The Weasel and the Woodpecker

So far this week, I've drawn about three cartoons and written a Windows program to record all my cartoon submissions. Not that I've submitted many this week -- four or five went to The Spectator yesterday -- but the program is central to my vow to take my cartooning more seriously. My problem is that I've never been much of a 'submitter' and, as they say, you have to play the game to stand a chance of winning a prize.

When the program is completely finished, I might upload it here for free for anybody who might want to use it but even as I type that I have my monetary angel is banging his head against my right shoulder as if to tell me to stop being so damn generous. But, frankly, I don't think there are enough cartoonists or writers in the world who would want to buy it or even would find a need for it. The main reason I've written it is to also help archive my cartoons. I lose too many to computer glitches that I'm trying to make more use of online storage. So, every time I finish a cartoon, I add it to the database which archives a copy to Dropbox. With all my cartoons listed, I can (for the moment 'in theory') simply click a button and generate an email based on the publisher details I've already entered and with the cartoons embedded into the email.

When it's finished, I might give it away, might keep it for myself or I'll ask a few dollars for a copy and stick it over on The Digital Nib. Unlike my previous program, The Gag Machine, this isn't a long term project. It's more of a useful tool I needed and realised I could program in a day. And I did program its basic functionality inside a day. I was writing it when my laptop died on Sunday.

The loss of the laptop has be surprisingly hard. The faded/yellowed/'cooked' label on the back would say I've had the laptop about four years but for about three of those years, I've not switched it on for fear that it would burn out. However, since my writing my 'review' and claiming that I'd never use it again, I'd started to use a thermal cooler beneath the laptop. It didn't do a great deal but it did make it usable for short periods. With a slightly cooler lap, I'd started to use the laptop at least once a day and I'd got it just how I wanted it. I was programming more. Writing more. And then, within about two weeks, it has died with an inevitable smell of burnt solder. It died exactly how it died the first time it blew its video card. I now hate Dell with a passion. That laptop cost me so much to buy, thinking that buying from the XPS range would make it a long term laptop, only to have it now burn out twice. Only this time I've not asked for a repair. I'm not investing another penny into that machine or that company. The XPS 1340 was a horrible machine that should never have gone to market.

I should really get a new (non-Dell) laptop but they're so damn pricey and my attempts to monetise the blog have come to naught. I started my new drive to earn from blogging on the 4th February. It's now the 3rd of March and in one month I've managed to raise a whopping £1.06. That's £1.06 reward for 12 cartoons, 2 Photoshops and 21,000 words. Okay, that's not one of my most productive months but it's surely worth more than £1.06.

I'm not pleading poverty here (though, perhaps, I guess I am) but this is a example of the new internet economy in which the big guys make millions while the rest of us scramble around to earn pennies. The reality is probably that I should really blog less and devote my time to selling my cartoons or my software. It's galling that I think that but even more galling that my past efforts have come to naught. Take this morning's cartoon as an example. If I type 'George Galloway cartoon' into Google, one of mine appears at the top of the search results. That's even before you go into Google image search.

That's really weird and yet deeply satisfying.

The three other cartoons are by heroes of mine: Peter Brookes and Martin Rowson. My cartoon (below top) was drawn years ago when I was first starting out. I don't think it's anywhere as good as today's (below bottom) Galloway cartoon which, I hope, is not as good as the next one I draw.

Yet the cartoon is there. Multiply all those years of effort and count up the many hundreds of cartoons I've drawn, hundreds of thousands of words (I once calculated millions for all the blogs I've written), all of which is still online: and all I have to show for that this month is £1.06.

Forgive me if I sound cynical about the internet. The truth, for me at least, is that I draw a cartoon which hardly anybody looks at whilst Twitter is today dominated by a picture of a woodpecker carrying a weasel on its back. And if a woodpecker carrying a weasel isn't a metaphor for the great democratization of media production then I don't know what is.

Mojo and Black Eyes

I absolutely hate missing a day's blogging but yesterday my mojo was low. I was also having a pretty bad day. My cold has passed from the sore throat/aching/shivering stage to the stage where I can't hear a thing and my head feels like it's been pumped full of cavity wall insulation. I've also managed to give myself a black eye. I was lifting a box down from a shelf in the shed when a plank of wood slipped and smashed into my right cheek bone. Painful. Really painful.

