KAPOW! BLAAM! AIIEEE!

Another day in London, and to avoid the crowds that were being thrown out of the British Museum due to a fire alarm, I took refuge in a comic book store. I've mentioned before on the blog how I don't 'get' comics/graphic novels, so I thought I’d give them another go and have a browse. Unfortunately I think I picked up the same book over and over again, but they all had different titles and covers- odd.
I then saw some original artwork on a wall, with a brief explanation of the writer's vision-I had high hopes- surely something different and original to justify the exhibition of work- let's see..."blah blah, cyber punk pirates, blah blah, post apocalyptic New York..."
Oh, for f....
OK- so, there might one day be some natural or man made apocalypse- but, do you know what it would look like? What shops would be looted? The big ones- like Tesco and Marks and Spencer’s- the post apocalyptic world will be all Blue Harbour elasticated denim slacks, and Florence and Fred pastel cardigans.
Where do these cyber goth pirate punks get their outfits? Do they spend all their time with sewing kit and scissors- feverishly sewing on studs and sequins- I expect they get their mums to do it for them.

Rant over- here's my only comic book related drawing so far- was published a week or so ago.

Stick around

Not posted much recently, so here's another head-on-a-stick cartoon to make up for it- to be seen in the current Reader's Digest.

Lady Marmalade

Finally, after two and a half months of not thinking of cartoon ideas, I've managed to come up with some stuff and send them off to one of the mags. They were rejected, but at least I'm drawing again. Interestingly (to me anyway), I was told by the Ed that a fellow cartoonist had got in before me with a toon similar to one of mine. This is why I tend to steer clear of topical stuff- too much competition. Anyway- here's the one I came up with...

one more than 99

I noticed the other day that I'd reached the 99th blog post- so, what to do for the 100th?
As Mike Yarwood used to say-

"and this is me..."

It used to be all slums round 'ere

I had a wander around London at the weekend- up to Hackney/Hoxton- it's where a lot of creative types live- I wonder why creatives all strive to look the same, eat in the same caff's and ride the same distressed bicycles. I suppose being creative is so exhausting you can't extend that creativity to being an individual. I’m not sure I fitted in. I can't squeeze into skinny jeans- stripey shirts make me look even fatter- I threw away my National Health spectacles before they became ironically hip.
I left the creatives to creatively bathe in their collective creative aura, and headed off to Hackney City Farm to say hello to the farm animals and the 3 leggedy cat. They were cool, and they weren't even trying.

Ah well- it's all about image and fitting in I suppose- every generation has their tribes...which brings me, rather clunkingly, to this cartoon in last week's Spectator.

Così fan tutte*

Unlike most cartoonists I don't go beyond the magazine 'gag' market, which is rather limited in the UK- so I was pleased to recently find another magazine that does take gags- and even more pleased with them taking some of mine-here's one (biting satire it is not...)

*i'm sure they're not really

Win things

It's that time again where I try to explain the rules to the Reader's Digest 'Beat the Cartoonist' competition- cos one of my cartoons has been used for the current one.
If you go to their website you can see the following cartoon (drawn a while back when I used pen n paper instead of computers)- my original caption is not shown. Readers can come up with their own caption- 3 of the best suggestions are eventually posted online along with my (anonymous) caption. People then vote on the best one. Does that make sense? It's all explained better on their website:

http://www.readersdigest.co.uk/caption_contest.php