UK comics artist Neill Cameron’s latest project Thumpculture recently began serialization on the web, and has already been shortlisted for an international comics award. Thumpculture is described by its creator as a “slice-of-life romantic comedy soap opera about a bunch of twentysomething friends, which just happens to be set in and around an interdimensional martial arts tournament. I’d describe it as Sex and the single Streetfighter, or The Secret Life of Tekken.” The comic’s full-colour artwork uses a style that blends cel-style character art with lush digitally painted backgrounds.
Thumpculture can be read for free online at http://www.thumpculture.com , with new pages appearing every Monday and Friday. Cameron, previously best known for his art on the small press series Bulldog: Empire, recently collected in the Mammoth book of Best New Manga, says of the project: “Thumpculture is something I wrote a few years back, while backpacking around the globe, but kept putting off drawing – basically, until I felt I was a good enough artist to do it justice. I’ve been fortunate enough this year to have been able to pack in the day job and work as a full-time comics artist, and I’m currently keeping Thumpculture running as my ‘night job’. Now that I’m finally underway, the plan is to keep putting it out on the web, building up a readership, and then later in the year when my current full-time comics commitments come to an end I can look at finding a publisher to put out a print version. Thumpculture is an absolute dream project for me, and I have literally years of stories to tell on it, so I’ll be looking at ways I can devote more time to it and increase the frequency with which it appears.”
After it had been serialized for just a few weeks, Thumpculture was shortlisted in the ‘Best Print Cartoon / Comic’ category at the IMAF (International Manga & anime Festival) awards 2006. “It was absolutely wonderful to be shortlisted after such a short time, and particularly given the amazing standard of the other entries in the competition. I think that the competition helped me get a bit of buzz about the comic and pick up some readers at a very early stage, which was really nice” says Cameron.
Links: www.thumpculture.com www.neillcameron.com
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