An H and a P

A while ago Gene Ha, America's leading (some would say premier) comic book artist asked me to send him a pencil sketch so he could mess around with it. There wasn't really much to it but this is what eventually came back:



That someone who has worked with Alan Moore would take an interest in my little venture gave me a huge swell head for at least a week. Thank you Gene!

Some thoughts on Apple's new iPod line

For crying out loud, Steve Jobs, if you're going to tuck your jumper in (which is a peculiar move on its own), use some of your millions to BUY A BELT. Sweet Jesus almighty and all the saints, learn to get dressed.

A single yellow glove

Peter Marigold is a fascinating designer whose work has some very clever real world applications. After a day spent basically destroying my living room then attempting to restore order, I found the sentiments expressed in this interview with Mr Marigold very soothing.

I think the enforced gouging and and repainting in the front room is a watershed moment, a call to arms to put childish things aside and shape up, thirty year old man! Maybe next time I'll show you the neat isthmus I made of smashed laminate flooring and underlay. Pleasing.

Good news bad news

A) The Ghosts books are in stock and look great. They are now on sale but...

B) Unfortunately during a routine boiler maintenance visit the engineer discovered a gas leak and I spent most of the last two hours ripping up the laminate flooring in the sitting room.

So when considering point A) please think kindly of me and also consider point B). The good news is, if the leak isn't in the sitting room, I will have to rip up all the flooring in the dining room too! HURRAY!

O REJOICE
LET'S DESTROY
AN ENTIRE HOME
AT MASSIVE EXPENSE

Addendum: OF COURSE that is not covered by my household insurance!

Sketch blog etch-a-sketch mungo

All artists should keep a sketchbook and draw in it mercilessly, until the pages fall into dust and your finger becomes a pencil. I always have 3 or 4 on the go at once - for my ever-changing moods. I like to draw when I'm watching TV! Or waiting for a tardy friend in a public place. If you have a sketchbook, you still look friendless, but at least you're not bored.

Here are a couple of pages from the last month or so that you may enjoy. Or find awful.



I think the above page is good because it captures many of my preoccupations at once.



This page on the other hand is merely testimony to what I was watching at the time. Can you guess what it was? It wasn't terribly good.

A very short series (Ps: MUNGO!)

Influential webcomic artists that no one remembers #1: Scott Thigpen. Have we all lived so long? Scott was extremely nice to me on the way up. His reward is, from looking at his site, a fancy old life.

Mango Mungo

WHO IS MUNGO?
MUNGO!
MUNGO!
MUNGO!

Proving that times have changed and etc, in the University shopping precinct on Oxford Road, there is an outfit offering the full range of waxing services. Now I believe that a person should be allowed to wax whatever they fancy, but I am really not sure about the arm wax. I have never looked at a lady's arm and thought "strong peasant blood!" I'm sure there are a few perma-sleeved werewolf arms out there, but the fact that arm waxing consumes one third of this shop's (wide) frontage really concerns me.

Has daylight been shone in upon magic? Am I naïve? Or has an entirely new neurosis been unleashed upon the lady populace?

Tomorrow: chest waxing - a treatise.

Racing car face

I have finished drawing my Ghosts book, and selected a suitable printer to hand-etch each copy. Hand-etching is carbon neutral, provided you plant a tree for every monk who dies in the process. I will put these on sale once I have a delivery date - hopefully at the start of next month.

Unfortunately I have no other news, as I spent my weekend drawing and my hands are now claws. I can't do a thing with them!

Come fill your cups

Thank you for all the ghost correspondence! I will try to fit as many as possible in. The call for correspondence is now closed. A short poem:

MICROSPECTRE

Ghost on shelf
Is watching me
Died of croup
In '33

FIN

Forget forward-slash and revert to stroke

Wasted two minutes this morning thinking about what kind of middle-aged English man I want to be. Don't want to look like Gryff Rhys-Jones. He seems like a nice man but he's all over the place visually speaking. Iain Duncan-Smith also a serious no-no.

