Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. It's been a while, I know. But now we're back again, and this time I'm hoping to stick to the schedule properly. Moving to Hastings, dealing wth the two hour commute and just juggling stuff in my life got too much and something had to give for a bit - so that something had to be the cartoon.
But now we're back after an 18 month break, and what a difference 18 months makes. The world economy finally imploded (what took it so long?) and we're now dealing with the aftermath. America now has a president worthy of the title. And we have a new Doctor Who.
Note the new format. The strip has a width limit of 600 pixels, but there's no limit on depth, so I'm changing to a square format, so I've got more cartooning real estate to work with.
Also note today's strip is a partial experiment in using coloured pencils. It turned out so bad I painted over it in PhotoShop. I return to my usual flat Tintin inspired style in the following cartoons.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Monday, September 3, 2007
Spam
In a wonderful moment of synchronicity, on the day I posted this cartoon, some REAL spam (in the internet sense) was posted through my letterbox. Someone in Spain had gone to all the bother of posting me one of those 'Congratulations, you have won in the Euromillions lottery' scams which expect you to post back your bank details by return. I'm expecting to be flooded by letters postmarked Nigeria any day now...
Friday, August 31, 2007
Literary snobulation
Is SF worthless twaddle?
Well, if you consider the works of Anthony Burgess, JG Ballard, Margaret Attwood, Doris Lessing, CS Lewis, Mark Twain, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, William Morris, Samuel Butler, Sir Thomas More, Jack London, H G Wells, Mary Shelley, Jonathan Swift and Homer to be worthless rubbish, then I guess it is.
(However - you can usually guarantee that any three volume fantasy book with a map in the endpapers really will be twaddle without reading it.)
Well, if you consider the works of Anthony Burgess, JG Ballard, Margaret Attwood, Doris Lessing, CS Lewis, Mark Twain, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, William Morris, Samuel Butler, Sir Thomas More, Jack London, H G Wells, Mary Shelley, Jonathan Swift and Homer to be worthless rubbish, then I guess it is.
(However - you can usually guarantee that any three volume fantasy book with a map in the endpapers really will be twaddle without reading it.)
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
August 2007
August 1, Strip 233.
Rain, rain, go away…
One o clock is when my lunch break starts. It’s also when the one o’clock cloud appears without fail and it starts raining. Maybe this will make it go away again.
August 6, Strip 235.
Sunburn.
I’m a redhead. I’m not as firey as I used to be when I was a child, but I still have all the associated problems that go with a copper top, mainly an extreme sensitivity to sunlight. I have to wear SPF50 in New Mexico in the middle of winter. A few days ago I dared to go for a walk along the seafront and ended up with an atomic suntan – the kind that only affects the side of your face that was facing the blast.
Anyway, this was my way of marking the belated return of that yellow thing in the sky. I think it’s called the Snu.
August 27. Strip 244.
Landscape.
I don’t often get to draw a landscape, as this tends to be an indoors cartoon most of the time. I thought I’d celebrate August Bank Holiday Monday with a view of the sort of chalk downs Kent and Sussex are famous for.
Rain, rain, go away…
One o clock is when my lunch break starts. It’s also when the one o’clock cloud appears without fail and it starts raining. Maybe this will make it go away again.
August 6, Strip 235.
Sunburn.
I’m a redhead. I’m not as firey as I used to be when I was a child, but I still have all the associated problems that go with a copper top, mainly an extreme sensitivity to sunlight. I have to wear SPF50 in New Mexico in the middle of winter. A few days ago I dared to go for a walk along the seafront and ended up with an atomic suntan – the kind that only affects the side of your face that was facing the blast.
Anyway, this was my way of marking the belated return of that yellow thing in the sky. I think it’s called the Snu.
August 27. Strip 244.
Landscape.
