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.)
Friday, August 31, 2007
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.
April 2007
April 6. Strip 183.
Marks and Sparks
This is the colloquial name for the Marks and Spencer chain of food and clothing stores. The epitome of respectable bourgeois retail. The Queen gets her underwear there. Not in person, of course, she probably has someone with the title of Lord High Undergarment Pursuivant to fetch it for her.
April 16. Strip 187.
Segway
I spotted my first rentacop on a Segway in the Cottonwood Mall, Albuquerque. It was too good an image to waste, so I imported it to Britain.
April 30. Strip 193.
UKIP.
UKIP, the United Kingdom Independence Party, are a strange bunch - they have some perfectly valid points to make about Britain’s place in Europe, but don’t seem to be able to do it without frothing at the mouth. They used to have a constituency headquarters in Tunbridge Wells, and I’m not kidding, if you peered through the window it looked like the lair of a serial killer, with mad slogans scrawled on the walls and intricate collages of newspaper cuttings of Jacques Delors sellotaped to every available surface. If they do serve a purpose, it’s to drain the right-wing nutter vote from the Conservatives, and keep Labour in power.
Marks and Sparks
This is the colloquial name for the Marks and Spencer chain of food and clothing stores. The epitome of respectable bourgeois retail. The Queen gets her underwear there. Not in person, of course, she probably has someone with the title of Lord High Undergarment Pursuivant to fetch it for her.
April 16. Strip 187.
Segway
I spotted my first rentacop on a Segway in the Cottonwood Mall, Albuquerque. It was too good an image to waste, so I imported it to Britain.
April 30. Strip 193.
UKIP.
UKIP, the United Kingdom Independence Party, are a strange bunch - they have some perfectly valid points to make about Britain’s place in Europe, but don’t seem to be able to do it without frothing at the mouth. They used to have a constituency headquarters in Tunbridge Wells, and I’m not kidding, if you peered through the window it looked like the lair of a serial killer, with mad slogans scrawled on the walls and intricate collages of newspaper cuttings of Jacques Delors sellotaped to every available surface. If they do serve a purpose, it’s to drain the right-wing nutter vote from the Conservatives, and keep Labour in power.
March 2007
Mar 5. Strip 169.
Red Nose Day.
Comic Relief in the UK was set up by Richard Curtis, the comedy writer later held responsible for “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Love Actually”. Every two years the charity holds a Red Nose Day fundraising event, taking over the BBC to raise money for good causes in Africa and the UK. Everyone is invited to act a bit mad for the day. Most people just buy a red nose, but a few desperate attention seekers do things like bathe in baked beans (for some reason, this always tends to be done by bank managers trying to prove they’re human after all) or shave half their beard off.
Red Nose Day.
Comic Relief in the UK was set up by Richard Curtis, the comedy writer later held responsible for “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Love Actually”. Every two years the charity holds a Red Nose Day fundraising event, taking over the BBC to raise money for good causes in Africa and the UK. Everyone is invited to act a bit mad for the day. Most people just buy a red nose, but a few desperate attention seekers do things like bathe in baked beans (for some reason, this always tends to be done by bank managers trying to prove they’re human after all) or shave half their beard off.
February 2008
Feb 1 - Strip 154.
1500 metres, medium wave.
We only remember the good stuff that came out of the 70s. But in reality, it was like half the chart was filled with stuff of the level of ‘Macarena’.
The Wombles were little furry animals who starred in a children’s puppet show. Somehow, they turned into a rock band with music by Mike Batt (who also wrote ‘Bright Eyes’ for Art Garfunkel). And to be fair, they were actually rather good. But they’re representative of the other ghastly novelty singles that clogged the charts around then.
Jonathan King was a prime supplier of these, so prolific he worked under about eighty pseudonyms. Think of any naggingly catchy song from about 1973 that you absolutely hate but can’t stop humming, and he was probably responsible for it. He's now a convicted paedophile. I don't think the two things are connected.
Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by The Middle of The Road was an example of the kind of song people brought home with them from their package holidays, like a tropical disease. Other examples of this were Y Viva Espana, Una Paloma Blanca and The Birdies Song.
Feb 2. Strip 155.
Robin Asquith’s arse and politics
Robin Asquith’s arse appeared in so many appalling sex comedies in the 1970s that the British film industry had no option but to curl up and die. Don’t see films like ‘Confessions of a Window Cleaner’ - not even out of curiosity. I said dont!
1973 was also the point at which the Unions were really abusing their power. I’m all in favour of unions standing up for their rights and protecting their jobs and wages, but this was a time when production lines would shut down over a dispute about the kind of chocolate biscuits being provided in the canteen. They ended up destroying themselves, and now the pendulum of power has swung so far in the other direction we’re almost back in the same place. Anyway, 1973 was the year of the coal miners strike, which by the end of the year led to an energy crunch, a series of rolling blackouts and the government putting the country on a three day working week because we couldn’t afford to keep industry running for the rest of the week.
I repeat. The 70s were not a golden age.
Feb 5. Strip 157.
Plimsolls.
All black deck shoes that kids used to wear in primary (elementary) school for PE (gym). They were unbranded, came from Woolworths, and cost about 15p a pair. They must be due for a revival now, from Nike, at £70 a foot. I don’t know whether they are in any way related to the man who invented drawing lines on the sides of ships.
Feb 6. Strip 158.
Rugby.
Like American Football, only without the armour plating and ad breaks. I was forced to play this at school, in the freezing cold and rain on sodden quagmires of pitches. Subsequently I now detest the game. However, I will concede that it’s not quite as boring as Cricket, which can last five days and still not have a result at the end.
Feb 16. Strip 162.
Take that, Mr Gatso!
Yes, there are people who firebomb speed cameras. They can’t be terrorists - they belong to all the right golf clubs!
Feb 26. Strip 166.
“HI! I’M BARRY SCOTT!”.
No-one knows who BARRY SCOTT is except for the fact he has a VERY LOUD VOICE and advertises a range of cleaning products called CILLIT BANG! “BANG! AND THE DIRT IS GONE..” is his catch phrase. REMEMBER THE PENNY TEST? The stuff is very very pink - almost peptobismoid.
1500 metres, medium wave.
We only remember the good stuff that came out of the 70s. But in reality, it was like half the chart was filled with stuff of the level of ‘Macarena’.
