Tshirt desperation desk

Sorry that there have been no new posts but I have been very busy trying to be good at drawing. Hopefully improvement is evident with each passing day. Some of next week's comics look pretty nice.

Designing tshirts is a rubbish job, especially when you would, personally, never wear anything with a "snappy" phrase on it - though I do like S Britt's shirts, where the words mean absolutely nothing. But a lack of supply is choking demand, and I must answer the call. Today's work in progress: society's easy little boxes. Finished colours may vary etc etc



Now, you and I both know that the second I can afford to, I will never make another tshirt ever again. That bitter dichotomy helps me keep quality high. But those boxes quite tickled me. One's a little tank!

More soon lest "Secret Scary Friend" enter its 17th year on sale. Feel free to make requests in the comments area of the blog.

Commercials

I've got an ad in the next issue of legendary alternative comic Love and Rockets. It's hard to be a huckster for yourself when you're not given to the art. Fortunately, following some consultation with a close ally, a compromise was reached.

Where we take things "nice and Keys-y"

Following my earlier cusses, I will cheer up with the good news that Danny Baker is back on BBC London (weekdays 3-5pm). He has always been the ultimate thing to put in my ears since small times, a shaping influence on the things I enjoy! My world would be infinitely poorer without having embraced his broad cultural brief, from S.J Perelman to Jake Thackray.

Where is my BBC Radio Player? One may "listen again".

Also much respect to Danny Kelly of course.

Webcomics on iPod/PSP/Kodachrome slide

I'm hearing a lot of talk these days about putting webcomics on iPod photos and PSPs to read. Maybe I'm a dangerous lunatic, but wasn't the great thrill of doing comics on the internet that you didn't have to cram them into the tiny space available in the newspaper? Is there some sort of irresistable push to make comics as unreadable (and un-enjoyable) as possible?

I can't believe it only took 29 years for me to become a dinosaur. But unlike the dinosaurs of the past, I have written a couplet to express my utter dismay:

Read your comics at a reasonable size
Then perhaps when you're 70 you'll still have EYES.

I would write more, but I have go and eat my dinner while looking at it through a microscope. I'm sure you understand.

Movie review time

OK, so last night I went to see "Serenity". I'm pretty sure that there are no spoilers in this review so read on unabashed.

Serenity is a movie where the bad priest guy from Buffy the Angel Slayer has somehow got in charge of a spaceship in order to get away from Buffy. The bad guy from the X Files is also in it (not a very popular bad guy) and a girl who is kind of weird in the brain. Anyway! It is like Battlestar Galacticas without Lorne Green. At some point there were bad, scary men who I assume are very disenfranchised because it is the future. Also there was a black man who was a Very Good Actor.

One thing about this movie that annoyed me was that they seemed to have stolen a lot of ideas from "Firefly" off the TV. But don't let that distract you from the fighting.

Watch this movie if: you like bad vicars in space kicking off some excellent fights.
Avoid this movie if: you are no fan of "entertainment".

Serenity: a good movie!

New auction reveals team spirit (steam spirit)

Click the picture for a low cost, fun auction for smile times!



That is all for now.

New ways

In an attempt to compete with the top comics of the internet, such as Questionable Contents and Sam and Fuzzies, all my comics will now be drawn on Pergo with Sharpie.



The day the world changed!

The greatest TV show of all time

was BULLSEYE!

Bullseye was a gameshow where people played darts. It was hosted by old-school comedian Jim Bowen. For some reason, a half-hour gameshow on Sunday evening where people play darts is about the most sublime thing in the world. The human drama on the faces of the dart-throwers was so plangent, and it all happens so fast.

We lambast modern television for dumbing down, which as any fule no is nonsense. Bullseye is no intellectual work-out. But somehow, it delivers on every level. From the knuckle-gnawing interchanges between contestants and Mr Bowen to the delicious celebrity round (where underperforming stars would frequently reach into their own pocket to boost the £75 they had raised for charity), not a second is wasted.

I was excited to discover that Challenge TV shows Bullseye - not that I had ever wasted more than 3 consecutive seconds on that channel prior to making the discovery. In fact, the day I found this out, my spirits were at a very low ebb. It's strange to think that 30 minutes of 20-year old light entertainment can be the difference between walking tall and throwing yourself under the wheels of a passing ice cream van. But I digress.

