Quick Reminder

A short post to remind everyone that my comic strip for the DFC, Dead Pets Society, begins in the Guardian's Family section tomorrow, it'll be in there every Saturday for 8 weeks.

Here's a little teaser from episode two.

DFC Preview Site

I've always firmly believed the DFC needed to have some of the comics strips available to read online, and now they have! Go, see! If you like what you see, subscribe! The DFC is a good thing for children's comics and the UK comic book industry in general. They're trying something brave and new and I think it deserves to do well. Of course, I'm biased, but now you can make up your own mind.

Blurby info bit:

"We've put a new previews site up! There are flashbook versions of some of the strips now up, at our fantastic new previews website! There's one episode of some of the strips, in most cases (but not all!) the first episode, to give people a taster of The DFC. We didn't want to put up all the strips at once so as not to blast people with too much content, but the plan is to cycle the strips round, so that it isn't always the same content. If a strip isn't up now, rest assured it will be appearing in the near future! First episodes of new strips will also be going up, a certain amount of time after first appearing in the comic."

I think this is an excellent move and the previews, though in a Flashbook form, look good and work very well indeed.

Dead Pets Society

I've hinted at it before now but here's the skinny...my strip, Dead Pets Society, produced for the DFC, will be appearing in the Guardian newspaper's Family section beginning on Saturday 27th December. Should you be outside the UK and unable to obtain a copy of the newspaper then you can usually read it online here, after publication. It's weekly, there's eight episodes and I hope you enjoy it!

Step right up! For one week only, folks...

...the DFC will be in Tescos throughout the land from Wed 26th Nov to Tues 2nd Dec. They're making it available for the one week only as a marketing exercise. Here's a pic of the cover, featuring a Mo-Bot from Neill Cameron's Mo-Bot High...





This is an opportunity to take a look at this subscription only, weekly children's comic without having to commit to a subscription. There's a great variety of comic strips in the DFC and I think it's worth investigating and supporting. It's all original material, nothing licensed, nothing based on already existing cartoons, toys or brands and its mixture of silliness, adventure and fun is a refreshing change from most of what's out there already. I should mention that I've had some involvement with the DFC, I coloured the first Good Dog, Bad Dog, strip by my good and hugely talented friend, Dave Shelton and I continue to be involved but I don't think I can say much about that just yet.

As much as I might like to.

Nick Hornby interviews David Simon

Came across this interview with David Simon from The Believer magazine in 2007 - Simon is the main man behind the brilliant HBO TV series The Wire. The interview is conducted by the author Nick Hornby and is well worth a read. If you haven't seen The Wire, apparently the favourite show of America's new president, then I only have one question to ask: What are you doing here?

Scary Vegetable Competition 2008

In the spirit of the day, visit the scary vegetables...Moo-Hoo-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha!

Scary Face Doodle

I don't know about you but this guy gives me the heebie-jeebies. I remember that I doodled this with a Pentel brush pen in the ICA bar whilst waiting to see a band play and thought at the time it was a bit strange compared to what might usually come out the end of my pen. It's been tweaked slightly in Photoshop to make it less grey.



Edit: A couple of comments on this picture suggested who it looked like, I thought about it and I reckon he looked like a zombie Max Wall, I did an image search so I could compare and found a photo of Max Wall that is way scarier than I could ever hope to have come up with.

What Are You Doing Here?

I know, I know...what can I say? I've been busy...

Okay, not that busy, but I am now. I'm working on something of my own for the DFC.

Nemi-sis

Sarah went into town yesterday and brought a copy of the Metro back with her, it's a free London paper that usually has nothing worth reading in it but you can't help picking one up and thumbing through it anyway. The Metro's only useful function is to provide something to peruse when you're on the London Underground and you've forgotten to bring a book. You can try putting off the inevitable by reading all the adverts on the train fourty-seven times but eventually you'll grab one of the many discarded copies littering the train carriage and start flicking through the paper (unless you're one of those lucky people that can doze on a train and never have to resort to such desperate measures).

The Metro's most heinous crime is the inclusion of the comic strip 'Nemi' by Norwegian cartoonist, Lise. Nemi is the second most popular strip in Norway, according to Wikipedia. The Nemi gallery on the Metro site, part of the heading says:

...love her or hate her, she always gets a reaction!

I can't argue with that. My reaction in this case was goggle-eyed, head-smacking disbelief; that a cartoonist could be so lazy and unfunny at the same time. Cutting corners I can understand, producing a comic strip day in, day out isn't the doddle that it may appear and if you can come up with an idea that allows for an easy ride once in a while, I'm all for it. There are times when the economical approach can be more effective and successful than any other. But if you're going to be this lazy and not even try to improve or enhance the joke with some artwork then it had better be brilliant...

This makes me want to weep. A black panel in which all you're imagining is Nemi sitting on the loo. It's not funny, it's not clever but it is weak and boring. If she was shouting in annoyance at the perpetrator then it might have, at least, raised a small smile of recognition. Instead we get an explanation of why there's a black panel.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the "older sibling" line doesn't make much sense either, surely a younger sibling is more likely to muck about and turn the lights off? And how often is the light switch on the outside of the toilet? Can't say I've found it to be all that often. 

Super F*cking Awesome

I've been to see the Super Furry Animals about 3 times this year alone. I like them a lot but my girlfriend, Sarah, likes them even more. All the gigs have been good or great but they were absolutely fantastic at the Royal Festival Hall last night. The actual RFH auditorium wasn't being used but all the rest of the building was used in some form or another, there were special themed bars - one was a joke VIP bar with fake bouncers outside and mock paparazzi taking photos of anybody that was entering which would then appear on screens inside the bar, there were lookalikes of famous people milling about helping add to the illusion. There were weird little attractions like the smallest discotheque in the world (10 people max) and all sorts of other strange bits of fun and silliness.

SFA played three times over the course of the evening, each set lasting about forty-five minutes or so, their performances were interspersed with sets from Deerhoof and Adam Hussein, early on it all seemed a bit subdued but by the last set the place had really filled up, SFA were going for broke and the audience were having a wonderful time. Being right on the South Bank meant we could go out on the terrace and have a great view of the fireworks and do lots of ooh-ing and ahhh-ing. After the display we went back in and the band were still playing and building up to their usual finale of 'The Man Don't Give A F*ck' which was joyful and mind-blowing, especially with the surround sound effects zipping around the foyer of the RFH. A blissful, wonderful evening that left Sarah and me with big, stupid grins on out faces. And that's coming from an old curmudgeon who doesn't normally do anything very special on New Year's Eve and usually just prefers to have a relaxed drink with a few friends.

I also got to catch up with my oldest friend, Hardeep and some of his mates, it's been a long time since we've seen each other and it was lovely to see him, have a laugh, take the piss and enjoy the pleasantly inebriated evening together.

All this was topped off by a leisurely stroll over the Hungerford footbridge to Embankment tube station, taking the time out to gaze at the beautiful view of the river and the surrounding buildings and admire how stunning London looks at night.

A truly positive and very heartening start to the New Year, here's hoping it continues in that vein.

Happy New Year to you all!