I made a video, that you can see above, that got over 25,000 views. Of course the very next one was down to next to none. It just goes to show you, all you have to do is rant about Doctor Who and they're all over you. What else have I been dribbling on about this month, mostly on Facebook to an audience of none? Let's have a look...
Found in a drawer while having a clear out : the best selling t shirt of Christmas 1993, as designed by me.
This would be my complimentary copy. Which, apart from the fifty quid I got paid for that day’s designs, is all I ever earned from this shirt. Still on sale today, I see it regularly at cons.
****
May 31: Watched Man With Two Brains. Ever watch an old favourite film for the first time in ages, only to find it’s not as good as you remembered? Last night we watched The Man With Two Brains. Oh dear, not good.
We saw it back in 1984, on video cos it never got a cinema release here, and loved its silliness. We still quote its catchphrases in every day conversation, “into the mud scum queen” being in regular use forty years on. (You’ll also find us quoting Pointy Birds, and laughing at the thought of the “azaleas” and “is that her” gags).
But seeing the whole film for the first time in, I guess, twenty years, was sobering and disappointing. From the start the sexism, objectifying, and “blokey” tone was jarring. The sort of gags that seemed really original, because of their silliness (“get that cat out of here!”) now just seemed like the sort of random stuff an inexperienced writer might throw in for lack of better material.
Steve Martin’s clowning, which was novel and endearing at the time, now just reads like mugging. When we first saw it, we’d only just discovered Steve Martin, and had heard his legendary live album for the first time. (We use the phrase “get a photo of me with it anyway” at pretty well every attraction we visit). At the same time we’d loved Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (the movie we were looking for last night but couldn’t find) and All Of Me, so The Man With Two Brains was part of Steve Martin being on a roll.
But it rolls to a halt and comes across as a dated, disjointed mess. I like the surrealism, eg the tiny apartment that opens into a castle interior, but it’s the sort of novelty that was refreshing at the time and now just feels like something you’ve seen done better.
I never thought I’d be longing for Steve Martin’s later serious acting, but TMWTB has made it happen.
Ironically I sprang to the defence of this movie just a few weeks ago here on FB, bringing my nostalgia to the party. I’ll find it a harder film to stand up for now.
***
June 1: Started watching Tip Toe. Enjoyed Tip Toe last night on Channel 4, but I feel a bit like I’m living that “Dr Manhattan on the moon” meme.
It’s 2026 and in Tip Toe Russell T Davies is asking “what’s it like to be a 60 year old gay man on Canal Street?”
It’s 2015 and in Cucumber Russell T Davies is asking “what’s it like to be a 50 year old gay man on Canal Street?”
It’s 1999 and in Queer As Folk Russell T Davies is asking “what’s it like to be a 35 year old gay man on Canal Street?”
He did buck the trend with It’s A Sin, cos it was 2021 and he was asking “what was it like to be a gay man on Canal Street in 1984?”
Someone has to do it, and no one does it better than RTD. It’s an artist revisiting the same painting again and again, and I champion it. He’s earned it.
What were you doing thirty years ago? I can tell you what Iain Morris was doing, years before he co created The Inbetweeners and became a big movie director. He was appearing in Situations Vacant, my comedy sketch show at The Bristol Flyer. Yes kids, he is in character.
If you ever wondered why Neil’s gay dad in The Inbetweeners is called Kevin Sutherland, it’s probably cos I took photos like this back in the day.
Photo just turned up in a spring clean
****
June 2: Watched first episode of Spider-Noir and, I’m afraid, didn’t quite get it. It’s a pastiche of a film noir, but it’s not comedy. Nick Cage does a silly cartoon voice and there’s lots of noir shadows and Dutch angles, but it’s not a parody. He’s a private dick with super powers the same as Spider-Man, and he’s put the mask away following a tragic accident, but this doesn’t make him compelling or interesting.
The villains are cliches without anything extra to make them stand out. One guy seems to be based on the Human Torch, but he’s dead already. One is based on the Marvel Sandman but, unbelievably, they make him even more boring than the version in the films.
I just don’t quite get it. There’s not a story that makes you want to see what happens next, or a cop show set up that makes you want to see how they’ll solve the next crime (in contrast we’ve just started watching Ponies, which sets up a buddy crime caper from the start, and I was reminded of Poker Face which set up the amateur detective with novelty powers from the off and is centred around a character you want to see more of).
Not having read the comics, I’m lost as to quite what the elevator pitch for Spider-Noir is. It’s film noir and it’s Spider-Man, except it’s missing the best bits of both of those genres.
Just me?
****
Nap Comix: People ask me what new comics I’m reading. I’ll be honest, this is the only comic I read for true pleasure these days
It’s filling a hole which once contained Doonesbury, Posy Simmonds and Giles. Stories that reflect the real world and make it funny and charming and touching. Genius.