The Wombles were little furry animals who starred in a children’s puppet show. Somehow, they turned into a rock band with music by Mike Batt (who also wrote ‘Bright Eyes’ for Art Garfunkel). And to be fair, they were actually rather good. But they’re representative of the other ghastly novelty singles that clogged the charts around then.
Jonathan King was a prime supplier of these, so prolific he worked under about eighty pseudonyms. Think of any naggingly catchy song from about 1973 that you absolutely hate but can’t stop humming, and he was probably responsible for it. He's now a convicted paedophile. I don't think the two things are connected.
Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by The Middle of The Road was an example of the kind of song people brought home with them from their package holidays, like a tropical disease. Other examples of this were Y Viva Espana, Una Paloma Blanca and The Birdies Song.
Feb 2. Strip 155.
Robin Asquith’s arse and politics
Robin Asquith’s arse appeared in so many appalling sex comedies in the 1970s that the British film industry had no option but to curl up and die. Don’t see films like ‘Confessions of a Window Cleaner’ - not even out of curiosity. I said dont!
1973 was also the point at which the Unions were really abusing their power. I’m all in favour of unions standing up for their rights and protecting their jobs and wages, but this was a time when production lines would shut down over a dispute about the kind of chocolate biscuits being provided in the canteen. They ended up destroying themselves, and now the pendulum of power has swung so far in the other direction we’re almost back in the same place. Anyway, 1973 was the year of the coal miners strike, which by the end of the year led to an energy crunch, a series of rolling blackouts and the government putting the country on a three day working week because we couldn’t afford to keep industry running for the rest of the week.
I repeat. The 70s were not a golden age.
Feb 5. Strip 157.
Plimsolls.
All black deck shoes that kids used to wear in primary (elementary) school for PE (gym). They were unbranded, came from Woolworths, and cost about 15p a pair. They must be due for a revival now, from Nike, at £70 a foot. I don’t know whether they are in any way related to the man who invented drawing lines on the sides of ships.
Feb 6. Strip 158.
Rugby.
Like American Football, only without the armour plating and ad breaks. I was forced to play this at school, in the freezing cold and rain on sodden quagmires of pitches. Subsequently I now detest the game. However, I will concede that it’s not quite as boring as Cricket, which can last five days and still not have a result at the end.
Feb 16. Strip 162.
Take that, Mr Gatso!
Yes, there are people who firebomb speed cameras. They can’t be terrorists - they belong to all the right golf clubs!
Feb 26. Strip 166.
“HI! I’M BARRY SCOTT!”.
No-one knows who BARRY SCOTT is except for the fact he has a VERY LOUD VOICE and advertises a range of cleaning products called CILLIT BANG! “BANG! AND THE DIRT IS GONE..” is his catch phrase. REMEMBER THE PENNY TEST? The stuff is very very pink - almost peptobismoid.
January 2007
Jan 1 2007. Strip 127.
Colour!
My main inspiration for my use of colour is Herge’s adventures of TinTin - ie flat areas of neutral colour with a few highlights. I’ve always wanted to be able to do flat areas of colour but until I got my graphics tablet I’ve been unable to do it in a way that I’m happy with. Watch me experiment over the next few months until my palette calms down around March.
And, for pedants, yes I do realise that the new year starts with the FIRST of the twelve bongs of Big Ben. And I raise your pedantry by one by reminding you that Big Ben is just the bell, and not the clock tower. So ner.
Jan 6. Strip 132.
Is it just me?
This year’s novelty Christmas book trend was for rather cynical celebrations of everything bad, headed by a delightful volume called ‘Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t everything shite?’. This was followed by the book of crap towns and the book of crap cars. Next year look out for the book of crap books about things being crap.
Jan 7. Strip 133.
Pantomime Dames.
I was appearing in Aladdin at the local theatre at the time I drew this. If you’ve never seen panto, then it’s a bit hard to explain. It’s a sort of mixture of fairy tale and vaudeville, with stock characters playing the main parts. Thus we have the Principal Boy (Aladdin, Dick Whittington, Peter Pan etc) played by an attractive young woman in shorts, a bumbling old man (Emperor of China, Alderman Fitzwilliam etc), an evil villain (Abanazer, King Rat, Captain Hook etc), a love interest (Princess Jasmine, Alice, Snow White etc), a comedy animal (Dick’s cat, or a pantomime horse or cow played by two people), and a Dame (or in the case of Cinderella, two). The Dame is played by a man in the most over the top make up and costume imaginable - the final effect should be that of a bricklayer in drag.
Jan 8 - Strip 134.
Tracey’s first appearance.
Watch her mutate over the next few months until she reaches her final form.
I’d realised that I had a good set of characters, but that it was very hard for them to get out of their shops and meet each other. So Tracey was my first attempt at giving existing characters something to react to. She’s also part of a long game I’m playing with Debbie’s character.
Jan 13 - Strip 138.
‘Is it raining?’
I’m always being given gags to use in my cartoons. I normally never use them. This was the first one I accepted. I won’t do it again - when ComicsSherpa had a ratings system this got the lowest rating I ever received.
Jan 17 - Strip 141.
Gitwizard!
David Blaine - or in Marcus Brigstock’s immortal phrase: the Gitwizard. Something about him just gets under the average Brit’s skin. Maybe it’s because he takes himself so seriously. Remember when he decided to fast for forty days and forty nights in a perspex box suspended from a crane next to Tower Bridge in London? It very quickly became the rule for people to eat their burgers and kebabs underneath his box, just upwind enough for the smell to carry. Best of all was the man who rigged up a Big Mac to one of those radio controlled airships and then made it hover just out of reach of his perspex cage.
Jan 20 - Strip 144.
Your childhood lovingly reprinted in hardback for twice the price.
Another publishing trend of last Christmas was the repackaging of childhood magazines into books for nostalgic adults. Jackie was a girls magazine of the 60s and 70s; my sister used to get it. It was full of make up tips, advice about boys, romance comics and posters of Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. My Guy came about a decade later and added photo love stories to the mix (“I hate Kevin because he went out with Sharon... but his eyes are so dreamy...”). Smash Hits was the ultimate pop magazine of the 1980s, famed for it’s irreverence and for printing the lyrics to all the songs in the charts whether they deserved reproduction or not. And Eagle was a boy’s comic of the 1950s, full of square jawed heroes like Dan Dare of the British Space Force, and cutaway drawings of grain elevators.
Jan 27 - Strip 150.
Lash extending mascara.
Six months later it turned out that the TV ads for this lash extending mascara were filmed using false eyelashes. The curse of Riverfields strikes again.
