A Tale of Two Satires

I wrote this piece about British and American satire which you can read over at The Spectator.  I expect I'll catch all kind of merry grief from people in the comment section, which is why I never ever look at what people say in the comment sections. If you did, you'd never write another thing. I should add that I do like Have I Got News For You as light entertainment. As satire, I just wish it took off the gloves and gave the establishment the occasional bloody nose. The show is never better than when Hislop turns to the audience and gives them a spontaneous lecture about the abuses of power.

The Angel of High Satire

I seem to spend my life between identities.

What do I mean by that beyond trying to sound profound? I suppose I mean: I don’t know what I am. So many people seem to define themselves by their jobs or their religion or their marital status and number of children. I don’t really have any identity in those respects. I don’t think of myself as ‘a writer’ and even when I had a book in bookshops, to say ‘I’m a writer’ felt hollow and not entirely truthful. I never say 'I’m a cartoonist’ because I haven’t had any cartoons published and I refuse to spend the rest of my life being Private Eye’s least successful would-be cartoonist. I’m not an illustrator, though I occasionally provide people with illustrations. I’m not a web designer though I sometimes build websites. Nor am I an animator, though I’ve made a few animated shorts. I can’t even say that I’m an academic because my PhD never led me into any academic post of significance. Now that I’m programming again, I am reluctant to call myself a programmer because the programming is only serving an end as far as another of my non-descriptors, that is, the cartoonist part of me.

I’ve spent two months (or is it now three?), building a game which is little more than a very large satirical sketch or (more accurately) oafish cartoon. It's taken as much efforts drawing the graphics as it has programming the code. I’m part proud of it as I am part ashamed of it. The whole thing is meant to be satire, which is why, over the weekend, I added the following character to the game. At the moment, he flies onto the screen at random moments to add a little difficulty (and some reward) to the challenges. Yet I suppose my ‘Angel of High Satire’ (is the minuscule penis too much?) is a way of my
acknowledging that everything I do is really directed towards satire. I suppose I might call myself ‘a devil of low satire’ because I think it’s always been the closest description I would recognise of myself had I actually achieved anything of note in that field.

I don’t think my game will change that, though I hope it will have a enough edge that people might share it and laugh for all of the few moments they play it before deleting it forever. The humour might not be up to quality demanded by the real High Angel of Satire, on whom I modeled my version, but it has amused me. And that’s the problem. My worry now is that the game contains too many of the things that amuse me such as the thought of a naked Ian Hislop providing the game's hardest challenge. I wish I could have created something playable by somebody other than that person I see in the mirror. Next time, perhaps.

Private Eye and More Sparks

As you can see, I've posted a brand new cartoon. Yes, that means Ian Hislop must have come back off his holidays. After a long two weeks, the cartoons I sent to Private Eye came back with the familiar ‘Editor says sorry not to use’. This is turning ugly.

In fact, it’s becoming an almost morbid pleasure, this cycle of hope and rejection: a period of intense cartooning, firm belief that I have better cartoons than last time, a shred of hope, all to be dashed in one ugly moment of inbox hell. I’m beginning to think they’ll never accept any of my cartoons. This batch really contained some of my best and it seems that my best isn’t good enough. Between you and me: I think I’ve now given up.

Today I should be drawing cartoons or at least doing some proper writing but the Sparks comic strip keeps growing. It’s now two pages long, which is four A4 sheets or 27 individual frames. That's as long as it's going to get and now I need only finish some crosshatching, some polishing, and then a final check. I have no idea why I decided to finish it except I’ve actually had a blast drawing Sparks. I think I've also learned new things in the process of creating a longer piece of sustained cartooning, even if I haven't quite figured out how to draw a convincing Russell Mael. And now it's almost done, I’m not sure I even want to post the cartoon now. It's taken such time that I'd hate it just to go ignored, like everything I post here. Yet I'm sure that will happen. It’s a little different to the last, more ambitious but slightly odder. I don’t know what I’ll do with it, except I do know I won’t be sending it to Private Eye.