Anyone who thinks this “just write about what happens to you” is as easy as Rachael makes it look should try it. It isn’t. I know, cos that is exactly what I did with my teenage diary fifty years ago. Turns out, for most of us, nothing actually happens, or every day is the same as the last. Also, of course, you have to be able to tell the story as good as this. I think I’ll stick to making stuff up.
Looks like Leicester and Comedy are having a bad year.
As someone who’s played Leicester Comedy Festival every single year since (gasp) 2001, and who used to run a comedy club (with the late great Alan Seaman) at The Magazine on Newarke Street in the 80s (don’t look for it, it’s not there any more), I feel for Leicester and hope it gets its act together soon.
Well, gets its acts together.
****
June 6: Two TV series stuck the landing this week. It is the hardest thing, it seems, to get to the end of these 6,8,10 episode series, with the highest quality writing, and make the ending as satisfying as the the build up. These two - Legends and Beef 2 - managed it, I think.
Beef season one got a bit lost and ended up confused, I thought, but season 2 kept the tension up. The final episode gets a bit messy with a maguffin about a memory card, that smacks of padding, but it has an absolutely brilliant scene right in the middle (Park’s husband’s speech and its aftermath) that makes the whole episode worth waiting for. Though if anyone can explain the last shot to me, I’d welcome that.
Legends was perfect. Based as it was on true events, we sort of knew the resolution that was coming, and I love Neil Forsyth’s writing. So, aside from an odd sidebar scene in a dinghy that I think we could have lived without, this pulled off its ending, making an anticlimax climactic.
Both are highly recommended. Both, also, had to contend with the Sony Bravia/ Netflix colour temperature problem which dogged a couple of episodes. I don’t know if that was just our telly, but it was resolved in time for both finales. Hooray.
9th June 1976 video
In case it disappears, quick, everyone from Scotland witness that time the QI Elves got something wrong.
A clype or to clype does not mean this. In fact it means what I just did.
****
June 9: Kids, thinking of a career as a comic artist? Then come to my Comic Art Masterclasses and enjoy yourself. However, if you’d like a sobering cautionary tale, read this 1979 interview with Dan Adkins, an artist for Marvel whose name I knew well, who explains how, over the previous decade, he’d hardly been earning enough to live on.
Since 1979 the situation got better for some (some became millionaires) but not for all (hands up all my comic friends, still on FB, who are millionaires. Yeah, thought so).
I’ve managed to survive as a full time comic creator for 35 years, though that has been helped by doing a lot of teaching and a lot of comedy (boy, I really know where the money is, don’t I?). But, as Dan Adkins was telling us 47 years ago, “freelance” is just another way of spellling “zero hours contract”.
I remember trying to describe my freelance career to a friend who worked in a factory.
“So,” he said, “you do Piece Work.”
Yes. I suppose we do.
*****
June 9: Watched the final episode of Half Man. No spoilers, but did anyone else feel as puzzled by the ending as me?
Given the twists and cliffhangers that characterise most of the endings of the other episodes, this was such an odd ending that it had us searching to see if there was, perhaps, a 7th episode still to come.
Just us?
(I’ve since googled. Turns out it’s very much not just us!)
***
June 11: Ant AI posts.
In my local Tesco I walked past the notice board by the exit and saw five AI-generated flyers. The local am-dram show, an Elvis impersonator show, a social group, a summer fete, and a charity barbecue.
The trouble was, by ordinary person standards, they look great. This time last year they would have been a mess of clip art and twenty typefaces. If you were lucky they’d have used some school kids art or a poorly taken photo of the cast. Now they’re showing something that looks a million dollars.
I have given up arguing with ‘normals’ who, overwhelmingly, do not realise there’s a problem and think we’re weird for trying to stop their fun.
*****
If ever a show lived up to its title! Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen has, easily, the worst closing episode of any show we’ve finished watching this year.
Early on it was clearly an exercise in style over content, the first episode being all gripping atmosphere and jump scares, which might have made a great 90 minute movie. But it could not sustain a whole miniseries and was shark-jumping almost immediately after that pilot.
I stuck with it, hoping someone had a great twist planned for the end. It is no great spoiler to reveal that this doesn’t happen. It was almost as if they’d concluded that, surely by the end, nobody was left watching so they needn’t bother finishing the script properly.
The winner of the Let’s Just Get It Over With And Pretend It Never Happened prize for 2026.
****
What’s the fastest you’ve given up on a new TV series? We gave Cape Fear 14 minutes.
This season of TV writing has been soooo good (Legends, The Cage, Beef 2, Widows Bay, Half Man, Two Weeks in August, Ponies, Tip Toe) that if something comes along with such corny dialogue, uninspiring characters, and cliched set up as this Cape Fear remake, which isn’t helped by the jarring use of the old movie’s music, which just sounds hackneyed, it doesn’t cut the mustard.
