Where did Johnny Depp go?

Rewatching ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ last night, I reflected on how there are great actors and there are great stars yet there are very few great acting stars but that Johnny Depp is the brightest of that few.

In fact, I would go on to say that it’s hard to think of any screen presence of the last fifty years who matches Depp in acting range and star quality. Hoffman made some memorable movies, brought life to strange roles, but his star was never as bright as Depp’s. Brad Pitt is a great movie star but even acting at his best he has never brought such personality to his roles. He’s a big star but he’s no acting great. River Phoenix was in the same mould as Depp and might have offered a challenge had drugs not robbed us of his talent. At a stretch, the closest to Depp I can think of is Richard Burton but he perhaps owed too much of his star quality to Elizabeth Taylor and his acting legacy suffered from choosing too many poor roles and sad creep of alcoholism.

Yet even should you find an actor with the same range and quality, they’re probably missing that third ingredient which Depp brings to his roles and that’s a force of likability like no other.

All of which makes it sad that in recent years, the old Johnny Depp seems to have disappeared. There’s a shadow on our screens that looks and sounds like Depp but has been turned into a marionette by corporate America. He is the Disney puppet, the A list bank note that the billionaires cash in at the booth where the public buy their tickets. When his star was at its brightest, after the second or third Pirates of the Caribbean, it was rumoured that Depp wouldn’t return at Captain Jack. I rejoiced at the news but it never happened. After a couple of films that performed weakly at the box office, he’s came back as Captain Jack. Now he’s lined up to make Pirates 5, perhaps time to ask: where has the real Johnny Depp gone?

I remember discovering Johnny Depp for the first time when I saw Edward Scissorhands, a film so unusual that I thought the future of Hollywood would be so different. It was small in scale but big in ideas. Everything about the film was perfect but holding it all together was an actor who was not simply likable. He was lovable. He was the alienated kid who deserved everybody’s friendship. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that it’s that likability that Depp possesses in streaks. I think of his sublime performance in ‘Ed Wood’, making an unsympathetic character so very sympathetic. His finest moment was playing Raoul Duke in ‘Fear and Loathing’, his comic turn holding the deliberately wild mess together. Yet he has often done the same in lesser films where I grew to like his quirk, his lack of gravitas, the off centre kilter he brought to every role he played. Yet the quality of his résumé is easy to underappreciate: he was great for Polanski in ‘The Ninth Gate’ and as J.M. Barrie in ‘Finding Neverland’. ‘From Hell’ is a great adaptation of the graphic novel and then there’s ‘Donnie Brasco’, ‘Sleepy Hollow’, and the majestic ‘Sweeney Todd’.

Two of those remind us that he has always remained loyal to Burton but the under-funny ‘Dark Shadows’ was a missed open goal, a great premise but they needed somebody who could write witty one liners to cast an eye over the inadequate script. It was a reminder that somewhere Depp stopped being Depp. ‘The Tourist’ was a waste of all talents involved and ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was good but uninspired.

Yet looking down his list of films in this way, you begin to realise that Depp hasn’t gone as missing as much as we might have at first thought. Except for two years, 2010 and 2012, he has usually produced something of interest every year. If anything, this slight lapse has meant that he has simply become too synonymous with one movie franchise. In recent years, he still made ‘The Rum Diary’, based on the Thompson novel and perhaps closer to Depp’s heart. His new film, ‘The Lone Ranger’, looks loud, quirky, perhaps interesting (I’ve yet to see it), even if it seems to sit fat and heavy in the mainstream.

I think a lot rests on his next two films. He’s currently filming ‘Transcendence’, the directorial debut of Wally Pfister, better known as Christopher Nolan’s cinematographer. Then Depp is making ‘Mortdecai’ with David Koepp, who previously directed him in the underrated ‘Secret Window’ in 2004 (a great movie if you love movies about writers). These two films are chance to remind us of the old Depp before the next Pirates movie and then a rumoured sequel to 'Alice in Wonderland'.

For Depp fans, this is a key moment. I want the old Depp to come back and surprise me. I would like to see him work for Woody Allen or Scorsese, filmmakers that would let him inhabit a character in the way that became his trademark. I know that interesting Depp is still around. Perhaps his Keith Richards documentary will be the restart of his directorial career, prematurely abandoned after his one effort at the helm, 'The Brave'. That Depp took time to help make the Ralph Steadman documentary which is due out sometime this year. Perhaps these are signs that Depp is currently that rare thing in any profession: a person who can choose his destiny. If $20 million roles means that he can play games in the margins, then there might be something to be said about continuing with the Pirates films. But at the moment, I’m waiting to see that Depp re-emerge. He’s been a little too quiet recently and he’s been sorely missed.

What Jane Austen Can Teach Us About Charlie Brooker

Somebody around here has bought a clown’s horn. I keep hearing eeeee-hhoooonk every 15 minutes or so. However, I’ll press on, even if it does feel like some surreal criticism aimed my way after a night of torrential rains and furious cross-hatching.