Seen both as a game-show and historical artifact, Bullseye exposes the eighties as a long-abandoned country. Lady contestants (who are probably younger than me) contrive to at least double their ages with high waisted trousers and aspirationally tall hair. The men all work in ironmongery or concrete works! Contestants who appear to have attended university are skittish dart-nerds, yet to drink of the confidence-boosting wealth of the coming information economy.

If you have digital TV, don't hang around, don't wait. Per-second, nothing (and I do not say this lightly) beats a bit of Bully.

T-shirt request workshop

Several readers (several, not the one I usually upgrade to "several" for the sake of these posts) have written to me asking for an actual "books rule" tshirt. Now, I have never said that anything "rules" out loud, outside of a strictly historical context. But this almost equates to a groundswell of support, so here goes:



Yes, that is a hamster and no, I don't know why. But it's a pretty good hamster.

Eagle revenge

Upon returning home from New York at 7am last wednesday, I should have been delighted to note that there had been no slug incursions in my absence, thereby proving my counter-measures to be wholly successful. If I'd really meant business, I would have coined a catchphrase, such as "slug free since 08/03". But alas, there had been an even more determined intruder than the pernicious garden slug.

When I forced my way past the pile of exciting mail (including: tax disc! Undelivered item notice! Pizza menu!) I witnessed a scene of devestation roughly equivalent to that following a middle-range earthquake. Pictures askew. Unexplained dirt everywhere (the kind that houses hide). Lampshade at a jaunty angle. This can only mean one thing, namely that a bird has flown down the chimney and commited acts of terror on my home.

Now, I don't know about you, but my first thought upon getting into trouble is not to defecate everywhere. That seems to me to be compounding the problem. Not so Mr Bird, who had spattered every available surface with yesterday's brunch. So now, when all my shaking body wanted to do was sleep, I had to try to find this miscreant in my home. The thought of going to sleep only to be awoken by talons raking my face (inevitable, I figured) did not appeal. After two hours of spirited effluvia removal, I gave up and collapsed.

(A note: OF COURSE I cleaned my house before I went away. So that burglars would not think the worst of me).

Later on, i found its sad little body behind a curtain in the spare room. I suppose a true blogger would have taken a photo of this, put it at the top of the post, and reminded us all of the pathos of life and death. Wheels within wheels. I just shoved the (thankfully cohesive) corpse into a shoebox and threw it in the bin. All the while, obviously, praying it would not come back to life in a damaged, screaming way. I don't mind admitting that I poked it with a stick a few times first.

Thank goodness for sticks. Thank goodness for shoeboxes! Thank goodness for Cif cream cleaner. Thank goodness.

Brooklyn

I am in a secret location in New York city which cannot be revealed at any cost. Already I have hatched some serious schemes and judged this great nation as only the Englishman can. The freedom eagle's belly is ripe for tickling, and I have a feather that is up to the task.

NME Chart Show

Having grown up with the ITV Chart Show as my only real source of pop videos (that being: one hour a week, slavishly watched no matter how bad it was the previous week), nothing puts me in a cosier frame of mind than a top ten of music videos. Fortune must favour the easily pleased, as every night I can watch the NME Chart Show (MTV 2, 7pm).

Since I haven't read the NME for several years, I am unschooled in what their tastemakers suggest viewers vote for on the MTV2 website. So the chart is generally a nice surprise when I catch it. Indie music invariably marches to one or two different drums at any time, with a few incongruities thrown in to confuse and bemuse (usually foreigners of import). It was like that in 1991, when every song on the indie chart was entitled the "Hypnoflowerlovewheel (Forever) EP", and today of course there is a general leaning toward young men with wiry arms in polo shirts playing their guitars quickly.

The music video is arguably a distraction from a song. In some cases, it improves your view of the music - I doubt anyone would have clasped their hands in rapt joy at the White Stripes' phoned-in "My Doorbell" if the video wasn't a charming period tour de force. On the other hand, the sight of Hard-Fi's eminently slappable singer renders me utterly furious.

What is on the chart this week? I know, i know!

10. Clor – 'Good Stuff'
I was washing up when this was on.

9. Hard-Fi – 'Living For The Weekend'
This is music aimed at the youth market, or as some people call it, "London". Male model fronts faceless shape-formers.