Please can I have some more letters via email about ghosts for my Ghosts book? I will answer your ghost problems or merely commiserate. There is still a page to fill and I want to lay this book to rest by August 22nd. Usual address &etc.

So cruel, the internet

Mere minutes ago, I read a "rumour" that Veronica Mars was going to join the cast of Lost. I rode around the house on an imaginary horse believing everything to be for the best in this best of all possible worlds. Then when I had finished doing that, I read another story that said Veronica Mars does not want to go and live in Hawaii. Then I wept.

No one understands* why I like Veronica Mars, one of my friends said it is for silly girls. Then he said I should go boil my head (he didn't really).

Work on the Ghosts book has been frenzied this week, there are just three pages left to draw. I have decided to lay it out in the style of the New Yorker, and require some letters for the letters page. These should be on spectral or supernatural issues (on which I am an expert) and extremely well written. Send them to john@scarygoround.com, then hold your breath for a month or so. Letters may be edited for reasons of style or brevity.

* I think any breathing, straight, man understands.

We're not in canvas any more

In San Diego, a few ladies asked me about Crochet Today "tote bags". I had never thought about printing on bags and had only scant understanding of the tote concept, so I sent them away with a flea in their ear. But given a morning of tinkering, I came up with something suitable for the lady about town. I'm the new Lulu Guinness! Without the money, the class, or (let's be honest) the lady chromosome. OY OY!

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.

My holiday is over

Due to the complicated, byzantine nature of the webcomic game, while you continue to enjoy some beautiful guest comics by my friends in art, my little break is over. That it should end on a bank holiday is particularly cruel, but since I scheduled it myself, I don't think I can take local government to task.

Mystical Dream Theatre

It occurs to me upon writing the title of this post that "Mystical" sounds the same as "Miss Tickle" (bear with me here). Living with Miss Tickle would be a daily agony. You wouldn't be able to enjoy a hot drink or a cream horn for fear that she would home in on you and cause you to spill it in your involuntary mirth.

Who says intelligent discourse is dead?

I just watched the season finale of Lost, which had me with my head in my hands, wailing "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" in the time-honoured style. But a greater mystery this week was posed by a packet of Asda Spinach and Ricotta Fresh Pasta Ravioli I purchased. The package features a "serving suggestion", however the "serving suggestion" does not depict the product, but rather a bowl of ricotta cheese and some spinach leaves. So the implication is that one should reconstitute the ingredients within from the items provided.

That's just silly. You shouldn't do that.

Dicing with death

Yesterday while washing up I accidentally chipped a mug, then proceeded to lacerate myself between my ring finger and little finger with it. Well, I must say, I haven't seen that much blood for a while. It was a bit like "Re-Animator". I wounded my drawing hand, so I suppose it was lucky that I didn't slice myself up nearer the business end. I don't think I will be doing anything very rugged for a week or two!

All Tomorrow's Parties was a magical fun-fest of colossal proportions. I have compiled the following list of micro-reviews for your edification.

FRIDAY
YO LA TENGO - why am I standing in a food court 6/10
NOTWIST - refugees from the low countries, possibly IT consultants 7/10
SPARKLEHORSE - nothing a nice gargle wouldn't fix 5/10
TALL FIRS - plainly not on a mission to excite 5/10
DEATH VESSEL - floundering minus his old timey banjo revue. "Is it a boy or a girl" cry harks back to the 1960s 4/10
AKRON/FAMILY - community project of percussion fails to connect 5/10

SATURDAY
GO! TEAM - any fule no I like the Go! Team 9/10
LES SAVY FAV - 200 costume changes! 8/10
WILCO - why am I standing in a food court part 2 6/10
APPLES IN STEREO - some of these men are wizards 9/10

SUNDAY
SLINT - alas I am making some macaroni at this point ?/10
MICAH P. HINSON - nothing a nice gargle wouldn't fix 7/10
BAT FOR LASHES - were playing crazy golf directly in front of me this morning 7.5/10
ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI - it's 5! 7/10
BAND OF HORSES - best band of the weekend 9.5/10
MODEST MOUSE - v.good but Johnny Marr is not going to be in the band for very long because he obviously wants to be in charge 8/10
CAPRICORNS - I had to play darts on my mobile phone to take my mind off this mess 1/10
GRIZZLY BEAR - hippies 6.5/10
DO MAKE SAY THINK - I have never been more tired zzz/10

So well done everybody, well played etc!

