Birology: The Salesman

Birology: Biros, Candles, and Lovecraftian Beasts

Last night I had an idea for something vaguely Lovecraftian that I wanted to call 'And I looked, and I beheld the Beast'. I wanted it to look like a guy had gone down into his basement or been walking down a dark alley or pitch black cave with his lantern and just run into a tentacular squid monstrosity. And, eager to experiment with outside light sources, I also knew that I wanted to light it using a candle. So, in the dead of darkness, I quickly sketched this, using just a normal Bic Biro and two felt tips...

The brightness from the man's lamp is created partly from the shading, and partly from a pocket torch I used (placed behind the picture) to enhance the glare that's meant to be coming off the lamp. It adds greater vibrancy to the picture, and really draws the viewer's eye to the centre of the page and the action.

Then today I drew a proper version in Biro...
That's just a Biro-drawn picture, scanned in and without any torches or trickery. I then decided to take a copy of the scan and apply some felt tip. Felt tips are awesome, and used right they can look truly beautiful, but so few people use them. Go on, steal some off your niece or nephew and get practising with them!
That was just a fun aside really; more an experiment than anything else. And a way to pass the time while I waited for it to get dark so I could do the final picture...

In a nice dark room I took the original Biro drawing and placed it in front of a candle (being careful not to set fire to the original drawing! Seriously, if you're going to try creating nightmares in the candlelight, do be careful that you don't burn your art, yourself, or your house down), so that there'd be a light source to enhance the light/dark contrast of the picture. Then I took a picture of it. I used a candle rather than the torch because I wanted the man's lantern to look like an old fashioned lamp rather than anything modern. The candle gives a softer light too - one that works better with the shade contrasts and fits the Lovecraftian image I had in my head. The result is this...
Not too shabby, if you'll allow me to say it myself. The candle gives a lovely natural glow and, further away from the light source, the light's interaction with the Biro gives a lovely bruised colour, creating a rich darkness. I hadn't expected that to happen, but blimey I'm glad it did.

So there you have it: a nightmarish squid in 4 sketches. And all it took was a Biro and a candle.

Birology: The ZombiPied Piper of Hamlin (a work in progress)

Like Life and runaway golf carts, conversations can take odd turns. This happened to me on Facebook the other day, as a conversation with a friend about how truly awful Celebrity Big Brother is quickly took a left turn into zombie rats (yes, it is one of the weirder conversations I've had this week). And then from zombie rats we moved on to how you'd get rid of them. With a Zombified Pied Piper ('ZombiPied Piper' for short) of course! Before too long I'd blundered into creating a story...

Think about it: our fear of vermin, coupled with our morbid fascination with zombies, and Black Death parallels aplenty. Zombie rats take over Hamlin, biting folk and spreading their necrosis, until a mysterious undead figure shambles into town and promises to get rid of them...for a price.

I'm sure you can imagine what might happen next. If you can then stop! Don't ruin the ending for yourself - I haven't even thought it up yet.

So on the back of this great idea is an idea-sketch in Biro, and it's actually done on the front of a blank envelope (hey, sometimes you gotta work with what you've got. My time in the Combined Cadet Force taught me that. Or maybe it was MacGyver...)

The Piper bears close resemblance to the Ghost of Writing Future (featured last month - and last year if you're really being pedantic, seeing as it was 2011), not because all I can draw is hooded skeletons, but rather because this is just a sketch; a placeholder. I had the idea that the Piper should be Grim Reaper-like in appearance, and this was just the first (admittedly cliche) image that sprang to mind. He'll likely change as I give it more thought. What I want to keep though is the idea of he and the rats being inseparable: of them melding and spawning from his black cloak and of the uncertainty where the Piper ends and the vermin begin. I think it's a pretty cool idea for an image.

I also like the way Biro sketching looks: it makes pictures look like rough wood carvings - just the sort of period feel I'm going for.

No doubt I'll be plaguing you with more of this kind of stuff as I think more about it. Don't worry if you're not a fan of rats or undead flautists though. There'll be all sorts of other stuff coming. No idea what sort of stuff yet. It all depends on the kind of conversations I have.

A Multicoloured Post

"On your feet, Lantern."

