hidden city

RADIO SILENCE

2008-05-17T04:21:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since we posted anything up here as I've been really busy with Studio Space so apologies (if anyone still visits here;)). But there will be two Hidden City pages accompanying a Megazine feature about me that is out on June 4th, so check it out…
Now that David Morris has finished with Bristol and I am just about to polish off the TRIPWIRE Annual, we are going back full tilt onto Hidden City so expect to see some posts in June…

LETTERED AND COLOURED PAGE

2008-02-15T02:50:00.000-08:00

Here's a sample page of Hidden City, coloured by Kirsty and lettered by Dave Morris. I think it looks rather nice…
The whole package is coming together at last…

HIDDEN CITY MEETING

2008-01-22T09:03:00.000-08:00

On Monday Dave Morris and I met up in West London at Paddington and then ended up at The Dove on the river in Hammersmith. We met up for a confab about Hidden City and I'm pretty pleased with what we discussed. We had a wander east of Hammersmith Bridge and the weather created some funky clouds, so here are a few photos from Monday and a photo of the interior of The Dove, one of the nicest pubs in London…

ANOTHER PAGE OF DAVE MORRIS'S ART

2007-12-26T07:01:00.000-08:00

Here's another page of Dave's Hidden City art where we see Dayce visiting St Pancras, which has been in the news at the end of the year because of its massive reopening as London's Eurostar Terminal…

HISTORY LESSON

2007-12-24T05:44:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't put anything up here in over two weeks but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about Hidden City. Hidden City is a manifestation of everything that fascinates and interests me about London. I have been wandering around London with my camera as ever over the last few weeks, taking myself off to Kensal Green Cemetary in my lunch break last week. In fact, every time I see somewhere that I've not visited before and like it, there is the temptation to shoehorn it into the series but Dave Morris will be glad to hear that I've reined that in. London is such a rich place with so many churches, graveyards, nooks and crannies hidden away across it that I don't think I'll ever see everything. But discovering new things continues to be a source of amazement and wonder. So many people who live in a big city don't take the time to really explore it but they really should. In fact, here's a Christmas/ New Year challenge to consider: go and explore where you live, work or visit and leave a comment here about one thing you've discovered. You obviously don't have to but it would be interesting to find out what people have unearthed. Get exploring…

TEXT PIECE

2007-12-09T05:14:00.000-08:00

Here's a text piece I wrote to get myself in the mindset of Hidden City's main villain, Christopher Parker. The plan is to run these after the strip pages in each chapter hopefully. Here also are the first two pages coloured by Kirsty to give everyone an idea of how it's going to look…

PARKER’S DIARY

The man turned to face his accuser. Standing over six and a half feet tall, his scarred face was like a roadmap of his life. Parker had heard of the Wapping Giant but coming face to face with the creature was a different matter indeed.
“What do you want with my master?,” the towering figure bellowed in an aggressive tone.
Parker had endured his way through the streets on the coldest day of the year when he thought he’d end his life a frozen statue in the back alleyways of the unforgiving reaches of the Thames. He’d also encountered some unsavoury, violent characters intent on relieving him of his clothes, his purse and eventually his breath in the maze of walkways in Shadwell. He had come this far so he wasn’t going to be hindered by what amounted to a large but fairly unthinking blowhard. With a large plank of wood in his hands that he brandished expertly, of course.
“I’ve been told by our mutual friend Mr Grimes that your master Edward, has an item of rare beauty that would be a unique addition to my collection. If you let me pass, I am willing to offer him a fair price for the item in question.”
Parker stood his ground. Sudden movements would only seek to enrage the giant further. He was surprised that such a freak was permitted to roam the streets of East London without restraint, that some enterprising circus owner hadn’t grabbed him and put him to work .
But there were many things that surprised Christopher Parker about this world ruled by a woman, where many of the familiar things that gave him confidence in his place in England were gone, replaced by the strange and the foreboding.
But Parker had been stymied before. In some ways, his life up to this point had been a series of hinderances and the item in question was worth the struggle to acquire it.
The Wapping Giant was confused by Parker’s lack of belligerence and this confusion allowed the experienced mage to gain the upper hand. Taking a small wrapped kerchief out of his waistcoat pocket, Parker split the kerchief with a small bladed knife and blew its contents in the face of the slow but physically powerful creature.
The Giant went down and Parker went on his way.
“I”ll brook no further delays,” he said to the prone figure. The deathmask of Oliver Cromwell would soon be his.

CARTER CHARACTER STUDY

2007-12-08T05:42:00.000-08:00

We based copper Andy Carter on my friend Andy Colman so here is Dave's sketch of him. By the way, Hidden City will be inked by Patrick O'Connor and coloured by Kirsty Swan. Compare and contrast…

WELCOME TO HIDDEN CITY

2007-11-28T00:32:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone and welcome to the Hidden City blog. Hidden City is a series that I have been working on with David Morris for about four years now: it's a supernatural comic series about a 17th century sorceror, Tobias Dayce, who finds himself in the 21st century initially without any memory of who he is. Unfortunately he's not the only figure from that period who is also here…
The series is an attempt for me to incorporate subjects that interest me (London history especially the English Civil War period) in a project that is hopefully exciting, interesting and a little bit different. So I'll be putting stuff up here about the series as it progresses. It has had a long genesis partly down to the fact that I have been juggling lots of other work and it still doesn't have a publisher but we hope that we may secure one next year.
So here is a page rough of the second page from the first chapter and some character sketches drawn by Dave back in 2005. I intend to post at least once a week here so feel free to stop by…