No A-loha(n)

I've had word in, it's official: from 12pm today you may now listen to your Christmas albums.

My youth

The circle has been squared, you can now watch old Chart Show specialist charts on Youtube!

The dance chart October 1989. I'm delighted to say that based on the record at number two, I still knew after 18 years what the record at number one was.* We didn't have a VCR in 1989, but I still remember being very, very disappointed.

The Indie Chart of March 1990. Fugazi were obviously too scary for Saturday lunchtime network TV but it didn't matter as they didn't make videos due to principles, so we got a Lush promo clip instead!!!

I am feeling weak and giddy and must rest. ENJOY THE PAST.

Flying vees

Cover work continues, I revised Shelley because the perspective was off and I wanted something slightly more manic. I think this might be where I leave it, I quite like it.

Old Man Winter's clammy fingers

Dear friends, work has begun on Scary Go Round book 6, encompassing Jan-early Nov 2007's comics. I started a bit too fast last weekend and my body told me to slow down in no uncertain terms. But you will be pleased that I have made my first attempt at the cover! There are usually about 70 attempts, but it's something to look at isn't it? Yes it is.

See it here.

I waited and waited and waited then stuck a pencil in my eye and felt better

I recently managed to score a second-hand Wacom Cintiq from a school at a "knock down price", and tests are ongoing indoors as to what I will use this fancy tablet-monitor witchcraft for. When I want to try something new out, I like to stick my finger randomly within the pages of Looks, Brains and Everything and re-draw the page at hand. So here's what I produced this time:



It was actually some of the bonus pages I drew to fill in the plot holes, so I can't offer you the original in the archive, but I have a feeling that seasoned blog readers already own this book.

Because the Cintiq screen is skiddy glass, it forces you to commit to more long strokes than I would normally make. But there you go, kind of a bonus comic for today!

Dark farmhouses against the sky

I'm just trying to shove some of the mouldier old posts off the page. Noting useful to say at all.

Mini-Lohan Christmas Spectrackular

Yesterday it was brought to my attention that Lindsey Lohan's little sister has made a Christmas album (featuring Lindsey and their doting mother!). I was excited, because I sensed that here we had a new release that would touch skyscraping holiday releases like Phil Spector's "A Christmas Gift For You" and Vince Guaraldi's Charlie Brown Christmas LP. But then I saw that it contained a song called "I Like Christmas".

I've never seen a more uninspiring song title than "I Like Christmas". You've gone to the recording studio to celebrate, in song, the birth of the one true messiah, with your "troubled" sister in tow, and the best you can come up with is "I Like Christmas".

I kind of picture it as a banjo-plucking number

I like Christmas
I like Elvis
I like gettin' high with elves
And I like pie

(THEATRICAL WINK TO CAMERA)

I like Jesus
I like George Strait
I like drivin' while I'm flyin'
A yi-yi-yi

Ding digga-ling-ding digga ling ding ding

AMEN

Back to business

I just had a brilliant idea. When my Scary Go Round book collections go out of print, I'll delete all the comics that were in them from the site. That way, buying one of my books will be a ticket to a very exclusive club.... and everyone will want to be a member.

Now, this may sound drastic, but I went to business school*, and I know all about supply and demand. I'm giving it away like the school bike on the last day of summer term and this madness has to stop.

Of course, this will render the Scary Go Round archives very confusing, but I like to think that an "oral tradition" will spring up, where the old stories are retold round campfires. "And lo, the comic did return after Christmas... and all heads were HUGE".

I've had a few more business ideas. I'm going to take all the speech bubbles off the comics the day after they run. To hear the dialogue after that, you'll have to phone a premium rate line and request a live reading from one of our operators. And all you other webcomic artists, don't try to steal this idea, because I have patented it.

The final change I intend making is the insertion of a wealthy patron into the comic. Wallace Paul, a beneficiary of Google's IPO, recently divested himself of a lot of stock and made a considerable donation to me in exchange for a 5-year contract as co-star of Scary Go Round. I think you'll like him! You'll have to, as I'm contractually obliged to draw him in every panel.

Well, thanks for joining me for Mindshare Wednesday!

CHANGE AND ADAPT
- John Allison

* in a dream, once

Winners don't do hugs

I've been practising drawing Shelby Winner so she doesn't have five faces in her first five appearances (woah, daylight on magic there &etc). So here's one of several. There was a big hairstyle workshop a couple of Saturdays ago, which ended with the words "more thatchy" written over and over again.



