I just thought you guys would like to know that a British comic artist named Martin Griffiths recently contacted us, with an e-mail that MannyF forwarded to me. Martin contacted us to comment on having seen the material that Tim Perkins donated to our Original Comic Art Gallery - the reason for this is because Martin is one of the definitive artists on the UK ThunderCats comic, I would go so far as to say that he contributed more to it than any other artist, and many of the pieces we have hosted here are pages of Martin’s pencils that Tim inked!
But there’s more! In the same e-mail, Martin very generously offered to donate some more of his artwork material to our Original Comic Art Gallery!! I contacted him yesterday morning and have exchanged a large number of e-mails with him since that time, whereby he has already sent me 11 pages of artwork for display! He uses a Mac and so I had to ask Kyle to access some of these images for me, which he did earlier today - Kyle Lambert = legend!
I’m in the process of putting this material into webpages (although they will still need watermarking - watch out for a PM from me on this subject, MannyF my friend! ;)), although I have to go out for the evening very shortly and so this is not likely to be completed until tomorrow. However, I wanted to give you guys an example of what makes some of this material so exciting, because it actually shows us some pages of ThunderCats artwork in varying stages of production!
Once I’ve built the pages (at least pending watermarks), I’ll post up the links here. This has really made my week, so hope you guys enjoy this news as much as I did!!
EDIT: Oh yes, and just to add that Martin has agreed to take part in an e-mail interview for publication on this site - expect that to be underway very soon!
Thanks guys! I definitely think this is a hugely exciting development for the site, and agree with you, Manny - we have so much right now to be positive about as a team! More exclusive comic art, the Episode Guide together, the forthcoming interview with the TCats movie director - it’s all coming together! But, it wouldn’t be the same without each other to share this stuff with!
LOL, to be honest Manny my friend, in terms of site work I’ve spent too much of this year taking a breather - I need to come up with some good stuff to make up for my lack of contribution throughout the earlier part of this year! :oops: Stuff like this, plus seeing the Episode Guide rocketing along thanks to Kyle, Manny and Angie’s help, really helps to inspire me and get me psyched up for the challenges ahead!
Holy double post, Batman! OK gang, I’ve now completed and uploaded the pages showcasing all the artwork I’ve received from Martin Griffiths so far - here are all the individual pages:
If you click on the images on each of those pages, each one should take you to a large, uber-detailed version!
These pages are almost ready to actually go live on the site! However, there are a couple of things that need doing before that, and for this I need help from you guys!
I’ve whipped up a new index page for this section of the gallery, with new thumbnails added for all of these pieces. For now I’ve named it “index2” and left the original index in place, obviously when we announce it this will be altered. I have to say, doing the HTML for this was a long job, took me about 2 hours - at one point I made a mistake and had to go back to the beginning and start again because I couldn’t find what I’d done wrong! So, if someone could please take a look at this link and check that it displays for them OK, that would be very much appreciated:
I’ve checked it myself and it looks fine, but nonetheless if a couple of folks (perhaps including Kyle, as he’s a Mac user) could see how it works and displays and click on a couple of random links, that would help me out a lot!
All of the images (both the ones that load with each page, and the larger version you can access by clicking on the image) need watermarking. If possible, I’d like them done so that they match the other pieces in the UK gallery - i.e., a watermark in this style:
Hey Manny, that sucks that you had to reformat your hard drive - I know what a huge pain these things can be, sometimes it can be long days before it’s all back how you want it! If you could get those done for me when you can that would be absolutely excellent, but don’t worry if it takes you a bit longer, I completely understand!
EDIT: Just a big heads-up to let you guys know that one of the links I posted above will no longer work, as I renamed the page - Martin sent me a piece that he claimed was a “fill-in” page, i.e. a page that was used to keep the story pages in a UK issue to a certain number when reprinting a US story. I had no idea what story it could have been as there were very few that featured Vultureman, and now I know why - because Martin’s memory is playing tricks on him! I’ve now discovered that the page in question actually ended up being used as page 3 of the UK ThunderCats #86, and so I’ve created this new page (and deleted the old one) accordingly:
Awesome news, Kyle my friend - thank you so much! I’ve been working on ThunderCats stuff like mad today, as have been on my own and so wanted to utilise the peace and quiet - sadly nothing new for the Episode Guide but a few other bits and pieces for the Comic Section!
Holy double post, Batman! (One day I’ll have to stop saying that…)
Just to let you guys know that Manny very kindly watermarked the artwork images for me, and now all of the pages I’ve built for showcasing Martin Griffiths’ artwork should now bear watermarks. I’ve also made some minor corrections to the descriptive text for some of the pieces!
I’ve also begun conducting an e-mail interview with Martin for publication on the site - about 50% of my questions have been asked so far, with more to follow he says by Monday at the latest. He’s given some really fantastic responses, it’s brilliant stuff!
In the same e-mail, Martin very generously offered to donate some more of his artwork material to our Original Comic Art Gallery!! I contacted him yesterday morning and have exchanged a large number of e-mails with him since that time, whereby he has already sent me 11 pages of artwork for display! He uses a Mac and so I had to ask Kyle to access some of these images for me, which he did earlier today - Kyle Lambert = legend! 
If you could get those done for me when you can that would be absolutely excellent, but don’t worry if it takes you a bit longer, I completely understand! 