I confess we have been spoiled by good TV this year and have a low tolerance for the naff and basic. What a good First World problem to have, eh?
****
Is everyone who works in a hairdressers a member of a grooming gang?
Is Doctor Who cancelled? Video inc Doctor Who
*****
June 13: Eagle cutting. Remembering David Hockney, in the way only comics enthusiasts can. Schoolboy Hockney entered a drawing competition in The Eagle comic, as you see here.
He lost, to schoolboy Gerald Scarfe
***
June 13: Am I the first to start referring to the new Doctor Who Wilderness as the Ncuti Gap Years?
****
WUTHERING HEIGHTS REVIEW
Well what the bloody hell was this? Watched Wuthering Heights all the way through, but my god it was hard going. Why? How? So many questions.
Why did Emerald Fennell make a cartoony fantasy surreal version of this story, which thrives on drama and realism and has all of it taken away by the silliness of the style?
The art director seems to have binged on a mix of coffee tables books on surrealism (particularly Georgio DeChirico) and Warner Bros cartoon backgrounds (see Duck Dodgers and What’s Opera Doc) and the costume designer has gone similarly off piste, dressing Cathy as an alpine goat herd crossed with a Valkyrie.
The color saturated settings and the 1980s pop video direction clashes with the dialogue which, occasionally, comes close to being gripping and dramatic, but can never convince or communicate any actual emotions. At every turn you’re reminded this is some people with Hollywood faces (via Australia obviously) posing in improbable light against impossible backdrops, and whatever they do next is likely to be inexplicable and fantastic.
Following the brilliant and original storytelling of Fennell’s first two films, Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, this movie is unfathomable and a hard-to-watch missed opportunity.
I champion her being given the chance to realise her vision on the screen. Sadly it seems to be the vision of a teenager who’s had too many sweeties and probably just drunk cider for the first time.
It’s 1994, all over again. Who else is old enough to remember…?
No James Bond - there hadn’t been one for five years
No Doctor Who - there hadn’t been any for five years
No Star Wars - there hadn’t been any for over a decade
No superhero movies. There’d been a Batman movie three years ago, and it was 8 years since Howard The Duck
Harry Potter hadn’t been written, nor Game of Thrones.
Toy Story hadn’t happened, let alone Shrek or Despicable Me.
There was a Star Trek movie, which rates low on IMDb, and a TV series watched by a small number of devotees.
And nobody had the internet.
Can I just say I’m quite nostalgic for 1994, and enjoying it the second time around.
(NB I just found this t shirt advertised on Etsy, it’s not my ad. I think I have a copy of the t shirt in a drawer somewhere)
****
June 16: Social Media Ban
I’m not sure how banning kids from YouTube is going to work. I work in primary schools, the kids live on YouTube. Ask them their favourite celebrity and they’ll say Mr Beast. (My poll of most popular celebrity suggested by kids in my classes bears this out).
I can’t imagine an equivalent when I was 12 or 13. It would be like banning me from watching Top of the Pops or listening to Radio 1. It would be like stopping me watching tv shows on after 9pm, like Monty Python or Play For Today (which is where I learn most sweary words) or staying up to watch Hammer films.
I fear a baby-and-bathwater scenario. Most kids get good things from social media, I believe, and it is a minority of the realm that leads to bullying, death and the other bad stuff.
Yes, the bad stuff is very bad. But surely the pressure has to be put on the companies who control the algorithms and who police the safeguards to put those things right, not to punish innocent kids by taking away such a central part of their worlds.
My hope is that this move is being made as a threat to the social media companies to sort themselves out and take responsibility, and not just cutting off kids fun across the board.
****
June 18: Want an entitled rant that's a bit niche? Got one for you. I visit schools, as a guest author, and do my Comic Art Masterclasses. I get paid for the classes, which is brilliant and perfect. I also like, if I can, to give the kids the chance to buy my books, so I tell the school about them in advance, and even have a wee flyer they can send to parents. No pressure, and I know lots of pupils are in areas and from back grounds where this would be a big ask. But usually, in a primary school, I'll sell a dozen books (having worked with about 60 kids). This week I've had schools that really show how differently schools handle this request.
One school, an independent girls school, has an "opt out" scheme, where the kids get the choice of a book from the visiting author, and opt out if they don't want one. The parents get the bill, and frankly are already paying so much they don't notice. I did very well at that school, and shall not grumble. Only taught 30 kids, sold 31 books (library bought one).
Then there was another school, a regular primary, where I'm teaching 90 kids over two days, and they too had the flyer to send to parents. But they didn't send it. Then, after my first day, it's obvious the kids will be wanting my books, so I make sure they send it before my second visit.
