I have something a little bit different for December, it is the true story of a young Arctic fox, who was observed for several months moving only in small circles on their home on Spitsbergen, an island on the Svalbard Archipelago. The fox was near to a glacier, most probably where she was born. Then the researchers monitoring her recorded the fox bounding across one third of the Arctic Circle to Ellesmere Island Canada via Greenland, a distance of 4415 km. The fox would have crossed paths with other wildlife and natural phenomenon that have been carefully documented independently by researchers. So this month's note is piecing together these details to give a little sketch of this unfamiliar and revealing place and to finish off the year I made a card to download showing the fox's journey as a simple game.
Satellite data shows the fox began to explore at the start of March 2018 when the North Polar sea ice is at its widest. The cold is the effect of the Earth's tilt away from the Sun almost completely in previous months so that the faint light comes from below the horizon or from the aurora chemical reactions in the atmosphere, this cold reverberates through the ice bridging Arctic circle lands. The separate isles of the Svalbard Archipelago fuse as the growing ice fills the gaps of brine water and the multi-year ice grows thicker. Within the salted sea water a beautiful thing happens, through the pressure and extreme cold affecting the complex salts in the sea crystals of cryogenic gypsum form, some forms are fine needles, some large and solid, some are entangled in algae filament, from hyaline and matt, the crystals are a world of their own, all within the Nansen Basin North of Svalbard.
The fox headed North to an ice-free coastal shore on the 11th March 2018 around Raudfjorden and then after adjusting her path she hit open water again near Woodfjorden on the 16th March. These fjords would be home to Arctic krill, a darting and nimble crustacean that has been studied in nearby fjords because of the krill's delicate sensitivity to light. Throughout the world species of Krill follow a daily migration up and down the water column. At the water's surface the krill feed on photosynthesising plankton and then they experience the deeper waters of the seabed with their own gentle bioluminescence running the length of their bodies. This vertical migration is thought to be in response to the daily cycles of sunrise and sunset however during the Polar Night these fjords and their inhabitants experience only twilight, and so it is unclear if the migration is present in these tiny Polar creatures. Researchers found that indeed there was vertical migration where the krill, sensitive through their bodies and in particular their eyes to the most subtle of light changes around the polar twilight, travel through the full spectrum of the sea's light and life forms. The Arctic fox changed direction at this point, crossing the Northern part of Spitsbergen from West to East, where, on 26 March 2018, she met ice-covered sea for the first time and left Spitsbergen. The sea ice forms a solid running ground for the few animals with the endurance to cross it and the rewards are potential of greater genetic spread for their species. The fox's route turned Northward and then Westward on this ice sheet, towards North Greenland which she reached 21 days on the 16th of April 2018.
As the fox crosses Northern Greenland she would encounter, in the extreme frost, spouts of the Arctic willow or Salix arctica which typically grows to only 15 cm high in this setting but spreads, extremely slowly, to form a carpet and this willow would be simply flowering. The catkins of the female Arctic willow are fluffy white and tipped in red and they can have hundreds of individual flowers and the flowers can produce many minute seeds in fruit capsules that split in two at the top, each half recurving. The Arctic willow shrub can survive the winter of extreme cold and grow at the first signs of warmth each year, a characteristic that makes it unique to other tree-life.
From Greenland the fox circled upwards to Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, arriving on the 10th June 2018, just 76 days after leaving Spitsbergen. What would it be like, here, at the fox's journey end? On Ellesmere Island, the Northern most Island in the Canadian Archipelago, the fluffy Arctic bumblebee or bombus polaris would be pollinating newly grown yellow Arctic poppies as they turn towards the sunlight. The Arctic bumblebee has a thick coat of hair, more so than other bees and makes insulated nests to protect themselves from the winter temperature drops. The ocean ice that bridged the land to make the fox's journey possible is slowly retreating and the crystals that formed from the complex sea salts through the extreme pressure and cold of ice formation are melting back into the ocean with the exception of crystals of cryogenic gypsum that form lasting shards that remain solid as they fall through the sea, taking marine snow to the sea bed with them.
As promised here is the card in PFD format to download showing the fox's journey as a dot-to-dot game. Enjoy!
