John Allison

I was at a convention this weekend and there were a lot of spontaneous and gratifying comments about Steeple. It will not be back any time soon, but I never say never and have huge affection for the project. While on the phone this evening I doodled the characters and here they are. Apologies for th

This morning I was looking for something I'd lost moving house (again) and went into the big box of sketchbooks (again; it contains only sketchbooks and that was not what I was looking for) but my loss is your gain because I found some gems. Some of these may be reruns but some are definitely not. F

The final issue. As you will see, it ties up every single loose end perfectly. I believe it would take a very powerful imagination to extrapolate a single plotline beyond the final page of Steeple #20. Your PDF is linked under the cover. I'll be back with something new in mid-February.

Last week I posted that the next Steeple story would be the last, as Dark Horse didn't want any more. People were very nice, and posted the words I fear the most, "can't wait to see what you do next". Yeah, me too. I have no idea what that will be. But while I feel on the one hand that I didn't make

Here it is, the penultimate issue of Steeple. Issue 20 will be the last, but believe me when I say that I am going out with a bang. Your PDF is linked under the cover - let me know if you enjoyed the issue in the comments.

To celebrate the end of my long writing stint, here's the cover for the next Steeple issue, number 19. I start work drawing this today. My plan is to conclude the current Steeple arc with #20 (which would run at the start of January), take a little break to bring you something else, then return with

Twenty-five years since the first Bobbins comic was put on the internet... and no visible improvement has occurred ho ho! But I'll keep trying, at least until we reach the 50th anniversary, when I will retire. I'll be 72 and enough will, quite frankly, be enough at that point. A new story for you! T

I hope you have been enjoying Hell On Wheels, as it moves into its final week. Like Kit + The Wolf, it draws on the first comics I made as a child, the Marvel UK Transformers comics that made me want to make my own. Now that I've moved in my new house and begun to settle back into a routine, I can l

Here's part 2 of Hell On Wheels. I hope you enjoy it. I was pleased with it when it was finished. I've hit my stride with these new stories, I'm hard at work on the next one, "Maggie's Party (pts 1&2)". Trying to get as far ahead as I can before I have to take time out from webcomics to write anothe

This week I am writing Steeple 18, so here's the cover. I'm trying some different things with these covers because I think that is legitimate. It's not like they will ever appear on any shelf. This one features all the chillwave notions that you love. I hope you enjoy my nutty sky gradients and surf

There was only a one-off special last year, but Steeple is back back back for an extended run beginning with a new two-part story, HELL ON WHEELS! I hope you enjoy part one - let me know in the comments if you do. Part 2 will follow on July 17th. Your PDF is linked under the cover.

I realise that Steeple 16 hasn't appeared yet (I've drawn half of it as of today) but here's a sneak le peek at the cover for Steeple 17. It's pretty much done... as much as an image like this can ever be "done". It's a pastiche of something... BUT WHAT?

I start drawing a new Steeple story next week, so today I've finally modelled in SketchUp all the rooms in the rectory that I usually busk the layouts of. Half the rooms join up differently every time, which I don't like, so it feels good to put them together properly. I laid out downstairs, which f

Steeple will return in May with a new 2-parter. I've not been asked for a volume 4 from Dark Horse (also, I haven't pitched one) so I'll just be trickling stories out as and when inspiration strikes. Here's the cover for chapter 16.

I'm beginning to block out plans for a new Steeple story, hopefully beginning in the spring. As always it will showcase RAW TERROR and DAZZLING FASHIONS. Whether it will run for 22, 44, 88 pages or more or less, I cannot say. It'll be a proper one, though, not some mad strips about toilets.