I worked a long day drawing on Saturday. I finished two cartoon strips (three panels each) which I’ll eventually post here. I’ve agreed to draw them (and more) for the Liverpool fanzine, Red All Over The Land. I don’t know how many I’ll manage over the course of the coming season but we’ll see…

Honk! I can see this is going to drive me crazy…

This morning I noticed there’s been plenty of talk in the papers about ‘the world’s most savage TV critic’ Charlie Brooker. I don’t read his stuff but my sympathy is firmly with him if the reports are true that he’s trying to get Guardian bosses to turn off the comments beneath his articles. Of course, I understand the criticism aimed at him by those who believe in free speech. Free speech is one of the supposedly immutably good things in the world loved by people who also believe in the cleanliness of Bono’s underwear and the curative effect of Richard Branson’s chin whiskers. But elsewhere, free speech isn’t making as good a case for itself. Caroline Criado-Perez, the journalist who campaigned to get Jane Austen’s face on our banknotes, is now receiving threats of rape via Twitter. This time (rightly) there is no talk about free speech yet both stories highlight a difficult dichotomy that exists when people voice their opinions.

But first an aside: I’ve always detested Jane Austen’s novels. I had to study ‘Manfield Park’ for my English A level and, at university, we read a novel of hers every week during the first term (alongside all the other books we were studying). For six weeks, I was reading ‘Sense and Sensibility’, ‘Pride and Prejudice’, ‘Mansfield Park’ (again!), ‘Emma’, ‘Northanger Abbey’ and then ‘Persuasion’. I got through them all but whilst I understood her gentle wit and I admired her prose, she was just a writer whose world didn’t sit easily with my grim working class outlook. It was like being in the company of a journalist who deliberately turns their attention away from the big issues of the day to discuss the rate at which grass grows. There aren’t many English writers whose face I wouldn’t prefer adorning our bank notes.

But how valid is my criticism?

This is the age of the internet so every response is valid (say its supporters). It is the assumption that any act of criticism is of equal importance to any act of creation. I’ve never bought into that myself and it’s partly the reason why I quit academia. I could never buy into concept of failed writers (which many academics are and I would have been myself) opining about successful writers. Nothing filled me with more hostility that witnessing some poindexter standing at the front of a lecture theatre affirming Orwell’s greatness as if Orwell needed the affirmation of a humourless freak in a black turtle neck and sandals.

In the real world, the remarks often aimed at J.K. Rowling by hacks, bloggers and literary pundits are generally about as meaningful as any snide criticism we might make aim at Jane Austen. The best critics (indeed, the only critics I try to read) produce secondary acts of creation in response to their subject. The great Clive James writes criticism infinitely better than the subjects of his criticism rightly deserved. James Wood, one of our best critics, writes as well about great literature as great literature itself speaks about our lives. Martin Amis too is a blisteringly fabulous critic; much better, I would say, than he is a novelist.

To put that differently: there is no value in my writing ‘I think Jane Austen is shit’ but there is slightly more value in my writing ‘Jane Austen gave Julian Fellowes a good career’ or ‘Jane Austen is the Jeremy Clarkson of the veiled aside’ but even these are obviously not a patch on what Austen herself might have written. And I guess that’s the point I’m trying to make. If we want to go on the attack, we must raise our game.

Mark Twain probably came the closest when he said: ‘Every time I read “Pride and Prejudice,” I want to dig [Austen] up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.’

Now that is worth immortalising on our bank notes! Criticism is the act of heckling in written form. Every comedian can talk about the perfect heckle and I think they would recall them with a certain pride. Sometimes comments beneath articles can be better than the article itself. In those instances, a person has raised their game, produced something of value, and that is to be welcomed and cherished.

Yet if people can’t raise their game to Charlie Brooker’s level, then he has a right to ask for the comments to be disabled. Jane Austen belongs in my pocket until that moment I can put some suitable criticism into words as well formed and enduring as her own. In fact, the more Jane Austens in my pocket, the better…

The comments, as ever, are open and hecklers welcome.

Somebody At The Door

It's A Sparks Show: Episode 7

Sparks have filled my morning. First of all, I see that my original Sparks Show cartoon strip has been published (right) and can be found in French music magazine New Noise along with an interview with Ron and Russell Mael.

Less good news comes with the news that Sparks won’t be playing Manchester on their next tour. The UK dates have been announced and they’re limiting themselves to Glasgow, Bristol, and a few nights in London, meaning that despite my best efforts, Manchester won’t see them and, more importantly, I won’t see them. So bitterly disappointed...

Despite the absolute silence and zero feedback about my current work-in-progress (surely it’s not that bad or perhaps it is!), I’m posting the last of my Sparks strips. I didn’t post this before because I didn’t think it quite worked. Now I know that Sparks aren’t coming to Manchester, I realise that none of my strips worked how I intended so I might as well post this last one today… Naturally, click the image to view it full size.

Real Things People Say Sitting When Outside Wilko: Part 2

Trying to put the frustration of the Private Eye cartoon out of my mind, I've spent the afternoon inking this. Still a work in progress but now closer to the end than the beginning.

