This blog is now closed. Anyone seeking examples of my artwork is encouraged to proceed as follows:
www.rikrawling.wordpress.com/about – my new blog, regularly updated. Includes links to my online galleries, all Facebook-based:
Project Mogwai = 21 paintings, inspired by Mogwai songs, produced between Oct 2008 and Sept 2009.
Project Smog - ongoing series of paintings, inspired by the music of Bill Callahan/Smog.
Archive Gallery = old work, all for sale at very affordable prices.
Contact: rik.rawling@gmail.com
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Hi Rik. Nice looking site. I found some old copies of Trash City the other day. I just thought I’d share that with you. David
Rik! Long time! Just clicked on your site link and it’s all changed – looks bloody good, I’ll have a proper read later. Just back from the Bristol comic con – brought back memories of the UKCAC days. My blog is here by the way: http://jimboswell.blogspot.com/ get in touch squire!!! Jim
Well shit, can’t believe we missed you at the con – also can’t believe I forgot you live in flippin’ Bristol and would probably be there… good to see you’re back into it, same here – music has taken a back seat to art these days and I’m hammering away at the drawing board. I still haven’t cracked 2000AD yet – may not have to, the way things are going – fingers crossed. I’ll add your blog to my links, speak soon moFO!
This is a cool blog!
Rik!
I thought you quit it for good, but it’s great you still do what you best 
I’ll write to you soon. Cheers!!!
You remember me? Woow, in a glimpse of clicking in the net I just found your website (it’s still in my Links and it’s looks cool). It’s so great to see you back in business
Jarek – Yes, who could forget? As for me – “too legit to quit” and all that. Feel free to pass my URL on to anyone you think might be interested.
I remember on of your very early publications…… some sort of Pub Crawl Guide when you were in the sixth form at school (if you are the one and the same Rik Rawlings)….. not quite sure how you managed to get away with that one!
Alison
The early publication you’ll be referring to is the ‘Scandal Mag’ that we published in the 6th form, and the article you refer to had the full endorsement of a significant number of the teaching staff who used it as reference for their own debauched bacchanale’s. I’m glad I made an impression anyway, though I’m now forced to consider just how long ago all that was…twenty five years all told. You’ll have seen from the blog that I am absolutely no wiser than I was back then.
Rik
how are you, my friend? xxxxx
It’s been a long time, Sir, but I don’t forget those who’ve been so generously supportive of my efforts over the decades. Drop a line to rik.rawling@gmail.com and we’ll talk further.
Rik
Hi – just came across your blog whilst looking for scans of Bible John – A Forensic Meditation and got caught up with some of your other entries. There’s some really interesting stuff on here – all definitely worth further investigation.
Also, you use the same WordPress template as me, which is amusing (but then, I’m easily amused).
John – cheers. I don’t update the blog as much as I used to, and have removed a lot of old content that no longer reflected where my head is at these days. Primarily it’s there to promote my own art, highlight any other artists whose work I believe deserves wider attention, and to post intersting images and the odd good tune. I’m now working on a series of new paintings that I hope to unveil over the next few weeks.
Rik
Also meant to say – I really like your work based on Mogwai song titles. Good interpretations, and it’s always interesting to see what they mean to other people.
John – cheers for the comment re: my artwork. With virtually no respons to go by, I’ve been naturally inclined to assume the worst when it came to the Mogwai paintings. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the process, and have learnt an enormous amount about the fundamentals of painting, that I’m hoping to now build on with my new work. I’ve always used music as artistic inspiration, but have never before referred to it so directly. Mogwai’s largely-lyricless music and enigmatic song titles meant they were wide open to interpretation and it would be interesting to see a group show of work by different artists all depicting their chosen song(s).
Rik
Hey Rik! dunno if you remember me, but i certainly had a few good times with you and Noel and i remember your ‘packages’ which looking back at it now were like snipets of the Web (which was unknown at least to me then) sent through the post – wierd, interesting, scarey, on Video, in prose or artwork and a bit of porn, see just like the Web!
…i always thought you were more suited to being a real artist with your own ideas always your strong point.
I did a search for your name coz i have a site here…http://aoste.deviantart.com/. I didnt touch a pencil for about 8 years but i put up a couple of pages of that strip you wrote ‘Superfly TNT’ and it still gets the most comments…anyway i just thought i’d say hi
Paul
Blimey! Talk about a blast from the past. Over the years I’ve told many people the tales of my adventures in Glasgow and I do look back at those times as being some of the best of my life. The ‘packages’ were basically an x-ray of my brain at that time and – if I’m being honest – would still have some relevance today.
I myself gave up on comics years ago. Fingers burnt by the insane business practices, the punishing deadlines on top of a day job, and just a general discomfort with where it was all going. Now look at it – all over the cinema, TV, the games world… and as appalled as I continue to be with the general standard of writing in the medium, I’ve never quite been able to give it up completely and have over the years visited the Comic Con in Bristol and generally kept up to date with what’s going on. I’ve said many times that I’ll never draw a comic strip again but as I nudge my own work back towards a more “commercially-viable” position I am looking at that imagery again.
