Monday 7 October 2024

Grampa The Burp Guy - A month's comics by kids


Thanks to September being a particularly quiet month for Comic Art Masterclasses, this montage takes in comics drawn by me, from ideas from kids, ranging from St Ives Library in August to Chiswick Book Festival in September, and schools in Cardiff and The Isle Of Wight in October.


St Ives in August seems such a long time ago, and here are the kids comics looking as fresh as a daisy. Luckily this year I'd done the class on a fixed fee rather than a doorsplit, as we weren't very well attended. Somehow we'd managed to book the classes on a day which wasn't part of the Book Festival, as had been planned, so it hadn't really been publicised. These things can be harder than you think.


Chiswick Book Festival, by contrast, was a pair of classes that I'd agreed to do on a doorsplit, and this time it worked very much in my favour as, somehow, the word hadn't got through that my class is limited to 30 participants. The afternoon had 45 booked in it! I got away with it, and had the bonus that not only did I get a greater doorsplit than if numbers had been as low as I can normally handle, but also that amount of parents of that amount of kids meant I signed and sold loads of books at the end. As you can see here, I sold five quid's worth more books in two short bursts after these classes than I did in a whole day at The Lakes Festival later that month. And that's 5 times as many as I sold in a whole day at TBC in Bedford. Selling books to parents after public classes is my best market at the moment.


My first actual classes in an actual school since the end of the last school year didn't take place till Herbert Thompson Primary in Cardiff had me in at the start of October. And what a smashing pair of comics they dreamed up.


To round off this batch of comics we have a pair from the Isle Of Wight, where I was brought over courtesy of the IOW Literary Festival. The festival paid for the classes and paid the extra for the ferry as well, which was marvellous, because otherwise these classes would have been prohibitively expensive. It's great to be able to reach schools who might otherwise not be able to afford a visiting author/artist like my humble self. That said, we suffered a bit of communication breakdown. My morning school was in Sandown, which was a 40 minute drive from my afternoon school. But the message hadn't got to the morning school that they needed to leave me time to get to the next place. So I turn up at 8.30 ready to start, only to find that they've scheduled my class to start at 10, so it doesn't finish till 12.20. So it's a bit of a rush to get to my afternoon school in Ryde.

The afternoon school suffered an even worse communication cock up, for which I have to responsibility because i accidentally agreed to it in an email, not realising what I was agreeing to. They wanted two 1hour sessions. I explained my workshop takes two hours, so couldn't I do that instead? We agree on that. And what I don't realise that I've agreed to teach both classes at once. So I arrive, late, in the hall instead of a classroom, and there's 60 kids waiting for me to try and be heard. I give it a go. Then, worse, I see more kids are joining the group, but I have to rattle on without time to question it all.

By the time I'm halfway through the class, struggling to be heard over the brouhaha, I discover that, as well as the Year 3 and Year 4 I'd (accidentally) agreed to teach, someone's brought in a bloody Year 5 group as well. It's impossible and unmanageable and, by the end, I feel has made me come across as some kind of bad supply teacher who can't deliver a comic art workshop to 90 kids, rather than the education-and-entertainment genius that I usually give the impression of being. It also takes over half an hour on the photocopier at the end cos I have to produce a different version of the comic for each one of the three classes that had been bundled in there.

So, the reminder to myself is: read your emails properly and make sure you never agree to teach a class bigger than the manageable number of 30. Unless it's a book festival class where you're on a doorsplit, and the parents are there watching and waiting to buy heaps of your books afterwards!


The celebrities these eight groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip were Michael Jackson, Jackie Chan, Merlin (yes, the magician), David Attenborough, Ronaldo, Billie Eilish, Mr Beast, and Kendrick Lamar.



My Books and where to get them:

Richard The Third Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones
Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon Etsy 
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Paperback

Sweet Smell Of Sockcess - Putting A Show On At The Edinburgh Fringe - Amazon - ebook

Who Notes - Doctor Who Reviews - Amazon - Lulu - ebook
Space Elain - Amazon - Lulu - iBooks - Barnes & Noble 
Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons
The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons
Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories - Amazon
Captain Clevedon - Amazon
Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  



Tuesday 1 October 2024

September Book Sales


(Above, my table at the Lakes. Not as wide as two banners. Yes, I know. I managed)


September
's Kev F Book Sales

Live events / classes et al - £638.41 (full breakdown here)
D2D - $70.40
Etsy - £39.94
Lulu (Amazon) - £13.26
Blurb - £0
eBay - £477 (but this doesn't count as it's not my books)


D2D September sales - $70.40 (57 books)

Sweet Smell Of Sockcess is the runaway, er, sockcess with 45 sales, almost all on pre-release. Who Notes, Elain and Esther have all however disappeared without trace, Richard sold 10, MNDT 3 and Joseph 1. (And I know that adds up to 59 books. The chart total vary on different pages).