Well, I liked the Green Lantern movie, but then I'm a Mogo-sized Green Lantern fan. Even if I wasn't then I think I'd have thought it an entertaining, if rather safe, summer movie. It was fun, predictable, and looked great in 3D. Of course I wanted more from it, but as a summer movie it did its job with flying (mostly green colours). It had a lot of nice nods to the comics for the fanboys (the dead planet Ryut - once home of angry Red Lantern Atrocitus and future planet for the forging of the Black Lantern battery, a whole host of Lanterns from the comics, a nod to Carol Ferris's future career as a Star Sapphire, and a nice after-credits sequence that I won't spoil but isn't at all a surprise to those who watch the movie or know the comics). Sadly there was no mention, hint or citrus-tinted trace of one of the best characters in comics, Agent Orange.

In the aftermath of watching the movie I scribbled this out in felt tip (I'm not keen on felt tip as I'm a bit rubbish with it, but it was all I had to hand). Although the yellow in this picture looks like fire it's meant to be the yellow light of Fear, wielded by the Sinestro Corps, subliming and disintegrating as our nameless (but Abin-Sur lookalike) Green Lantern recovers from its assault and summons his last shards of willpower for one final push...

Bad Robot

Naughty robot in felt-tip. Drawn on some very old yellowy paper I found in the attic (I'd run out of the normal stuff and I'll draw on anything), which is why it looks like it's from another decade.

The product of hot soup...

This picture is of no consequence. It's just something I drew while I was waiting for my soup to cool. But it's based on those 30s and 40s comics where people would get super-powers from strange space rocks or unlikely chemical spills and then announce their surprise at the results in a cheesy piece of exposition. You just don't see enough of that in comics these days. If I ever get super-powers I'm going to announce it like that.

Man in Pencil and Tan

Drawn on the train the other day.

Existential Ink...

So Hourly Comic Book Day – in which people make a 'comic' for every hour they're awake - came and went. Cassie took part in it. I did not, although you might expect me, a cartoonist, to. But there we go. I didn't draw my life, partly because I do nothing of interest (3pm: watching Star Trek: Voyager. Really, you want to know that? Really? How boring must someone else's life be to be interested in that?) and also because I make fun of life, I don't document it. It's called 'Too Close For Comfort' for a reason. I keep Life at arms distance and point and laugh while it's trousers fall down. But mostly I didn't participate because, in documenting my little life, I see a fundamental problem with Hourly Comic Book Day...


And while my life may be boring and filled with nothing more than ink and vitriol, I'm not ready to stop existing just yet.

'Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack got a tumour from a candle stick...'

Science has taught us this week that if zombies were real, you would likely be killed by them. And now we've found out that if the zombies didn't get you, then candles would. That's right. Candles. What next, 'Glade Plug-ins cause diabetes'? According to research at the clearly underlit University of South Carolina our humble waxy friend has become the newest member of the League of Extraordinary Cancer Causers (along with just about anything you like and a few of the things you don't). Which explains why everyone died so young in the age before lightbulbs. Well, that and all the horse joyriders. It's also a sign that I should probably give up my ten a day candle habit (I've been meaning to quit for years, honest). Because suddenly aromatherapists have become fragrant deathmongers, birthday cakes are ticking timebombs, romantic dinners are death traps - that may as well be a stick of dynamite in the top of that wine bottle! Lighting a candle in church? What, do you want to meet God so soon? Put down that match! These are the new cancer sticks people, and it's time we took our lawsuit to Big Candle, because our children's lives are at stake! There are youngsters out there lighting up and enjoying the mellow yellow flames that these death-cylinders produce as a side-effect of their lethal cancer rays! Candles - the Flickering Killer!!!

Except no, they're not.