I’ve not felt much like sketching recently. I’ve been making some Bobbins.horse strips and it’s kept me out of mischief and started to take the rust off my drawing after my month of only writing, but it’s not particularly creatively edifying compared to making Solver and Steeple. I’ve ended up drawi

Reverend In Love had been in my back pocket since summer 2021 as an idea, and at some point I'd broken it down into a list of pages with a view to drawing it as part of a Steeple volume 4. Then, in December, Max Sarin reminded me that I had said I'd write them something to draw. So I spent a week of

Steeple is on a break while I consider a potential 4th arc. It's kind of a wait-and-see on how volume three (out in August) does, as I can only draw one series at a time. But there is one piece of Steeple activity in 2022 for the faithful, and I very much hope you like it: a new special with art by

The Steeple summer special is complete and looks great. Max Sarin and Sammy Borras have buffed this thing to a high shine. My intention is to release it to $3-and-up Patreon subscribers in late May, and through Gumroad. Hopefully I can get it into print at some point too. At the same time as this gl

After two years of quite intense comic-drawing, I'm returning to drawing smaller strips for an indefinite period to rebuild my strength. I wrote a 32-page follow-up to Destroy History: NEMS, did the roughs and everything, and it was very good (I promise), but it was the last rattle of the machine. I

I've been working on a comic with Max Sarin drawing and Sammy Borras colouring, it will emerge around the same time Steeple volume 3 does. It's just a web thing at the moment, no plans for a print version but it will probably end up in any prospective fourth Steeple volume. Anyway, here's the cover

Steeple volume 3 has begun to show up on bookshop searches so I can reveal this now, it's Max Sarin's beautiful cover for the book. The 160-page book is out August 23rd (TBC) and covers Christmas With Clovis, Author Unknown and Clotted Crime. Pretty nice, right?

Steeple volume 3 concludes! I'm not sure when Steeple will return - I'm juggling a few things at the moment, and ready to move away from darker things for a bit towards lighter fare. But we'll get back there eventually. The next comic will have to remain a mystery until it emerges here in full on Fe

Here's a sneak preview of the cover for Clotted Crime pt 4 (of 4), by Game Of Thrones/Fighting Fantasy/etc art king Robert Ball! An honour and a privilege to work with Rob again. Part four begins on December 13th.

I'm currently rebooting my mental mind after two conventions and a lot of travel over the last three weeks so here's a "not final cover" I stuck on Clotted Crime chapter 4 prior to the proper artwork arriving. The actual cover will be less about community dance but I feel like, maybe now there shoul

Your PDF is linked under the cover image - please let me know how you're enjoying the story in the comments. The next episode, the final chunk of Steeple for a while, is due to appear here on December 13th. -- Cover by Kelly Vivanco, colours this issue (cover excepted) by Sammy Borras

Just in! My friend of two decades, fine artist and cartoonist (PATCHES etc) Kelly Vivanco has done the cover for Steeple #13 and it is a beauty. What can it all mean? Find out in about a month. Your support on Patreon has made commissioning these covers possible - thank you!

The PDF is linked under the cover image - let me know how you're enjoying the story in the comments. The next episode is due to appear here on October 25th. -- Cover by Jorge Monlongo, colours this issue (cover excepted) by Sammy Borras

The PDF is linked under the cover image - let me know if you enjoyed it in the comments. There should be another one of these in early September. In other good news, Dark Horse have agreed to publish a third, much longer, Steeple volume 3 in 2022. (COVER BY JULIA MADRIGAL)

PDF link at the bottom... enjoy! And let me know what you thought in the comments. There should be another early-release PDF in a couple of months.