Lulu/Amazon September sales - £13.26 (reported Oct 9th)

Despite a Facebook advertising campaign, aimed at plugging colouring books but directing people to my website, I only took a quid more than the previous month.

3 x Tales From The Bible, PODS 
2 x Royalty Colouring 
1 x Captain Clevedon, Christmas Movies, Eurovision Vol 2, 60s Pop, 70s Pop 

Etsy September sales - £39.94 - 5 sales (inc postage)

2 Digital Richard The Thirds
1 x Who Colouring, Eurovision Vol 2, 1960s

Blurb - probably £0 again

5 units sold it says, but as always is opaque about what, and for how much.

Flogging shit on eBay - £477

It's not my books, so it doesn't count, but in what has otherwise been a very quiet month, I've kept things ticking over with such items as:

Gladiators signed front cover proof £230
Gladiators souvenir magazines £31
Transformers comic No 10 £25
Transformers comic No 45 £15.30
Gladiators Comic No2 £15
Viz No 26 £10.99
Judge Dredd Role Playing Game £9.99
Monsters Of Rock programme £9.22
 - and sundry other magazine for a fiver or less



My Books and where to get them:

Richard The Third Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones
Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon Etsy 
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Paperback

Sweet Smell Of Sockcess - Putting A Show On At The Edinburgh Fringe - Amazon - ebook

Who Notes - Doctor Who Reviews - Amazon - Lulu - ebook
Space Elain - Amazon - Lulu - iBooks - Barnes & Noble 
Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons
The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons
Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories - Amazon
Captain Clevedon - Amazon
Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  





Monday 30 September 2024

On The Lakes


I had a really enjoyable weekend at The Lakes Comic Festival, and it was another very interesting and ambitious event, as has been its way since the start. The Lakes is the event that gets Arts Council funding, and this year's major endeavour, to put itself a cut above the contenders, was The Rights Market.

The Rights Market had been planned some time in advance, and involved a number of international publishers coming over for two days of meetings with UK publishers (and, in my and a few other instances, self-publishers) to discuss publishing our work in their territories. At the last Zoom meeting that was held in preparation, I and a couple of other publishers discovered that we'd not received an email telling us how to book our meetings. So it was that, having shorter notice than most, while some were meeting as many as a dozen publishers, I only had meetings with four.

In order to make these meetings I travelled up on Thursday night and stayed over. Then my four meetings, about which I was quite nervous, were with a French publisher Nathan, Scholastic USA, VigeVage from Slovenia (all on the Friday), and WSOY from Finland on the Saturday. Three showed some interest and asked me to send PDFs of my books. So who knows where that will lead? I won't get my hopes up. I left them with these sheets explaining what we'd been talking about...



With Friday's meetings concluded, I had no other commitments, so after I'd spent some hours remaking PDFs to send to my prospective clients (listen to me, they tolerated me for fifteen minutes each and I'll probably never see them again in my life) I checked out the art exhibitions at the Jetty Museum (a bit of Doctor Who and some visiting Palestinian artists) then took it easy until the evening event, which was a light hearted debate about who is the best Avenger. The winner was Speedball. No, me neither. This was followed by a showing of animations of a comic character called Dickie, which were quite good fun. After which everyone seemed to just disperse.

I was rather disappointed that the evening fizzled out then, and that I got back to my room in time to watch Graham Norton. Imagine how much more disappointed I was when, the next day, someone told me about the launch events drinks party that I'd missed! Apparently everyone else had known to go to the Arts Bar after the opening event, and I missed the memo. I can't find it in the programme or in any emails.

At this point I have to confess I suffer rather bad Comic Con FOMO. Way back in July at an event in London I thought we were going to go out for a drink together with some friends, then they let me down by going out for a meal together without me and Hev, which I didn't realise had happened till I caught a glimpse of them through a pub window. (This had followed last year's NICE con in Bedford, when on Saturday night, there had been a meal for the comics guests, to which I hadn't been invited, and I couldn't find anyone in any of the hotel bars so had a miserable night there. On top of which there is the Thought Bubble con coming up, for which I didn't manage to make the cut for a table, so won't be going, and which famously has a good Saturday night party, which I've yet to see, because the one year I did make it there, 2021, was the one year the party didn't happen!) 