Patently, any 'merit' this research has is immediately rendered moot because it's fuelled by scaremongering of the highest order. And in an age where newspapers seem to scream that apparently 'everything can give you cancer!', our attitude as a society has become so nonchalant to threats that adding another thing to the list really doesn't matter. Besides, the risk of getting cancer from a candle is so galactically low that it's still debateable. I mean, this was one piece of research done by one university - you need many more independent studies and a whole lot of data sampling to even start to determine whether candles might be a threat to health. But what really pisses me off is that once again Science is seen by the general public to be wasting time and funds on subjects and areas that are of no concern or help to society. It's not really the Scientific community's fault - I mean, yes, zombie and candle research are a waste of time, but it is only a small part of a much bigger endeavour. The problem lies with the Media cherrypicking these stories for want of a cheap public health scare and to sell more papers to an already worried public. For instance, did you know that this week scientists in Maryland came one step closer to generating synthetic life? Or that a new flood-resistant rice plant that could feed millions has been developed? Or that strains of life-generating amino acids have been found on a comet out in deep space? That's all real, impressive, boundary-breaking science and if you haven't heard about it it's not your fault, they're just not stories that a newspaper can practically apply to terrify you and your kids.
Candles aren't going to give you cancer, but if they did then I'm just glad there are proper scientists out there working on cures. So, South Carolina researchers, get the wax out of your ears, give your matches back to mummy, and go help them.

Operation: Feisty Feline! (or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Inspiration of the Pub)

Undoubtedly, the pub is the womb of mad ideas. As if in proof of this statement, it was at a public house the other night that some friends and I came up with perhaps our maddest idea of all time: and idea which also happened to be the 'Greatest Super-Weapon of All Time!'.

You know those waving cats you have in Chinese restaurants? Well, we thought "if one of those thing was about fifty feet high (or even higher) and put on tank treads then it could become an awesome super-weapon of terrible destruction!". That's right, we actually began talking about the prospect of a giant luck-symbol as a megalomaniacal tool. But think about it: with enough size and force behind it, that enormous waving hand could crush a car or a building or a person. It would be like an unstoppable waving Godzilla! Soon, on the back of a beer mat, I was sketching blueprints for Operation: Feisty Feline as people threw in suggestion after suggestion: 'Rocket launcher in its chest!', 'Flames come out of its mouth!', 'No, make it bigger!', 'Put undepants on it!'. The ideas flowed thick and fast, until the beer mat blueprints were complete and we had before us a vehicle of unimaginable destructive force.

And then I went home and drew this artist's impression of our 'Giant Waving Cat of Destruction'. And here it is...

As you can see, it's attacking the early 1950s. Well, it was a simpler time.

Now if only we had several billion dollars and some engineering/ mad-science/ world domination degrees we could stand a chance of building this crazy contraption. Also, if we knew how to send it back in time that might help too. And, as it's ideally made out of solid 24k gold it'd be nice if we could lay our hands on some of that.

Okay, the fact it's completely fictional and nigh-on unbuildable (despite what some may say!) is beside the point. The point is that which I mentioned in the very first sentence: the pub is the place where mad ideas are born and nourished. And the world would be a far far sadder place without the whimsy, hilarity and craziness that a kindly environment and a few drinks provide. Whether you're creating a story, cartoon, play, TV show or enormous waving cat weapon, the company of good friends and some delicious liquor will always provide you with inspiration.

So go, grab some mates, find your nearest pub, and let the crazy ideas commence!

'You Say Potato...'

This one's for Cassie...

Upon the first potato asking Mrs. Potato Head, 'Hey baby, Idaho or Youdaho?'

Right, some explanation. Earlier, on her blog, Cass talked about the state of Idaho, it's potato-related fame, and resulting 'raunchy potato jokes'. I was intrigued (well, would I be anything else at the mention of rudeness and starchy foods?). When she replied to my interest it was with the longstanding potato-based joke 'Idaho or Youdaho?' (Potato-based prostitution, geddit?). Well, I love to create cartoons for people and I couldn't resist the challenge to make a cartoon based on the aforementioned joke. And within two minutes of thinking I had one, and a few minutes scribbling brought it to life, which makes this the fastest cartoon I've ever created from joke to scribble to blog.

Hope you like it Cass! :)

Robin. Why?

Standing at the altar, Batman began to regret asking Robin to be his Best Man...

The other night while watching the Batman TV series I heard Dick Grayson, aka Robin, actually say 'Holy Venezuela Bruce!' (I kid you not), and in between shuddering and wishing the 60s had never happened I remembered this cartoon I'd drawn.

