Pirates Vs Witches

I Thought I was Undone artwork by Andy Lee

We've just about wrapped up all our funded programmes for this year, and are busy organising next year - hopefully some new comics in education projects on the go. Meantime, here's a few wee preview details from our current projects.

I Thought I Was Undone explores the facts and fantasy of the life of Scottish pirate Captain William Kidd - a favourite topic of Magic Torch. Artwork is by Andy Lee. Following the recent rediscovery of Kidd's "treasure", we were pleased to see many press reporting him as being originally from Greenock...not because we think that's 100% accurate, but just because it's cool to have a world famous pirate associated with your home town...

Our other book, The Skeleton Key is an all ages comic which follows the heroic efforts of a local coven during the Second World War. Sort of "Dad's Army with witches". Artwork for The Skeleton Key is by Mhairi Robertson, who has worked with us previously on Wee Nasties. Mhairi is also going to be working on the historical graphic novel The Stowaways, which will be out early in 2017.

You can find out more about Magic Torch's comic projects on our Magic Torch Comics website.

Balwearie Hall approach by Mhairi Robertson

Balwearie visit lineart by Mhairi Robertson

Achi Baba - Cover Reveal

That's the cover all sorted, so our Gallipoli graphic novel Achi Baba is almost ready to head off to the printers - in terms of production, tone and content, the book is much different from anything we have tackled before, and we are looking forward to sharing it with everyone this summer.

For now, we thought we would share some more of Andy Lee's artwork with you...

The Achi Baba project was supported by Heritage Lottery Fund - First World War Then and Now programme..

2014 - Year in Review

The endless, trudging march of time sees us once again stare bleary eyed into the uncertain future of a "new year" and "fresh start", while cursing the yawning chasm of empty darkness which now lies behind us. But we had a laugh eh? As the end approaches, a quick look back at our most read posts for this year, in no particular order...

Our main project focus for this year was 13 Commonwealth Tales, which explored folktales from other parts of the world, and also continued to encourage local storytelling. The project was supported by Big Lottery Celebrate funding.We all pitched in with our favourite stories and Mhairi did a smashing job on the artwork to create a storybook which we released during Doors Open Day in September. The 64 page book is available for free from Dutch Gable House and 7 1/2 John Wood Street, but will also be free online in January.

13 Commonwealth Tales cover by Mhairi

As well as details on the project itself, one of the most popular stories we shared on the blog (but which did not appear in the book) was the tale of Maddy Glasker...

Battle of Largs by Andy Lee

Details of our Viking comic strip exhibition, featuring artwork specially created to accompany the gothic poem Battle of Largs by Greenock's very own John Galt was well received. Which is good....as we will have some more news to share on this project next year...

One of our most viewed posts from way back in January, was actually not about heritage at all, but some well meant, hard learned advice from myself about finding funding for projects, and how the "community" bit isn't what you add in to get the project to look nice for funders, but instead, the fundamental building block for the whole process.

Tin Jimmy by Andy Lee

In March we shared a page from a comic strip featuring "the robot James Watt built", Tin Jimmy. And we will have more, slightly longer adventures for our Victorian Robot in 2015. Meantime you can read James Watt's own notes on the robots creation right here... In a similar vein, news of An Ancient UFO sighting in Greenock caused quite a stir...

And we haven't actually talked much about it yet, but it would be remiss not to mention how much fun Andy and I had working with the Gies Peace project and St Ninian's Primary Seven in Gourock all through November and December on a particularly wintery comic...Coldheart. Here's a wee sneaky peak...

So aye, 2014 has been a busy and rewarding year for us, but there have been a few other heritage projects delivering across Inverclyde over the year as well, so props to Rig Arts Are Ye Askin project,  the major event that was White Gold at the Sugar Sheds, Dutch Gable House's WWI drama project which you can watch here, the Absent Voices project, which explored the history of the Sugar Sheds and produced a whole archive of creative responses to that story and of course the start of Inverclyde's Great War project. Hats off all round.