8. Mystery Jets – 'You Can't Fool Me Dennis'
This is brilliant! They are trying to pretend that the old chap in the video isn't in the band, but I saw them live, and he was.

7. The Subways – 'With You'
That chap from the Vines has asperger's syndrome and is too plum crazy to tour. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Subways. Awful.

6. Sigur Ros – 'Glosoli'
This looks like a ringer to me! I can't imagine that the kids are sitting at home, thinking, what I need to vote for is some Icelandic post rock sung in a made up language. These chaps are signed to Parlophone now, who anticipate big returns. Some say "cocaine" is a problem in the music industry!

5. We Are Scientists – 'The Great Escape'
Or rather "We Wish We Were The Killers". I wish the Killers weren't the Killers.

4. Franz Ferdinand – 'Do You Want To'
The best British indie single for years! I can't buy the album because there's no way it can touch this.

3. Editors – 'Bullets'
The best British indie single for years! I can't buy the album because there's no way it can touch this pt 2.

2. Bloc Party – 'Two More Years'
Someone, soon, has to come out and say it: the most boring, pedestrian band plying their trade at the top level today. No melodies, no excitement, flat singing. They look great though!

1. Arctic Monkeys – 'I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor'
WHAT IS THIS? WHAT IS THIS THING? Video recorded on an audio tape; four lost schoolboys, frightened for their lives. I can't tell whether this is genius on the level of Pavement's early singles or a guileless stumble into a state of musical grace. Something is happening here.

A sleever is a straight sided glass.

Quite often people write to me and say that if they meet me, they would like to buy me a drink. It's a really nice thing to say, a gesture of bonhomie in an old-fashioned way.

So why is it that I always want to write back, "please can I just have the money?" What a terrible person I am.

No, but seriously, think about it, that's a lot of money if you add it up, and I'm not going to get any work done later if I have a drink now. My body chemicals will be all out of kilter, I won't be able to concentrate and I'll want to have a nap. That means I won't be able to go to sleep at bedtime and I won't be able to concentrate properly until 5 o'clock the next day, by which point I'll be so frustrated that I won't want to do anything. Do you see the problem? Plus I'll feel sort of obligated to you for the drink.

How about, if you ever meet me, you buy me a postcard from your home town and a button badge you think I might like. That's not too extravagant. It expresses gratitude and pan-continental friendship, a coming together over a rectangle and a circle.

All right, wait, I might be talking myself out of some good times here. How about, if you're a pretty lady on the go*, you buy me the postcard, and the button badge, and a drink, and I'll buy you a drink and write you a poem about orange blossom near an ornamental pond. Here's how it would work:

"Hello John it is me, the cute little doctor lady from House, here are the button badge and postcard and etc".

"Well thank you and how very interesting"

"Is it time for the poem"

"Alas no because the postcard is of a unicorn frolicing with a furry dog woman in a thong and you have a skeleton hand"

"True love dies hard on jagged rocks, Johnny"

"Goodbye House doctor girl, this was a tender and terrifying moment".

* The offer is never from a "pretty lady on the go" but stick with me, I am hitting my stride here

Google Blog search is powered by aliens

While being self-employed is obviously a. a bed of roses and b. a bowl of cherries, in order to take a week off, you have to do all the work for that week in advance. Or rather, if you are obsessively contientious, you do it all in advance. For this reason, in anticipation of eight days spent mostly scratching my back-side in the land of the free, I am trying to get a lot done. I realised this afternoon that I hadn't spent any time with an actual human being since last Thursday evening (going to the shop doesn't count, going to the garage doesn't count, going to Allied Carpets doesn't count).

Assume the Edvard Munch "Scream" position, I think I might be going mad. Pretty soon, I'll be like Cartilage Head, dancing a Cab Calloway routine of silent despair.

The Ashes

I think I started watching cricket in 1992 or '93, pretty much the nadir of the modern era for England's team. In those days, all England players were called Graham. There was Graham Gooch, Graham Hick, dewy-eyed debutant Graham Thorpe, and of course larrikin paceman Graham Trombone*. Even though the standard of Grahams was desperately low, I found the soothing pace of the five-day game very pleasing to my brain. And when the team went overseas to the West Indies or South Africa, you could leave the radio on BBC Radio 4 longwave all night, and wake up from strange dreams to hear what awful deeds tall foreign men had wrought on "our boys". Invariably, someone would be blowing on a conch shell.