MORE THATCHY
NO LESS THATCHY
YES JUST THATCHY ENOUGH

Hamsters are the reason

Shame on ALL OF YOU for the fact that I am now working on this. I extend the hand of friendship to the 11 people who will probably say they'd buy it so I don't feel bad in my life. It is now available - here's your chance to prove that reader pressure is a force for good.



An intermediate yellow deal I posted

My original rough

It's the Saddest Wookiee minus the sales, I think.

...and heavy friends

It's time to gear up some new tshirt designs for Christmas, and maybe a hoodie too for those cold afternoons. I had a look in the ideas cupboard and it was pretty musty in there, but with a dinner of crumbs from the toaster in prospect, I knew I had to dig deep.



So I thought I'd do a series of SALUTES TO ROCK AND ROLL. Here's the first one, it's Led Zeppelin isn't it? If people like this one, I'll take requests and do a series of creepy looking band shirts. If people don't like this one, I'll make some shirts wth impenetrable phrases on them referring to sci-fi classics.

"My other car is the Starship Enterprise (the captain is Pike though see I know a lot about sci-fi)"

"Babylon 5? Babylon 4 more like oh wait that one vanished didn't it"

"I am a Cylon but we look like humans man now you're confused"

"Amy Acker ate my hamster"

and so on.

Rocktober 2007: Head and Shoulders smile miasma

Rocktober came to a close with a full-on shoegazing spectacular on a Sunday. A small sonic cathedral was erected and every effects pedal in the borough was plugged in. The result: VWOMMMMMMMM.

ASOBI SEKSU + Scanners + Kyte @ Manchester Night & Day Café - October 28th

As the bald man grooves alone:

Kyte: pedals depressed vigorously. Young men, fresh from youth club, intent on celebrating the scene that celebrates itself. The main Kyte may have been singing in a language of his own creation or simply describing onomatopoeically the sound of two cushions rubbing against one another. Turning away from the crowd to hit a snare drum is the new thing. 6/10

Scanners: a furious racket as another British group emerges from a meeting declaring "Sleater-Kinney were right all along". I don't know why this is happening. The main singer lady knows what to do. Guitar lady knows what to do (although she is concentrating pretty hard so maybe she doesn't know all that well). Men of rock hold the line. They were pretty good! 8/10

Asobi Seksu: is she playing a keyboard? Yes she is playing a keyboard. The register high, the wall of sound deafening but soothing (mostly deafening). Asobi Seksu, you made me realise (that you are a decent band). 8/10

£7!

Hypothetical good news bad news desk

Changes are afoot for Scary Go Round art once more, I am strongly considering inking with a brush and drawing at twice the size. This shouldn't take me any longer (it's actually a lot easier to pencil when I don't have to shove everything into boxes 9cm or sometimes 7cm tall). But obviously there will be a period of adjustment as I am not the most disciplined brush-inker and will need time to get hep to bristle ways.

There's also a strong possibility that in the future I may have to switch to doing the comic in black and white - purely in service of the print editions. Colour printing is getting more and more expensive and the weak dollar means that while some of the sting is taken out of it for me, I'm selling fewer books (and all other items) to the USA, where the greatest percentage of my readers are. I don't like the idea of this move very much and if I can avoid it, I will. I certainly don't want to punish my many loyal readers, who like me, enjoy all colours.

Anyway that was the good news bad news desk, here are some roughs as I prepare for a new and whiskery way. I include a mess of black and white tones that ought to make any future efforts seem elegant and refined in comparison.




PS If you are from the Guardian and wish to serialise Scary Go Round in G2 daily in exchange for a fat wedge, that's fine! Just send me the fat wedge.

"Goaty"

A nice profile piece and interview with one of my very favourite cartoonists, Posy Simmonds, in the Telegraph.

Rocktober 2007: they won't stop DRUMMING

My week of sonic sounds is now over. It was tough in the rock trenches, viewing acts that were in many ways disparate but all unified by a deep desire for the audience's love.

