Everything I draw ends up wearing a bow-tie

Anonymous asked: is that Arpin Lusene in the foreground of that picture on the right?

anon I am dumbfounded and utterly impressed that you spotted that

Anonymous asked: Okay, wow, it took me a really long time to hear this, but England is actually going through with the Brexit. You're from the UK, right? If not, sorry to bother then, but if you are, I'm just wondering what you think about all this.

I am utterly embarrassed, appalled, ashamed, and every doom that comes down upon our colossally stupid country for this has been earned throughout history, and yet I still wish it wasn’t happening. The people who will suffer the most from it are undoubtedly the ones who deserve it the least, and I just hope we can pull together to survive and reverse it (although frankly if I was the EU there wouldn’t be any sympathy like what the actual fuck England)

Anonymous asked: German fan here and honestly I really hope some of the Ducktales team see your doodle comics! partly because it might give them a sense of how integrated Gladstone is in a lot of our childhoods and hearts in a much bigger sense than the Barks comics allow for- not that they are bad I adore his comics, but I fear they may be mistakenly limiting character potential due to loyalty

Oh gosh, thanks man I don’t know if they will/have or what I’d make of it if they did, but I do feel the same way. Carl Barks material is absolutely wonderful and I’ll not say a word against him or his stories, but I do agree that there could be a severe pitfall awaiting writers in not allowing for any evolution or emotional development of characters outside of his works. Having said that we don’t really know yet what the new Ducktales take is going to be on Gander or any of the characters, and while a cautious optimism may be best I don’t want to go anticipating it with a negative attitude. Right now I’m just expecting it to be ‘its own thing’, and whatever happens I’m excited for the new show and hope the team making it are having a good time!

Anonymous asked: Okay so I finished reading the Life and Times of SMcD and I gotta say I never expected to cry over this money-diving duck

Oh boy well lemme tell you anon, if you’re all caught up on that I have to recommend you also read one of my absolute favourites of all Scrooge comics- which is entirely based around the Life and Times; it’s called The Dream of a Lifetime (D 2002-033), again is by Don Rosa, is brutal on the emotions as well as being hilarious, and has some of the best uses of comic format I’ve seen.

Anonymous asked: Hi Mod! Just wanted to let you know: I absolutely love how you depict sword fighting in TPatJ. I've been doing HEMA for several years now and in my opinion you have captured the movements and the dynamic of it very well. Great work!

!!! that is extremely gratifying, I did a lot of watching videos of cool people swinging swords around so that was fun research at least but shucks :’D

Anonymous asked: :D I'm so glad you're liking the Scrooge album! What's your favorite song? Mine's a toss up between track 2 (no lyrics), The Last Sled, or A Lifetime Of Adventure. My Mum's favorite is Go Slowly Now, Sands Of Time. :V

I love all of them! But I think my favourite is track three; Duel and Cloud Spaces

also for those wondering this is the album and hot dang it’s some good listening whether you’ve read the comic or not (although that’s certainly recommended)

Anonymous asked: I feel like you're the only person I actually trust with characters these days- so how do you think the new DuckTales show should handle Gladstone?

Woah that’s a big compliment, also a big question! I’m sure I’ll be happy with what happens (I mean shucks I’m just glad it is happening), and besides I am just me I’m no writing expert. Having said that there are some hit/miss things I feel could easily happen with Gladstone, so I guess here’s my perspective;