So to win the Ashes today was in one sense very exciting. I know people around the country have apparently suddenly discovered that cricket is okay, and that they can watch it and pretend to know what the rules are. I've been watching it for 13 years and I don't know where "silly mid-on" is. It doesn't matter. I don't know which side is "leg" and which one is "off". But I was always pleased that some people didn't get it. Everyone I knew who was worth a shake got it.

You don't need to be a sports bore to watch test cricket, because it all happens so slowly. You get to know the players, and like a soap opera, you get to like them. Shane Warne may be a tubby and boorish Aussie, but he's been coming into my home for more than a decade and he's never stunk the joint out. That's not the Warne way. Cricket is a reality show where you like all the contestants, and they don't outstay their welcome.

When I tired of football's nebbish prima donnas in the late 90s, cricket didn't pall, so while I was happy to win the Ashes, i was sad because it's the end of live cricket on free-to-air TV. Sky Sports' cricket coverage is woeful and I wouldn't pay for the channel just for that. So today marked the end of something I really enjoyed. I doubt I'm the only person who felt like this.

Like George Costanza, I believe in always going out on a high. But for me and the summer game, the high was never really the point.


* Not a real player

Johnsons Go!

Last night was the Mercury Music Prize, the prize for the most toe-tapping British album. Like all prizes it is kind of meaningless and it is often won by the wrong person. But this year I was gripped by a powerful feeling that it would be won by faux-Britons Antony & The Johnsons. I deduced this by dividing column inches by volume of critical slaver. This was a clear opportunity for me to place a bet.

A bet I then put off making, repeatedly, for weeks.

Fortunately yesterday afternoon I remembered, but then struggled with my drawing so much that I had to have a nap. When I woke up, I was full of artistic fire. So much fire that I forgot to go on the William Hill website and bet.

At about 11pm I discovered that I had every right to be smug, because old Antony and his Nina Simone-style warbling had won. But oh dear, I had done myself out of £150 (I intended to place a £30 stake, because I am a high roller). So, in essence, I worked so hard on comics that I did myself out of £150.

You ask: John, how can I make this right? How can we heal the hurt inside? The answer is, you don't have to, because my Mercury Prize favourite, the Go! Team, already made me feel that everything is right with the world. Here is the video for their single, I showed it to Jeff Rowland and he said it made him want to throw a rock at a dog. You decide.

"Bottlerocket" video.

It is a new golden age

With age comes wisdom, they say, and at 28 i am able to tell that we are in a new musical golden age. Good jams getting recognition. Back in 1994 I thought we would always have it so good: IT DID NOT LAST. I think this week might be the peak of this newfound golden era, my copy of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah has arrived in the post, the Arcade Fire have reached the dizzying height of #45 on the UK album chart, and the following picture of Goldfrapp was seen on the Internet:



That is what popular music that is in the charts should look like. Rome is about to fall, so enjoy it while it lasts.

The best news in ages

Yesterday (Saturday) I did not go to the cinema to see Primer because the train was cancelled, I burned myself quite badly on the steam iron, and I went on a night out wherein I took a taxi all the way to my destination, received a text message, then told the driver to turn the car around and take me home.

But today is Sunday and the news is good for the Inglese:

Channel 4 Buys The Daily Show

This means no more CNN Daily Show Global Edition oops we replaced it with Design 360 this week plus four commercial breaks in a half hour advertising "The Kuwait Fund" plus four news tickers and five competing channel ident stamps. A victory for common sense.

He knows woe

This was going to be a new tshirt but now I think it's a bit too weird. Or R Stevens said it was too weird. Do you think it's too weird?



Maybe it is too weird. I just thought it was fun. Here's another that I like but I don't know if anyone would actually buy:

My album cover

When I make my album, this is roughly what the cover will look like. Before you ask, yes I will have the bubble perm.



Tracklisting
1. Just Havin' Fun
2. The Wildest Time
3. Party! Party! Party!
4. Get On That Dancefloor
5. She's The Nicest Lady
6. Moving In The Night
7. Susan
8. Pains In My Heart
9. Dying Inside (Where Did She Go?)

(bonus track)
10. Enter Sandman (Metallica cover)

My internal artistic debate is now over, I have made decisions.