This is one of my big nightmares: Twinkle's Picnic Syndrome. This is a name I coined years ago based on a strip in Twinkle comic, read at the time by my sister Jude. In the strip, Twinkle misses out on a big party with all her friends because she's ill. But it's okay, according to the strip, because Mummy and Daddy take Twinkle out for a picnic all of her own, and that makes it alright. Ever since I saw this strip, over fifty years ago, I've railed against the injustice of this. Of course it's not alright, Twinkle's Mummy & Daddy! A party with her friends is the greatest thing Twinkle can experience. A consolation-picnic with you two just rubs salt in the wounds. What could conceivably be worse? I suppose if Mummy & Daddy threw Twinkle their feeble second-fiddle picnic, and then halfway through Twinkle realised that her friends were all having a party that she hadn't been invited to, which she finds out about cos she catches a glimpse of it over the hedge from the horror-show runner-up losers picnic that she's having to endure? Yes, I guess that would be worse.

Whatever, there being a party that I hadn't been invited to made me feel pretty miserable when I found out about it the next morning. My mood was slightly lifted when Simon Miller (who I see at these events every year) came to my table and said "didn't you see your Facebook messages?" They'd seen me walking glumly past the window of the pub they were in (en route to watch Graham Norton) and messaged me to invite me in. Of course I don't notice Facebook messages so totally missed it. But that cheered me up. Knowing you're wanted makes all the difference. And I bet the drinks party was shit anyway.

The Comic Book Marketplace (known at other events as The Dealers Room) had suffered last year from being in a tent without a floor, which meant that exhibitors' books and artwork got damp overnight. I think this had led to a number of people not re-booking for this year. This year we were in a tent which was, on the plus side, water-proofed thanks to a solid floor, with a carpet even. But, on the minus side, it was half the size of last year's tent, making one feel that one was at a smaller scale event than before.

Small scale was also the appropriate term for describing the tables. At such events, we're used to 6 foot wide tables. But here the tables were only 4 feet wide. This meant we were a little squeezed in, but whatever, we got on with it. And my mood and temperament improved when, by the end of Saturday, I'd sold a healthy amount of books. You can see my totals here. I even had time to deliver a Comic Art Masterclass down the road at the Jetty Museum from 3.30 to 4.30, after which there was still brisk trade going on right up until 6pm.



The Saturday evening, in contrast to the washout and FOMO of the Friday, was an absolute delight. There was a quiz, run by the Thorps from Viz, and my team came second. I'd been on the winning side last year, but this was just as much fun. On my table, to all intents and purposes The Scottish Table, was Stephen and Ro Slevin, who'd had me up to Paisley for the last two years, John McShane and Pete Renshaw from Glasgow, Stevie White of Tara Togs fame, Stu Gould the Nuts man (and my printer for all my Shakespeare books), and John Jackson of Wallop and Spitfire. 

Inbetween quiz and karaoke, I went through to the bar and met a chap called Mark Fuller, who has very interesting plans for the future of the comics industry. We enjoyed a long drunken chat, putting the world to rights, soon joined by John and Stevie for one of those pub conversations that I don't have often enough these days. You know, the ones where you can't remember the next morning a fraction of what you were talking about. But you know it was really important.

For the karaoke I sang Drive In Saturday in a Northern accent. I was the last number of the night and it was midnight already. Now that's what I call a comic event Saturday night.

Sunday fair flew by, with me selling a good few comics, and a bit of original artwork, which all served to make it worthwhile. The five hour drive home afterwards was pretty painless too.

Oh and one joy, just as I was packing up my books, was this lad...


His name's Isaac Thompson and he came over to thank me for kick-starting his career. I taught him in my Comic Art Masterclass at his school ten years ago, and now he's self publishing. And quality work it is too. It's a book called Killjoys Never Die: Vampires Death and Guns, and it looks a million dollars. There you go, twenty years of my classes, and someone's finally taken it to heart.

So all in all an excellent weekend, with highs that far outweighed the lows for me. I must say, looking around the Comic Martketplace, that I'm not sure if everyone did the roaring trade I did. The punters this event attracts are not the big body of die-hard fans that you'll get at Thought Bubble or TBC (the rebranded Bedford con, still one of only three comics-only events on the calendar), and I'm not sure the kids and families, who dropped in on the off chance, were going to be so interested in the high-ticket art books and the niche comics that a lot of people were offering. At least one family thought they'd come into a food market and were surprised to find very little was edible. Me, doing Shakespeare for kids, this is my target audience. But most publishers, I'm not so sure.

The Rights Market was a magnificent achievement, and I'd like to hear what people have made of it. And whether they'll come again. I'd like to hope that word of the waterproof marquee will reach those exhibitors who came last year but cried off this time, so that next year they could justify twice the exhibition space. As for the total attendance, that's the hardest thing to assess. The Friday night event was a sellout, there were lots of punters passing through the marketplace tent, but with the talks being in scattered venues across town, it was hard to work out how many were there in total, and whether it was a popular event.

