About Mark

The Story So Far

Mark Toner has been living a number of parallel lives, although it is unconfirmed whether some time travel device has been used.
One life took him through the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, and to the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawai’i. In this life he was an astrophysicist and got to play with giant telescopes and orbiting observatories.
Another life had him teaching programming and desktop publishing in an ITeC in Dumfries before training as a maths teacher and teaching maths and physics in Dumfries and Galloway College of Technology.
Another life is being chronicled by bandmate Noel Chidwick and saw the extradimensional creation of prog band Painted Ocean currently touring a universe near you.

Now Mark has cleared away all such distractions to concentrate on the artwork that has featured in everything he has done since the age of 6: writing and drawing comics. This lifelong career has seen him hijack his school newsletter and make it into a comic and join in the 80s independent comics revolution with the ‘Humphrey’ cartoons.

Now he is making new comics here at www.spacepilot.scot, especially SF oddity ‘The Tales Of The Beachcomber’ which is a regular feature  in Shoreline Of Infinity magazine, on which Mark is the art director.

Mark's other art projects include the Magpie of Space web comic, arty black and white film photography and creating short, crazy videos on Blender.

Mark says, “If you like my artwork and would like to put some on your site, I'm happy for you to use it with attribution to me and a link to this site, as long as you are not making any money from it. If you’ve got commercial plans for my work, I insist on my share of the proceeds. All artwork and stories are copyright © 1982 to 2020 Mark Toner, all rights reserved. If you have a need for illustration for your own site or publication, I am for hire. So contact me to discuss your requirements.” (See the contact form in the side bar.)

Formal CV

Born: 23 July 1960 at Beckford Lodge, Hamilton
Schools: Our Lady Of Lourdes Primary School and St Bride’s High School in East Kilbride
University: Glasgow 1978 to 1982, BSc (Hons) Astronomy; Edinburgh 1982 to 1986, MPhil Astrophysics; Glasgow 2000 to 2005, PhD Solar Physics
Professional Qualifications: St Andrew’s College 1989 to 1990, PGCE Secondary Mathematics
Employment: Ladbroke’s, Clerk 1979; Dumfries ITeC, Supervisor (Programming and DTP) 1986 to 1999; Dumfries and Galloway Council, Supply Teacher 1990 to 1991; Dumfries and Galloway College, Lecturer 1991 to 2008; University of Glasgow, Part-time Lecturer 1992 to present, Research Assistant 2001 to 2005; New Curiosity Shop, Associate Partner 2004 to present; Freelance Comic Artist (and writer) 1982 to present (recently under Space Pilot Comics banner); Freelance Musician 1978 to present; Art Director of Shoreline Of Infinity magazine 2014 to present; founding member and convenor of Shoreline of Infinity Group 2017 to present.

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