I don’t often get to draw a landscape, as this tends to be an indoors cartoon most of the time. I thought I’d celebrate August Bank Holiday Monday with a view of the sort of chalk downs Kent and Sussex are famous for.
July 2007
July 2, Strip 222.
Le Tour de France.
Le Tour visited the UK for the first time in twelve years this Summer, and it even stopped raining for the two days it was over here. The route snaked through Kent and passed within 100 yards of my front door in Tunbridge Wells. Disgusted by the inconvenience, we moved to Hastings the following day.
I love the Tour de France – it’s one of the few sporting events I will sit down and watch. It’s not just a sport, it’s a travelogue and a soap opera as well. What a pity the storyline this year was about doping yet again. By the time the Tour ended, three weeks later, so many people had been disqualified for illegal drugs that no-one cared who had won, including me. The following days strip turned out to be frighteningly prescient.
July 23, Strip 229.
Dobby.
Who knew that the death of a character you previously thought was an irritating waste of time would be the most affecting thing in the book? Blub!
July 25, Strip 230.
We’re not making this up.
One and a quarter million copies of ‘Deathly Hallows’ were sold on the Saturday of its re-lease in Britain alone. That’s one copy for every 50 people in the country. And somehow the bookselling trade conspired to discount the books so much that they made a loss on every copy they sold. Supermarkets sold them as loss leaders and small booksellers had to do the same to compete. Madness.
July 30, Strip 232.
The summer that never happened.
It rained. Endlessly. It rained so much that some water authorities even rescinded their drought orders. More importantly, a lot of towns all over the country found themselves under water.
This is also a sort of backwards tribute to the South Plains Mall in Lubbock, Texas, which has a car park with a tendency to become a swimming pool at the slightest hint of rain. If you’re in that part of the world, never park behind Dillards if there’s a single cloud in the sky.
Le Tour de France.
Le Tour visited the UK for the first time in twelve years this Summer, and it even stopped raining for the two days it was over here. The route snaked through Kent and passed within 100 yards of my front door in Tunbridge Wells. Disgusted by the inconvenience, we moved to Hastings the following day.
I love the Tour de France – it’s one of the few sporting events I will sit down and watch. It’s not just a sport, it’s a travelogue and a soap opera as well. What a pity the storyline this year was about doping yet again. By the time the Tour ended, three weeks later, so many people had been disqualified for illegal drugs that no-one cared who had won, including me. The following days strip turned out to be frighteningly prescient.
July 23, Strip 229.
Dobby.
Who knew that the death of a character you previously thought was an irritating waste of time would be the most affecting thing in the book? Blub!
July 25, Strip 230.
We’re not making this up.
One and a quarter million copies of ‘Deathly Hallows’ were sold on the Saturday of its re-lease in Britain alone. That’s one copy for every 50 people in the country. And somehow the bookselling trade conspired to discount the books so much that they made a loss on every copy they sold. Supermarkets sold them as loss leaders and small booksellers had to do the same to compete. Madness.
July 30, Strip 232.
The summer that never happened.
It rained. Endlessly. It rained so much that some water authorities even rescinded their drought orders. More importantly, a lot of towns all over the country found themselves under water.
This is also a sort of backwards tribute to the South Plains Mall in Lubbock, Texas, which has a car park with a tendency to become a swimming pool at the slightest hint of rain. If you’re in that part of the world, never park behind Dillards if there’s a single cloud in the sky.
June 2007
June 1. Strip 207.
A royal romance.
As of the time of writing (August 14th) , this romance is back on again. By the time you read this, it probably won’t be. Unless it is again. It all depends on whether the Daily Express has a slow news day or not.
June 4. Strip 208.
Some bloke called Fayed.