I know three years ago, when it was still in Kendal, that The Lakes festival felt busier, because we had The Brewery venue to ourselves, the perfectly positioned Town Hall space for the public to drop into, and people like The Phoenix came along and made a big show of themselves. This time there was no sign of them or their ilk, and I think there were fewer events all told. But there was, as I say, The Rights Fair, and maybe that makes up for a shortage of other attractions. Who knows?

I'll give them my feedback, and we'll see what happens for 2025. 



My Books and where to get them:

Richard The Third Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones
Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon Etsy 
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Paperback

Sweet Smell Of Sockcess - Putting A Show On At The Edinburgh Fringe - Amazon - ebook

Who Notes - Doctor Who Reviews - Amazon - Lulu - ebook
Space Elain - Amazon - Lulu - iBooks - Barnes & Noble 
Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons
The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons
Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories - Amazon
Captain Clevedon - Amazon
Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  


Oasis, Aust Ferry & Wobbly Bum Pop - September's Facebook Ramblings


Sept 12: Thanks to Hev Tweed on the camera, we have a photo of me getting the Aust Ferry, about where Bob Dylan was standing 60 years ago.


Sept 10: Went for a walk yesterday and stood on the very spot shown in this famous photo. The Aust ferry has long since sailed, the ramp is totally overgrown, and you can just about make out where the cabin used to stand.
Nice walk, fine sunset, full marks.

The Oasis saga.

Aug 31: A thousand quid to watch Oasis for a couple of hours? Man, I’ve got to charge more.
The service fee costs more than my Edinburgh tickets. And they’ve charged it four times on one booking!

Sept 1 (Stewart Lee writes): “Oasis singlehandedly murdering what 14 years of the Tories’ war on the arts couldn’t quite kill off. Sorted!”
To nitpick, I’d like to be fair, not to Oasis but to the Tories. Though Oasis may well have done a bit of damage to Edfringe 2025 (but possibly not), can we blame Tory culture wars for the state of the Edinburgh Fringe?
The over saturation of acts is the fault of, forgive me if I’m wrong, the acts. Remember, you’re not caught in traffic, you *are* the traffic.
The venue rents are the fault of some landlords, some universities, some local gangsters, and the laws of supply and demand.
The accommodation rents are the fault of the above and the SNP and Edinburgh council who made it deliberately more expensive to rent out a flat.
And everything else we find to complain about is because we’re comics, whose job is to complain about things. If anyone can blame the Tories for their parlous state it’s the legit theatre companies, grassroots venues, and major arts festivals who rely on funding for their very existence.
But for the moment let’s blame Oasis. If only cos we’re nostalgic for when there used to be Nadine Dorries to blame.

Sept 2: Not that I've been affected by the fleecing/gouging/scalping "dynamic pricing" used on Oasis fans (and note how we use anglo saxon words when we're being honest about what to call it, and Latin & Greek when we're the person doing it?) but here's my prediction for what it's worth:
The last tranche of extra added Oasis tickets will all be sold before the Inquiry into dynamic pricing has even sat down for their first chat (at the end of which they'll have taken so long to agree anything that the new Tory government will have got back in, with dynamic pricing as one of their flagship policies)
...and...
Liam will say something about it from the stage, along the lines of "F*** Ticketmaster, bunch of c***s" and both he and Noel will keep every penny of their share of the fleeced/gouged/scalped tickets you all just paid for.
Any other outcome is about as likely as a TV article on the subject using a track off anything other than their first two albums.

Sept 7: Ticketmaster’s criminal stranglehold on live shows reminds me of something mentioned a few times in Kliph Nesteroff’s excellent book The Comedians: “After the repeal of Prohibition, Mafia-run supper clubs replaced speakeasies, and mobsters replaced vaudeville impresarios as the comedian’s primary employer”
Yes, back in the day (in the States) if you worked in entertainment, as a comedian or a musician, you were working for the mob.
Talking of changing the subject, who else thinks the photographer was definitely trying to to make Liam and Noel look like Ronnie and Reggie Kray?


Ladies and Gentlemen, my grandparents!
Just found in a box, never seen it before, this is from the wedding of my Nana Cissie (Elizabeth) Mann to my Grandad Jimmy Findlay circa 1933. Mum’s parents.
Who knew Gaga (as we called him, he died when I was 4 so my then pronunciation of his name stuck) looked so much like Stan Laurel?