On the drawing front this month I've been concentrating on learning some techniques in perspective for my Adventures of Stilton story especially. I've been diligently following online tutorials and just trying some strategies to make interesting spaces and objects in those spaces and already these new techniques are improving my life. There are cool little tricks that just work because lines cross over each other and mark a point that would be laborious to measure. I'm sure I'll want describe more in the future when I have processed it more.
I held off learning about perspective until now because of the overhead of learning something new. Instead I was existing in a state of indeterminacy where your not happy with your work and you hope maybe something will just give. Except in this case it didn't until I took the initiative to skill up. I guess there is a fear that learning something new will change some nice innocent quality you had or sometimes you just don't like the feeling of doing something by a rule. I remember learning about writing to beats years ago and explaining this to an artist. I explained that there were these beat sheets of a basic story broken down into tiny parts and you could fashion your own story into this framework, thinking of it in detail but knowing it has a larger point and the artist just rejected the whole idea outright, as if there was something natural in stories that would be lost forever. I don't stick strictly to beats when I write usually, but I do think about structure and patterning and framing much more because I learned about that way of storytelling and that has become a huge part of the pleasure of writing for me.
Which brings me to what I wanted to share this month: the story of how one of my favourite stories I have written came about. It starts a few years ago when my nephew was about five years old and he didn't want to go to bed because, well, there are millions of reasons not to aren't there? I got the idea that I could make my nephew and my niece who was about four at the time, a book that was a little joke between us: a book that would send you to sleep. The Snooze Paper was born. "Having trouble sleeping? Try reading this!" was the strapline on the front cover. The first page of the first Snooze Paper was a true story that I really love about a seed that was discovered in Siberia that was preserved by the permafrost in an ancient squirrel burrow since the seeds formation in the ice age. The scientists who discovered the seed of the variety Silene stenophylla, then grew it and it flowered in such a beautiful way that I included a picture of the flower from the scientific paper along with the explanation of its origin which reads like a little poetic story. A pleasing start to the Snooze Paper that ran for the exact number of years it took before my niece and nephew had no problem going to bed.
Cut to more recently, when, I thought for a story that maybe a newspaper reporter could follow unusual discoveries that are chained together so one leads to the other, until all the rareness just feels ordinary. I also thought, in contrast, about the way kids are telling stories through their phones, videos and games, and with all this technology they just want to show you their shoe collection. It's children's desire to show you things that are massive in their world but trivial in anyone else's that is a great contrast to a reporter who is focused on what is extraordinary.
To inspire me to write interconnected news stories for my fictional reporter to report I researched 'and finally' stories that are told at the end of news programs. I found that there are many 'and finally' stories about letters that took decades to deliver from far away countries. I also noticed the story of a rare to the UK Golden Oriole bird that was rescued by a school cleaner. There was another story about a rare flower found on a electric substation, and there was the discovery of a decades-old lesson found on a hidden blackboard and a cat that stole their neighbour's sausages.
I liked that there could be a connection between the Golden Oriole and the decades old undelivered letter. I thought there could be a children's drawing of a Golden Oriole in the rare letter. So the clue to knowing where the letter could come from was connected with the Golden Oriole bird's migration path, assuming that the letter sender would draw a bird familiar to them to share with someone far away. The Golden Oriole birds summer in Europe and the Palearctic and spend their winter season in Central and Southern Africa. I loved the idea that the letter could come from an African country as some of the natural habitats these birds could winter include the Cape Floristic Kingdom and the Cuvette Centrale depression in the central Congo Basin. In such ecologically rich settings there might be a link to another news report for my fictional reporter.
Then a new 'and finally' story made the news. A church at Whitttlesford was unveiling a new stained glass window. The commissioned stained glass artist described on their website how they had worked with local people to come up with window design. I lived near to Whittlesford, so I walked to the church and as the sun shone through the stained glass I saw a picture of village life light up, surround by vibrant birds and flowers. It occurred to me I could have a church window in my story as the Golden Oriole bird would look brilliant in stained glass, and I could also have a rare flower on the window and make another link to another 'and finally' story. I could choose the rare flower at the electricity substation to be shown on the window or, it hit me, I could use the flower of the seed from Siberia that I had on the first page of the first Snooze Paper. Of course I want to use the Siberian seed story.