A pen and ink sketch as I've not had the time to colour cartoons in properly of late. I'm nowhere near good enough to ever draw comic books, but if I were then Batman would be the one I'd draw, which is why the Batman here is fairly well done but the Robin could be any guy in a mask and cape. But as a lifelong Bat-fan I've never understood Robin, nor really liked him. Outside of the garish 60s series he makes no sense in any way, and certainly not in the modern and most accurate interpretations. His incessant childish chirpiness mixes with Batman's moodiness like oil and water and ruins any drama. Why would Batman, a psychologically scarred superhero capable of taking down any villain by himself, need an accomplice in the form of a teen acrobat? As a moving target to distract the attention from himself? And when you have a cool superhero name like 'Batman', why go and ruin that by placing it next to the name of a diminutive garden bird? (And no, I'm not one of those people who think they're gay. Aquaman however...) Their pairing makes no sense. Batman and Robin go together like chalk and some kind of anti-chalk substance: Batman's costume blends into the shadows - Robin's looks like it's designed to blend in at a day care centre. Batman is the world's greatest detective - Robin is the world's greatest douchebag. Batman is an adult, trained for years in martial arts and all sorts of offensive and defensive fighting styles - Robin is a thirteen year old kid who can do somersaults. Oooh, take that, Riddler!

Anyway, Robin rant over. Hope you enjoy the cartoon.

No need for 'oinkment' for us - our rashers have been cured...

Still alive?

Of course you are. You’re a reasonable and intelligent person. But if you stocked up on canned goods and shotgun ammunition so that you could live in and defend your hermetically sealed bio-bubble then you are a fool, but I’ll forgive you seeing as there’s been such a fuss. Last Sunday the news would have you believe we were in the twilight of the human race and that by next weekend all that would be left on the face of the Earth would be an army of the mutated undead. It’s been interesting watching the rolling news channels struggle to keep the story alive and at a scarily dramatic pitch with the most ridiculous headlines and ludicrously lame breaking news. My favourite moment so far was when a newsreader, in an intensely serious voice, said ‘Fifteen people in Britain now have Swine Flu’. Fifteen! Fifteen thousand? Fifteen million? What’s that...? Oh, just fifteen. Fifteen. Right. Just sit back and think about that headline and how ridiculous it is: fifteen people with a mild flu. Not hospitalised, not dying, not particularly contagious, nothing that a mug of Lemsip wouldn’t help. It’s a ridiculously low number for a virus that has proved to be as effective as a chocolate fireguard in killing those outside of Mexico. And the death estimates in Mexico have actually been revised and lowered. I’m looking forward to more headlines like this in the future: ‘Ten people in the UK are known to be currently suffering from constipation’, ‘An elderly man in Fife has a limp – could it spread to other people?’. The best (and in a way most sobering) fact I heard this week was that if you go into hospital with Swine Flu, you’re more likely to die of an MRSA infection. You don’t get coverage of the W.H.O doing live web-conferences on that though...

Anyway, unless I suddenly contract Swine Flu this is my last post about it as I’m rather sick of it (no pun intended). No doubt some new, terrifying story will soon come along to replace the virus, and if it doesn't then the news will go back to reporting on it's perennial favourite topic of the Recession. Still, on the bright side the face mask market is doing well in the economic downturn. One hundred shares in the SneezeGuard Masks Co. please...

"It's the End of the World as we know it, and I feel Swine..."

The Big Bad Wolf stopped at the Straw House and listened to the sounds from inside. Suddenly he didn't feel the desire to 'Huff and Puff'...

According to today's news you and I and everyone we know should mindlessly panic because of a potential Swine Flu pandemic. On Sky News there has been dramatic music, computer graphics, worried-looking experts and news readers giving it there all to scare the living daylights out of you. 'Pigs will kill you!!!' apparently. In the end I put on a DVD (Devil Wears Prada - people who know me well will understand why) because I was getting angry at the seeming enjoyment the news was taking in covering every single worrying detail about how a piggy virus that has killed 80-something people (out of a country of something like 25 million. And compared to that number I wonder how many people died on Mexico's roads or passed away from Cancer in the past week?) could, possibly, maybe, perhaps, kill untold millions. It was as though they were getting off on the fetishism of scaring people with what could happen and not what is actually occuring. I've now decided not to pay attention ot the news. I mean, we've seen this all before with SARS and Bird Flu. I remember being told by the print and TV media, who love to indulge in a bit of doomsday talk, that half of us would be killed by SARS or sneezing birds and the rest of us would have to live in hermetically-sealed bunkers. Years later, we're still standing and eating the chicken.

