UFO (2025) is a fan music video for Heathcote Blue’s song of the same name, following an alien leaving the planet while they reflect on their recent break-up — a story vaguely similar to the one in the song. Each panel correlates to four beats (one bar) in the song
24 pages – black & white
author’s commentary:
I’m very proud of this one — it took a damn while. I started writing it in 2023, making this one of my first multi-year projects. After many attempts to visualise it in a less concrete & generally faffy way, I ended up scripting it in the emotionally dead software Excel (fig 1), which turned out to work really well for this specific project. I feel like I’m making films again, writing a shot list, etc.
I really struggled with the style, I think that’s what took me so long to make this. I wanted to land in a nice style that would persist throughout the comic, and as you can see (fig 2), I’m a bit all-over-the-place style-wise. It’s finding a balance between enough detail that the audience doesn’t feel cheated, but something easy enough to be repeatable. I also got into Nick Drnaso around this time, which especially led to an inner debate between stiff figures and more looseness. I ended up going with a looseness for my own sanity / getting out something big for PCAF 2025, inspired by Terry Denton (illustrator of Andy Griffiths’ books) & Everett Peck (DuckMan).
Comparing the start and end of the creation of UFO is really interesting. I started out in my third year of uni, trying to be a ‘legitimate musician’, was only a fan of Heathcote Blue, and was engaged to my ex. By the time the comic came out, I had manifested a parting between me and my ex-fiancee, and have become fairly solid friends with Lyndon (head honcho of Heathcote Blue (I know music is a collaborative experience but cmon)). What a whacky world this is.