We also turned Fifteen in 2014, which was nice, especially as we seem busier now than we have ever been. 2015 is shaping up nicely too, but there will be lots of time to talk about that next year. For now, here's another chance to see the trailer for our upcoming Time and Place project, featuring a new soundtrack from the band British Sea Power. The film and accompanying exhibition will be displayed in February...

Thanks for reading!

Midwinter Tales - Wendigo

Andy's welcoming PostIt Note Wendigo, which once lived on the office door.
Really wish we'd thought about using this for a Christmas card...

While stocking up on your winter provisions to avoid Wendigo attack in the lean months, you'll be wanting to make sure you have a copy of the 32 page full colour folk horror comic Uncommon Tales, available digitally later this month as a free Christmas treat. It could very well save your life*

*this is highly unlikely, Wendigo is relentless and remorseless, and unlikely to be distracted for long by a comic

Andy and Mhairi - Scribblers for Hire

Scooby Doo and the Gang, with my wee Molly, chased by Captain Kidd
by Andy Lee

We've been really lucky these last two years, to work with a couple of smashing artists...and we like to really challenge them with various eldritch horrors and folk nightmares. But did you know, you can also commission them to do pieces of artwork for you, friends or family? I'm just one of the folks who has done just that over the last year, and above you can see a special Scooby Doo illustration Andy did for my daughter, below is an illustration Mhairi did for an Alice in Wonderland story I wrote for my wife for our 10th Wedding Anniversary.

You can see lots of Andy's other work and find out how to contact him at Call of the Deep or find him and his sketchbooks on instagram. Mhairi is at Mhairi M Robertson.

And hey...obviously there are lots of other cool local artists and crafters you could be supporting too, some of whom will no doubt be appearing at the next Violet Skulls Market in Dutch Gable House. Apparently it's Christmas coming up...why not do something a wee bit different this year...something special.

Alice, discussing the finer points of relativity with a watchmaker
by Mhairi Robertson

And keep a wee eye out, as Mhairi and I may well be shortly launching a kickstarter for another book.

All The Things...

the volunteers of magic torch are delighted with a busy year

We have been really fortunate this year to receive support from a whole range of funders. We have loads going on over the next few months, and so we felt it was important to just stop, take a wee breath, and remind you about each of our projects individually...but yknow, also all at the same time.


13 Commonwealth Tales is supported by the Celebrate Fund, created to help communities recognise the Commonwealth Games in different ways. We've already had some storytelling days and right now the project is just finishing production on two books, 13 Commonwealth Tales, an illustrated childrens book collecting traditional stories from Commonwealth countries and Uncommon Tales, a comic in which Sir Glen Douglas Rhodes explores some of the darker folklore of the Commonwealth. Thanks to Lottery funding, limited copies of both of these books will be made available for FREE in September and October.


Time and Place is supported by Awards For All Scotland, and is sharing creative responses to Inverclyde past, present and future. Exhibitions and music created by the project will be on display in The Dutch Gable House throughout October and November.


Achi Baba is supported by Heritage Lottery Fund and will explore an important part of Inverclyde's World War One history in comic form. The comic book will be published in July 2015, on the centenary of the battle.


Alongside that, we have our own self supported project, The Battle of Largs, which has created an exhibition based on John Galt's gothic poem, using artwork from Andy Lee and woodcraft created by local social enterprise Newark Products.

And of course you can still access our kids book Wee Nasties on scribd and ibooks, and our vintage horror comic Tales of the Oak, from last year's project Tales of the Oak, supported by Heritage Lottery Fund Our Heritage.

So aye, busy times. Good times too. Probably our most action packed year since we started. It's worth noting, that all of the grants above, are under 10k, awarded through funding streams which are ideal for smaller groups. I wrote a wee blog post at the start of the year with my own thoughts about funding, and if you, or your group has an idea for projects, why not try making them happen?

Hopefully we'll see you at some of our events over the next few months.

Vikings! Ossian! Somerled!

We have been really pleased with the positive response to our Viking project (here's another wee sneaky detail from Andy's work above) We'll be showing the exhibition during the Viking Festival in Largs and then throughout September in the Dutch Gable House.