Old John Robertson he wore a Stetson hat

I have returned from All Tomorrow's Parties in Minehead a broken man. My fragile constitution has been ravaged by a mixture of best bitter, crazy golf, water slides and experimental noise-scapes. I will write a bit about what I saw and what was good later in the week, once I have grown some new brain cells.

If you listen to Gideon Coe on BBC 6Music, you can hear me all week introducing my favourite records from the last 5 decades just after 12pm. I wasn't able to hear it today as I was not near a radio set, but apparently I was taken to task for my use of the term "juju".

Crisis

Oh my goodness, Prime Minister Tony Blair has resigned! This is so unexpected and the nation is on its knees! Fortunately a task force has been assembled to run the country during this transitional phase:

Rabbi Lionel Blue


Former England wicketkeeper Jack Russell


and Bagpuss (pictured discussing transport policy with Professor Yaffle, who is consulting in an advisory role)


I would write more but unfortunately there's now a curfew, and rationing.

Ward em off

After the brief congregation of evil spirits over the blog early in the week, I'm burning sage and getting the good feelings back. Here's a drawing I did today for one reason or another (secret).

Oh god what a faux pas

Apparently my Rice vs Pasta has terrible racist overtones. When I drew it, it was just a piece of rice and a piece of pasta. Little did I know I was releasing the secret bigot within. After all, Italians vs Chinese is one of the foremost struggles in Britain and the world today. Every day on the streets I see these two diverse racial groups (and apparently, sworn enemies) engaged in toe-to-toe combat on our "mean streets".

OR

It is about dinner decisions.

Readers, I throw myself on your mercies. You decide!

Shirt lab is now closed

Here's what I came up with, I'll put these on sale later this week. Maybe no one will want them, but I like to think design-wise they have a certain something.



My thinking on this one was that rice and pasta are basically enemies, rice has strength in numbers, but that lone grain of rice on the pantry shelf is easy meat.



Certain aesthetic choices were made here that I hope please and do not offend.

Where are my BISCUITS?

The tshirt lab has been open this afternoon... just wait until you see RICE vs PASTA!

During the course of manouevers, I drew this. It's like the cover of a '70s feminist zine, full of hooked fury!

Finished manga terror

I like Manga Studio! This is the first time i have managed to draw anything coherent with my tablet, ever!

Memory Layne

I found this page on my site today. That was quite a maverick design! And who can forget the Sons Of Mongor... I wonder where they are now and what they're doing with their lives. I've thought about doing some more creatures, but nothing I've come up with has been quite good enough. There is a big white earwig prototype that was so utterly terrifying that I had to lock it in a room and throw away the key. It really is creepy.

The good news is that I'm putting the remaining limited prints from the London show on sale today. The page is up, the fix is in!

The final news today is that I have bought Manga Studio, a computer program for people whose lives lack speed lines. I can't really draw very well (living as I do in WOBBLE TOWN UK) with my graphics tablet but I was trying to work out how to use it last night and drew the following mysterious image.



Please, don't ask me.

That little chlorine bath (for feet)

I realised today that it is almost 12 years since I last went swimming. I only stopped going swimming because my friend Martin Owen borrowed my goggles and lost them in Sheffield University sports centre pool. I decided not to go swimming again until he bought me a new pair. That was 1995, and you could fill a municipal lido with the tears I've shed since.

Of course, this stopped being a point of principle in about 1998, and indeed my college-era beer-storage frontispiece probably had a lot more to do with my lack of enthusiasm for the aquatic way (though it may have aided buoyancy!) In fairness, Mr Owen has had little opportunity to make amends from his no-doubt highly-paid position in the chemical engineering game, as we have not spoken since 2000.

So perhaps I should break this hoodoo, this Indian sign, and go back into the water. I don't know what will happen. What are people wearing to the pool? Should I go for a full body wax then rock a Speedo? That sounds awful!