So I had a little puzzle on my hands: I had a story with a stained glass window which shows an ancient seed's newly grown flower along with a Golden Oriole bird and also I had in my story a laughably late delivered letter with a drawing of a Golden Oriole bird in it and I would be a fine trick to find a way to satisfyingly link between the ancient Siberian flower and the letter to give the story a circular structure. Then it occurred to me that commemorative stamps often show special regional flowers to celebrate ecological heritage. So the stamp on the late letter could have a flower on it, a flower in some way connected to the one on the church window. I searched archives of South African stamps with flowers and other Central to Southern African countries flower stamps, I considered the oldest plant life found in Africa and found some great stories but none that interconnected with the ones I had picked for my fictional reporter. Then I realised that the Siberian flower is from a set of species of the Caryophyllaceae family which is known less formally as the pink family or carnation. What if there was a flower from the pink family where the Golden Oriole might winter? The Caryophyllaceae family is known to have a cosmopolitan distribution meaning that it extends across most or all of the surface of the Earth in appropriate habitats. Then I discovered the Thunberg's wild pink, which is a member of the Caryophyllaceae family indigenous to the South Western Cape of South Africa where it occurs on rocky slopes from Swellendam in the Western Cape, Eastwards into the Eastern Cape Province, which is also a not unusual site for the wintering Golden Oriole. Bingo! I had finally connected enough parts of my story to meet my own satisfaction.
In the end I wrote a tale about two children who became unintentional detectives of their own story, caught up in something that starts with opening a letter that arrived at their house but wasn't addressed to them but a previous occupier from years ago, and letting the information and the technology they have at their hands work together. I was happy with how nicely interconnected the story was and how it was full of nature and themes of 'the way things move around the globe' and 'things preserved in time'. If you would like to read the final story just email me and eventually I'll find a nice way to share it more widely.
Also, while writing this note, I have noticed that the rare flower found in the electricity substation was also a member of the Caryophyllaceae family, so the story connections could have worked in a different way in another run of reality and the substation flower along with the old blackboard lesson and the sausage stealing cat could have made it into the story.
The story I'm creating about a group of mice that has them, at various points, explore a factory making a breakfast cereal like Wheatabix ®, and a home with an exercise area and where food is prepared with scrupulous attention to hygiene, and a home in that home for the mice, and a desolate landscape by the sea with an ice cream van and tins of sardines scattered in the gutter, and little glimmers of inedible nature, and a bee's eye view of these settings, and an office in the Wheatabix-like factory, and a street cleaner. So a lots of settings for me to conjure up.
As an exercise I copied a Milt Gross cartoon from The Kilroys issue number six called Kiddy Katty-Korner, because it had lots of ways of having a story inside another story (which my mouse story also has) and some good little tricks to having a setting. Copying meant I didn't have to think of composing a scene or how many panels to draw on a page or where to put them, I didn't have to think about the balance of speed and pleasure as you do when you draw your own things. I just drew what Milt Gross had decided on to see how it felt. I see Milt Gross as a draughtsman who had a wide understanding of art and was throwing together drawings like they were jokes, which they were. For example he draws characters in the Kiddy Katty-Korner comic standing on a coloured diamond of carpet from the point of view that you are looking downward. It reminds me of the medieval artists who drew saintly figures with just a square of stone beneath their feet for example in The Codex Aureus of Lorsch or The Saint-Sever Beatus. In these cases there is a trust that the viewer knows where this character is and in the case of Kiddy Katty-Korner we know the children are in school but their imaginations are taking them into new settings that are surrounded in a little pattern to distinguish it as unique to them.
The mouse story I'm drawing is partly about the innocence of being in places for the first time and trying to make sense of them. I am drawing it with a sort of innocence like I'm seeing for the first time funny things and want to share them, drawing a big scramble of things all busy in the way things seem very overwhelming when they are new, drawing with little aside details to share some story background, trying stretched out perspective to fits lots in, but also trusting that, when it is needed, I can use a little short hand for the places. It's all an adventure.
Next month I would like to share the making of a short story I have written recently.
This note is about drawing character sheets. For me a character sheet is, ideally, one sheet of paper with the same character in different positions, with different expressions and from different angles along with little rules or notes about how this character can be drawn. It is a way of finding out what it feels like to draw a character repeatedly and so there is jeopardy: it could surprise me now much I find to enjoy or it could fall apart because a character is more fiddly than they first seemed. Sometimes a character is just great to draw and it makes me laugh or I am charmed with how they curl up or sniff or scratch or stretch. Sometimes you have a great silhouette on paper and then how they move in a three dimensional space becomes a bit of a game. That is the character sheet test.
