Crikey!! It has been a while, hasn't it. I don't appear to have updated this blog for well over a year. That is bad show. Well let's put a change to that shall we. I've had a great bit of news in recent weeks regarding my toons. I now find myself with the great title of official cover artist to the legendary Starburst magazine.

Starburst was a UK Sci-Fi, Horror and Fantasy magazine that ran for just over thirty years from the late 70's to the late noughties. As a magazine it grounded itself in the best of Sci-Fi, Horror, Fantasy films, tv series, books etc. Starburst was always a great read but what was particularly great about it was that it was more than just a sum of its parts. Starburst was never content with just reviewing the standard sci-fi fare. It is with thanks to Starburst and its then main film reviewer, Alan Jones, that I was, at a young age, introduced to the joys of the work of David Lynch, Joe Dante, Rod Serling, Alejandro Jodorowsky, John Landis, Ray Harryhausen, Goerge Lucas, Harry Bromley Davenport and many more besides. Very odd in a way now to think of a budding 13 year old sci-fi/horror fan who was busting at the gut to see films like Andrzej Zulawski's Possesion or Jean-Pierre Mocky's Litan (a film I'd still like to see if anyone knows of its whereabouts).

Starburst Magazine is now thankfully on it's way back to a magazine store near you after a two year hiatus and is looking better than ever. The magazine now has a wealth of new writers/contributers along with some of the original team and has been running for a while now as an online magazine. The plan is to bring the magazine back to hard copy in the early part of 2012 and, as I have already mentioned, I have been asked to provide a series of covers for them.

The first of these covers is now being showcased on the Starburst website and can be seen below. Have to say it was great fun to draw the Star Wars characters. I've been asked a number of times to do something Star Wars related but have never quite gotten around to it so this was a good excuse. The cover below is actually a homage to the original first issue of Startburst magazine which also featured the same array of characters. I hope you all like it.

To help show your support to this project please sign up to the Starburst Printed edition newsletter. They need to know there is enough of an audience out there to support the magazine. To sign up please click the link below and enter your details when prompted to do so.

A new set of my illustrations will be on show at Mind For Movies film quiz organised by Chichester Cinema at New Park on March 27th. The event will take place at the Upper Brasserie at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester.

Lava Banana from Ian Welch on Vimeo.

Lava Banana are a ficticious band I created for kicks. Three weirdo characters making an electronic noise. The three characters are loosely based on Russell Brand, Karen O and Robert Smith respectively. Check them out at your peril.

http://www.myspace.com/lavabanana

Oddly despite my lack of musical talent Lava Banana have been asked to play live about five times now including two festivals. They've also had really nice comments from a number of professional beat combos and have been asked to contribute to a compilation album. Weird innit?

Artwork by me also as that's my main thing and essentially the reason I did this in the first place. I don't think Gorillaz have too much to worry about!

I've just added a new toon to my collection. This time another cartoon of Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. Quite pleased with this actually. Have used a slightly different technique for the toon itself and am also quite pleased with the background. Here is the new toon...