The one thing that comforts me is that should I ever collect on my goggle debt, ocular interest will probably entitle me to a snorkel, mask and rubber duck.

Simple pleasures

I always liked "Great Big No" by the Lemonheads, off "Come On Feel the Lemonheads". But today for the first time, I enhanced the pleasure of singing along by singing "GREAT BIG NOSE".

Great big nose!

Still trying

It's now 3 years, two months since I released my black and white Scareodeleria book - the book that was meant to be number one in a quarterly series! Excuse me while I execute a hollow laugh.

I live in hope that I'll manage another standalone project, because although I am pleased with my efforts on daily Scary Go Round, I find the book collections very dense reading. It's nice just to be able to tell a yarn without worrying about getting the quips and snipes in just the right place and ending whatever you were trying to say in the bottom right hand corner of your piece of A4 paper.

This morning I spent £50 and gave myself a headache trying to make one page of a prospective follow up. I don't know about you, but £50 and a headache won't do. At that rate, by page 22 I'd have spent £1100 and be suffering from some kind of aneurysm (probably several).

I should explain that in producing this project, I am attempting to become "the new king of manga". You and I both know that I am not going to become the new king of manga any time soon. Even with the aid of the ministrations of my spiritual guide Mr Godiba (see here), I'm not going to be the new Junko Mizuno.

BUT I WILL DIE IF NECESSARY IN THE ATTEMPT! DO NOT TRY TO STOP ME BECAUSE YOU WILL FAIL! ALL WILL FAIL!



That was less intense than I hoped it would be.

Fancy womerns

I was delighted and excited to learn about today the existence of "Unknown Hinson", depicted below. I have never heard his music, and I think to hear it would only disappoint. Just to know that this man is out there is enough for me.

Tiny little face that may be alive

Mike, who made the little pixel Shelley, also made the Esther below. A fancy thing!

He's a blade, he's a renegade

What happened to my blog? i seem to have abandoned it over the last couple of weeks. I don't suppose anyone really wants to read about how I am eating some Easter eggs very slowly, or how I planted a rhododendron today. These things aren't the fiery facts that force recumbent internetters off their asses and out of the front door full of jellybeans.

I don't think I have any projects to tell you about. I haven't forced another rusting appliance into my back yard.

I did want to say a brief word about t-shirt artist/painter Todd Goldman and his Dave Kelly art-stealing saga. It was a blatant and ugly steal, but the red-faced, hysterical table thumping from the webcomics community, a community that frequently feeds upon licensed properties (when not feeding upon itself), was a bared backside begging to be struck with a banjo.

No one is innocent. Todd Goldman was undoubtedly handed that picture by a studio assistant. When a web cartoonist who has made a tshirt with a Star Wars related design gets a cease and desist letter, it's a badge of honour. When the shoe's suddenly on the other foot, there's a collective move up onto the table with skirts raised - and let the screaming commence.

Go crosseyed talking about "fair use" if you wish, but you'll waste a lot of breath. It's the same thing.

Somersault Notes!

I did a bit more on my poster last night, I worked too long into the evening on it and feel a bit mentally feeble today but oh well.

Eurocamping

I'm working on a new and large poster to ruin your walls. It's early days but here's what I managed this morning - much still to do!

Slug update 2007

Having repelled the slugs from my kitchen, it seemed time in 2007 to turn my attention the devastation they habitually cause in my garden. Who can forget the grisly sunflower massacre of 2001? Not me! So under these auspices I bought some slug pellets to prevent my friends, the slugs, eating anything with tasty leaves and pretty flowers.

Now, these slug pellets claim to be safe for the environment (so long as you don't include the aggravation their intense blue-ness causes to the eye). The packaging claims that "there is no need to clear up slug carcasses, as they will crawl away to a secluded spot to die". This is one of the most impressive boasts I have ever heard. It is also a lie.

My paving stones are now peppered with what I can only describe as baked-on moustaches made of beef jerky. Perhaps I do not provide the necessary "secluded spot". If you have any suggestions on the construction of the mooted "slug chill-out slash death zone", do let me know.

