Where I'll be this new years eve...

Have a happy and safe one all. 2007 was a wild ride. I got a movie made of my work, met some of the best people ever ( those two are quite related ) I got to abuse Paris Hilton, meet Tarantino, exhibit my work, drink Champagne in Paris, Red Horse in Manila and Tequila in LA, win some awards and get Eisner nominations third year in a row.

2008 will be interesting, whatever happens, not sure it'll match that though.

Here's where I'll be mostly...



Though I did get out a bit. Singapore is the closest decent city to Perth and we're even on the same timezone. ( when we're not being retarded. )





They even have Wormwood here.

Uberbot Love

Apparently. Cthulhumas is getting around.

I smell some toys or an exhibition maybe later on. Right Uberbot? ;)

You knew this was coming....

Have a happy and safe festive season, whatever religion, or lack thereof you follow! Personally think Cthulhumas would be better than Christmas, but maybe that's just me. Yeah. Probably is.

Oh, and happy Solstice too while we're at it.

Your vid for the weekend.

I am drinking a beer right now.

This is all you need to know.

Since some consider Xmas a religious holiday ( you know, having it based on the Roman festival of Saturnalia, possibly also the worship of Mithras, using various pagan things like Xmas trees, and using a character designed by a soda corporation based off a dubious "Saint" only legitimized during the mere 19th century...etc etc ) I figured a more religious themed vid was needed. So I bring to you, Bluejuice. Courtesy of Mr Wooller.

Thankyou Mr Wooller.

Signed Comics! ( At ComicZone )

Yep, since Wormwood: Segue to Destruction is now out, ComicZone now have every single copy of it, plus a bunch of other books of mine they got in, signed. So if you want one at no extra cost, there's your place to get em. ComicZone are at 572 Hay Street, Perth, WA. ( That's Australia unfortunately for you peeps who think it's in Washington )

Currently on the work desk 54

Completely frazzled right now, so haven't been posting much! The irony being, I have so much I could be posting about...doing lots of book covers, maybe some album art, far too many comics needing to be finished by the new year and stuff. Sending me insane. I didn't need Xmas day off anyways I guess.

So here's a look at some of what's been on the desk recently.



A work in progress on a Wasteland comic cover



For Jeff Vandermeer's "Shriek". You can see the final here with Jeff, but I'll post it myself later too.

And some progress shots from a page from some upcoming Wormwood...

My new pet

Is starting to smell.

His name is "Rob".

Octopus juice. I don't recommend getting too much of it on your hands.

Still, nothing beats tentacle ref. No doubt you'll be seeing more of "Rob" real soon.

Vids for the weekend.

"I'm afraid the Jews were right. "



Nigerian TV. Ignore British narrator who also needs medication.



Kuato sings Chocolate Rain.

My Wormwood Cameo

Yeah, Wormwood: Segue to Destruction from IDW Publishing is out ( yay! ) and it marks my first ( and perhaps not last ) appearance in a comic book. ( We'll ignore the CSI comic I was in as that wasn't *looking like me* all that much...at least not enough to serve my Brachiosaurus sized vanity apparently.)

So yeah. Frustrated and pissed and at the bar. Typical Ben Templesmith I'd say. ( despite the fact I'm usually just chained to the drawing desk and survive on coffee )

Ladies and Gents...

Baroque Starwars. By the very awesome, Mattias Adolfsson. I always find these things late.

The Stranger

Have I posted this before? Looking through my artfiles for a job and took a trip down memory lane. There's a whole set of these.

The Stranger, probably, in all honesty, my favourite character from the movie overall. Not least, because of Mr Foster.

Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday from Gestalt

Gestalt= Perth Publisher=damn good=good comics=repo man=Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday.

Plus, my pal Mr Justin Randall ( recently of 30 Days of Night stuff ) has a hand in it.

If you ever liked the cult film Repo Man, Gestalt are doing the official sequel to it. "Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday", in Comicbook form. You can even pre-order it on Amazon.

Illustrators and Facebook

Good article about being wary of uploading your art to that place from Anna Goodson...

Facebook - Illustrators “ be -a –ware”

“When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. Facebook does not assert any ownership over your User Content; rather, as between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms, you retain full ownership of all of your User Content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your User Content."
So that said, basically anything that is posted on Facebook can be used or sold by them to anyone. Yes, you do retain full ownership but you automatically grant the usage over to them.

Yeah, I'm on Facebook, but barely. I can do without the zombie biting and movie quiz triviality of it all. Sorry. I can only handle so many tedious networking sites. I get invites to new ones all the time, but I should warn you, I won't be joining. Sorry. Too much work. Will be sticking with Myspace ( yeah, with all it's flaws it's vaguely useful ) Blogger and Livejournal on the website and real actual email. Trying my best to have a little bit of a "life" these days too.

Cheers to the Drawn! blog for the article too.

Wormwood: Segue to Destruction...

Will apparently be out December 12th. ( At least in the US. ) So if you're so inclined, look for it around then, or ask why they didn't get it in if you have to. ;)

Your vid for the weekend.