Best case scenario: Accepting and embracing Gladstone as morally grey and using the benefits of a ‘wild card’ character. Now, it’s to be noted that I’m not expecting any character development or exploration for him, at least not in the first season. This show is probably going to be introducing him as a brand new character, as a lot of people (in the USA at least) have never heard of him, so most likely he’ll be introduced and set up simply as a rival to Donald. So far so good and fair enough, but what I’d love to see is the show taking advantage of this rare gift of an unusual character who is a power of self-interest. Gladstone can swing to either side of the good/bad spectrum depending on circumstances, but ultimately wouldn’t do anything to seriously jeopardise his family, or anyone else for that matter. There’s also the joy that ‘fairness’ plays into what happens to him and Donald; when Donald cheats, Gladstone wins outright. When Donald is honest and works hard, even if Gladstone wins the race or wins the prize, there is something that happens to makes it clear Donald actually came out a lot better than Gladstone did. Ideally, for me, the show would gradually lead to indications that Gladstone is a deeply isolated character; not simply because it makes sense psychologically, but because narratively it’s a very compelling source of story material, and gives his personality a great deal of intrigue. Whether they play it that Gladstone is aware of this loneliness or not doesn’t matter, but removing that aspect of melancholy from him reduces him to a very two-dimensional character, and not in the cartoon sense.

Worst case scenario: Pushing Gladstone into the vapid, annoying, just-plain-unlikeable antagonist corner. Similarly, making him too much like Glomgold- Glomgold fits well into the ‘evil twin’ stereotype and doesn’t much care if Scrooge and his nephews suffer (or even die, in some stories). Glomgold will do anything to win, whereas Gladstone certainly likes to win, but wouldn’t go out of his way to hurt Donald to do so (he’s too lazy, for one). They are opposites; Donald is unlucky, wildly passionate, and will work very hard if he has to, whereas Gladstone is lucky, aloof, and avoids work where-ever possible. He’s not a bad guy, he’s simply not a particularly good guy either; the ultimate chaotic neutral. My fear is that this subtlety could be run over in favour of just making him into an evil ‘anti-Donald’, which would feel lazy and destroy his appeal even as an antagonist. All the ‘bad guys’ in the Duckverse have some redeeming quality, some extra angle that makes you love them- you kind of want the Beagle Boys to get into the Money Bin, because they try so hard, and they’re adorable! You want to see Magica De Spell get hold of that dime, because she’s exciting, outrageous, and the stakes are so high! All I wish for is that Gladstone not simply be ‘the person that you hate because he’s an ass’- because then people won’t even love to hate him, it’ll just be a knee-jerk reaction of ‘oh god not this guy again’ whenever he shows up, which isn’t enjoyable on any level. We need to want to see Gladstone’s hilariously absurd luck- we need to want to see him fail because he hasn’t earned the right to win- and most of all we need to want to see him do the right thing, because as unusual as it is we know it’s possible- and that makes it infinitely rewarding when it happens.

(Tiny personal fear which is petty as hell: An annoying voice. Please, god, he’s supposed to be attractive and is canonically good at singing don’t give him an annoying voice. Make him brassy and brash sure but please...)

Anonymous asked: did Click just shoot his eye out im

give that anon a cigar

then take it away because smoking it bad for you but well spotted buddy

Anonymous asked: okay but I need to know, are there any more comics with Gladstone suffering BAD luck?

Oh my friend, there are so many! Certainly there’s many where he loses his good luck, but if you’re going to ask me that particular question I can only link you to the mother of all bad-luck-Gander comics which is the classic The Sign Of The Triple Distelfink (which I believe was made to celebrate the character’s 50th anniversary?). It also gives some explanation as to why Gladstone has good luck the rest of the time! Anyway, it’s made of gold.

Anonymous asked: you're always so full of surprises like I followed you back in Harry Potter days who would have ever thought you would love things so varied and finally come to the point of being a world authority on my favourite morally grey goose

(oh wow you’ve been on a long ride my friend) and shucks! I just like to… like things? Yeah. Also no way am I a world authority it’s kind of hilarious that I’ve honed in on this one character when really I love the whole cast- I mean heck I could also bounce around for days talking about Fethry do you like Fethry ‘cause I adore Fethry. I guess I am just excited to introduce people to characters who, I’m assuming, are largely unknown and may well be appearing in the Ducktales reboot, and perhaps encourage people to read the comics a bit before the show starts so they can get in on that level of excitement.