Mohammed Fayed, owner of Harrods. His son, Dodi, was tragically killed with Diana in that accident in Paris. Deep down in his heart, the poor guy must know he has some responsibility for the whole sorry affair as the car involved was his, the drunken speeding chauffeur was his and they were leaving a hotel he owned. Instead, he’s concocted a marvelously complicated conspiracy theory blaming the Royal family and assorted British security agencies which leaves him in the clear, and promotes it every Monday on the front page of the Daily Express. (None of the other papers ever follow those stories up. I wonder why.) I don’t deny the man his grief, but it's got twisted into something very odd.
June 11. Strip 211.
Daddy! Nooooo!!!!
When I noticed that the local branch of WHSmiths had created a new section in its book-store called ‘Tragic Childhoods’, and it was twice the size of ‘Biography’, I decided that enough was enough. This is simply the pornography of misery.
June 18. Strip 214.
Chicken Tikka Masala
Chicken Tikka Masala is the English national dish. I’m not kidding, it was invented in Britain when Indian restaurants adapted their dry Chicken Tikka dishes to the English taste by adding a sauce and coming up with a hybrid that we took to our heart.
June 25. Strip 219.
Wimbledon.
There are three things that guarantee rain in Britain. They are Wimbledon Fortnight, Tunbridge Wells Cricket Week, and a barbeque being lit anywhere.
June 27, Strip 220.
Thou shalt not smoke.
I don’t smoke. I never have smoked. I lost my father to self-inflicted lung cancer. But ever since the smoking ban in public places started, I’ve been sorely tempted, just out of sheer orneriness. Up to now there always used to be smoking sections and non smoking sections in restaurants and theatres, and that’s worked fine. Now it’s all changed. Thou shalt not smoke even in semi enclosed areas like railway platforms, or shopping centres, and even specialized smoking rooms for those who have no self control have been outlawed. Some pubs have erected draughty bus shelters outside their premises so that desperate nicotine addicts can smoke in the wind and the rain in full view of everyone else. It all strikes me as an absurdly draconian solution to a mildly irritating problem. And, of course, it makes smoking cool and rebellious again, which is exactly what it shouldn’t be doing.
June 29, Strip 221.
Intentional retro.
In reality Brad would be using a tiny digital recorder to make his bootleg with, but who knows what one of those looks like? Hence the enormous reel to reel tape recorder
A royal romance.
As of the time of writing (August 14th) , this romance is back on again. By the time you read this, it probably won’t be. Unless it is again. It all depends on whether the Daily Express has a slow news day or not.
June 4. Strip 208.
Some bloke called Fayed.
Mohammed Fayed, owner of Harrods. His son, Dodi, was tragically killed with Diana in that accident in Paris. Deep down in his heart, the poor guy must know he has some responsibility for the whole sorry affair as the car involved was his, the drunken speeding chauffeur was his and they were leaving a hotel he owned. Instead, he’s concocted a marvelously complicated conspiracy theory blaming the Royal family and assorted British security agencies which leaves him in the clear, and promotes it every Monday on the front page of the Daily Express. (None of the other papers ever follow those stories up. I wonder why.) I don’t deny the man his grief, but it's got twisted into something very odd.
June 11. Strip 211.
Daddy! Nooooo!!!!
When I noticed that the local branch of WHSmiths had created a new section in its book-store called ‘Tragic Childhoods’, and it was twice the size of ‘Biography’, I decided that enough was enough. This is simply the pornography of misery.
June 18. Strip 214.
Chicken Tikka Masala
Chicken Tikka Masala is the English national dish. I’m not kidding, it was invented in Britain when Indian restaurants adapted their dry Chicken Tikka dishes to the English taste by adding a sauce and coming up with a hybrid that we took to our heart.
June 25. Strip 219.
Wimbledon.
There are three things that guarantee rain in Britain. They are Wimbledon Fortnight, Tunbridge Wells Cricket Week, and a barbeque being lit anywhere.
June 27, Strip 220.
Thou shalt not smoke.