Jan 29 - Strip 151.
Life on Mars.
This weeks strip is based on a British Drama series called ‘Life on Mars’, soon to be re-made for American consumption by Showtime. Pray it turns out like All in the Family, and not like Coupling. Anyway, it’s about a Manchester cop from 2006 who gets run over by a car and finds himself in 1973. Is it a coma induced dream or it is real? And how will he cope with the rather different attitude to policing the Manchester CID had back then, the racism, the sexism, the corruption?
This week is about the 70s I remember from my childhood, a decade of awful music, artificial flavours, the slow death of the British film industry, inflation and constant strikes. It wasn’t the golden era some would have you believe.
Jan 30 - Strip 152.
A list of nostalgic brown things.
I also get to indulge in a few bits of period detail. In the previous strip you got to see the car that killed off the British car industry, the Austin Allegro. It’s the bulbous thing in the last frame - it had a square steering wheel, need I say more? In this one you can see the kind of big glass container full of coloured water that used to be in the window of chemists up and down the land. And behind Peace, in the last frame, an entire rack of Penguin paperbacks with uniform spines.
Colour!
My main inspiration for my use of colour is Herge’s adventures of TinTin - ie flat areas of neutral colour with a few highlights. I’ve always wanted to be able to do flat areas of colour but until I got my graphics tablet I’ve been unable to do it in a way that I’m happy with. Watch me experiment over the next few months until my palette calms down around March.
And, for pedants, yes I do realise that the new year starts with the FIRST of the twelve bongs of Big Ben. And I raise your pedantry by one by reminding you that Big Ben is just the bell, and not the clock tower. So ner.
Jan 6. Strip 132.
Is it just me?
This year’s novelty Christmas book trend was for rather cynical celebrations of everything bad, headed by a delightful volume called ‘Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t everything shite?’. This was followed by the book of crap towns and the book of crap cars. Next year look out for the book of crap books about things being crap.
Jan 7. Strip 133.
Pantomime Dames.
I was appearing in Aladdin at the local theatre at the time I drew this. If you’ve never seen panto, then it’s a bit hard to explain. It’s a sort of mixture of fairy tale and vaudeville, with stock characters playing the main parts. Thus we have the Principal Boy (Aladdin, Dick Whittington, Peter Pan etc) played by an attractive young woman in shorts, a bumbling old man (Emperor of China, Alderman Fitzwilliam etc), an evil villain (Abanazer, King Rat, Captain Hook etc), a love interest (Princess Jasmine, Alice, Snow White etc), a comedy animal (Dick’s cat, or a pantomime horse or cow played by two people), and a Dame (or in the case of Cinderella, two). The Dame is played by a man in the most over the top make up and costume imaginable - the final effect should be that of a bricklayer in drag.
Jan 8 - Strip 134.
Tracey’s first appearance.
Watch her mutate over the next few months until she reaches her final form.
I’d realised that I had a good set of characters, but that it was very hard for them to get out of their shops and meet each other. So Tracey was my first attempt at giving existing characters something to react to. She’s also part of a long game I’m playing with Debbie’s character.
Jan 13 - Strip 138.
‘Is it raining?’
I’m always being given gags to use in my cartoons. I normally never use them. This was the first one I accepted. I won’t do it again - when ComicsSherpa had a ratings system this got the lowest rating I ever received.
Jan 17 - Strip 141.
Gitwizard!
David Blaine - or in Marcus Brigstock’s immortal phrase: the Gitwizard. Something about him just gets under the average Brit’s skin. Maybe it’s because he takes himself so seriously. Remember when he decided to fast for forty days and forty nights in a perspex box suspended from a crane next to Tower Bridge in London? It very quickly became the rule for people to eat their burgers and kebabs underneath his box, just upwind enough for the smell to carry. Best of all was the man who rigged up a Big Mac to one of those radio controlled airships and then made it hover just out of reach of his perspex cage.
Jan 20 - Strip 144.
Your childhood lovingly reprinted in hardback for twice the price.
Another publishing trend of last Christmas was the repackaging of childhood magazines into books for nostalgic adults. Jackie was a girls magazine of the 60s and 70s; my sister used to get it. It was full of make up tips, advice about boys, romance comics and posters of Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. My Guy came about a decade later and added photo love stories to the mix (“I hate Kevin because he went out with Sharon... but his eyes are so dreamy...”). Smash Hits was the ultimate pop magazine of the 1980s, famed for it’s irreverence and for printing the lyrics to all the songs in the charts whether they deserved reproduction or not. And Eagle was a boy’s comic of the 1950s, full of square jawed heroes like Dan Dare of the British Space Force, and cutaway drawings of grain elevators.
Jan 27 - Strip 150.
Lash extending mascara.
Six months later it turned out that the TV ads for this lash extending mascara were filmed using false eyelashes. The curse of Riverfields strikes again.
Jan 29 - Strip 151.
Life on Mars.
This weeks strip is based on a British Drama series called ‘Life on Mars’, soon to be re-made for American consumption by Showtime. Pray it turns out like All in the Family, and not like Coupling. Anyway, it’s about a Manchester cop from 2006 who gets run over by a car and finds himself in 1973. Is it a coma induced dream or it is real? And how will he cope with the rather different attitude to policing the Manchester CID had back then, the racism, the sexism, the corruption?
This week is about the 70s I remember from my childhood, a decade of awful music, artificial flavours, the slow death of the British film industry, inflation and constant strikes. It wasn’t the golden era some would have you believe.
Jan 30 - Strip 152.
A list of nostalgic brown things.
I also get to indulge in a few bits of period detail. In the previous strip you got to see the car that killed off the British car industry, the Austin Allegro. It’s the bulbous thing in the last frame - it had a square steering wheel, need I say more? In this one you can see the kind of big glass container full of coloured water that used to be in the window of chemists up and down the land. And behind Peace, in the last frame, an entire rack of Penguin paperbacks with uniform spines.
December 2006
Dec 1. Strip 101.
Hoodies
The hoodie, a track suit or fleece with a hood attached, is the uniform of the semi-feral youth of today, if the Daily Express is to be believed. Actually, it’s a very useful item of clothing but it’s been adopted by the Chavs because it’s a useful way of avoiding the gaze of the ubiquitous CCTV cameras, especially when accompanied by a baseball cap. For this reason hoodies have now been banned by several malls in the UK, because, as we all know, most crime is caused by wearing the wrong sort of clothing. Embarrassingly, they decided on this at around the same time the DVD of Revenge of the Sith was released, thereby criminalising all the promotional Jedi.