On this day in history

While I deal with the dirty business of book 5, blog posts will be minimal. So today why not enjoy "On This Day In Scary Go Round History", a painful trip through the years that made me feel weird and kind of ill. Click here and SEE!

Godiba's powers bring good juju

Book 5 back cover! I hope to get this off to the printer within the next week.



ALSO: I've finally added the canvas Curious Orange prints to the SGR shop!

A ringing endorsement

Longtime readers of this blog know that I am not over-enamoured of Oldham Metropolitan Borough. It's not really the place for a person like me, but for some reason I seem to have lived here for 8 years. Anyway, I think things are gathering a kind of critical mass - see the leaflet (below) that came through my door this morning.



Shamen are now congregating on my doorstep. I anticipate this new local trend for spells can only be the tip of a terrifying iceberg.

A giant hat covered with gems has been ordered

The Webcomix Thing in London was a total super great success. Obviously it was not a 100% success, as most conversations I had with people after 3pm in the afternoon were very abstract. I think I offended a whole table full of Brighton's most gifted cartoonists just by trying to tell them, unprompted, about the few facts I could scrape together from my by-now-ravaged brain. By God I dug myself in deep there. Note to self: avoid the south for some months.

I think I also upset a poor lad who thrust a tape recorder under my nose and wanted "to ask [me] a few questions". When I asked him to come back at a slightly quieter time, he wheeled away as if shot. Sorry, tape recorder man, no offence intended.

Having now made amends to people who have scratched my name deep into their hating books and enemy lists, I'd like to thank everyone who came to see me. It was the busiest I have ever been at any show, at home or abroad. I wish I could have talked to people for longer, and spent a bit longer with folks who'd come a long way. My neighbours on one side were Nude Magazine, a design-led publication that seems just right for most eyes, and on the other side Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeier, who I think may be some of the most talented and best people in the world!

In the evening it was a pleasure and an honour to make sport with Weebl, Madsen, Dr McNinja, Ali, and the hidden man of UK comics, Kelly Hernandez. Good men, and thorough.


Note: I do have quite a few of the limited prints I did left, and I'll put them up for sale later in the week once I've caught up with making comics. They'll go on sale at 12pm GMT, giving almost everyone a fair crack of the whip I hope.

Who's got the looks, who's got the brains, who's got everything?

I have revised the cover for SGR book 5 (now tantalisingly close to going to the printers), as having lived with the previous one for a few months I realised it was a nice idea but not up to much. Here's the new one! The back cover will have some kind of fancy decoration too but I don't know what yet.



It's still subject to tweaks as my mind doesn't work very well in the late evening, but it certainly seems books-ish.

Despite wounds, I continue

I think I'm getting old, or just incredibly fragile. I can't lift my right arm above the, let's be honest here, Hitler salute position, without suffering a pain (like touching a freshly grazed knee) in my tendon. I hate the Fuhrer and his ways so there is no need to punish me for accidentally saluting him.

But despite all that, I have made some little prints for the UK Web Comix Thing. They're in runs of ten and any left over will be available on my return from the capital. The first one is my riposte to "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" entitled "Bats Get In Your Hair". The second is of course entitled "The Day The World Changed".



My only concern is that they might be displaying 'tood - which I will of course be forced to eliminate prior to turning on the printer.

Dog problems

I was going to do drawn intros to all the chapters in my new book but what I came up with didn't really work the way I wanted it to. I did think this rough was quite funny though.

Updates update

For those of you who are curious, I am approximately one page away from completing Scary Go Round book 5. Having drawn a suitably simpleton intro, I need to make a simpleton outro to finish the job. Then it is just a question of whether I draw a back cover or just make it the same soothing and mottled yellow as the front. I have a feeling that the solution will involve a combination of both.

Last night I rocked anew and saw Brakes, Absentee and Bobby Cook on one splendid bill! I have made their names into cyber-node hyper-links for the curious of ear.

The Absentee singer man was running the merchandise stall and having stood on the other side of the table, so to speak, on many occasions, I warmed to this kindly and talented fellow. Let's hope Absentee have a million pounds very soon.