The graphic novel themed project is the first in a series which will explore our Norse and Celtic heritage - one using text from the controversial Ossian poems as the basis of the comic artwork, and the others retelling some legends of Somerled - Thane of Argyll and legendary Welsh King of Strathclyde, Rhydderch Hael, both of whom feature prominently in our original Tales of the Oak book from 2000.

Andy did in fact produce a wee panel featuring the mighty Rhydderch Hael Thane of Argyll for The Archivist's Treasure Graphic Novel. Doesn't that flaming sword Drynwyn look very familiar to the one sugar based superhero Mr Cube now brandishes...

Friday 13th - Unlucky for Some

One of the stories in our Tales of the Oak comic deals with the folklore surrounding the town horseshoe which sits at the fountain in the town square. The horseshoe has moved around a few times, most recently in May this year, when it was flipped to face away from the river, to ensure good luck flowed the right way, back towards the town. But supposing it was facing towards the river for a very good reason...

Here's page one from Sir Glen Douglas Rhodes adventure The Call of Clutha, hands down my favourite strip in the whole comic and some of Andy's best work...check out the Mariners Home...awesome.

Tales of the Oak will be released this weekend as part o Doors Open Day, available FOR FREE exclusively from The Dutch Gable House.

Tales of the Oak - Comic Making

With Tales of the Oak, we are trying to interest different audiences in local folklore. Unlike Wee Nasties, or our other books, here we have specifically concentrated on the slightly darker stories, so if it were a film, I think the comic would be rated 12A for "scenes of terror and fantasy violence". The original Tales from the Crypt comics we have based the project on were of course banned altogether, so we were careful not to go too far...

A page from one of the original EC horror comics,
we have tried to use a similar style for Tales of the Oak

The process for us, was to research some local folk tales and then turn them into comic stories. People script comics in all sorts of different ways, this is a page of one of our scripts...

The scripts were then passed to Andy Lee, who worked in two different styles - the pages were either pencilled, inked, scanned in and then coloured...

Or created from scratch digitally

Then evil genius Pete typeset, designed, swore at, reset and generally magicked the pages into the finished article. (which by the way is available exclusively at The Dutch Gable House this weekend for FREE)

A few pages we tried in different ways, so to go with the "silent movie" theme of Night of the Comet, Andy tried colouring the pages. It was really cool, but somehow the blood seemed a bit...bloodier. So we opted for eerie unearthly green instead.

Months and months of time and effort has gone into producing the publication, including lots of time from volunteers, and for Andy in particular it has been something he has worked on almost every day since last October. We hope you'll enjoy it.

We've shared this vid before, but it really is a tremendous overview of the history of the EC Comics...

Artists Assemble!

Bloom : Copyright Mhairi M Robertson

We're really pleased to announce that Gourock based artist Mhairi M Robertson will be working with us on the illustrations for our new childrens book. The book is being produced as part of our new Tales of the Oak project and will be released next year.

Mhairi has studied at Glasgow School of Art and her work has been described as illustrative and imaginative, her most popular topics being people, fantasy and folklore. Because of this, Mhairi has been commissioned to do work of various kinds, from private portraits and fine art(ish) canvases to album sleeve covers, designs for animation and comic books.

Having been raised in Inverclyde, the history of the area has always been of significant interest to her; through school projects about the Greenock Blitz or old folk tales recanted by family members - sometimes as bed time stories, sometimes simply in passing – Mhairi has found that there was always something new and remarkable to learn about her surroundings. It is an interest which has been carried through to adulthood.

She also really likes Batman and would like to illustrate a Batman/Joker comic book, please, before her drawing hand gets too old and stiff and falls off.

You can see more of Mhairi's work on her website.

We'll be sharing our progress and sketches from the book as it all comes together over the next few months. Cannae wait.

And in honour of today being National Comic Book Day (actually for real), we can also announce that Port Glasgow based artist Andy Lee will be starting work on our Tales of the Oak comic. Andy provided some of the artwork for the Identity graphic novel, recently described by Judge Dredd creator John Wagner as "a marvellous piece of work". Here's some of Andy's work on the graphic below, it is available to read online or download for kindle or from ibooks. Again, we'll be sharing some of the character designs and sketches from the new comic project soon...

Image courtesy of Identity project