*****

Sept 4: (NanoWriMo gets AI Sponsor) The Nanowrimo AI debate highlights a new culture war that’ll be dividing creative communities for the forthcoming.
Here’s my prediction: they use it on the next series of The Apprentice.
Have you met business people? Next to none of them is ever creative, but they all wish they were and envy those who are. More than that, they know creative people are there for one thing and one thing only; making money out of.
Whether it’s art you can collect and sell for a profit, or “content” you can monetise, business people wish they were either a) creative or b) able to get their hands on some creative people whose work they can buy cheap and sell high.
In the next season of The Apprentice they’ll use AI to write an ad or create a product they have to sell.
Remember where you heard it first.

***

Sept 1: Excellent film watched last night, Ford vs Ferrari.
For such a well written and tightly directed film, I was surprised to find it was made by the same director and writers who made the very poor last Indiana Jones film, which I roundly slagged off earlier this year.
Just goes to show everyone has highs and lows.

***

Sept 2: Well this was an odd one. Leave The World Behind.
Lather a Bernard Hermann style 50s horror score over a series of scenes where not very much happens, and happens very slowly, and you can spin one 30 minute TV episode’s worth of material out to two and a half hours.
I think the kindest thing is you can call it is pretentious. It’d like to be called art house, and a good few of its shots are very ambitious, with a couple of very strong and original visual scenes (the traffic jam and the slowly revealed scene outside the neighbours house are very good, and would have fitted nicely into Black Mirror and Breaking Bad respectively)
Still, don’t take my word for it. You might have a totally different impression of this film which is, if nothing else, different from other films.

***

Sept 4: Re Carry On movies

It’s now about 45 years since I, as a new student, got involved in my first debates about sexism in Carry On films. It was these, and Benny Hill, that were the touchstones in the general education on feminism learned by twenty somethings, especially blokes, at the turn of the 80s.
We slowly learned how everything we’d found acceptable in the 1970s, from the ubiquitous sexism and racism to the homophobia and classism, was wrong.
We learned our lesson and ever since then these things have ceased to exist. You’re welcome, youngsters.


Sept 3: Here's a fun find: my new book, Sweet Smell Of Sockcess - Putting A Show On At The Edinburgh Fringe, is Number 2 on Amazon!
Okay, it's Number 2 in "Puppetry" on the Amazon listings. Come on folks, a couple more pre-sales and I could have a meaningless Best Seller quote to bandy about.
(I'm also number 49 in Stage Actor Biographies. Top tip: pick the most unlikely category that you qualify for).

****

Sept 4: At last my life has structure again.
Sunday night, new episode of Sherwood
Monday night, Only Connect & University Challenge & another Sherwood if I want it
Tuesday, new eps of Only Murders In The Building & Colin From Accounts
Wednesday, new eps of Slow Horses and Bad Monkey.
Now streaming TV has rediscovered weekly episodes, life has meaning once more. We just need Taskmaster on Thursday, HIGNFY on Friday, and Strictly on Saturday and all will be right with the world.


Found in an unopened box and straight onto eBay: a signed Gladiators proof from 1993
Real live signatures, collected during the launch party for the 1993 season of the Gladiators TV series (at Kensington Roof Gardens). The image is a proof copy of the first issue of the Gladiators comic (which I wrote and drew, and edited the strips for). Art by Mick Austin.
Signatures, all in biro:
Jet
Lightning
Wolf
Falcon
Trojan
Hunter
Nightshade
Zodiac
Scorpio

****

Sept 5: Nick Grimshaw (sitting in) on 6 Music just asked people to write in about their “Biggest Teacher”
I’m realising that language has changed so much since my childhood that, now, if you call someone “big fat bad and thick” they’ll just thank you.

****

Sept 11: In time for the Christmas presents season, I've updated the #Eurovision Pop Star Colouring Book.
Now includes Every Winning Country and Every Winner, inc Nemo from 2024 and stats & articles for your reading and colouring pleasure.
Order from Amazon (any country) https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1470948907
Possibly cheaper from Lulu (if they reach your area) https://www.lulu.com/.../paperback/product-9pve67.html



Check this out @everyone! We're NUMBER ONE in Hot New Releases on Amazon!
In the Puppetry section.
Shut up, that's a thing.

***

Sept 5: Fringe Society is hoping that the crisis might be eased by Oasis fans buying tickets for comedy gigs while they are up there.

The Fringe: “ Our ask is that those coming to Edinburgh next year for Oasis, will support the 2025 Fringe and the artists who take the risk to be part of it, by seeing shows while they are visiting”
How realistic is this? Do we expect international football fans travelling to Wembley to also take in a West End show?
Oasis fans are more likely to buy a ticket to the Tattoo. Some deliberately, and some cos it’s an easy mistake to make.


