Oot The Digger

I recently finished a really fascinating project working with men who have been through the Scottish prisons.  Part of the project involved a set of collaborations between three of these men and three different artists to create comic book stories that shared their experiences of getting out of prison.  The resulting publication was called 'Oot the Digger', prison slang for being out of solitary confinement.

Hearing their stories, these guys face really difficult odds in finding a stable footing on their way out.  It is tragically easy for them to get dragged back into drugs and crime when they face homelessness, a dearth of work and very little support that they trust on re-entering society.  This kind of cycle serves no one, and the project's work was to explore what these men thought would help them stay straight and get back on their feet.  All too often voices like these are ignored, the belief being that people who have been through that kind of thing are not qualified to judge what would help them. In fact the opposite seems true.

100 Days Project, 1,050 days later...

Day 89 of 100.

  If someone asked me what the one thing that kickstarted my career making comics, I'd have to say without a doubt that it was my involvement in the 'Hundred Days Project'.

Set up by comedian Josie Long, the project ran from December 1st 2009 through to March 10th 2010.  For those one hundred days each person pledged to the project had to do one thing once a day that would hopefully make them a better person.  Some took up an exercise or a craft, learnt a new word, made more of an effort to talk to strangers, or deleted a friend from Facebook(!).  Many others took on a creative project, writing poetry or taking photos.  I chose to create a daily webcomic.

Solipsistic Pop 5

I've been busy working on my contribution to the latest edition of UK comics anthology Solipsistic Pop.  Editor Tom Humberstone has always collected together some of the most interesting UK based comic artists for his curated anthology, which this time round is an anthology of journalistic non-fiction and reportage.  It's going to be a fascinating read when it comes out - a timely collection of comics from the growing field of non-fiction and journalistic comics.

My own piece is on the impending vote on Scottish independence.  It was admittedly very hard to write for me, a task that took me so far out of my comfort zone I was squirming for weeks as I made it.  Hopefully it will stand up to what will no doubt be a really high standard of reportage from the other contributors, which include non-fiction pros such as Darryl Cunningham and Tom Humberstone.

Solipsistic Pop 5 is out later this year, and will be available to buy from www.solipsisticpop.com