Finally, I will be packing up prints on Sunday to send out on Monday. The canvas prints are in and look really nice, so I will probably put them up for sale next week. There are only ten, so I'll announce beforehand when they'll be available. If this proves popular, I'll probably do some super short-run canvas-only prints in future.

Things are going to change

I'm back from the lakes and undrowned. I did experience some adverse cambers, mushy clay and treacherous scree but that is the nature of the wilds and we must all do our part. Also there were some witches and ghosts.

New news: I am growing an extra inch on my sideburns in preparation for the UK Webcomix Thing in two-and-a-bit weeks. It's a race against time, because if the sidewall annexe looks too ratty, I will remove it before facing my public. But I feel I need extra strength for this marathon of front-facing, gladhanding and power-sales mesmerism. I will keep you posted on "Project Samson".

Placid

I am going to the Lake District this weekend, so if I am destroyed by a lake, you know what to do. Ululation, tearing of vestments, brass statue of me outside the Cobden View Arms in Crookes, Sheffield. Statue should be wearing a crown.

You may think that being destroyed by a lake is improbable and weird, but you would be Dr Wrong, ministering to the needs of the inhabitants of Mistakentown. Lakes contain fierce otters, bony cichlids and kraken. At any point I could be seized by a tentacle and drawn under, thereby ending a life dedicated to amusing people in 30 second bursts every weekday.

I'll be on my guard, but I'm warning you - be ready.

Enormodome comes crashing down

Well, I failed to win any Web-cartoonists' Choice Awards this time around. It's probably for the best. I usually respond to winning a prize by suffering a seismic crisis of confidence and, as a result, plunging over the creative cliff "on fire".

In all honesty, I think I've done very well to be nominated so many years in a row for "Outstanding Comic". I'm never going to beat Nicholas Gurewitch of Perry Bible Fellowship at that, he is a genius at what he does. Though if quality was not an issue and quantity was placed front and centre, I would be officially five times better than him. Yes, take THAT and put it on the shelf with all your prizes, sir! When you're shining up your trophies and crowns, remember that for every one time you put a piece of paper in the scanner, I put FIVE in there. And I have to scan each of them twice because my scanner refuses to scan the bottom centimetre of my A4 paper. So that's TEN scans for every one of yours. Who's laughing now?

Here are all the sounds I witnessed in the last week with short, pithy reviews, so I can look back in future times and see exactly how and when I went deaf.

Tuesday Feb 13th: THE HOLD STEADY + The Checks + Former Bullies

How exciting to see the Hold Steady, the main band in America for hollering about all sorts of things over a right bar-room racket, on UK soil. They were brilliant. The Checks were choogling boogie of the kind that might have impressed a Faces fan in 1973, and Former Bullies have been haunting the Manchester scene for years and will never triumph unless they learn to face front and address the audience clearly, confidently and directly.

Saturday Feb 16th: KLAXONS + CSS + Sunshine Underground + New Young Pony Club

This was the NME New Rave tour, and as someone old enough to remember old rave, I have to say that if you are going to start a new movement, don't make it exactly the same as the dance punk movement of TWO YEARS AGO (except with glowsticks). In any case, CSS are brilliant (full marks for coming on stage in makeshift burkas), Klaxons are rubbish, Sunshine and My Little Pony Club are promising. I counteracted any ennui created by the deadbeat headliners with improvisational rave dancing and some handsome badges I made (including "NEW DAVE") which prospective new ravists can buy from me in London next month.

Sunday Feb 17th: LONG BLONDES + Lodger + Navvy

75% of people at this gig were 5ft tall girls in footless leggings and shirt dresses. I thought I was going to get the vapours. The diminutive and petite stature of many of the audience made for comfortable viewing of another fine rock outing. Navvy tried hard and had a lead (LEED not LED) cowbell, Lodger had sweater vests and some decent tunes, and the Long Blondes are a proper pop band with a proper pop star front-lady for people who like Blondie and Pulp equally well. Well done, Long Blondes, well done, you win this week's gig crown.

