Self-censorship

I had to remove the bottom baring gnome from the previous post. What started as a whimsical nod towards modern social mores turned into a picture of a miniature geriatric exposing his haunches and nothing more. Woe is me.

The Irish Panda shirt is now available: thrill, thrill to the panda and his ways.

A short poem

"How I Will End Up Living Under A Bridge With Jeph Jacques"

Webcomic t-shirt economy
May you roll on in fine perpetuity
Though with crushing inevitability
You'll collapse, then:
O DISMAL CALAMITY!

FIN

Teatowels of the past

I didn't do a Scary Go Round teatowel in 2006 but this year, once again, I will offer you the opportunity to dry your dishes the SGR way. This year I want to draw a wholly up to date array of critters such as gnome, goblin, were-wolf, as many as I can fit on there. Please use this post to make suggestions, here are the ones who have made the list so far:

1. Gnome
2. Goblin
3. Were-wolf
4. Wendigo

Keep it brief, I don't have all flipping day &etc.

He's probably just thirsty

A lot of people wrote to me a couple of months back with an interest in an Irish Panda tshirt. Well here he is.

Flattery desk

Ace Soda Pop sent me this excellent picture before my trip, sadly once again showing me up as an artistic charlatan. Isn't it great?

I am the king of carrot chowders

Well, I am back from San Diego. What an exhausting trip. Flying straight out to San Diego then straight back isn't really the way to do it if you want to maintain some bodily strength but I did my best. And by "best" I mean I caught a cold almost immediately and spent the week snivelling.

As always it was a great pleasure to spend time with my Dumbrella friends. It's easy to feel remote and out of the loop when you only visit once or twice a year, but they always make me so welcome. And we had able help on the booth from some dedicated characters who did their bit almost solely out of a misplaced sense of civic duty. Thank you everyone!

Working on a booth means that you don't get much opportunity to go and lig around, casting your rheumy eye over exhibits and leaking money like a burst branch of HSBC. But I did get the opportunity to meet and get some drawings from some very talented Spumco artists, and I did go to get a book from Carla Speed McNeil and find her wearing one of my t-shirts! THWILLS!

Finally, from the sunshine state, THE VINE THAT MAKES YOU VIRILE:

1. Which premier league webcomic artist snores like a tractor being driven backwards up a hill, but LOUDER?
2. Which webcomic has taken the cookie-cutter sideways-smirk into exciting new territory... that had people ready to KILL?
3. Which outer-space TEENAGER appears younger than his own son?

From my mouth to your ears, the facts are the crack and your lips are welded to the pipe. I remain...

... STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL!

PS RIP Mike Reid! "PAAaAAaat!" "RUNARAAAAHHHD!"

Feeling les(s) diabolique

For laundry reasons I decided to wear my disappointing Spoon shirt today. When I put it on, I rather liked the cut of my jib in it. I had a new quality, some might call it a "manliness". So I have decided it is an all right t-shirt, though I'm still not sure if it is all right to source goods in Honduras, where child labour is a kind of national sport.

CURRENT MOOD: CONFLICTED
CURRENT MUSIC: INTERNAL DOO-WOP

I can't believe these posts don't get 2000 replies. They're both thought-provoking AND insightful.

Dream symbols

My brain is slipping fast into Comic-con mode. I know this because last night I had a dream that me and my Dumbrella friends were on our way there, and as we travelled, we all admired Jeff Rowland's new hairdo. He claimed it was his "con hair" and part of his "game face". You may be surprised to hear that he had gone out and got a super-tight perm and then a flat-top on top. Jeff looked extremely fresh.

Best New Band In Britain Alert

In addition to my earlier Greenwald Alert, I wanted to give a best new band In Britain alert. Surely, surely Los Campesinos! I often feel like most contemporary British bands don't have any magic - Los Campesinos! arguably have TOO MUCH. I'm going to see them on October 13th and... TEARS OF JOY, Sky Larkin offer stellar support!

Let's hope I survive my Californian adventure and return, refreshed, to rock anew.

Ever Decreasing Circles

I only read two articles on the internet today. One was an article on Entertainment Weekly's website about Achewood, by a "David Greenwald". Then this evening I went looking for information about Mount Eerie parts 6 and 7. Within seconds I was reading a review of a gig by "David Greenwald".

Does David Greenwald control the internet? Have this man's entertainment tentacles penetrated every corner of my media life? I can only imagine that upon landing in California next week, Mr David Greenwald will be lying in wait with a pearl handled pistol in his hand.

What is his game? And WHY? Will I live long enough to find out?

Fitted shirt

I don't usually make posts that are pure complaint, but I pre-ordered Spoon's "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga' and ordered the mystery Spoon shirt at the same time. Well, the package arrived today and it is the most horrible tshirt I have ever seen. And I work in WEBCOMICS! The shirt is made in "Honduras" and feels like you could push your finger through it. The design makes reference to "Les Diaboliques" which is appropriate because it is diabolically poor.

The one good thing I can say about this shirt is that given its sickly light yellow hue, it will be indistinguishable from my other dusters when I cut it up.

CURRENT MOOD: DISAPPOINTED
CURRENT MUSIC: CRADLE OF FILTH

Spoon are still the best band in the world.

Banjax'd with a Fender Strat

I can't believe it's July! The year is hurtling past with what can only be described as unprecedented fury. It hasn't really been a fun year, as I have dedicated almost every spare moment to fierce labour. While others have been dancing in the streets, high on life, I have been locked away, pale and gremlin-like.