Dec 4. Strip 103.
Do you know where your children are?
The Dangerous Book for Boys was the publishing sensation of the year - ‘Dangerous’ in this case meaning climbing trees and getting scraped knees and all the stuff kids tend not to be allowed to do nowadays in case they get eaten by an asylum seeker. Whether it was bought by parents for kids, or by parents to remind themselves of their own childhoods and then hidden on a top shelf is recorded.
Dec 6. Strip 105.
James Paterson.
He doesn’t so much write books as excrete them. And the really annoying this about them is they’re not bad. They’re not good either, but they’re very efficient page turners written in chapters the same length as the average bullet point. In the time it’s taken me to write this paragraph he will have published three books.
Dec 11. Strip 109.
Error!
I meant outdoors of course. Duh!
Dec 13. Strip 111.
Phone in quizzes.
With hindsight we can see how prescient this was, with most of the British media now admitting to rigging their premium rate phone in quizzes and the BBC taking the nuclear option of closing them down completely. But this was actually written in response to ITV and Five replacing their late night programming with these moronic swathes of cheap television. Now they’re going to have to start producing real shows again.
Dec 14. Strip 112.
Up yours.
The V sign in reverse, known as the ‘Harvey Smith’ after the jockey who was its finest ex-ponent - this is the UK’s equivalent to the US’s upstanding middle finger or ‘swivel’.
Dec 21. Strip 118.
Geography.
Britain is much further north than most people think - on the same latitude as Labrador and the frozen wastes of Canada. Therefore there’s a lot more of a difference in the amount of sun we get between the summer and the winter. Where I live in the south of England the summer sun will rise at 4 in the morning and set at 10 in the evening. Unfortunately, this evens out in the winter, with the sun setting at half past three in the afternoon and then not rising until past eight.
Dec 23. Strip 120.
Christmas day is just the start
We take Christmas seriously here. There are twelve days of Christmas, and Christmas Day is just the start. It’s not like the States where the decorations are taken down the day after - here they stay up until Twelfth Night. The country effectively closes down from Christmas Eve until the day after New Years Day, with the only things running at full strength being the shops. And even these are closed on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, leaving just the petrol stations open. I wouldn’t describe myself as religious but I can’t help feeling that something sacred has been violated when I see a Walgreen open on Christmas Day.
I don’t know why petrol stations major on barbeque supplies. It doesn’t strike me as a very good place to put lots of kindling.
Dec 28. Strip 124.
The first green shoots of spring.
It’s an annual tradition for letters to be sent to the Times announcing that the first cuckoo of spring has been heard. But spring starts even earlier in the retail trade - I’ve seen shops putting out their stock of Easter Eggs on Christmas Eve.
Hoodies
The hoodie, a track suit or fleece with a hood attached, is the uniform of the semi-feral youth of today, if the Daily Express is to be believed. Actually, it’s a very useful item of clothing but it’s been adopted by the Chavs because it’s a useful way of avoiding the gaze of the ubiquitous CCTV cameras, especially when accompanied by a baseball cap. For this reason hoodies have now been banned by several malls in the UK, because, as we all know, most crime is caused by wearing the wrong sort of clothing. Embarrassingly, they decided on this at around the same time the DVD of Revenge of the Sith was released, thereby criminalising all the promotional Jedi.
Dec 4. Strip 103.
Do you know where your children are?
The Dangerous Book for Boys was the publishing sensation of the year - ‘Dangerous’ in this case meaning climbing trees and getting scraped knees and all the stuff kids tend not to be allowed to do nowadays in case they get eaten by an asylum seeker. Whether it was bought by parents for kids, or by parents to remind themselves of their own childhoods and then hidden on a top shelf is recorded.
Dec 6. Strip 105.
James Paterson.
He doesn’t so much write books as excrete them. And the really annoying this about them is they’re not bad. They’re not good either, but they’re very efficient page turners written in chapters the same length as the average bullet point. In the time it’s taken me to write this paragraph he will have published three books.
Dec 11. Strip 109.
Error!
I meant outdoors of course. Duh!
Dec 13. Strip 111.
Phone in quizzes.
With hindsight we can see how prescient this was, with most of the British media now admitting to rigging their premium rate phone in quizzes and the BBC taking the nuclear option of closing them down completely. But this was actually written in response to ITV and Five replacing their late night programming with these moronic swathes of cheap television. Now they’re going to have to start producing real shows again.
Dec 14. Strip 112.
Up yours.
The V sign in reverse, known as the ‘Harvey Smith’ after the jockey who was its finest ex-ponent - this is the UK’s equivalent to the US’s upstanding middle finger or ‘swivel’.
Dec 21. Strip 118.
Geography.
Britain is much further north than most people think - on the same latitude as Labrador and the frozen wastes of Canada. Therefore there’s a lot more of a difference in the amount of sun we get between the summer and the winter. Where I live in the south of England the summer sun will rise at 4 in the morning and set at 10 in the evening. Unfortunately, this evens out in the winter, with the sun setting at half past three in the afternoon and then not rising until past eight.
Dec 23. Strip 120.
Christmas day is just the start
We take Christmas seriously here. There are twelve days of Christmas, and Christmas Day is just the start. It’s not like the States where the decorations are taken down the day after - here they stay up until Twelfth Night. The country effectively closes down from Christmas Eve until the day after New Years Day, with the only things running at full strength being the shops. And even these are closed on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, leaving just the petrol stations open. I wouldn’t describe myself as religious but I can’t help feeling that something sacred has been violated when I see a Walgreen open on Christmas Day.
I don’t know why petrol stations major on barbeque supplies. It doesn’t strike me as a very good place to put lots of kindling.
Dec 28. Strip 124.
The first green shoots of spring.
It’s an annual tradition for letters to be sent to the Times announcing that the first cuckoo of spring has been heard. But spring starts even earlier in the retail trade - I’ve seen shops putting out their stock of Easter Eggs on Christmas Eve.
November 2006
Nov 2. Strip 76.
Guy Fawkes Night.
Remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot, as the old rhyme I was taught at school went. Ironically, I’ve forgotten the rest of it. November 5th is bonfire night, when we all gather around bonfires to burn an effigy of the Catholic plotter who was caught in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament trying to blow up the King as he opened a new Session of Parliament in 1605. He’s the face on the mask worn by the protagonist of V for Vendetta.