This week I have been rocked

Obviously the person of the year is "you" and that is because of Youtube which is because Youtube is where you can watch old pop videos that would otherwise never have been seen again by human eyes. Here are two of my favourite songs with the videos and everything just for people who like my sound decisions, good tunes for the young who grew up in recent years but like, let's say, the idea of the past.

"Beautiful John" by Madder Rose which obviously I like because it is a flagrant overstatement of my virtues and;

"This Is What She's Like" by Dexy's Midnight Runners, which not only showcases a sharp new Ivy league look for the 80s ragamuffins, but is 12 minutes long on the album! Isn't there a new Dexy's live album showcasing the "lost line up"? This is a rhetorical question to which the answer is of course yes.

I hadn't seen this video before today but it is more than I could have hoped for. At one point the issue of "what she's like" is discussed in an office scenario. At one point Kevin Rowland does a kind of street corner bogle. There is also some extremely low-key adherence to the principles of lip-syncing which I find delicious.

Sometimes I have dreams about the ITV Chart Show. They might just be the best dreams I have.

I wrote this post in lieu of reviewing all the bands I went to see this week because no one needs to hear what a great time I had or how new rave is such nonsense or how CSS came on in burkas or how the Hold Steady are attracting an audience mostly from the mid 40s man with son in tow. Just take all these things as read and go about your business.

Hopefully not too weird for sale

Thank you for bearing with me! I hope to take this item to the printer next week. I have also spoken to the necessary characters about a short run (probably of ten) on canvas.

Too weird for sale

There are several reasons why this design is too weird to be sold, though for the sake of my fragile ego I ask that you do not name them. I do think it would have a dual purpose though, as it could be worn as a Fish Man mask that would unfortunately render the wearer blind.

They knew what they were doing

Last night I went to see The Decemberists and Lavender Diamond live "in concert", with the sad memories of Friday night's gig still haunting my thoughts. And there was further disaster afoot because I believe no man there who saw Lavender Diamond is not now in love with and keen to wed singer Becky Stark. Homes have been wrecked all over town and it is her fault. Their sounds were extremely good too, it was a magnificent deal.

Then the Decemberists! They had all the right ideas about pleasing the audience, to the extent of playing some drones, which I noted down in my gilt-edged notebook of drones. This was live music done right for all to see and so I say well done, well done.

Crayons

Work proceeds apace on print 3! I have put some flat colours on there, now I will seek guidance from my artier friends in the art community on getting this thing looking tip top. Or rather, I will carp on to Kelly Patches and Andy Bell until they tell me what to do (like always).

You don't know what you're doing

GIG REVIEW: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah + Cold War Kids & Elvis Perkins @ Manchester Academy 2/2/07

On Friday I went to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and they were absolutely terrible. The songs they played from their new album sounded for the most part like a foghorn being blasted into a black hole. When I saw them last year in a smaller venue, they played one new song that was so inferior to the rest of their set that I was a bit nervous for what we old-timers term "the future". That it seemed like a rough gem compared to the rest of their freshly unveiled material at the Academy confirmed my fears. CYHSY have "gone lousy" faster than any act in living memory.

I could continue to moan, wail and spit but I won't. Why stop to drive nails into roadkill? People around me seemed to be enjoying themselves, but it was the kind of enjoying yourself that involves shouting into your mate's ear at a proximity that implies that you are the most intimate of lovers.

To address the positives: Cold War Kids on the other hand were a lot better than their rather one-note radio hit would suggest. At one point trombonists and trumpeters emerged to raise our spirits. Many of their jams were pleasing even to the untutored ear.

In addition, I enjoyed the sight of a be-cardiganed gentleman who spent much of the early part of the gig apparently rooting around in his back passage, then later on unveiled a series of chesty and inappropriate dance moves. This sweaty and faintly threatening rustic was keeping alive the Great British tradition of the village idiot, one spasmodic twitch at a time. He, at the very least, appeared to be trying.

Punching thru

"Thru"!

After yesterday's day of futile scrapings, finally I am underway with my print as the grainy photo below reveals. I will try to work a COELACANTH into the picture but I'm not sure where I can put it to give it maximum impact.

