Vertigo Comics

For those of you who haven't got a copy of 'Preacher - Dead or just kidding' collected covers by (ahem) me, (oh and Garth Ennis) I was told by a guy at San Diego convention that this summed up his feelings about his Catholic childhood. I had similar feelings since I was made to go to church from an early age (5) and can still remember the vicar saying 'this is the greatest story ever told'. Come on! No sex, apart from a bit of foot washing (!?!) and he gets killed in the end.

Also that bit when they say 'God always knows what you are thinking just made me think 'Jesus is a bastard - oops-sorry God, sorry - Jesus is a git - sorry, sorry!' whenever I ended up in church.

Saint of Killers #4

Vertigo Comics

One of the problem with using a mirror to do faces and hands is that at one stage or another you are going to have to draw the hand that holds the pen.

Unless you can be assed to get two mirrors (beyond my budget!) and spend ages lining them to get the angle and the light right, you have to look at your hand, drop the gun, pick up the pen, forget what you've seen, drop the pen, pick up the gun etc. etc.

No photo's don't work.

Preacher #18

Vertigo Comics

One of my best ones, and oh so easy to do!

Pick up your Zippo lighter.

Hold it in your left hand. Draw it.

Find a photo of a Vietnam helipcopter.

Copy it.

And I made up the rest, so the guns don't look exactly like the real Vietnam ones, I'm afraid.

One of my top five.

Preacher #3

Vertigo Comics

One of the things about being an artist or illustrator is that you are never short of a model if you have a mirror (the wise words of Rolf Harris).

I do use a mirror to do faces, expressions and little bits of method acting that I end up drawing.

Cassidy doesn't look like me exactly though. He's got better hair and teeth and his stubble goes all the way round his jawline.

I couldn't manage sideburns with all the best will in the world

Preacher #9

Vertigo Comics

This one was a good one - I'd put it in my top five Preacher paintings.

It was also the last one that I designed without any of Garth's little sketches coming through the fax (thumbnail designs for the covers).

Actually that's not true, there were two or three others. It's just at this point the scripts weren't written, and Steve hadn't done done any interior work: all there was was Garth's knowledge of what he was going to be writing about.

Preacher #40

Vertigo Comics

Arseworld is one of my favourite Preacher covers and also the kind of thing that you can't find any reference for (outside a map of the world).

Garth always wanted a poster of this one.

Preacher #1

Vertigo Comics

As I think I mentioned in my book 'Dead or Alive -The Collected Monkey Splicings of Des Lynam' this was the first painting I did after my 20-or-so run on Hellblazer that I was happy with.

I had this theory about painting at the time, that I'd keep on improving for 6 or 7 months then hit a kind of plateau, and then more improvements would start occurring and my artwork would gradually spiral upwards after another 6 months and so on. I thought that this one would be one of many new pieces that I would be happy with, since the last 5 or 6 Hellblazer's were a bit stale.

It didn't actually work out like that - after this it was like, one good one, one crap one for a while. I still put in all the effort I could on every piece, but the end results were variable. I think I was suffering from creative burnout, a sort of visual writers block.

Preacher #16

Vertigo Comics

This ends up getting reprinted in every magazine or newspaper article about Preacher, every interview with Garth, and even the ones in the local paper (the Brighton Evening Argus) with me.

I never get a credit for it, apart from in the Argus.

(sound of wailing and rending cloth).

Preacher #5

Vertigo Comics

I swapped this with Jason Brashill for a 'Megazine' cover about two months before Simon Powell (the guy that buys my paintings showed up, and as a consequence Simon has all the Preacher covers but this one.

I've tried twice to swop it back but no go. Also, Jason's doing very well in computer games right now, so it looks like he's keeping it.

Preacher #32

Vertigo Comics

I couldn't find any pictures of people wrapped up in snakes to use as reference for this so I just had to make it up.

Those snakes were a complete bugger to do, took me ages, and the week after I sent it off there was a huge photo spread on Bizarre' magazine of snake worshippers in Haiti which would have been invaluable.

It's always the way!