If/when the Swine Flu death numbers start getting worryingly big (I'm talking about hundreds of thousands across the entire Earth), then I'll start to pay attention. But for now the news can sit and swivel. Under a hundred people have died and many who have suffered from it have lived. And this is out of a planetary population of 6 billion. The human race isn't going to end just yet my friends. I'm not going to get dragged into the scaremongering and neither should you. Millions of people die every day from far more virulent and vile dieases that have been around for much longer but aren't as 'dramatic' to cover. So just switch off the news, sit back with some sausages, and take it easy. After all, it's Sunday.

Rage Against The Love Machine...

This cartoon is something I specially designed for my anti-Valentine's day group on Facebook (feel free to join if you wish - its not a party as some thought, more a global hatred of a Hallmark holiday...ooh, the alliteration at the end of that made me shiver...). I came up with the idea for it after the last time I saw my doctor friend George and realised how disgusting the inside workings of the human body are. I mean, you wouldn't have a real heart on the cover of a St. Val's card. It's also a little satirical in its idea of the naturally beautiful vs. the unnaturally beautiful - the plastic surgery, 'look the best you can by any means' culture an' all.

I quite like this one, and when it comes to the 2nd Volume of 'Too Close For Comfort' I'll either re-draw it or leave it as it is and put it in the special 'Random Acts of Scribbling' section... Whether you're a fan of St. Val's or not, let me know what you think of the pic.

Mister Jackson's right...

Where have all the good men gone? And where are all the Gods? Where's the streetwise Hercules to - wait, no, hang on, that's 'I Need A Hero'...right, anyway...back to the original point...

Mister Christopher Jackson - friend, Frasier fan, and all-round fine fellow (ahh, I adore alliteration) - has written a really nice piece on the demise of the gentleman that I'd like to point you to. It also gives me an excuse to publish this archive piece of Too Close For Comfort which was published all the way back in 1886 in Punched magazine by my great great grandfather Sir Oswald Gravyboat-Smedley the Third when he drew the cartoon series. Sir Oswald Gravyboat-Smedley was, of course, the first Smedley to draw Queen Victoria riding a donkey on Blackpool beach. He was also famous for providing illustrations for the short-lived publication Corseted Women Weekly, and for inventing the luminous top hat (for well-dressed gentlemen who found themselves down mine-shafts). He died in 1898, drowing at sea whilst attempting to swim The Channel while wearing an anvil.

Anyway, Chris' article on the demise of the gentleman, 'Where have all the good guys gone?' is at the link below and I urge you to read it because it's very good and, as a fellow gentleman, I agree with every word of it.

http://nevertooserious.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/where-have-all-the-good-guys-gone/

I saw Mommy Kicking Santa Claus's Ass...

If you don't know who Santaklaas is don't worry, I didn't know either until like, 2 days ago. Google him if you like. If you do know who he is, you might like this cartoon. Santa Claus (left) and Santaklaas (right) in a fight to see who is the best Santa! Corporate Clause vs. the European Santa I only just heard of. Who will win? Why, the proper Santa of course! He has reindeer! Ho ho ho, it's going to be a kick-ass Christmas! :)

Cover Me!

Well I'm already hard at work on the next volume of Too Close for Comfort (I'm hoping to have it done by Spring 2009), and this is the uncoloured cover for Volume 2.

Volume 2 is going to feature another brand new load of cartoons, many of which won't appear on the blog, plus the usual 'Scribble Section', but it'll also have a super-special 'Zombie Zection' in which will feature some zombie-themed cartoons as well as some old cartoons that have been re-drawn in a 'zombie-style'. It's just for fun, and trust me, it'll be good!

Plan 9 from Outer Blog-Space...

"Ooh, oww! I hate waking up with a crick in my neck!"

Fishing for compliments...