Thursday 27 June 2013

You Are Here

You Are Here
Perhaps it's the rain. Perhaps it's Wimbledon. Perhaps it was the intellectual pretensions of my second Sparks comic strip. Perhaps it was the way I cruelly mocked Canada’s favourite comedian. All I know is that there's been almost no web traffic today except for somebody searching for ‘Bullseye Tony Green’.

Actually, parts of that need some explanation.

Last night, I thought this blog had been visited by somebody hostile to Canadian stand-up sensation, Baconface. On reflection, I’m pretty sure the visitor was the Canadian stand-up sensation himself. He arrived searching for ‘Baconface awful’ just before 5pm and didn’t stay long. Why? Well, who knows? Perhaps he was so offended by my first pen and ink caricature that he didn’t even bother to look at the second. Perhaps I said too many good things about him. How do I know it was Baconface? Well, as wiser minds than mine figured, who else would type ‘Baconface awful’ into Google? He was clearly looking for anti-Canadian criticism which he might then weave into the fabric of his show. Had I been crueller, he might have come back. That should teach us all an important lesson: that we should never be nice to anybody ever again…

He’s postmodern like that, Baconface. He deconstructs what it means to be a Canadian comedian in a country hostile to Canadian values, such as Celine Dion, world peace, and untreated lumber. The fact he didn’t leave a comment hurts but I have a whole pile of hurt in the corner of my room. Some days, I sculpt it into interesting shapes, such as this blog post, road rage or letters to Argos (see below).

Of course, he’s wouldn’t be the biggest celebrity to visit the blog and never come back. I’m guessing that either Russell or Ron Mael of Sparks might have visited too. That is another exciting but ultimately depressing thought. Exciting that they might have dropped by but depressing that they never came back to see the second part of my two part trilogy. In fact, almost every single Sparks fans on the planet has managed to stay away today. I had a very generous comment from a visitor called Ayumi asking me to draw more Sparks but I’m clearly paying for not playing to the core Sparks audience who didn’t enjoy my tank puns and references to Nietzsche’s ‘Birth of Tragedy’.

But isn’t that just the perennial the problem we all face? Just when you’re getting on well with somebody we go and mention mad German philosophers…

So, it looks like I’m back to blogging for a small but highly intelligent audience who don’t mind misguided intellectual pretensions mixed with a regular diet of arse jokes. You see: the red bottom of the Bobo the chimp! I was sitting on a rich seam of comic material right there but I had to ruin things by sticking myself in the cartoon. I’d mention ‘metafiction’ but I think it would lose me yet more readers. Now I bet even Ayumi won’t come back…

So here, then, is a cartoon I’ve just finishing drawing whilst sobbing to ‘The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman’. It clearly wouldn’t find a home anywhere else so it goes out to the seven of you… And to think, had things gone differently, I might now be picturing the seven of you sitting on a large virtual sofa with Baconface on the end, whilst Ron & Russell Mael of Sparks provided an impromptu 'Two Hands One Muth' set… As Ingmar Bergman has just sang:

Send an angel down to lead
Lead me from this barren land
How the Hell can I believe
If you withhold your guiding hand...

2 comments:

  1. By a remarkable coincidence, Sparks' 'Amateur Hour' was on the radio at work today. I haven't heard them played on the radio for many years, and then, just after I read your cartoons, there they were.

    Keep up the cartooning, you're obviously sending ripples into the ether.

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  2. I listen to so little radio I have no idea how often they're played but if you like music that's a little left of center, I recommend you try 'Lil' Beethoven'. For me, is one of those rare albums that define the bounds of my taste, like 'Bridge Over Trouble Waters', The Velvet Underground's banana album, The Door's 'La Woman', or Nick Cave and Bad Seeds' 'The Boatman's Call'.

    And thanks for the encouragement. I saw it last night and like a man possessed immediately picked up my pen and drew a new strip.

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