Sept 5: Art lovers, did you know this story? Artist Ana Mendiata appears to have been murdered by artist Carl Andre? How did I miss this?
Carl Andre (regrettably the more famous of the two) is “the firebricks guy” whose work Equivalent 8 was bought by The Tate in 1976 and caused quite the furore. He got a mention in my degree thesis (which was about jokes about art, many were made about him at the time).
Then five years later he goes and throws his wife out the window of a skyscraper. How did that pass me by?
Excellent podcast going into all the details.

****

Sept 11: Very good programme about how computers have been shown in fiction for the last century or so. Lots of great clips.
Along the way, Steve Punt asks contributors what was their first computer. Well, for me it was a Texas Instruments calculator circa 1975, then nothing until I got a green screen Amstrad in 1988 that ran the excellent programme Locoscript, that I have yet to find the equivalent of to this day.
What was your first computer? And best or worst representation of a computer in film or TV?

****

Sept 6 (Neil Gaiman podcast allegations) So where did Tortoise suddenly appear from? This week I enjoyed an excellent podcast Hoaxed, on BBC Sounds, about the Hampstead Satanic Abuse Hoax. And it's from this company called Tortoise.
Then today I find they're the people who've made the podcast which means that Neil Gaiman has had to join Rolf Harris and Justin Lee Collins in the Names That Used To Be On My Name-Dropping List And Now I Don't Even Have Them.
It's rather good, and very interesting, that Investigative Journalism, whose death had long been foretold with the demise of newspapers, cuts at the BBC, and the increasing down-market slide of the press in general, has had a real upsurge through podcasts.
Discuss. (Or just listen to the podcasts. They're by real journalists who know more about everything than any of us lot.)

***

Sept 13 (Neil Gaiman The Master podcast)

Ooh blimey. I'm only 4 episodes into this but someone isn't coming out of it looking good at all.
The minefield of NDAs and plausible deniability means we'll never know who to believe, and there'll be no "winners" as such. But, gosh, it doesn't paint a pretty picture.
On the plus side some might take consolation from the person who, despite a far more damning set of allegations than this, is currently one of the most-suggested celebrities amongst primary school kids in my classes (when I ask them to name a celeb for me to put in a comic strip): Michael Jackson. See, there's always a bright side.

Sept 16: Yech. I’ve just finished listening to all six episodes and it makes you want to take a bath afterwards.
On your own!


Sept 6: Wobbly Bum Pop

Well I didn’t expect that. I’ve been hearing this record a lot on 6Music so I thought I’d check out the video.
I was thinking it sounded like a sweet young childlike voice with a schoolyard rhyme. I certainly wasn’t prepared for a series of arses waved in my face.
Honestly, kids today. (Actually the artist in question is knocking 40, I learn. And she owns a club which, she has to stress, is not a brothel. Says it on Wikipedia so it must be true. )
Hev and I chatting mock-prudishly about it, while watching a string of Moonchild Sanelly’s other videos (there’s a lot of arse wobbling in them all, if you’re interested), made me think what it would be like if “this age” me were back in 1962 watching a surf music movie.
I’d be all “look at them all wearing nothing but bikinis. What’s the world coming to?”
Then the Beach Boys would come on and I’d be all “Huh, I can’t imagine them still performing in sixty years time.”
Anyway, Moonchild Sanelly, recommended catchy tunes. Videos, if you like that sort of thing.

****

Sept 9: So where are we with outing and Hollywood these days? Obviously outing someone who doesn’t want to be outed is not on (though I accidentally did it a few years ago to a friend who, I didn’t know, had gone in again when they got big on telly*). But what’s the sitch with the rest of TV and movie land?
Are lots of people still having to stay in, cos the biz is so intolerant? Or is everyone just out if they want and everything’s good with the world?
Anyway, talking of changing the subject, our favourite new murder-of-the-week show is the delightful Elsbeth. Recommended.
* Said person is a worst kept secret. Alush Pain made a reference to them in a recent radio show “…like a lesbian version of x, if you can imagine such a thing”).

****

Sept 16: Five years, stuck on our eyes. Can you believe EC comics only ran for five years before they ended, 70 years ago today.
I still read them and find them fresher than most comics produced in the decades since. First discovered them in the 1980s, with reprints you could get for, I think, 70p each. Some of my favourites are the black and white paperback collections I got in the 2000s, but unfortunately those are in Spanish (are there b&w paperback versions in English out there?)
What are your EC experiences, comic lover?