An oldie, but a goodie.

Wormwood Calamari Rising 1 of 4 is done. ( And Fell #9 )

A little late, due to certain once in a lifetime things that got in the way. This issue will hopefully be the most fun you've had with your pants on in years. Or not. Who am I to judge your lifestyles?

Now, back to those covers and illos I promised people this week.

No, I haven't neglected my emails at aaaall. I will get to them shortly. All 50 that need answering ASAP. Sigh.

Who do I know in Turkey? ( the country, not the bird, though I have stories, oh yes...) and Switzerland?

Currently on the work desk 53

I'll get to emails soon. Just swamped.

Enough Jibber Jabber

Here's some art. From the upcoming Wormwood Gentleman Corpse: Segue to Destruction oneshot, out this month.

This book will actually break the internet into fifths.

Got a new Govt today.

So hopefully I can stop apologizing for my country when next overseas. This one will hopefully take us into the 21st century, rather than back to the 19th like the old one did. No more denying global warming, womens and gay rights. No more clueless retard old men who think the internet is for kids and not commerce " so why would we want it faster?". No more blatant race politics, no more signing away our sovereignty to BS wars. No more deporting legal Australian citizens because they're not white. No more nutjobs trying to make public education only for the rich. No more blatant political appointments to govt bodies now made up of close friends and other cronies to the former PM. No more strangling of the Australian arts, film and tv funding...

Yeah, I could go on. Truth is these guys will probably be almost as bad as the last ones. Almost.

Within this group of new ministers, you have an openly gay lesbian Chinese woman. A rock star from Midnight Oil. A guy from our special forces, the SAS who can kill you just by looking in your direction, a TV journalist who defeated the Prime Minister in his own seat, a woman who's the youngest member of Parliament at 30 and the rest of the usual riff raff of 50 something old white men and women.

It's going to be odd not being angry and annoyed at the people in charge. Well, for at least the first 5 minutes before these ones stuff it up too.

A vid for the weekend

Because sleep wins.

Currently on the work desk 52

You really don't want to know.

It is now friday night.

Currently trying to finish 14 pages, many of which you can see strewn about the desk here. Another thing I tend to do is literally throw my pens around when I'm finished with one and need another, creating a nice mess.

Really busy, so won't be able to devote the several hours needed to all the emails I need to get to until these damn things are done!

Fell #9, you bloody end tonight or I die trying.







And...some much needed inspiration, to remind me how good some people are, and how far I have yet to go. Picked this up in France, thanks to the amazing people at Album, and dammit, the French have some of the best art I've ever seen in books like this.

Currently on the work desk 51

No time no time. Just work work work right now.

Yes, first ones are some raw FELL pages.



Work journal page layouts.



half done Wormwood

Sketching Videos

...or more accurately, " How to draw badly at a convention real quick"

From Salon du Valenciennois last week, thanks to Comicbox.com

CB Live Ben Templesmith 2
Uploaded by comicboxlive

CB Live Ben Templesmith 1
Uploaded by comicboxlive

The sketch post...

Yes, despite all the drinking and fun times in France, I actually worked a lot. It seemed expected there that you do rather good sketches, for free ( well I pretty much always do them for free anyway ) but all up I must have done over 100 "decent" sketches, and used up most of my pens by the final signing. It was actually a lot of work. Here's a few that I remembered to grab photos of, or that I considered photo worthy. Oh and Warren, based on my anecdotal evidence over there, FELL seemed hugely popular. ( It's just that the sketches of Fell were pretty generic and boring so there's none here )

After this, back to work. Yes, I know I have a lot of email to catch up on, and deadlines. Wormwood will undoubtedly be a bit behind because of all the recent travel, so from here until X-mas it will be pretty much nonstop work blog. Do you guys prefer straight work blog or more "doco of the life of idiot Templesmith and his travels"? Let me know one way or the other I guess.I consider my work my life so it's all relevant.

FELL nearly done with #9.

Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse, Calamari Rising well on the way.

Deadspace....starting soon.

Some big new projects I have planned...starting soon too.

And now, the sketches...

The alcohol post.

Mostly because I apparently have a reputation to uphold, and because it may be of interest to alcoholics, but here's a bunch of the booze I was consuming while there. I dunno, perhaps Warren will find it amusing. There's about 20 bottles of Heinekin and Amstel missing though, and a couple bottles of Champagne. Not bad for 5 days I think. I was in France, so I was going to get as much wine as I could, what can I say. Most of it was excellent. If this bores you I have some of the sketches I did for people up next...

Album know how to treat you well. VERY well.



This was in Caen. Yes, it's in an orange juice bottle because it's home brew. Made from apples apparently, and about 70% proof ( though they "mature" it and bring it down to 50% ) Forget the french name of it unfortunately, but it's like drinking rocket fuel to me...so...not too much of this one for me.



I got to enjoy the way the French do coffee. Short sharp shots of the stuff.



Jim Mahfood insisted on being in this one.