Guy Fawkes night is also an excuse for big fireworks displays. We do this because a) it gets dark early enough for the kids to enjoy it, b) the countryside is now damp enough not to be turned into a flaming inferno by a stray spark and c) it’s fun, and not because d) we used to have an irrational fear of Catholics.
Because fireworks are on sale from every newsagents in the land in the run up to Guy Fawkes Night, it’s now tended to turn into Guy Fawkes bloody fortnight.
Nov 3. Strip 77.
Thoughtcrime.
One of the stupider aspects of the war on terror (which of course is designed to promote fear as much as possible) is the series of thoughtcrime acts that Tony Blair brought in towards the end of his stint as PM. It is now a crime to ‘promote’ terrorism. This was meant to stop a few Islamic extremists from spouting their words of hate in public. Of course it’s now forced them underground and made them more attractive to those with a disposition to listen to them, and instead it has led to the arrest of a well meaning girl who dared to read out a list of dead soldiers serving in Iraq outside the Houses of Paliament. I digress. It’s surprising how many people think we’re celebrating what Guy Fawkes was doing on Bonfire Night, rather than condemning him.
Nov 6. Strip 79.
Remembrance.
Our equivalent of Veterans Day is Remembrance Sunday, which is the Sunday nearest to the 11th day of the Eleventh month, the anniversary of the end of the First World War. At 11am, veterans of the armed forces and civilians gather around the war memorials that can be fund in every town and village and pay their respects to the fallen by taking part in the 2 minutes silence. Another way of remembering is to wear a poppy in your lapel - a blood red symbol of the killing fields of the Somme. These are plastic and paper affairs, sold by representatives of the British Legion, with all the proceeds going to Vets' charities. You’ll find them on street corners, outside mall entrances, and even entering schools and offices, selling poppies. Everyone wears them.
We may remember the senseless slaughter, but we never learn from it.
Nov 10. Strip 83.
Tuppence thruppence buppence.
Ha’pennies (or half a pee as they became known after decimalisation) haven’t existed for at least ten years, since their scrap metal value became more than that stamped on the coin. Strange to think that before 1971 there were 480 of the things to the pound and they were the size of dinner plates.
Nov 11. Strip 84.
Smile for the camera.
There are more cameras watching us in Britain per person than there are anywhere else in the free world. And, scarily, no-one turns a hair. Thank goodness for good old British incompetence, which means that if ever they do become the tools of a totalitarian regime, it’ll be the crappest totalitarian regime in the world.
Nov 12. Strip 85.
The sphere.
This was the series of strips that finally got me noticed by the editors at Compics Sherpa. In celebration Linda bought me a sphere which sits on a shelf in my study, and occasionally gets brought down to confuse the cats.
Nov 13. Strip 86.
Rentacops.
We also get our first sightings of Blantyre and Dixon this week, in walk on parts. Dixon’s name comes from a long running BBC series about a local bobby, Dixon of Dock Green, which ran on Saturday nights through the 60s and 70s. Blantyre is named after a local open prison.
Guy Fawkes Night.
Remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot, as the old rhyme I was taught at school went. Ironically, I’ve forgotten the rest of it. November 5th is bonfire night, when we all gather around bonfires to burn an effigy of the Catholic plotter who was caught in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament trying to blow up the King as he opened a new Session of Parliament in 1605. He’s the face on the mask worn by the protagonist of V for Vendetta.
Guy Fawkes night is also an excuse for big fireworks displays. We do this because a) it gets dark early enough for the kids to enjoy it, b) the countryside is now damp enough not to be turned into a flaming inferno by a stray spark and c) it’s fun, and not because d) we used to have an irrational fear of Catholics.
Because fireworks are on sale from every newsagents in the land in the run up to Guy Fawkes Night, it’s now tended to turn into Guy Fawkes bloody fortnight.
Nov 3. Strip 77.
Thoughtcrime.
One of the stupider aspects of the war on terror (which of course is designed to promote fear as much as possible) is the series of thoughtcrime acts that Tony Blair brought in towards the end of his stint as PM. It is now a crime to ‘promote’ terrorism. This was meant to stop a few Islamic extremists from spouting their words of hate in public. Of course it’s now forced them underground and made them more attractive to those with a disposition to listen to them, and instead it has led to the arrest of a well meaning girl who dared to read out a list of dead soldiers serving in Iraq outside the Houses of Paliament. I digress. It’s surprising how many people think we’re celebrating what Guy Fawkes was doing on Bonfire Night, rather than condemning him.
Nov 6. Strip 79.
Remembrance.
Our equivalent of Veterans Day is Remembrance Sunday, which is the Sunday nearest to the 11th day of the Eleventh month, the anniversary of the end of the First World War. At 11am, veterans of the armed forces and civilians gather around the war memorials that can be fund in every town and village and pay their respects to the fallen by taking part in the 2 minutes silence. Another way of remembering is to wear a poppy in your lapel - a blood red symbol of the killing fields of the Somme. These are plastic and paper affairs, sold by representatives of the British Legion, with all the proceeds going to Vets' charities. You’ll find them on street corners, outside mall entrances, and even entering schools and offices, selling poppies. Everyone wears them.
We may remember the senseless slaughter, but we never learn from it.
Nov 10. Strip 83.
Tuppence thruppence buppence.
Ha’pennies (or half a pee as they became known after decimalisation) haven’t existed for at least ten years, since their scrap metal value became more than that stamped on the coin. Strange to think that before 1971 there were 480 of the things to the pound and they were the size of dinner plates.
Nov 11. Strip 84.
Smile for the camera.
There are more cameras watching us in Britain per person than there are anywhere else in the free world. And, scarily, no-one turns a hair. Thank goodness for good old British incompetence, which means that if ever they do become the tools of a totalitarian regime, it’ll be the crappest totalitarian regime in the world.
Nov 12. Strip 85.
The sphere.
This was the series of strips that finally got me noticed by the editors at Compics Sherpa. In celebration Linda bought me a sphere which sits on a shelf in my study, and occasionally gets brought down to confuse the cats.
Nov 13. Strip 86.
Rentacops.
We also get our first sightings of Blantyre and Dixon this week, in walk on parts. Dixon’s name comes from a long running BBC series about a local bobby, Dixon of Dock Green, which ran on Saturday nights through the 60s and 70s. Blantyre is named after a local open prison.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
October 2006
3 Oct. Strip 50.
Ketchup.