Sept 8: Idly the other day I watched Doctor Who Delta and the Bannermen, for the first time since it was broadcast 37 years ago. It is, for the record, bloody awful
If you ever hear some old fossil slagging off modern day Doctor Who saying how much better things were in the old days, force them to watch this, with their eyelids propped open with matchsticks. If they don’t come away swearing that no Jodie Whittaker episode was ever as badly written as this, their head is irretrievably broken.
Among its crimes against TV is this scene. Sylvester McCoy who is, easily, the best thing in the show, mugging as much joy as he can from a risible script, is seen here cradling a Squier Stratocaster guitar. In a story set in the late 50s ( or at the very latest 1962, I couldn’t be arsed to go back and check).
The Squier Stratocaster guitar didn’t exist when this story is set. Ooh how I wish that were the worst part of this dreadful story.

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Sept 12: An interesting conversation is happening on Jamie Smart's Facebook, where a primary school Mum has banned a kid bringing Bunny Vs Monkey in. It's nostalgic for those of us remembering when comics were so popular this sort of thing used to happen. (eg Professor Wertham's Seduction Of The Innocent, IPC's Action comic getting mentioned in the House, Eagle comic being created in response to US horror comics etc)
To put the comics in context, Bunny Vs Monkey is the single most popular British comic amongst kids that I have experienced in all the time I've been doing Comic Art Masterclasses (which will soon be twenty years, gulp). In the past year, when I do my flipchart drawing at the start of the day, I've found Bunny Vs Monkey (rivalled only by Dogman) to be the most recognised character by primary school kids, and the most enthusiastically greeted too.
It's got to the stage now that, when I'm getting them to guess which Marvel superhero I worked on (before their parents were born, it was Dr Strange) most of them can't even name a Marvel Superhero. Those have slipped from their zone of interest in the same way as Doctor Who did about a decade ago. It's a sad thing to see, but inevitable I guess.
So viva Jamie & Bunny vs Monkey, and long may they be so big that parents notice them enough to want to ban them. Examples of BvM on my flipcharts pictured.


Fun programme about a University TV station at UEA that ran from the 60s to the 90s. Former students interviewed include Gurinder Chadha and Arthur Smith.
Nostalgic not only for my own days on student radio (anyone else remember University Radio Loughborough?) and playing with video when cameras were a rarity (I was in the so called 4D Department at Exeter) but also for the days before YouTube and smartphones when “making content” was an odd thing done by a weird select few. Recommended if you like that sort of thing.

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Sept 22: We were enjoying catching a bit of Chuck Berry live from 1972 on BBC2 last night, and chanced to google him as we watched.
Ooh. Though it was funny the third time we got to “spent three years in prison for…” on his wiki page, some of his crimes were a lot less amusing than others.
So we’re back to the discussion about which sex criminals’ art, music, books etc is it okay to like, and which are we going to have to continue to subtly hide away in the vaults?
His guitar playing was pretty nifty, I’m glad I caught a glimpse through my fingers.

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Sept 24: Grrrrrr Ryanair! I book my flights, which takes long enough. Then the payment keeps not completing cos of an error at their end which means you have to refresh the page. Hooray, do this and it lets you pay. Then it lets you verify it with your credit card operator. Then finally...
It tells you it's put the prices up since you started and you have to go back to square one!!!!!! Boo Ryanair


Happiness is: a school asking if I can come and do a class next year.
Less happy: ...but only on World Book Day. At a push they'll have you another day that week.
Schools, listen, visiting authors and artists are a bit like puppy dogs. We're not just for "The Big Day", we're for life. Or at the very least, you can have us the week after. Like the kids will know the difference.

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Sept 13: David Mitchell's Ludwig

Did I ever mention my first stab at writing a cosy crime novel? It was about an insurance claims loss adjuster who had to turn up in every new story at the site of a murder, to assess it for insurance, then turned out to be better at solving the crimes than everyone else around him. It was Columbo meets... something with an insurance clerk in.
Anyway, my imaginary casting was David Mitchell who I thought would be perfect in a crime-of-the-week show like this. Turns out great minds think alike.
(NB Nobody ever saw my great crime novel which still exists as just a plot. I suppose nowadays I could feed it to ChatGPT and a novel would come out the other end. But I shan't.)


Sept 19: My God, the The Guardian, this is the worst bit of click bait you've ever published. And look, it's worked. I have been baited. I have clicked. What I have never done is almost any of the nonsense on this stupid list of twaddle!
Who the hell has "a mate called Danny whose nickname is Danzo, “cuz he’s the king of Lanzo”.
Who has, as a feature of their life "brushing Monster Munch dust off the Barbour jacket you got for a fiver at Oxfam"? I'll tell you who. The person who wrote this article, and no-one else on earth.
Do you know what this is? This is the journalistic equivalent of the debut stand up routine by a new open mic who hasn't yet discovered that the things that he and his three best mates think are hilarious are unique to them and only funny because they're each other's three best mates.
Imagine the words "what's that about?" after every entry in this list and it makes sense. In real life they'll be gonged off before they get to item six.