Adhesion

After a day of frantic artistic activity, all I managed to produce was a Scary Go Round sticker (the first!) I don't think I'll actually put them up for sale, that would of course be NUTS. I guess you'll get a couple when you order something else.



Manly, ain't it? Stick that on your Trans Am!

Print making

I'm working on a new print! I meant to do one every three months but the last one was... July? That's pretty hopeless. Still, I want to at least have one new thing for the UK Webcomix Thing in March so I'd better crack on.

As opinion leant that way, I decided to hand draw my new print rather than doing in in Illustrator like the last two. But it's proving tricky so far to make something I like when I can't tweak it to oblivion there after.

The only idea I finished, I ended up liking nothing about other than its title "The Greatest Lover In Micronesia". So wooden and stiff! But there's grist enough for several mills below.



The thing below seems a bit too cutesy pie. It's a good Yeti though, good and furious.



Lots of ideas! I thought Shelley could fight a giant robot, that might be kind of a good deal. But perhaps it is just plain ludicrous. My other ideas all involved either fish or stupidity.



It's hard to make something that people will look at for more than ten seconds. But I will keep trying because I know bloodymindedness is the quality in me that people most admire (or least loathe).

Lies 2

My blog is worth $277,189.14.
How much is your blog worth?

This is what the main Scary Go Round site is worth. I consider it undervalued!

The internet is made of lies

My blog is worth $14,113.50.
How much is your blog worth?

If the above is the case, can I sell it now? I'm sure that money isn't boiling any eggs tied up in sporadic picture posts and nonsense about "freedom eagles".

School for scallywags

I have designed a new shirt, a new shirt for a new era. I cannot say if people will like it, but I like it. It depicts the im-bominable snowman on his endless, fruitless quest for a cup of cocoa.

Farewell Freedom Tour 07 Concludes

I am back on good, solid British soil after my sojourn to Massachusetts. Who can say I didn't have a good time? Not me! I got to tell some excellent lies in support of a surprise party, while the freakishly clement weather meant that I never had to fall over onto an icy pavement. I was disappointed not to experience the vicious cold and snow that I'm used to, but comforted by my lack of the habitual bruises. O treacherous "side-o-walk"!

In the meantime Britain was almost wholly destroyed by storms. I mean it. On the way back from the airport, I had to drive around a small tree branch and an upturned traffic cone. This was but the tip of a stormy iceberg. I was disappointed to find that my house had not been wholly destroyed, thereby freeing me from life in Oldham (presumably into a new life as a nomad). Thus I must divert my energies to further renovation.

In service of such tasks it becomes necessary to create new Scary Go Round items. I figure if I screw up my eyes very tightly, even in my jet-lagged state I can imagine a new picture print for sale. But here is the question: A3 like the Esther print, or A2 like the Shelley? Small, or big? And does the prospect of an ultra-luxury short-run option on canvas appeal to the monied section of the readership? There are comments for a reason! Feel free to tote "opinion".

DANCE DANCE SHELLEY REVOLUTION

I did my best with the tools available to me. See her dance!

FREEDOM VOYAGE JANUARY 07

I am off to visit Dumbrella HQ in Massachusetts tomorrow, toasting Old Man Stevens' 30th birthday and hopefully tapping into his newfound wealth as the new Gary Trudeau. Let's hope that freedom still tastes as sweet as I remember! When that mighty eagle flaps its wings, I can't help feel my spirits soar. When the mighty eagle weeps, I weep too.

Great Aches

Work is now somewhat underway on SGR 5 (I may have mentioned this before). It finally has a title, and a cover (I will probably do a bit more work on this but it's good enough to show). Rather than the chapter commentaries I've done in the past, I think I'm going to draw black and white introductions to each story. Otherwise I fear it will be utterly unpenetrable to new readers.

Super Gal

I did the picture below as a wedding present for my friends Beth and Emeka. They got married, it was a good deal. I didn't just give them a PNG file, you understand. Even I am not that cheap. I had it etched into the side of a mountain.