I’ve mentioned squeezy ketchup bottles before. I think they should be made compulsory in all diners. I can’t cope with the tiny glass Heinz bottles you get in the States. Once, In a Denny’s in Lubbock, I’d reached a state of Zen with the ketchup coming out of the bottle at a tectonic speed, when a passing waitress lost patience with me, snatched the bottle out of my hand, shook it, and then blopped all over my food with the contents. I can’t remember what I was eating, as it was 50% ketchup by the time she’d finished.
9 Oct. Strip 55.
Boots.
This equates to Walgreen or Osco in the States, a chain of drug stores that has suffered from mission creep and now sells everything else as well. It’s rationalised on healthcare in the last ten years, but it used to sell ironmongery, records and even ran a lending library at one point. It’s a real drugs firm too, and until it ran out a few years ago it held the patent to Aspirin.
23 Oct. Strip 67.
Dressing up.
Remember ‘Are You Being Served?’, the sitcom which is inexplicably popular in the US? (What is it with crap British sitcoms and the States anyway - I find it hard to believe that Hyacinth Bucket is a cult figure over there.) Anyway, every second episode, Grace Broth-ers would hold a special themed event like ‘Bavarian Week’ and everyone would have to dress up in costume. And John Inman’s costume would always out-camp everyone else’s and scare Mrs Slocombe’s pussy. This is my tribute to that apparently innocent period of British TV.
27 Oct. Strip 71.
Marmite.
A thick yeasty sludge sold as a spread to go on toast or in sandwiches. The adverts for the stuff make a great deal of the fact that you either love it or hate it. Wrong. You either hate it or you’re lying.
30 Oct. Strip 73.
Halloween
Halloween doesn’t exist in Britain in the same way that it does in the States. Woolworths tries its best to sell us the flammable nylon costumes and the grab bags of trick or treat candy but we just cant get into the whole business of festooning the house with garlands of pumpkins for most of October. We certainly haven’t got the hang of ‘Trick or Treat’. And long may that continue.
Ketchup.
I’ve mentioned squeezy ketchup bottles before. I think they should be made compulsory in all diners. I can’t cope with the tiny glass Heinz bottles you get in the States. Once, In a Denny’s in Lubbock, I’d reached a state of Zen with the ketchup coming out of the bottle at a tectonic speed, when a passing waitress lost patience with me, snatched the bottle out of my hand, shook it, and then blopped all over my food with the contents. I can’t remember what I was eating, as it was 50% ketchup by the time she’d finished.
9 Oct. Strip 55.
Boots.
This equates to Walgreen or Osco in the States, a chain of drug stores that has suffered from mission creep and now sells everything else as well. It’s rationalised on healthcare in the last ten years, but it used to sell ironmongery, records and even ran a lending library at one point. It’s a real drugs firm too, and until it ran out a few years ago it held the patent to Aspirin.
23 Oct. Strip 67.
Dressing up.
Remember ‘Are You Being Served?’, the sitcom which is inexplicably popular in the US? (What is it with crap British sitcoms and the States anyway - I find it hard to believe that Hyacinth Bucket is a cult figure over there.) Anyway, every second episode, Grace Broth-ers would hold a special themed event like ‘Bavarian Week’ and everyone would have to dress up in costume. And John Inman’s costume would always out-camp everyone else’s and scare Mrs Slocombe’s pussy. This is my tribute to that apparently innocent period of British TV.
27 Oct. Strip 71.
Marmite.
A thick yeasty sludge sold as a spread to go on toast or in sandwiches. The adverts for the stuff make a great deal of the fact that you either love it or hate it. Wrong. You either hate it or you’re lying.
30 Oct. Strip 73.
Halloween
Halloween doesn’t exist in Britain in the same way that it does in the States. Woolworths tries its best to sell us the flammable nylon costumes and the grab bags of trick or treat candy but we just cant get into the whole business of festooning the house with garlands of pumpkins for most of October. We certainly haven’t got the hang of ‘Trick or Treat’. And long may that continue.
September 2006
2 Sept. Strip 24.
Dixons.
Once ubiquitous technology store, until the curse of Riverfields fell upon it and all the stores had to be rebranded as Curry’s.digital. Famous for its Saturday staff, usually inarticulate schoolkids who know nothing about the technology they are selling and invariably try to sell you an unnecessary warranty to go with your purchase. Dixons still exists as on online brand.
3 Sept. Strip 25.
Dale Winton.
Daytime TV celebrity of the orange permatanned kind. Gay in that reassuringly sexless way that grannies love. A national treasure. If you’ve seen Trainspotting, that’s him hosting the game show in one of the smack-addled dream sequences.
23 Sept. Strip 42.
Picasso’s crying woman.
Contrary to the opinion of people who think their 5 year old grandchild could draw better than that, this kind of thing is actually very hard to draw with any conviction. I don’t think I managed. It was at this point I started to consider moving to colour, so it would add clarity to my draughtsmanship.
25 Sept. Strip 43.
VAT.
Value Added Tax. An invisible tax to most people nowadays, as this 17.5% tax is included in the sticker price of most stuff in the shops. However, if you’re registered for VAT, and have a business where you charge VAT on the goods and services you provide, you can claim back the tax on all purchases to do with your business. It’s a very complicated way of doing things, but it keeps a lot of otherwise useless taxmen in employment. There is no VAT on things the government considers to be ‘essentials’, stuff like food and childrens clothing. Books are considered essential too. What a civilised country the UK is.
26 Sept. Strip 44.
Jeffrey Archer.
Popular novelist, Ex Conservative MP, Ex candidate for London Mayor, habitual liar and convicted perjurer. I’ve only read one of his books – a barely fictionalised account of the battle between someone who isn’t Robert Maxwell and someone who isn’t Rupert Murdoch. It was enough.
Dixons.
Once ubiquitous technology store, until the curse of Riverfields fell upon it and all the stores had to be rebranded as Curry’s.digital. Famous for its Saturday staff, usually inarticulate schoolkids who know nothing about the technology they are selling and invariably try to sell you an unnecessary warranty to go with your purchase. Dixons still exists as on online brand.
3 Sept. Strip 25.
Dale Winton.
Daytime TV celebrity of the orange permatanned kind. Gay in that reassuringly sexless way that grannies love. A national treasure. If you’ve seen Trainspotting, that’s him hosting the game show in one of the smack-addled dream sequences.
23 Sept. Strip 42.
Picasso’s crying woman.
