Here's me being interviewed by Steve Otis Gunn on his Television Times podcast. Steve was my technician at Edinburgh a few years ago and we've stayed in touch. Listen to me ramble on, why don't you?
Sept 8: Happiness today was finding a charity shop with loads of my old Beano strips in
Check out my homages, you #comicswipes types!
*****
Sept 5: Politics is tiring. The tribalism and infighting just seems so childish, but its an eternal thing.
Also, when this piece says “The brand of politics now dominant is Blairism circa 2005 … The problem is that the country looks more like it did in 1974…” - the thing is I have only fond memories of both 2005 and 1974, and have long been aware that my life and others carry on fine almost regardless of the ongoing politics.
The recession and depression of the 70s is, for me, just memories of great comics, great TV and great music. Cos I was a kid. The never-mentioned meh 90s of John Major are probably when I had my biggest financial difficulties, or maybe that was under the glorious first 5 years of Tony Blair. And no one bangs on about the coalition years of the 2010s, and all I can remember are the great comedy shows I did.
Obviously I’m lucky, cos I’m middle class, and people like us aren’t the ones who get affected by hardships like benefit cuts etc - though interest rates affect us, I guess, and I have my experiences with a collapsed NHS to look forward to. But how would that have been any different at any time in the last 50 years?
This has been your good morning mixed optimism and nihilism post.
Happiness is finally getting round to pencilling that bit we’d all been waiting for
*****
Sept 7: Rolling Stones launch new album.
Todays bit of mental arithmetic: the last time Jagger and Richards wrote an album, in 2005, they were a couple of years older than I am now.
By which token, I look forward to producing my nonsense well into the late ‘30s.
*****
Sept 15: Re Fables writer
So, if I understand this correctly, Bill Willingham has just made the following characters public domain:
Snow White
Beauty and the Beast
Prince Charming
Cinderella
Pinocchio
Rapunzel…
What next? Is Stephen Moffat going to make Sherlock Holmes and Dracula public domain?
*****
Sept 17: Wales gets 20mph speed limit
Could this be what loses Labour the 2024 election?
As soon as the Daily Mail weaponises 20mph in the same way they did with ULEZ as “what Labour will do to us if they get in” it could be enough to do the job.
Or am I wrong?
Wow! Oscar’s film, which we’re going to see tonight, has got a review in the Guardian! Go Oskie!
*****
6 of the worst songs where the single is better than the album version
This is a very 1970s problem. In the days before remixes and 12 inchers, the trend was to make a short single to play on the radio, with the promise that you’d get the longer definitive version on the album. Except loads of long versions are too long. Here’s my six least favourite
The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy
Layla - Derek and the Dominoes
I Don’t Like Mondays - Boomtown Rats
Hold Your Head Up - Argent
Number One Song In Heaven - Sparks
What are your least favourite long versions?
Comics folk, how often has this happened to you?
You draw a scene, then realise you gave the dialogue to completely the wrong character so you have to redraw it?
Luckily this book is in a quick-to-redraw style!
*****
Comics folk, does anyone else do this? I’m printing my new 130 page graphic novel in black and white , but I’m currently colouring the backgrounds in, er, colour.
I then knock this back to greyscale, making sure that it works in b&w, leaving my characters as pure line work.
The plan is, if I go on to do a colour version at a later date, I’ve done half the work.
“Do you manga?” is one of the questions I get asked a lot, by schools wanting to book me to teach their kids, and by kids in my classes.
My reply tends to be that manga is just the Japanese word for comics and so, technically, yes I “do” manga. But I don’t feel I do. And I know the kids know the difference too.
Does anyone here say they do manga?
*****
I've found out how Amazon are able to sell my books at less than cover price - I don't get paid!
Just got last month's sales (via Lulu) to find 3 copies of Midsummer Night's Dream Team sold, and I get £0 each.
Nab yourself a bargain, I don't mind
*****
Sept 22: So, who’s still watching broadcast TV? Having just read Private Eye’s article about how TV has “fallen off a cliff”, with Eastenders down to 2m viewers and Mrs Browns Boys getting a tenth of what it used to, I am aware that we’ve just started watching our first “must see” shows for months.
Are we the only ones of this dying body of old folk? And if so, whither telly?
* If we’re not out, obviously. And in the case of C4 or (rarely) ITV & other channels, we have to watch on delay so as to ff thru the ads. Watching adverts only happens in hotel rooms or, annoyingly, on ITVX and YouTube.
*****
When kids in my classes ask how much you get paid (for making comics) I always say it varies. I rarely mention that Marvel currently pays less than they used to pay me 30 years ago.
I do have a line about how, if they’ve got sensible jobs like law and accountancy in mind, to not listen to my nonsense.
Comics. We invented the poorly paid gig economy before you kids were born.
*******
Sept 25: On this day 35 years ago: the final issue of Oink
That final issue is one third written and drawn by me. Yes, neither the first nor last comic I’ve brought crashing to the ground.
I started as I meant to go on, a few years earlier, by appearing in the final issue of Warrior (with my strip Worrier), and in a couple of years time I would be in the final issues of Sounds and many more fine publications.
No comments:
Post a Comment