"But John," you say, "what have you been up to? We see no evidence of back-breaking toil!" Well, in addition to attempting to entertain you with my daily yarns and that, I have been drawing another small book in the vein of Girlspy and Scare-o-deleria. A standalone tome featuring 32 pages of larks and japes (ie, story), and about another 8 pages of "fun" (exact nature of "fun" yet to be determined).

I made it to page 26 before Comic-con madness meant I had to get ahead on other things, but on my return I will lay down the rest and rush it to the printer for an early September release.

If I sell more than a thousand out of the traps, I will do another stand-alone thing. It will be a deal between us. If no one cares about this laboured-over spectre-centric tome, I will start ENJOYING MY LIFE (also WINKING AT GIRLS and GETTING UP LATE).

Money raised from this book will go towards my continued attempts to escape Chadderton. Thank you for your interest!

Anyway, here's the cover. I think you'll like it.

No way

I have just returned from a two and a half hour biopic of Edith Piaf, in French. I hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about Edith Piaf previous to today but now I am thinking she had some good ideas about singing. I reckon this one will be rocking the multiplexes coast to coast like Grease, Star Wars, Jaws or Total Recall!

I think this is a good film for people who like sounds, ideas, boxing, disease and pianos! 8/10!

Canon vs diocese

I have received a handsome picture from reader Rene Engström. Isn't it great? Yes it is now pipe down.

To celebrate the postal strike tomorrow...

...here's a postcard I designed for San Diego (provided I get it hotfoot to the printer). It's less hoity-toity and more sassy.

Its a seriou's problem!!!

What is going on on the BBC news website today? Its apostrophe armageddon! Everywhere I look, willy-nilly misappropriation. Its a disgrace and I will be writing to those fiend's about their slapdash effort's! Perhaps it is the new strain of life in Brown's (Browns) Britain.

In other, correctly punctuated news, I will put eight hoity toity prints (of 20) on sale on the website next week. I have run out of archival paper and I don't think you want them printed on toilet paper or old gas bills.

ONWARD'S TO VICTORY!

Hoity + toity = HOITY TOITY

I have almost completed a new print. Whether I will sell it on the web site or in San Diego, I don't know. But it is very hoity toity and that is the main thing. Anyway everyone can look at it because here it is. I drew it in "Manga Studio", the futuristic tool of champs, chumps, no-goodniks and captains of industry.

Indignities

Reader, as you may know, I am thirty years of age. I could grow a full beard if I wanted to. I have climbed the jungle gym of life and stand atop the monkey bars bawling about the terrible sights I have seen.

So why is it that I am no longer able to buy a drink without being asked for ID? A note for American readers, in the UK you almost never get asked to prove your age unless you arrived at the bar in a pram sucking a lolly. I don't think I was ever refused a pint of foaming, nut brown ale when I was 17. Now, wizened and decrepit, I have to repeatedly prove that it is not 13 years ago.

This came to a head in Marks and Spencers when I was buying an expensive bottle of liquor as a Father's Day gift. The cashier had plainly seen me coming, I could feel the skunk eye being applied. "That's right, I'm a child," I said. "I'm going to drink this in Piccadilly Gardens then choke on my own vomit in the gutter".

I didn't actually say that, as I was too busy reaching under the cushion in my luxurious baby buggy for change. Plus I had a lollipop in my mouth.

Then, THEN, this morning I received some free samples in the mail which included "anti aging cream - for MEN". I am tempted to apply it just to see what happens. My guess: nothing good.

Turkey Ham

Now come on, turkey ham. Is it "ham" from a turkey, or turkey-like meat from a pig, or worse, some kind of grisly mutant beast? No one is telling us what "turkey ham" is and there's only a picture of a farm on the packet. No doubt, behind the dry-stone walls of this farm are machines extracting pure swine from the traditional holiday bird.

Ban this sick stunt!

In my world "funny" is never going to be a noun

It's the 11th of June and boy is it ever warm. The sun is going beserk and we will cook like clams on concrete.

It is just 7 weeks until San Diego Comic-con, the premier event in the comics calendar. I haven't been for the last couple of years because it is expensive and about 18,000 miles away. As a working man at a working show, one starts in a negative financial position and hopes to move oneself into a positive financial position through charm and weasel words. This is a lot harder when you're 8 hours adrift and surrounded by fat, sweating stormtroopers.

So as I will be a walking dead man when I hit California soil, it is Up To Me to Arrive Prepared. Here are the tasks I have assigned myself:

1. Crank handle on button machine, making badges for the ages
2. Draw a small and terrifying "mini-comic" then fold that mother
3. Make "limited prints" for people good enough to show up with too much money/gratitude

I can work the button machine like a devil, and small, terrifying minicomics are just a matter of sitting down for a couple of hours in one place, folding folding folding. But what shall I render on these "limited prints"? Nothing works, nothing works!

I think the immense efforts of SECRET PROJECT X (now 71% complete) might have broken my brain. More later.

End of an era

On Wednesday the last dangerous appliance that I bought with my house is being rooted out and cast into a dustbin. Following the deaths of Exploding Oven, Rusty Fridge and Carbon Monoxide Production Specialist Fireplace, later this week I bid farewell to Gas Hob That Doesn't Spark On The Left Hand Side And Sometimes Leaks A Bit Of Gas - or as I call him, Steven.

The passing of the last of the "enemies within" will be marked by a five-gun salute outside Chadderton Town Hall. Anyone who wants to come down and twist a sticky dial, or wave a match around a suspicious-smelling burner one last time, is more than welcome.

I also intend to make flapjacks from the 17 years of crumbs firmly wedged between the lip of the hob and the work surface. These are strictly for display and not to be eaten.