I have a mouse character called sprout and it is so simple, just dots for eyes and a ball for a head and a little black nose is all it is, and the the ears are just a wiggle that I draw quickly. It is a barely there mouse and I just love drawing it. The wiggle ears vary a bit each time which works within a surprisingly big range of different wiggles but sometimes I have to redraw them and the eye position to nose can't drift too much. There is something about the string arms and legs and ball for a body that is just easy and fun.
Another mouse character that I call Perkins has a body that, as I was drawing the character sheet, just started to move like a hinge, because the top of their head and nose sort of form one point that widens to attached to their body and that goes on to form another point where their tail begins. They hinge between their head and body. Then it became a question of how wide or closed I can have this hinge and the answer is there are no limits, it all works very pleasingly.
Then I have a mouse character that came out of the marbling that I described in a the note for August 2025. It is just a wiggle for a body that I just dashed a long thin snout to and it moves really well somehow on character sheets. I had a different body shape for my main character called Stilton, but this wiggle body character is so much more fun to draw than what I first planned that it has sort of won the title role.
Next month I will describe some of the settings for the Stilton adventure comic I'm drawing and some of the perspective techniques I'm playing with.
Putting together a comic about a group of mice means you find yourself imagining what mouse-life would be like. They are all just creatures in the world: delicate, vulnerable, aware of many dangers and so there is a question that must turn up again and again, a question that is forced upon us all: what is your mouse style? That is, how far do you come out of your hole? Most mice would probably pick Only As Far As Needed (OFAN). But some more daring or curious or carefree mice might pick a style of As Far As Possible (AFAP). Every mouse must answer the question of their style through their actions and these actions will have consequences.
As the mice work through their 'mouse style' in the story it raises the question of how each mouse is styled to look in this comic? There are twelve characters at the heart of this adventure and each needs to have a distinct silhouette separate from any of the other mice no matter how it moves or could be imagined to move. It is beautiful to see how other comic artists solve these problems.
For me, making distinct characters involves a little playtime. One activity is to use a marbling kit where you drip brightly coloured oily paint into a bowl of water and swirl it and then lay paper on the water's surface to soak up the paint floating and making swirling blobbed shapes. Those paint shapes suggest character's body outlines or movements. Another game is to use an IBM Flowcharting Template which I find is listed by the Smithsonian Institution of Museums as a historic artefact. The shapes on the template are all really great and combined with a Spirograph ® you can enjoy very nice afternoons playing the game of filling a page with whatever shapes feel good and then seeing which look twitchy and sniffy and mouse-like if you add a nose or some ears or paws. After lots of tries, in the end, I'm happy with the twelve characters I've settled upon, they are distinct silhouettes and each seems to work to at least interest me. The next step is to draw character sheets which I'll describe in the note for September 2025.
Surrounded by the green mountain tops of the Peak District, the town of Macclesfield hosts a vibrant comic art festival called MACC-POW. This year I was there on Saturday 28th of June and found that Macclesfield town hall was packed with cartoonists exhibiting their work. Basically this comic conference meant a lot to me because 1. I saw people making work they seem to love 2. I never expected someone to pitch me their story as I passed by their table but I absolutely loved it when they did and so, of course, now I practice pitching my stories. 3. there were people with that entrepreneurial attitude that is so necessary and yet so difficult to cultivate when you spend your life hoping that being good at things will be enough to make a living.
Also I loved the fun touches like the comic chat show with the specially commissioned chat show music and the comic quiz. The MACC-POW festival is organised by Marc Jackson who ended the day by awarding Lew Stringer a custom made small toy in the image of Lew as a mark of appreciation for his support and talent.
Other nice memories are: Joshua J Knowles with an easel behind his exhibitors table showing pencilled intricately piped worlds, kids with tote bags stuffed with brightly coloured comics and at the very end of the day the cartoonists with their wheeled bags heading for the train station and knowing that each bag was full of their unique work that might to anybody else look like just any other wheelie bag.
It is my dream beyond a dream to have a table at such an event and share my comic wares, but all in good time. That is what these notes and this website are about: making that dream real, getting practical and making comics that I love.