Mr Parmesand #4

Tiny Manu #3

From the sketchbook #4

This is Willian Church, Willian being a village on the outskirts of the town where I grew up, Letchworth.

It used to be a dry town, and if people wanted to go out they had to go to one of the surrounding villages, all of which had a remarkably high pub-to-population ratio.

Dog Translucent #9

One liners #3

One liners #2

Hooray, my first rejection!

Not in life, obviously. I've had loads of those. No, this evening I got the first rejection from a publisher since I started cartooning again about a year ago. Usually my stuff gets no response at all, so I think that it's quite an improvement that a newspaper (The Evening Standard) actually bothered to reply at all. It was a form letter, I admit, and it was about two months late but it's better than nothing.

One liners #1

Mr Parmesand #3

The Institute for Knowing Things #3

If you're here from amnap

... you're probably wondering why a blog about consciousness and related subjects links here. Well, let me explain. A while ago the idea was put forth that I should share blogging duties on A Method Not A Position, putting forth the more skeptical side of things. To do so, I needed to register on blogspot. However, it was then decided that was unworkable, so the idea was dropped.

So the idea was then for me to have a blog about parapsychology that amnap could link to on occasion. But when I sat down to write it I found that I really didn't have much to say, and reading other skeptical or non-skeptical blogs for inspiration was pretty disheartening. In the end I decided (as you may have noticed) to drop parapsychology in favour of funny drawings. A good choice, I may say, because since then my interest in parapsychology has waned somewhat. I still lurk on forums and blogs, but that's about it.

So there you go. That's why there's a link to here. It's nice of Matthew to reference me now and again, and I admit I like the idea of people clicking on the link expecting more philosophical musings, only to be faced with something like a comic strip about bedtime stories. I wonder what they think.

Dog Translucent #8

The 50th Post on this blog

This is it.

It's the cat's meow #11

A wii bit obsessive

Recently I've been playing a lot of Wii Sports, in particular Wii Golf (eight under par is my best so far). This game has a limited number of phrases that it says to you at particular points, such as "Nice Shot!"

Well, I played the game so often by myself that I found myself replying to a couple of these phrases. For example, if I get a one under par at a hole it says "Nice birdie", to which I reply "Pretty birdie!" Then if I get two under, it says "Great eagle", and I say "It is big, isn't it?" And if I just score par for the hole, it says "Nice par" and I say "You've never even met my dad."

Trouble is, now I'm getting a bit superstitious about these phrases and I'm afraid that if I don't say them out loud then I won't play as well. As a consequence I do look a bit odd when playing with friends.

echoes #2

The Institute for Knowing Things #2

The idea of this strip was that frames one and two would be factually correct, and the last frame would be an amusing, if untrue, consequence of the first two.

I learnt about the use of children's toys in Cold War discussions in a TV documentary I happened to watch about twenty years ago. I've not been able to find any supporting evidence on t'internet since then, but I like to think it's true.

Overheard conversation

"Where are you going on holiday this year?"

"The Isle of Wight."

"Oh really? Are you going on the hovercraft?"

"No. In my dad's car."

Dog Translucent #7

Yesterday evening, this morning

So yesterday evening we're sitting out on the balcony and we see two fire engines pull up beside the building at the end of the street. We look at it, concerned, looking for signs of fire or smoke, or speculating about the need for two fire engines. Chemicals, perhaps? While we're discussing this, a woman with her shopping walks past the fire fighters and straight into the building. From this we gathered it was nothing life-threatening.

Luckily, the nearest fire station is only about five doors down from our house. Strictly speaking, they probably didn't need the fire engines at all and could've just walked there.

Then, this morning I was cutting cheese when all of a sudden the knife broke. It was a good quality knife from M&S - no pound shop rubbish - but my block of mature cheddar cheese somehow rended it cleanly near the handle. That came as quite a surprise, I can tell you.

It's the cat's meow #10

Dog Translucent #6

Mr Parmesand #2

Tiny Manu #2

How to write an Agatha Christie style mystery

Dog Translucent #5

It's the cat's meow #9

Dog Translucent #4

Note my keen comedy sense of squeezing every bit of humour from a situation. The guy in the first frame has bad eyesight, so he's facing the wrong way! I'm hilarious!

Mr Parmesand #1

My other triumph of the mid-1990's was Mr Parmesand. It ran for five issues in the short-lived UK culture magazine Ikon (which will always stick in my mind for having a cover of Bjork and Goldie, saying how happy they were together, on sale for a whole month during which the daily newspapers detailed their acrimonous break-up).

When the magazine folded, they still owed me £250 of which I finally received £100. A bitter introduction to the cold realities of bankruptcy.

Dog Translucent #3

For those who are interested, the comics were drawn really small and then enlarged repeatedly on a photocopier. The text was cleverly added with glue. Technology, eh?