BATTLES + Prefuse 73 + Dirty Projectors @ Manchester Academy 2 - October 17th

Dirty Projectors: art pests or the future of sound? Musical Marmite reputation confirmed by "tricky" 12455/34761 time signature. The ladies sing pretty, a man moves around and sort of yelps. The drummer faces sideways. Excellent new "Rise Above" album very thinly mined. 6/10

Prefuse 73: you could tell these guys were into graffiti. They were very good at working their machines but I was not excited. 6/10

Battles: woah! What is going on? The widest keyboard, the hardest working man in showbusiness on drums. Robot vocals not actually performed by robot but instead by a man. More time signatures. This is the sort of music Buck Rogers and Twiki would dance to in the 25th century. 9/10


LES SAVY FAV + Clockwork @ Manchester Club Academy - October 21st

Clockwork: anyone who had been looking for an excuse that weekend to put their fingers in their ears was richly rewarded. A band who have heard Joy Division and want you to know it. 2/10

Les Savy Fav: a fusion of bog-standard late 90s indie rock and a tubby, bald, bearded fun-lover who delivers. Good times the order of the evening. Everyone is watching, no one is talking to their friend. The bald man runs around but there is no need to be scared. If you're lucky he will not sweat on you. 8/10

---

Although my birthday was on Saturday, it's not too late to send me a present, particularly if the present is:

1. A Cintiq
2. A unicorn ride
3. Some jam

Rocktober 2007: A maelstrom of difficult emotions

Last night I moved into town using short, sharp jerking movements. The railway approach platform lights were not working so it was a unique opportunity to journey into fear. Well, I say unique, they weren't working on Saturday either.

WE CONTINUE TO CONTINUE

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE PRESENTS KEVIN DREW: SPIRIT IF + Noah and the Whale @ Manchester Club Academy - October 16th

Noah and the Whale: proficient, but yawns prevail. The sound of the Neutral Milk Hotel with all feeling, fear and drama removed. O England! 4/10

Broken Social Scene: given their shrunken 4-beard line-up and a missing lead guitarist, most heads wore the forgiveness hat at a jaunty angle. But what was not to enjoy? Extra half mark for feeble but sustained attempt to play the hits of Pavement. Extra half mark for not cancelling and ruining Rocktober. 8.5/10

DISCLAIMER: All scores commensurate with cost of gig. Full disclosure: £15.

TONITE: ROCKTOBER 2007 LOSES ALL CONTROL WITH... BATTLES + Prefuse 73 + Dirty Projectors (!!!)

Rocktober 2007 COMMENCES

It's a big month for rock shows, I have poured your cash contributions to the Scary Go Round machine into the coffers of local ticket agencies and as a result have a glittering array of entertainments in prospect. In the time honoured style, I will review them with as little fuss as possible.

WE CONTINUE

¡LOS CAMPESINOS! + You Say Party We Say Die + Sky Larkin @ Manchester Night & Day - October 13th

Sky Larkin: who can argue with these new sensations? Right minds across the nation firmly agree that they are "as good as Sleater Kinney" and can only get better! 8/10

You Say Party We Say Die: perm/bacofoil combo and frenzied attack matched only by resolute Canadian politeness. They're asking, but you're not dancing. Might just turn it around. 6.5/10

¡Los Campesinos!: No one can deny they have the chops and the new new sound. Front-Campesino needs a trip to the barber to truly convince. 1/3 shirtless line-up suggests that they will never fight in a man's army. The songs deliver! 8/10

DISCLAIMER: All scores commensurate with cost of gig. Full disclosure: £7.

Hauntlie Two

On friday I have to draw Ryan and Shelley in their halloween costumes. What should they dress as? The prize in this no-purchase-necessary competition (as free as the air you breathe) is that, if successful, I will do what you say.

Hauntlie Mk 1

After the success of the Big Chew 2007 yesterday, here's a new wallpaper to celebrate. It's halloween-ish but I think it might be good any time of the year! You can download it here, it's 1600x1200 pixels which should be big enough to swaddle any screen.

The Big Chew 2007

There was a 100% positive vote for me to eat the three-years expired gum so here goes. I will write as I go. I have decided to eat two pieces at once as it is the "pellet" style rather than sticks of gum.

SMELL: it smells pleasantly minty with a "mountain frost" edge.

CONSISTENCY: slightly tackier than new gum, not smooth and shiny, probably due to the fusty air in my cupboard.

TASTE: now i don't think they made this mountain frost flavour for very long because it is suspiciously chemical. I am nervous about swallowing the resultant mouthful of saliva but I will force it down!

TASTE UPDATE: within a minute almost all flavour has completely vanished! The half life of flavour must be very short! I am chewing a mouthful of tasteless petrochemicals.

THE VERDICT: I feel a bit funny. I have gone blind in one eye and there is a ringing in my ear. Please someone call an ambul