On top of all that, I guess I was feeling a bit jaded. It's hard not to get jaded by the world and the internet in particular. You put effort into things and hope that you'll hit a pocket of enthusiasm and people will reward you for your efforts. Instead, you tend to hit a pocket of abject indifference or casual hatred. The story that had triggered my 'sod it, I'm not bothering today' mood was over on Eurogamer. If you're not a gamer, please bear with me. It's an interesting story about a guy who runs an online channel devoted to his gaming. He's one of the thousands of people who record themselves gaming and interact with an audience as he does so. Sadly, some people can't appreciate what he's doing or feel a need to harm him for simply indulging in a passion. Some people have taken to playing a sick practical 'joke' on them, though joke is a word completely inappropriate for what they do. Having discovered the broadcaster's home address, they make a call to US authorities and make some huge claim such as it being the home to terrorists. Given that America is currently suffering a terrible militarisation of their police force, the police response usually involves heavily armed men breaking down doors and throwing smoke canisters. This kind of hoax is called 'swatting' and there are quite a few videos online where you can see gamers getting 'swatted'. The video yesterday wasn't of the actual raid but the guy's response to it. I found it heartbreaking.

I found it heartbreaking not simply because of the tears or the drama of his young brother opening a door on men pointing machine guns at his head. It was heartbreaking to think we live in a world when people go out of their way to hurt people who do nothing except try to bring a little pleasure into other people's lives. It reminded me of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists. It reminded me of a program I watched recently about the theft of some Van Gogh paintings. It reminded me of that arsehole rapper (I know his name but I refuse to add to his fame by writing it) who tried to steal the limelight from Beck's Grammy award by invading the stage and demanding that the award should go to Beyonce. I suppose in some small way, it reminded me of the trouble I've been having with the Chinese hitting my blog with SPAM.

Anyway, that was yesterday. Today I intend to get back to things properly. I've no conquered the Chinese spammers by blocking the entire nation from accessing my server. I might even post a cartoon. I've been drawing quite a few recently, simply as a result of my doing a lot of work on The Gag Machine. Every day recently I've been adding new features which have emerged as obvious developments from my own use or as suggestions from the few people who use it and see to like how it helps them. Today I want to publish an update which contains all the new features. After that: I don't know. Prey for traffic and pray for cartoonists wanting to buy my software but, knowing my luck, I'll probably get swatted.

Hubris Strikes Again

There's a big thick streak of stubborn running through me . I keep going because I like drawing the things that I draw and writing the things that I write. Yet I do seriously consider giving up and the only thing that stops me is the thought of what I'd become without these things in my life. A friend said to me last night that he thought I was desperate for popularity and I replied that's I doubted if that's true. I know that two things do motivate me. The first is money but only because I need money to live. If I had enough to live off, I really wouldn't want a penny more because I already live like a monk and I'm blissfully happy writing and drawing and occasionally programming. Alongside my real work, which I can thankfully do from home, all my other hours are spent creating things. I watch no TV except for the occasional film or some 'background' viewing, such as an online debate or rerun of Steptoe, Hancock or Phil Silvers, I play only the occasional video game, and I read when my eyes aren't tired.

Beyond managing to sustain myself, my real ambition isn't for popularity but simply to be read by a certain intelligent crowd who are cynical, skeptical, but good natured and broadly humanist. I'd like to know that there are a few loyal people enjoy the things I do. I'd much rather be cult that mainstream. It's rather have a few people enjoying everything I do, rather than everybody enjoying just one thing I've done. It's why a regular number of hits on the blog, with plenty of return visitors, pleases me more than one spectacular day of never-to-return visitors.

However, some days, things like this happen to me.

It was hubris, I know, to post that cartoon at The Guardian but I'd thought it quite good. I didn't think it would be the best thing on there but definitely not worthy of being in nearly last place.



Not to disparage another person's efforts but I have to really rethink things if my cartoons are getting ranked lower than this effort.



My friend is probably right. He's one of life's immensely wise and intelligent beings. Perhaps these dumb little 'Recommends' mean more to me than they should and I should really shout, 'Screw them! Screw them all! at the top of my voice' I should let people come here looking for me than searching for an audience whose idea of satire is something like this. Yet if 99% of everything is essentially crap, an ugly realization is slowly dawning that I might be part of the 99%.