and Europe in Berlin, Dr Klaus Lederer, asking for financial help to protect Renate. This letter we want all you, comic artists, publishers, critics, comic store owners and employees, all the professionals of our Berlin Comic Community to sign it, as many of you already have.
Because we are such a small community, with an online petition we would only get a few thousands signatures at best which isn't so impressive in comparison to the hundreds of thousands some other online petitions can easily get.
This is why we have made an actual letter for you to sign to show how committed we all are to defending our community!
Because of the actual sanitary restrictions we have to do this one at a time so please, if you are a professional and want to sign the letter, contact me (insta or facebook) or Sebastian Strombach (Facebook) to see how we can arrange to meet (you come to us of we to you). Let's show them what we can do!
If you are leaving outside of Berlin, do not feel like meeting face to face with people at this time or are not a comic professional but still want to show you support, we also have an online petition on Change.org here:
https://www.change.org/retterenate
There you can also read the text from the letter in both English and German.
Original Post from Renate and how to help them directly:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CMt6-4ABgNB/...
Illustration "Rette Renate" by Sebastian Strombach and Paul Winck.
Photo credit 1 to 4 goes to @vaconsartirani
#retterenate #berlincomiclibrary #berlincomics #renatecomicsberlin #renatecomicbibliothek
Feb 23 2021
Shnipp Shnapp, Nase ab.
I had this image in my mind for a long time before I drew it.
Dec 1 2019
Comic Invasion Berlin Awards 2020
I am very happy to be chosen as the First Prize winner of the ComicInvasionBerlin 2020 awards.
I got the trophy above, plus a bunch of comics and graphic novels. The best part though is that I get to work with Ulli Lust and Kai Pfeiffer.
You can watch the award show below :
SEP 5
Free Comic Day
Treasure Hunt Comics : a free publication from ComicInvasion. Still available from various comic shops around Berlin.
Neurotitan shop & gallery, Rosenthaler Straße 39, 10178 Berlin
Black Dog Comics, Rodenbergstraße 9, 10439 Berlin
Renate Comicbibliothek, Tucholskystraße 32, 10117 Berlin.
Modern Graphics, Kastanienallee 79, 10435 Berlin
Modern Graphics, Europa-Center, Tauentzienstraße 9-12, 10789 Berlin
Modern Graphics, Oranienstraße 22, 10999 Berlin
Museum für Kommunikation Berlin, Leipziger Str. 16, 10117 Berlin
Schickimicki Zinedistro, Stuttgarter Str. 60, 12059 Berlin
Jaja Verlag, Tellstraße 2, 12045 Berlin”
https://comicinvasion.de/en/treasure-hunt
Aug 14 2019
Pandemic Arts
A couple of months ago I applied to be part of a group exhibition organised by Pandemic Healing Arts. I was very happy to be accepted because I was feeling gloomy after a couple of months of Corona lockdown. I needed something creative to focus on.
For the exhibition I drew two comics about the frustration of working from home while homeschooling and caring for a reluctant 8 year old son.
The photo above is from last night‘s opening of the Exhibition at WIDERKUNST III, Holzmarkt25, Berlin. It was a good varied show and worth a look.