Connecting Work

I’ve spoken before about how I got a lot of enjoyment out of connecting all of my work together, but another thing I like to do is connect my work with my friends and their work. Today I will talk about all the pieces that are directly linked to people I know:

  • Elliott Egan: He scripted one of my Finger Puppet Show strips and he gave feedback on so much of my early work that his influence can still be felt now.

  • Mairi Mac Arthur: Only a small link, but one Finger Puppet Show strip was made for her as a birthday present and Colin the Cow certainly seems to be familiar with her! Much like Egan, as she workshopped so much of my earlier writing, I have doubtlessly been greatly influenced by her in my later writing too.

  • Rory MacLellan: In 2010, while doing NaNoWriMo, I couldn’t help but have my character Bernard mention that he had visited Rory’s fictional world of Tyrencia. Then in 2011 we wrote a fairly long horror story together. Currently, I also have plans to write a Tyrencia story for him (which I really must get around to doing.)

  • Sophie Marie Mills: We both had a story featured in an issue of Perspectives and I later made a link to that in a Finger Puppet Show strip.

  • George Moore: He’s a very talented artist and since his paintings are so beautiful, I couldn’t help but ask if I could use them for a Finger Puppet Show storyline and he gladly gave his permission.

  • Rhino Water: A regular contributor to this blog who I enjoying working on countdowns with. He also has some lovely fictional stories (“Monster War” and “Treasure Boy” to name two) and we did a little crossover featuring characters from his stories and a character from my stories called “Monster Village” which was a lot of fun.

  • Oscar TK: I featured Frederica Williams, the star of Oscar’s hilarious novella A Dark Hand, in a Finger Puppet Show strip. He also writes a webcomic called Crazyx Comix and we each did a crossover strip when we swapped webcomics for the day on April 1st 2014. He’s one of many people who wrote me an entry for this blog too. Finally, we were also both had a story featured in an issue of Perspectives and I referenced both of those stories in a comic strip as well.

  • David Tubb: David himself is actually a recurring character in the Finger Puppet Show webcomic. His popular Toast Faces have also made an appearance in my webcomic. He wrote a good science-y post for this blog. And, of course, we have worked together on several videos. We’re always thinking of new things to do together too.

  • Tülin: We used to play a lot of writing games together, and the small pieces produced through that inspired some of my later, bigger ideas. I also wrote a story where my character Gordon is personally familiar with both her and her fictional characters. Together we created the character Jeb and, indeed, the very first Finger Puppet Show strip was made as a small gift for her.

  • Ben Wood: Together we created the characters Lord Adam Welmington and Lord Ben Costington who were supposed to be obnoxious billionaire versions of ourselves. To this day, I still occasionally write stories with them alongside my other characters. I even mentioned them in a Finger Puppet Show strip. He also wrote me a blog post once.

  • When in school, I’d occasionally do a ‘big’ story featuring my friends as characters in the hope’s of getting them to read it. One was called “Everything is Explained” and featured (as well as some of the people mentioned above) my friends Davey Hamlen, Sarah Kryworuczka, Hayley Wiltshire and Laura Young, and they all get killed only to be brought back in return for the sacrifice of my characters, My ‘100th Story’ features, as well as others already mentioned, my old friends Milo Goodspeed and Danielle Tyler.

  • Finally, a handful of my friends have kindly written blog posts for me: Emma Darcy, Chris Hunter, Dalfino Madrigal Keyte, Anthony Nanson and Chloe Ward,

When I look at my work, I don’t look at it as lots of different things in different areas, but as one massive whole. Everything from SmartDating articles to my Lightning Made of Owls strips, I like to look at as part of the same thing and that’s why it makes me so happy that I have been able to work with so many friends. My body of work, much like my life, has been positively influenced by all the wonderful people that I’ve met. Thinking about it just makes me feel very warm and happy; especially as it creates indirect links between people who don’t know each other!

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

(Don’t miss my latest article for SmartDating UK!)

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