They send it, but. But, because they're a "cashless school" and because they can't process payments from parents, they're just telling the parents to go to my website. So no kids will get their books signed on the day, which they love, and if they do buy them from the website they'll cost more cos I have to post them.
Oh and, of course, no parents has ever bought the books from the website after a class, ever. (I can count the instances on less than one hand, after including an advert for my website in the comics they take home at the end of every class, over the course of about 200 classes a year, for the last decade).
There you go, entitled "world owes me a living" self published author rant for today. Any other visiting authors get frustrated by this sort of thing?
Was I wrong to point out that this was AI Slop, in my local community group (which has a lot of AI slop in it)?
Look at that building to the bottom right, and the shop names. Also, if you know Chepstow, you'll know the shop that's trying to draw attention to itself is UPHILL from the Town Gate, not downhill as this AI drawing shows. None of the other buildings are right either, naturally.
****
June 20: Quite possibly, I would say, the best director in television comedy ever. Taxi, Cheers, Friends, Frasier, Mary Tyler Moore. Brilliant.
James Burrows, will be sadly missed.
I aim to be at this show next year. I can predict a number of my friends, here on FB, telling me I should boycott. I imagine you can guess why.
Fascinating fun find, that I’ve managed to live 47 years without seeing, The Cambridge Footlights in 1979. The year before Stephen Fry and Tony Slattery joined, so you get a very young Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Simon McBurney, and Robert Bathurst, and rather a lot of Martin Bergman, who went on to be a producer not an onscreen talent.
***
June 25: I hate to make anyone jealous, but guess whose Ramada hotel room just got upgraded to “superior”, on the 13th floor, with ice cool silent air con..,
… oh, and only cost me £65.
Welcome to Coventry. The life of the itinerant comic class presenter.
Unboxing Video - new Shakespeare Comic
Where Am I Today? video - Macc Pow
*****
SHEEP DETECTIVES REVIEW
What an excellent film. First film to have me in tears at the end and laughing with delight throughout. Highly recommended. That’ll do, The Sheep Detectives, that’ll do.
Extra brownie points to Hyundai whose ad at the start says “this film is brought to you without ad breaks thanks to Hyundai”. The movie is on Amazon Prime, which we actively avoid because its ads ruin every show. In this case I literally said out loud “thankyou Hyundai”, which is pretty successful advertising, wouldn’t you say?
The next question would be: is the punter overwhelmed by choice?
Here’s my table at Macc Pow this weekend. A brilliant festival, thanks so much to Marc and Jane for having me there again. Sorry I hardly got to see anyone, I was so busy with the constant flow of kids. And yes they bought more books than last year, again. It gets better every time.
Update: thanks for feedback. Re the busy table: The thing is, I talk to the punters direct. Hardly anybody comes to my table and buys based on the display alone, they buy because I hook them, find their interest, then can point to the book they’ll like.
Unlike more well known artists, who sell to adults, no kid has heard of me before they come to my table. They have, however, possibly heard of Beano and Marvel, which I name check, and Dogman and Bunny vs Monkey, which are my “comp” titles. Their parents, meanwhile, have heard of Shakespeare. So they buy the books.
Like I say, busy does seem to be working. But I appreciate the notes, and may be losing the tablecloth and the colouring books.
****
Missed the Oink film, which I still can’t remember if I did an interview for. Bet I didn’t. (The interviews took place at last years Macc Pow and I was so flustered running about doing other stuff that I couldn’t make my slot, I fear. Really regretting missing out, if I’m remembering it correctly)
he exhibitors of Macc-Pow en masse (or on a staircase). A smashing day, loads of kids with parents, my kind of crowd. I sold loads of books and comics, which is what it's all about.
Go home, Youtube AI, you're drunk.
Has anyone dabbled with asking the AI assistant on Youtube for suggestions for your next video?
Following the phenomenal success of Comic Cuts Panel Show (he says, jokingly), it suggests I should get Robin Ince, Mark Gattiss and Phill Jupitus as my guests, which you never know could happen. Or more bizarrely it suggests I should interview myself, as The Socks, and proceeds to depict them, looking like nothing on God's good earth.
This AI nonsense is what it is. Whatever that is.
(You now, I am tempted to try asking these stellar names to be on the podcast. What's the worst that could happen?)
Fifty Years Ago Today - July 2 1976
Good news for all my readers! The A2 pullout posters have arrived, to go inside the brand new Shakespeare Comic. With all the sponsors caricatures on it, and every single Shakespeare play. Whoopee.
The less good news? Didn’t arrive till it was too late to get them all in the post and I’m at schools with an early start for the rest of the week.
I’ll get them posted to you as soon as I can! Promise
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