I'll be uploading the second part of Author Unknown for $3-and-up Patreon subscribers on May 31st, so here's a sneak preview of the cover I commissioned from Nick Roche (SCARENTHOOD, TRANSFORMERS: SINS OF THE WRECKERS/LAST STAND OF THE WRECKERS, SPIDER-MAN: RENEW YOUR VOWS etc etc etc). I know you a

If you prefer to read it in webcomic form, or just want to comment as the pages go up, the story is running M-W-F at steeple.church for the next 14 weeks. Part 2 will arrive on Patreon on May 31st. I was very careful when writing this story to make it accessible to anyone who didn't know my various

I redrew the last three pages of Secret Sentai for Steeple Volume 2 (due in July from Dark Horse). The clock is always ticking for someone to tell me they liked the original version better when I do this, but these three were all drawn when I was having some bad eye and hand problems. I was a brave

This one came easy. A truly ghastly colour scheme; a cover for a story that is scheduled to start July 18th. Talk about "early access". To all things a season! EDIT (below): My friend Robert Ball, responsible for many great book covers, made a colour suggestion I think really lifts it, proper venus

With writing on the crossover complete and the artwork half done, the next story up on the drawing board is a 4-part Steeple arc. In my work folder, I’ve continued the issue numbers from the Dark Horse issues (1-5) so Silvery Moon was issues 6 & 7, Secret Sentai was 8 & 9 and Christmas With Clovis w

In the upcoming Author Unknown crossover, Billie wears a garment I dubbed the Backless Clerical Jumpsuit. A sort of reverse Fleabag and Hot Priest in one. It’s very Church of Satan.

My Steeple - Charlotte - Shelley crossover starts on April 12th (on the Steeple site, after internal deliberations that lasted well into the wee small hours). I have drawn nine pages so far and declare them "good". I will share some process work in the coming weeks, but for now, here's the cover. It

I've done a post for $3> patrons this week but that leaves the $1 contingent with nothing, so I present to you a grab bag from my sketch folder, the mysteriously named "1Misc Goog". So what do I have for you today? Gold, Jerry, gold! During my "wilderness years" of art, between 2017 and 2020, I redr

Steeple volume 2 hasn't been announced yet but it has started to show up on bookstore websites so here is the cover, by Max Sarin. The book, again from Dark Horse comics, collects the Secret Sentai and Silvery Moon stories I put on the website this year. "Christmas With Clovis" will have to wait for

Produced in collaboration with "vape imagineer" Laura Snapes (thank you), here is this year's Vape Escape Christmas catalogue.

Sorry for the lack of fun posts over the last week or so, I’m working hard to get the first part of the new Charlotte story done before taking a Christmas break for a few weeks. I intend to release the whole 22-page "issue" onto Patreon on Jan 4th. But I’ve been drawing like a fiend since February a

$3-and-up subscribers can read Steeple: Christmas With Clovis in full now as a downloadable PDF. I'm putting this out a few days early to stave off any tense, nervous headaches you may be suffering. "YOUR WELLCOME" &c. I think Christmas With Clovis is the best-drawn comic I've ever made, and I've tr

A tiny post today, but I think, still fun. I made these in Asesprite, I hadn't done any pixel art for... I can't remember! Twenty years?

More 3D modelling for Mrs Clovis' house in Steeple. Her house is a traditional Cornish cottage, I've been in a few and the key thing to remember is that after you concuss yourself the first time on a door frame, you should try not to do it again for another half an hour to avoid permanent brain dama

Upcoming pages require me to draw Mrs Clovis' kitchen over and over again, sometimes from mad angles. So I modelled it in Sketchup from photo reference. It's taken me a long time to get to grips with Sketchup but with practice, I'm improving. I don't need anything perfect, just a good sense of dimen

Here's the final batch of Secret Sentai pages. I hope you've enjoyed this story. There's one more 22-page Steeple story to go this year, then it's back to the drawing board to work out what comes next.

I don't often share full pencils ahead of time but these give little away and feature a lot of fun faces that can never be quite as zesty in the final inks. As you can see, my pencils are still relatively loose. But in the digital age, there are plenty looser than me. I know people who can get away

Here's the third quarter of Steeple: Secret Sentai, exclusively for Patreon members.

Here's the second quarter of Steeple: Secret Sentai, exclusively for Patreon members.

Here's the first quarter of Secret Sentai exclusively for Patreon subscribers.