I don’t smoke. I never have smoked. I lost my father to self-inflicted lung cancer. But ever since the smoking ban in public places started, I’ve been sorely tempted, just out of sheer orneriness. Up to now there always used to be smoking sections and non smoking sections in restaurants and theatres, and that’s worked fine. Now it’s all changed. Thou shalt not smoke even in semi enclosed areas like railway platforms, or shopping centres, and even specialized smoking rooms for those who have no self control have been outlawed. Some pubs have erected draughty bus shelters outside their premises so that desperate nicotine addicts can smoke in the wind and the rain in full view of everyone else. It all strikes me as an absurdly draconian solution to a mildly irritating problem. And, of course, it makes smoking cool and rebellious again, which is exactly what it shouldn’t be doing.
June 29, Strip 221.
Intentional retro.
In reality Brad would be using a tiny digital recorder to make his bootleg with, but who knows what one of those looks like? Hence the enormous reel to reel tape recorder
May 2007
May 2. Strip 194.
Apostrophe’s
My wife is an ex copy editor, and detests apostrophe’s being put in the wrong place. Like that. Sometimes I have to distract her from greengrocer’s windows so she doesn’t see the signs that say stuff like ‘Jersey Potatoe’s, 69p/lb’.
May 7. Strip 196.
The Eurovision Song Contest.
An annual pan-European television show where countries all over the continent (and, for some reason, Israel) put forward a song and a singer to represent their nation, and they compete to see which song gets the most votes. It’s very political, the songs are secondary to the voting (though a bit of camp presentation always goes down well). Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the eastern European nations have taken over the phone vote, and the past few winners have been Russia, the Ukraine, Turkey and Latvia. Finland’s 2006 win was a bit of anomaly, but then so was the fire breathing death metal band they chose to represent them that year. Since the Iraq war, no-one votes for the UK and we have to rely on Ireland and Malta to avoid the ignominy of ‘nul points’ on the scoreboard.
May 14. Strip 199.
The customized Segway.
Judge Dredd. He is the law.
May 28. Strip 205.
Ten years on, she’s still dead.
On the day of Diana’s death I predicted that we’d never hear the last of it. And we haven’t. It’s been ten years now. Get over it. She died of getting into a car with a drunk chauffeur and not wearing a seat belt. It was just a ghastly accident, and not a plot by the Duke of Edinburgh/MI5/the CIA/the Illuminati/the Mafia/shape shifting alien lizards at all. It's turned into a JFK conspiracy theory for people who read OK magazine.
Apostrophe’s
My wife is an ex copy editor, and detests apostrophe’s being put in the wrong place. Like that. Sometimes I have to distract her from greengrocer’s windows so she doesn’t see the signs that say stuff like ‘Jersey Potatoe’s, 69p/lb’.
May 7. Strip 196.
The Eurovision Song Contest.
An annual pan-European television show where countries all over the continent (and, for some reason, Israel) put forward a song and a singer to represent their nation, and they compete to see which song gets the most votes. It’s very political, the songs are secondary to the voting (though a bit of camp presentation always goes down well). Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the eastern European nations have taken over the phone vote, and the past few winners have been Russia, the Ukraine, Turkey and Latvia. Finland’s 2006 win was a bit of anomaly, but then so was the fire breathing death metal band they chose to represent them that year. Since the Iraq war, no-one votes for the UK and we have to rely on Ireland and Malta to avoid the ignominy of ‘nul points’ on the scoreboard.
May 14. Strip 199.
The customized Segway.
Judge Dredd. He is the law.
May 28. Strip 205.
Ten years on, she’s still dead.
On the day of Diana’s death I predicted that we’d never hear the last of it. And we haven’t. It’s been ten years now. Get over it. She died of getting into a car with a drunk chauffeur and not wearing a seat belt. It was just a ghastly accident, and not a plot by the Duke of Edinburgh/MI5/the CIA/the Illuminati/the Mafia/shape shifting alien lizards at all. It's turned into a JFK conspiracy theory for people who read OK magazine.
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