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"I loved drawing when I was wee. When I became a teenager, I started to realise that being an artist was an actual occupation. At that stage, I would have been happy to have been any kind of artist, just as long as it was about drawing, painting and designing.

"I went to Glasgow School of Art and did drawing and painting. I got kicked out at the end of my second year, because I didn't do enough work. That was the last time in my life, that I ever didn't do enough work. It was the last time that I ever let an opportunity slip by because I didn't try hard enough. So, from that point of view, I probably learnt more from the art school than most people. I loved it, I couldn't believe I got chucked out, I totally loved it.

"When I left art school in my late teens or early twenties."

"I was a freelance artist. I would be commissioned to do oil portraits and caricatures. I painted murals in restaurants and schools, I designed posters for nightclubs and t-shirts for a dodgy guy in the Barras - just any kind of work that came along, I’d do it and I loved doing all of it, because I loved illustration, I loved painting, I loved graphic design.

"I was told that there was a print shop in Parnie Street, behind the Tron Theatre, that was looking for an artist. So I got a portfolio together, and went down there, and the guy was like, ‘No, we're putting a Scottish Viz type of comic together and we're just looking for people that can write and draw their own strips. It's not a job at all, and it's not paid either, but go away and write a comic strip and bring it back into us.’

"So I went away and did a kind of funny version of The Broons strip and brought it back in and he loved it, but told me that I’d need to change the name and the hairstyles. It ran in the comic, Electric Soup, for about three or four years.

"After the first year we got taken over by John Brown who was publishing Viz, and it then went nationwide. But it kind of petered out, like a band who've fallen out.

"But by that time, I'd been going to wee comic marts and there were local comic shops owners, and comic book fans who were telling me that I should send submissions off to publishers. So I did. I ended up getting work with the Judge Dredd magazine, and worked there for a couple of years, and then ended up working for the American publishers, and it's been mostly DC and Marvel comics that I’ve drawn since then.

"I enjoy it yes, but like any other job there's times when you get tired of it, and you get days when you're working from morning until night. There are days where everything I draw; I end up rubbing out. You just get days like that, and then, you get days where it just flows and you can't believe it. You just wish it went like that every day.

"When I first started out, it was all analogue. I drew everything on paper, and if it was colour work I drew on water colour paper. I was still doing the drawing on paper for the American comic strips, but the colouring I did digitally and now I do some of the rough under-drawing digitally, but the finished line work is still done on paper by me

"I find a common thing with people my age and older, is that we grew up thinking that everything interesting that was happening, was happening down in London or over in the States. Whether it was movies or music or the arts in general. I think it really helps to meet people or hear of people who are local to where you live that do the kind jobs that you'd love to do.

"As part of Book Week Scotland, last week I ran a workshop on getting into comic books & illustration at The Prince’s Trust, for 13-30 year olds. When I was speaking to the young people, I gave them the advice that, because you end up spending so much of your adult life working, it really is worth thinking about the things you really like doing, and try to get a job that's at least going towards something that you would enjoy to do anyway.

"It's a predictable answer, but in terms of my favourite comic strip characters, I still love The Broons. In fairness, and this is no disrespect to a number of very good artists who've drawn The Broons since Dudley D Watkins left us, but I actually still go back to a lot of the old ones that Dudley did, because I love his drawing style. So The Broons and Oor Wullie are still personal favourites. But I've got quite a fondness for some of the superheroes as well - Batman and Superman are good and I like Daredevil.

"Me and another Glasgow artist, Grant Morrison, did a Superman book. It's turned into a really popular one, and I've had letters from people about it, so that's got a kind of special place for me in my own portfolio of work. And funnily enough, another Glasgow guy, Mark Miller and I did a thing called Jupiter's Legacy that's going to be on Netflix next year. That'll be good.

"I was offered the opportunity to draw a Broons strip, but really, to do The Broons, I think the best I could do is actually try and do a kind of impersonation of Dudley Watkins, because you couldn’t do it any better than he did, so I’m not sure that I ever will."