Contrary to the opinion of people who think their 5 year old grandchild could draw better than that, this kind of thing is actually very hard to draw with any conviction. I don’t think I managed. It was at this point I started to consider moving to colour, so it would add clarity to my draughtsmanship.
25 Sept. Strip 43.
VAT.
Value Added Tax. An invisible tax to most people nowadays, as this 17.5% tax is included in the sticker price of most stuff in the shops. However, if you’re registered for VAT, and have a business where you charge VAT on the goods and services you provide, you can claim back the tax on all purchases to do with your business. It’s a very complicated way of doing things, but it keeps a lot of otherwise useless taxmen in employment. There is no VAT on things the government considers to be ‘essentials’, stuff like food and childrens clothing. Books are considered essential too. What a civilised country the UK is.
26 Sept. Strip 44.
Jeffrey Archer.
Popular novelist, Ex Conservative MP, Ex candidate for London Mayor, habitual liar and convicted perjurer. I’ve only read one of his books – a barely fictionalised account of the battle between someone who isn’t Robert Maxwell and someone who isn’t Rupert Murdoch. It was enough.
August 2006
15 Aug 2006. Strip 8.
A change of punchline.
The first thirty or so strips were drawn around 1999/2000, before being put to one side. That’s why the style is a bit different and the handwriting has changed: they were drawn at a much larger size than the later strips were, because at that point having to scan the strips into a computer wasn’t something I’d considered. It also meant that some of the punchlines were out of date by the time I considered distributing them via Comics Sherpa.
You’ll notice that the speech balloon is much larger than the words inside it. That’s because the original punchline was much longer.
Here’s the original. Very turn of the century...
"Exactly the same books - only with Millennium in the title and two quid on the price."
16 Aug 2006. Strip 9.
Barbara Cartland.
Quite an amazing lady. Related to Princess Diana’s family, she was a bit of a tearaway in her youth, flying around Europe between the wars in her own plane. But she’s best known as a writer of romantic fiction, the sort of stuff that comes out in Mills and Boon and Silhouette paperbacks with Fabio on the cover. She could churn them out at a rate of one a fortnight*, and I think she still holds the record for most prolific author in the Guinness Book of Records. Usually wore pink and coupled this with make up that Tammy-Faye Bakker would consider overdone. Not unlike a human meringue.
*Two weeks.
18 Aug 2006. Strip 11.
Thomas the Tank Engine.
A series of children’s picture books about talking steam engines written by the Rev W.A.Audrey. The engines are all male and the carriages are all female. Make of that what you will. In the TV show, Thomas is voiced by Ringo Starr.
21 Aug. Strip 13.
Eggy soldiers.
Take some sliced bread and toast it to the point where it achieves structural rigidity. Cut into four strips. Then take one soft boiled egg in an egg cup, with the yolk still runny, and cut the top off. Dip the toast in the yolk. Eat. Yum.
24 Aug. Strip 16.
The Transport Caff.
In Britain’s culinary ecosystem, these hold a similar place to the roadside diner. Except the food is much worse and usually comes fried and swimming in grease, accompanied with two slices of buttered Sunblest and a chipped mug of tea so strong the spoon can stand up in it. In my mind they are forever synonymous with squeezy plastic tomatoes full of ketchup. Now an almost extinct species, as drive in MacDonalds have started springing up everywhere.
A lone Little Chef still survives on the A21 in the Weald of Sussex. Please support it for as long as you can, until you keel over dead from a heart attack.
31 Aug. Strip 22.
Deed poll.
Brad’s surname has now been changed to Difford.
Because.
A change of punchline.
The first thirty or so strips were drawn around 1999/2000, before being put to one side. That’s why the style is a bit different and the handwriting has changed: they were drawn at a much larger size than the later strips were, because at that point having to scan the strips into a computer wasn’t something I’d considered. It also meant that some of the punchlines were out of date by the time I considered distributing them via Comics Sherpa.
You’ll notice that the speech balloon is much larger than the words inside it. That’s because the original punchline was much longer.
Here’s the original. Very turn of the century...
"Exactly the same books - only with Millennium in the title and two quid on the price."
16 Aug 2006. Strip 9.
Barbara Cartland.
Quite an amazing lady. Related to Princess Diana’s family, she was a bit of a tearaway in her youth, flying around Europe between the wars in her own plane. But she’s best known as a writer of romantic fiction, the sort of stuff that comes out in Mills and Boon and Silhouette paperbacks with Fabio on the cover. She could churn them out at a rate of one a fortnight*, and I think she still holds the record for most prolific author in the Guinness Book of Records. Usually wore pink and coupled this with make up that Tammy-Faye Bakker would consider overdone. Not unlike a human meringue.
*Two weeks.
18 Aug 2006. Strip 11.
Thomas the Tank Engine.
A series of children’s picture books about talking steam engines written by the Rev W.A.Audrey. The engines are all male and the carriages are all female. Make of that what you will. In the TV show, Thomas is voiced by Ringo Starr.
21 Aug. Strip 13.
Eggy soldiers.
Take some sliced bread and toast it to the point where it achieves structural rigidity. Cut into four strips. Then take one soft boiled egg in an egg cup, with the yolk still runny, and cut the top off. Dip the toast in the yolk. Eat. Yum.
24 Aug. Strip 16.
The Transport Caff.
In Britain’s culinary ecosystem, these hold a similar place to the roadside diner. Except the food is much worse and usually comes fried and swimming in grease, accompanied with two slices of buttered Sunblest and a chipped mug of tea so strong the spoon can stand up in it. In my mind they are forever synonymous with squeezy plastic tomatoes full of ketchup. Now an almost extinct species, as drive in MacDonalds have started springing up everywhere.
A lone Little Chef still survives on the A21 in the Weald of Sussex. Please support it for as long as you can, until you keel over dead from a heart attack.
31 Aug. Strip 22.
Deed poll.
Brad’s surname has now been changed to Difford.
Because.
Up to date
...and back to real time.
Yes, I've managed to catch up with all the strips and post them all on Comics Sherpa. I'm even a week ahead of myself now, which will give me time to finish colouring the backlog.
Now to start posting the annotations to the archive, a month at a time...
Yes, I've managed to catch up with all the strips and post them all on Comics Sherpa. I'm even a week ahead of myself now, which will give me time to finish colouring the backlog.
Now to start posting the annotations to the archive, a month at a time...
What happened this summer, then?
(Originally written two weeks ago.)