Sept 21: A question for my techy friends: Colour Temperature Problem.
We’ve been getting a problem with flickering colour temperature on our Sony TV, while watching Disney plus (it happened all through Agatha All Along last night, hence the picture).
The colour temp will flick (from cold to warm, to autumnal red to icy blue to bright daylight to eerie green) on edits - and back again, which is weird (so it’ll be blue every time from camera A, yellow every time from camera B ). But it’ll also flick in the middle of a single long shot.
Oddly it stays stable during the Disney holding page, and it’s not happening on other channels (eg after Agatha on Disney we had no problem on Amazon or live TV).
Anyone else have this problem? And does anyone know a solution?
Update: We looked at all the settings but found nothing we could change. Last night we watched episode 2 and it didn’t flicker once. The mystery continues.

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Sept 25: The Penguin

Horses for courses. A few of my Facebook friends have praised The Penguin, which just goes to show how subjective these experiences can be.
Paper thin characters who aren’t even interesting enough to be cartoony, run through the most unimaginative string of gang crime cliches, literally every single one of which you’ve seen a dozen times before.
I mean full marks to the make up dept, who enable Colin Farrell to play Fat-Suit-DeNiro for an hour. But every woman being either a sex worker or a crime boss (essentially a male character’s lines given to a token woman), the big crime families at war being double crossed by their henchman, everyone being a psychopath and people being shot with no drama or consequence, all amounts to an hour of “so what?”
40 years ago it was novel, for comics, when Frank Miller introduced the Falcone family to Batman. A gang of criminals who didn’t have silly names and wear colourful outfits was an interesting change. For comics. Forty years later, on TV, it’s just boring.
Batman was defined by its pantheon of colourful villains, each with actual characters that you could tell apart from their different modus operandi, their catchphrases, and most immediately their appearances. Take away The Penguin’s suit, top hat, umbrella, squawk and whatever that shit was he did with birds, play down the hook nose and make his waddle the result of a disability (which is already getting some flack) and what are you left with? Fat Suit De Niro with a club foot and a purple Maserati, the most colourful thing in the show.
Writing wise, in a TV landscape where we’re watching it Inbetween fresh eps of Slow Horses, Bad Monkey, Only Murders In The Building, Apples Never Fall, and The Perfect Couple, Penguin comes out as the most disappointing crime writing of the week, and the one we won’t be bothering to carry on with.
(And yes, we’re watching Nightsleeper through to the end. It’s more fun than Penguin).

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Sept 25: James Cameron joins bard of AI firm

Think of the time James Cameron can save now. “Alexa, make me a movie that’s The Smurfs but they’re aliens, oh and do the backgrounds in the style of Roger Dean”.

*****

Article about queueing in pubs:

At last. I remember forty years ago, when I was back in the holidays from art college, joining my mates in the band playing at Working Men’s Clubs across the midlands where I saw, for the first time, punters forming an orderly queue for the bar.
Having just returned from student Uni bars which were (& may still be) the worst scrums of bodies waving fivers and clambering over each other to be seen by desperate bar staff, this was the peak of civilisation. I’m glad it’s finally caught on.


Enjoyed Ludwig ep 1. But can I be the first to point out the Doctor Who error? Did you spot it?

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Sept 30: Hands up who knew the word “superhero” had been trademarked by Marvel and DC jointly in 1977?
Obviously I did, it’s sort of my job. But I’ve also published half a dozen comics with “superhero” on the cover and, amazingly, no one ever noticed. And I’ve read dozens more.
Cos, it turns out, they were never able to trademark the word “superhero” after all.



Genuinely good to see nods to actual art in a broadcast TV show last night that I won’t spoil for you if you haven’t watched it yet. Full marks all round for mentioning more fine art in a five minute comedy routine than BBC Breakfast has managed in the last year.
This tiny screen grab isn’t too much of a spoiler, I’m sure.
(If it’s not a spoiler to mention the show itself, it was Taskmaster)


Glancing at the Blind Date article in this morning’s paper, just spotted this guys face. It’s not just me is it?
Admit it. You’re hearing wobble boards and Sun-a-rise early in the morning. Can you tell who it is yet?



My Books and where to get them:

Richard The Third Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones
Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon Etsy 
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Paperback

Sweet Smell Of Sockcess - Putting A Show On At The Edinburgh Fringe - Amazon - ebook

Who Notes - Doctor Who Reviews - Amazon - Lulu - ebook
Space Elain - Amazon - Lulu - iBooks - Barnes & Noble 
Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons
The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons
Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories - Amazon
Captain Clevedon - Amazon
Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  



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