As for your own stuff – I’ve had a look at the Deviant Art gallery and it looks good. It’s still recognisably your style, which I always felt was one that was born from an immersion in the classic 1970′s British comics artists. You had an approach to layout and inking that was ‘old school’, certainly when compared to the Image stuff that was around in the 90′s. This, by the way, I consider a good thing as it means you can bring a different approach to these characters that makes your work stand apart from all the clone jobs you see. I like the Alien illo you did as it really captures the inherent menace of those creatures. You can’t tell you’ve been away from it for 8 years, that’s for sure. Keep it up, fella. I’ve hd my own wilderness years, and whilst I never ever stopped, my practice of destroying artwork (something I’ve gradually weaned myself off of) means there’s long periods when I have nothing to show for my efforts.
‘Superfly TNT’ I had completely forgotten about. I did a similar strip for Jim Boswell – a 100-page “graphic novel” called ‘Fast & Loose’ and he did loads of pags for that. Add to that all the half-finished strips I did over the years and you’re probably looking at a good few-hundred pages of work.
Anyway, like I said earlier, those years @ GlasCAC, UKCAC and just coming up to visit you & Jim, Derek & Rab were some of the best of my life. All the best to you & yours.
Rik
Ha ha yeah they were good times… kind of like my second childhood, or at least a long continuation of it
I went into zombie mode when i had to finally get a job, like being zapped by the men in black, I was sure you were the next big thing in comics when you broke into the biz, but whether its comics or more personal stuff im glad to see you showing your stuff. Im really surprised you destroyed some of your work, i never thought you lacked confidence in your work, but certainly understand that and maybe its a issue for more artists than i thought. I am seriously going to try to get some comic work, coz while i enjoy my work (in IT) im less and less tolerant of the idiots that make the descisions here, time to move on…mid-life crisis? maybe lol
Paul
Mid-life crisis – tell me about it. mine’s been going on since I was about 18, but seeing as Brian Eno admits to much the same then I know it’s not an isolated case. The problem – if it is a problem – comes from always questioning everything, always wanting to see the world behaving a little more sensibly. I really wonder if our evolutionary curve has plateaued out in the past few years, and what this means for the future. It certainly seems like we’re living in an Idiocracy (see the film of the same name and tell me it’s not a documentary beamed down from the future) so I understand you’re increasing intolerance for ‘the idiots’. My mother was told by a clairvoyant when I was 11 years old that “he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.” No, I don’t, and why should I?
So I’d say stick with the artwork, fella. With cartoon and comic-book imagery now increasingly “crossing over” into the fine arts world, there’s plenty of options these days. If you’ve gone back to doing it after such a long break then it’s obviously something you needed to do, and can’t be ignored or suppressed. This is the only life we get, so why hold back?
cheers
Rik
Cant argue with any of that, great to hear from you Rik, I hope everything in the future goes well for you
Paul
i was a normal kid, from lindsay oklahoma usa, grew up in a small town. it sucked. i wasn’t into the country and western, and i was getting tired of my dad’s zz top and sabbath records, on top of that all the kids i knew at school either lisstened to that faggot shit good charlotte or emo…and i was not amused…, then sudenly one day metallica’s kill em all fell into my adolescent barely teenage hands. i was floored. i never knew music like that existed. from there it was on to morepunk shit like the ramones and the sex pistols and things like that, then onto the crass and g.b.h. and the exploited and the partisans and street punk bands like that. someone passed me a c.d. called funhouse by a band called iggy and the stooges. i had never heard of them. that was the day i threw out my punk records. i started over, i had to. there wasn’t a choice for me. the shit that i expierienced that fateful day then changed my life forever. and there was no longer a reason to continue listening to the other stuff. i tracked down the first stooges album and of course raw power, started buying vinyl bought radio birmans album, stopped dying my hair, it completely perpetuated every thought i had ever had about everything and fully encompassed it in a sound that i had never before thought of.i am twenty one now and i was about sixteen when i found the stooges,i now have a portrait of iggy from the cover of raw power tatooed on me. a freind of mine handed me lovers buggers and thieves and i just wanted to tell you my story and say that your article over the stooges was the best thing that i have ever read. and i do belive that the stooges died for me and my sins. and i just wanted to assure you that even if it doesn’t seem like it in this world full of shitty music, that there are still people out there even in remote corners of the world that agree with you one hundred percent.
your article was truly an inspiration to me.thank you for writing it.
it would be cool if you e-mailed you back.
Nolan – thanks for the words. I wrote ‘Messiahs of Voltage’ long before the Stooges reunion, before The Weirdness, before Ron’s death and before their latest incarnation with Williamson back on guitar and Raw Power back on the set-list, and when I was writing I could never have predicted that those things would have ever come to pass. The Stooges seemed the least likely of acts to succumb to the Heritage Rock imperative, but the Iggy we see today is not the same Iggy who howled “PUSH IT!” during the Funhouse sessions. For me, the band peaked with Funhouse, with Ron performing in full SS regalia and everyone playing like it was their last night on Earth. It was the Funhouse album that convinced me of their genius and even today – almost 40 years later – it still makes just about anything else that came after it sound like Wham! I’m glad that The Stooges have become such an inspirational force in your life. Iggy may now be doing car insurance adverts, but nothing can tarnish what they represented back in their heyday.
Rik