Linda and I moved from Tunbridge Wells to Hastings on the south coast about a month ago. We’ve only just managed to unpack all the boxes and find homes for everything. And now I’m busy catching up with my cartoons. I have a self imposed deadline of August Bank Holiday Monday to have everything ready and up to date on Comics Sherpa, and then return to my three strip a week schedule.
So far everything’s written, and I’m frantically pencilling the strips whenever I get a chance to draw. Which isn’t often enough at the moment. Panic is starting to set in - I’m still a month behind and I have just over two weeks to go before the Big Upload.
So if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do some drawing...
Linda and I moved from Tunbridge Wells to Hastings on the south coast about a month ago. We’ve only just managed to unpack all the boxes and find homes for everything. And now I’m busy catching up with my cartoons. I have a self imposed deadline of August Bank Holiday Monday to have everything ready and up to date on Comics Sherpa, and then return to my three strip a week schedule.
So far everything’s written, and I’m frantically pencilling the strips whenever I get a chance to draw. Which isn’t often enough at the moment. Panic is starting to set in - I’m still a month behind and I have just over two weeks to go before the Big Upload.
So if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do some drawing...
What is Riverfields?
In the States, they’re called Malls - in the UK they’re called Shopping Centres. Whatever they are called, they’re ubiquitous and they’re taking over the world.
Riverfields is the largest Mall in Europe. It’s so large it straddles two time zones! It has 14 themed shopping experiences, including three so specialised not even the centre’s management understands what they are, but they looked really good in the PowerPoint presentation. It’s still being built, but there are 1,257 stores in phase one, including 50 anchor stores. It has air conditioning throughout, five climate zones and an atrium so large it creates its own rain. Just on the outskirts of both London and Manchester, it's a mall so large that they had to build a second mall next door just for the people that work there.
Of course, it doesn’t exist in real life. It’s an amalgam of all the malls I’ve visited in the UK and the States. But if there are malls that can be considered to be Riverfields parents they are these:
Bluewater, Dartford, Kent. When it was built it was the largest mall in Europe, with a catchment area of most of Southern England. Architecturally, it’s stunning, with sculptures and carved inscriptions placed on any flat surface the architects could find. It occupies an abandoned chalk pit and is surrounded on three sides by floodlit chalk cliffs. It would be a great place to shop if it wasn’t so crowded all the time.
Royal Victoria Place, Tunbridge Wells. When I created the strip this was my local mall. In typical Tunbridge Wells fashion, it’s simultaneously very posh, and cheap looking at the same time. It doesn’t have a food court, it has a palm court. A palm court with a Macdonalds. It was opened by the Patron Saint of Shopping, Princess Diana, in 1992.
Coronado Mall, Albuquerque. I always check this mall out when I’m visiting my wife’s folks. It’s a mature mall where every shop unit has changed hands a few times, so nothing fits the space it was built for any more. It’s a good example of a mall that’s having to be creative to attract a clientele that would otherwise go to the sexy new mall out on the Westside. I especially like the indoor blacklight minigolf course. And it has a mean Fudruckers.
Riverfields is the largest Mall in Europe. It’s so large it straddles two time zones! It has 14 themed shopping experiences, including three so specialised not even the centre’s management understands what they are, but they looked really good in the PowerPoint presentation. It’s still being built, but there are 1,257 stores in phase one, including 50 anchor stores. It has air conditioning throughout, five climate zones and an atrium so large it creates its own rain. Just on the outskirts of both London and Manchester, it's a mall so large that they had to build a second mall next door just for the people that work there.
Of course, it doesn’t exist in real life. It’s an amalgam of all the malls I’ve visited in the UK and the States. But if there are malls that can be considered to be Riverfields parents they are these:
Bluewater, Dartford, Kent. When it was built it was the largest mall in Europe, with a catchment area of most of Southern England. Architecturally, it’s stunning, with sculptures and carved inscriptions placed on any flat surface the architects could find. It occupies an abandoned chalk pit and is surrounded on three sides by floodlit chalk cliffs. It would be a great place to shop if it wasn’t so crowded all the time.
Royal Victoria Place, Tunbridge Wells. When I created the strip this was my local mall. In typical Tunbridge Wells fashion, it’s simultaneously very posh, and cheap looking at the same time. It doesn’t have a food court, it has a palm court. A palm court with a Macdonalds. It was opened by the Patron Saint of Shopping, Princess Diana, in 1992.
Coronado Mall, Albuquerque. I always check this mall out when I’m visiting my wife’s folks. It’s a mature mall where every shop unit has changed hands a few times, so nothing fits the space it was built for any more. It’s a good example of a mall that’s having to be creative to attract a clientele that would otherwise go to the sexy new mall out on the Westside. I especially like the indoor blacklight minigolf course. And it has a mean Fudruckers.
Monday, August 27, 2007
...and so it begins
Note the date and time of this post carefully, as with this message I become the last person on Planet Earth to begin a blog. So that's that little phenomenon over then.
This isn't a deep and meaningful blog - I won't be subjecting you to any of my poetry or discussing continuity mistakes in the twenty second series of Dr Who or plotting the state of my psyche to twelve decimal places. This is just a blog about a bloke what draws a cartoon.
I draw a cartoon called 'Riverfields'. You can find it at the Comics Sherpa website. For ease of use all you have to do is visit www.riverfieldscomic.com or www.riverfieldscomic.co.uk to find yourself there.
I'll be using this blog to expand on the strip, explain anglocentric references to an American audience, apologise for late postings, and just type stuff as it comes to me.
Expect a flurry of activity over the next few days as I annotate a year's worth of strips.
But for now, I've just spent an evening uploading two month's worth of material onto Comics Sherpa, so I'm off to bed.
Nightie night...
This isn't a deep and meaningful blog - I won't be subjecting you to any of my poetry or discussing continuity mistakes in the twenty second series of Dr Who or plotting the state of my psyche to twelve decimal places. This is just a blog about a bloke what draws a cartoon.
I draw a cartoon called 'Riverfields'. You can find it at the Comics Sherpa website. For ease of use all you have to do is visit www.riverfieldscomic.com or www.riverfieldscomic.co.uk to find yourself there.
I'll be using this blog to expand on the strip, explain anglocentric references to an American audience, apologise for late postings, and just type stuff as it comes to me.
Expect a flurry of activity over the next few days as I annotate a year's worth of strips.
But for now, I've just spent an evening uploading two month's worth of material onto Comics Sherpa, so I'm off to bed.
Nightie night...
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