Hunting High And Low live in the Comic City of Leeds

Back in 2017, I went to my first ever Thought Bubble festival in Leeds, where I met Brian K Vaughan (WHO?)

Brian was kind enough to sign my first copy of Paper Girls...

You can see my snippet of Brian's talk here.

And Rick And Morty comics legend Marc Ellerby really wanted me to table with my A-ha themed comics :-)

So when A-ha included Leeds in the Hunting High And Low tour, and timed around the time for Thought Bubble, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity not only to see A-ha, but to table at Thought Bubble at the same time.

However, a couple of factors have spoilt this plan.

The first was the announcement of the festival being moved to Harrogate this year. The other was some unexpected and unfortunate financial issues caused by austerity, which meant that just to make it to see A-ha was much needed respite.

Commuter

For the opening of the gig, before A-ha themselves appeared on stage, the audience were treated to a showing of Commuter, the original animation that inspired the Take On Me video.

Someone sitting in a better seat than me took some footage of this. 

From this, the A-ha logo appeared...

Morten, Magne, Pal and the band appeared to a rapturous welcome, and went straight into Take On Me, with visuals from the video combined with live images c/o Stian Andersen for those of us unlucky enough to be sat too far away.

A-ha live in Leeds - Take On Me

 Here's the Making Of Take On Me

A-ha performed the rest of the Hunting High And Low album, with stunning visual accompaniment, with the band seemingly trapped in The Phantom Zone from Superman II for Dream Myself Alive (!) and some interesting new (old?) keyboard interpretations of the song by Mags.

The gig ended with the A-ha logo animated for us former graphic design students and illustrators.

Whilst in Leeds, although missing out on Thought Bubble, I dropped into Travelling Man and admired the rather epic effort that went into the Thought Bubble counter display, and bought the next edition of Paper Girls

Double your 80's comics vibes!

Taped From MTV

Photo: @theholymountain

The concept for Taped From MTV happened after I discovered Chromeo via PopTron, and discovered their retro 80's videos were very similar to what I was doing with comics but musically. 

David Macklovitch in Take On Me!

Storyboarding for Taped From MTV

The Funk Lord and The Funk Lady

I later discovered that Chromeo started as a joke, so snap! And I actively resisted doing this for ages, but the idea wouldn't go away! 
I didn't want to do it unless it was commissioned, so I doodled some rough sketches in the hope that that might be the end of it!

The comic is basically what would happen if Chromeo were trapped in the Take On Me comic book world. Whilst The Unreal God is more existential, I made this version follow the original capers, only with some obvious changes.

Anyway, then Dave said he wanted a copy... 

So that meant I had to get a copy finished and printed. And as I had forgotten completely to apply for this years' Thought Bubble, I had a limited edition print run made for Lincoln Zine Fest, October 2018.

Taped From MTV finished comic

My good friend Andy bought a copy 

As Chromeo announced tickets for their UK leg of the Head Over Heels tour, I lucked out on winning VIP tickets, and I could've just bought some standard ones, but decided to invest in a VIP ticket as an early birthday treat, because I didn't want to leave it to chance meeting Dave (and Pee) to give them the comic knowing that he wanted one!

The gig was quite aptly at The Printworks, London, and so I met Chromeo, and they were obviously very pleased to get their hands on the comics - Dave immediately spotted some details whilst leafing through it, and was kind enough to share his own video on Chromeo's Instagram feed later that night after what was a very awesome gig!
Below are some pics of Chromeo performing Head Over Heels at The Printworks, London.

Taped From MTV is available to purchase here

Chromeo live at The Printworks, London

Take On Me!! 

Up Close

 

Bedroom Calling

Funk Forever!