“Draw, pardner” – introducing the TOH illustrator!

A week or two ago I got an email from a chap called Jonathan Traynor.

Said chap is an illustrator in his free time, and he came to me with a proposition: “Let me draw the utter fucking piss out of things on your site.”

Granted, those aren’t the exact words he used – he was far more polite and comprehensive in his pitch – but that’s how I interpreted it.

Since I liked the cut of his jib (even if that was an alternative jib I conjured up in my head), I’m happy to announce yer man Traynor is now on board the good ship Tired Old Hack.

The deal is this: some of my articles going forward – mainly my larger reviews of single games (rather than round-ups) and certain previews or features – will be accompanied by an illustration by Jonathan, just to give the articles a bit of extra character and humour.

For example, here’s a sample one he did for my Night Trap review (which I’ve retrospectively added it to):

And here’s another for my Sonic Mania review, for which I’ve done the same:

As you can see, a number of these illustrations will include yer man Scullion as a character. This is partly to give them a Tired Old Hack feel and make it clear they were designed for my site, and partly because I always loved when ’90s magazines like Mean Machines and Total! had cartoon versions of the writers accompanying their reviews.

For the purposes of transparency, I’ll be paying Jonathan for these. He offered to do them for nothing so he could get exposure, but since we all know I hate that word I’m sending him a modest monthly fee. It’s not a hell of a lot – I’m still building my own Patreon, after all – but I think it’s important to pay people something for their work, even if it isn’t much, if your site’s making any money at all.

Naturally, he also gets the exposure he wants too (that sort of comes as standard with me, you know, actually showing the images). With that in mind, if you’re a publisher or editor and you like his work and want to commission him – hopefully for significantly more than I’m paying him – you can ether grab him on Twitter or visit the ‘Ask Me Anything’ section on his website.

Ultimately, Jonathan and I are like-minded souls: we’re both Glaswegians doing what we love in our spare time, and hoping it can eventually lead to something we can make a living out of (again, in my case).

I hope you’ll make Jonathan feel welcome, and am confident you’ll enjoy his work going forward. I’ve already seen some of his illustrations for an article I’m working on for later this week, and they’re cracking.

Welcome aboard, chief!