Hi, and welcome to the “bit about Fraze”.

 

Now, you may be wondering if any of the following text is likely to have been “edited” to create a more glamourous image of my wonderful self, or if any of it is in fact going to be complete fiction. I can give you the answer RIGHT NOW:

 

“Maybe”

 

What? WHAT?? Come ON, you don’t seriously think I’m gonna go and spill the beans for the WHOLE FRIKKIN WORLD TO READ do you?? I don’t want strangers to know about that thing I did back you know where with whatsername’s poodle. It could be extremely complicated. So what I am willing to dish out is all the stuff relevant to the art, even if it means leaving out a few details that could get me into trouble.

 

But anyway. On with the show, pictures included.

So, i was born. there are varying opinions on exactly how and when, but I tend to go with the more inoffensive version these days which is that I had a mother and father, and was spat into existence sometime after christmas 1971. The years following this amazing event were kinda normal I guess, in that I watched tv, read comics, put things my mouth to see what they tasted like etc. I also doodled a fair bit cos I wished to emulate the comics I was reading, But I wasn’t a good student and used to cut corners a lot. I grew up surrounded by the mundaness of suburban essex, yet in my bedroom there was an Alladin’s cave of oddball things and pictures. Not a lot has changed I must say.

 

 

 

following school, where i was a bit of a runt, I went to art school in east ham, london. This is the same art school that Barry Windsorsmith and John Bolton went to, tho I suspect I got an inferior education to them. I did that for 2 years, then due to being rejected by every proper arts school I applied to I took a year out and went on the dole so I could draw comics and play bass in a band.

 

 

after that year I managed to blag entry into a “university” (the previous year it had been a polytechnic) and then spent 3 years doing lots of drinking and puking and trying to get laid until the course ended, and I had become a very very shoddy artist indeed, using photo collage and scratchy drawings to cover up the lack of effort I was putting into this work. Oddly tho, i had also started on my own comic book called the Man Who LEarnt To Fly in my final year, tho I hid this from my teachers.

 

 

After big school came more dole. Me and my buddies tried to become illustrators but we were hopeless back then, and I joined a band in the hopes of becoming a rock star. This lasted 6 months. then I had to get a real job as a security guard to pay rent, and I also managed to finish my 200 page epic TMWLTF. I also drew an 8 pager which was actually not that bad.

 

 

then a year later i was back on the dole, trying to make a go of being artist or die trying. about a year and a half later, around xmas 1999, i managed to get a gig with hogshead publishing. This, married with my first evar computer meant that I was on the way out of shitsville.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There u go then. That’s it so far. Click the links to the right for interviews and ting if u want:)

 

 

 

Young Fraze

Modern Fraze

(still putting things into his mouth to taste them)