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Comics Archive

Comic strips by Ste, drawn while not making video games

I always wanted to be a Comic Artist as a kid - more than an Astronaut or a Train Driver, or even a Video Game Developer. I'd spend hours and hours in my teens sat with a drawing board across my lap, drawing my own 2000ad inspired SF and superhero comic strips, and publishing my own comic fanzines.

I wasn't especially good - never good enough to be a professional - and I had some brilliant rejection letters from the likes of Viz (a massive pink A4 REJECTION slip) and 2000ad (a nice letter from Tharg telling me to practice more) in response to the terrible, badly drawn strips I sent in on spec. I also somehow got into a long correspondance with the brilliant David Lloyd, who was the head of the Society Of Strip Illustration at the time, who gave me loads of encouragement and advice, for which I'm forever grateful.

I always presumed I'd get good enough if I practiced enough, but video games came along when I was 15 or 16, and there was far less competition in video game graphics. It was much easier to be a very good video game artist, so comics fell by the wayside as I started my career instead.

Drawing little comic strips is just a hobby now, and this page collects together all the bits and pieces I've blogged about on this website.

Ste Pickford, January 2012

Plok The Exploding Man

The regular Plok comic strip I do with my brother John has its own website, so you can view all the published strips over there.

Project Joy

This is a series of little comic strips I started a few years back, while feeling a bit miserable and wanting to cheer myself up. They're just one page gags mainly, all drawn in a single A5 sized sketchbook, then scanned and coloured in Photoshop. I enjoy the process of colouring them in, although the colouring often takes me as long as the actual drawing.

Game related

Every now and then I end up drawing little comic strips for game concept pitches, or to explain how to play bits of a game.

Although I enjoy making comics, and enjoy making games, I rarely enjoy making comics to do with games for some reason. Almost all of these bits and bobs for game pitches or tips were really difficult to do - like pulling teeth - and it probably shows in the quality.

Miscellaneous

Here some other random comics that I blogged for one reason or another. Some are comics done with my friend Paul. I've got loads of other bits and pieces which I should get round to blogging about one day.

In the Press

This section is supposed to be for any comics related stuff I've had published, but the only things that I've blogged about are appearences that John and I have made in the brilliant 2000ad comic.

 

We are The Pickford Bros, veteran independent video game designers based in the UK.