My big accomplishment today was thinking of an ending. This morning, I biked into town to take photographs around our local Wilko so I might have some reference material when drawing in the backgrounds. Not that it was needed. It was all brickwork, plastic fascias and mobility scooters. However, I'd also gone there to listen to people talking. I hoped something might inspire me to draw the last two frames, which I sat staring at deep into the night without inspiration. This morning, sitting outside Wilko for a few moments, I did talk to a local (about the weather), at which point I realised that I was sitting saying real things outside Wilko. When I got home, I drew myself into the final frame which seemed right and summed up my mood for this dismal day.

So my heart sinks looking at a Private Eye cartoon

Spirits are so low today I’m finding it really difficult to get going. I’m wondering why I even bother drawing cartoons. In a way, it feels like my creativity is continually stifled. I started out, a number of years ago, writing novels and I would have had one published – a light-hearted satirical skit loosely based on Jacob Rees Mogg – if the publisher hadn’t been gobbled up by Harper Collins. I still write novels and have 90,000 unfinished words sitting here on this computer. Except I know there’s so little chance of getting anything published that I might as well dump the manuscript in the local canal, myself with it…

So I reduced the scale on my ambition. I wrote spoof letters and had one book published. I have a second book finished, even better than the first, but I can’t find a publisher interested...

So I reduced the scale of my ambitions again. I started to draw cartoons and comic strips, thinking if I condense my wit, I might have more chances to be published and earn some small income. Yet even that is proving fruitless. I submit cartoons to Private Eye and every one has been rejected.

It’s depressing but, as Tom Waits would say: ‘that’s the business we’re in’. Rejection is a chance to revise and edit. As Nietzsche puts it: 'That which does not kill us makes us stronger.' When I met Steadman, he said 'rework your failures'. Rejection should make me question my work. Are my cartoons funny enough? Are they drawn well enough? How can I improve? I ask myself all those questions daily. I struggle through doubt, confusion, and monstrous self-loathing. Why can’t I just find myself a humdrum job and be happy?

Yet the spirits are never more batter than when something like this happens.

Yesterday I bought Private Eye and I saw this cartoon on page 13.

And this is what I submitted to Private Eye back in the New Year when it was quickly rejected.

It’s the same joke done different ways, different styles, but that is always bound to happen when cartoonists address the same material and same ugly world. Was mine submitted first or second? I can’t tell. Is it better or worse? I guess it’s for others to judge. Mine is less 'on the nose', as they say, but perhaps too detailed for a single panel gag. All I know is that it again makes me wonder just why the hell I even bother getting up in the morning...

Real Things People Say Sitting When Outside Wilko: A Work-in-Progress

This is the first time I've ever posted a work-in-progress but the four pages of this strip have turned into such a struggle to finish that I thought I'd give myself a small sense of accomplishment by putting the first two pages (or one A3 sized page) out there.

With this strip, I wanted to draw something funny yet based on real things I've seen or heard. I suppose I hoped by making this about my real life I might imbue the comedy with more relevance than my usual nonsense. I certainly spend too much time locking my bike up outside the local Wilko, so I get to hear snatches of gossip more entertaining taken in isolation than they would be in the context of the original conversation. I would say that the people are based on real people I see but my drawing skills are really to meagre to probably capture the twisted details of those very strange beasts.

Of course, it now strikes me that perhaps not everybody in the UK knows about Wilko or the kind of people who sit outside for hours on end. Perhaps it's a unique situation never repeated in the rest of the country or, for that matter, unique in the entire universe. Super beings probably cross millions of light years to witness such a spectacle, which is why I should probably carry on drawing page 2. It might be the thing I can finally submit to the competition I've been eyeing for the past few weeks.

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An Idiot's Guide to Unblocking, Cleaning and Ruining Rotring Isograph Nibs

2015 Update: Dear Isograph user/abuser. The following article will help you unblock your pen. It's the single most popular blog post I've ever written and I'm delighted I could be of use. Before you go, however, please do me the enormous favour and look around my blog. I'm friendly. I rarely bite. I welcome feedback from real people and if that real person is also a fellow cartoonist, then I hope you'll see that this blog is for you.

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I’m writing this because people keep arriving here after asking Google how to unblock an Isograph. I’m no expert but I do use Isographs on a daily basis and I’ve had to clear blocked nibs more times than is probably good for a man’s blood pressure.

There are probably official instructions out there but this is what I do. First, a word of warning: don’t hold me responsible if you bugger up your nib. That’s really easy to do if you need to expose the core. In fact, it’s so likely that you’d ruin the pen that I’d try every alternative method including prayers to ancient goat gods before I’d remove the innards from the finer Rotring nibs.

Most of the time, I get the nib working by shaking it. This is the key with the Isographs: they work because there’s a small weighted inner core, the end of which you can usually see poking out of the tip of the nib. If you look at diagram D, that’s the exposed inner core of the nib on the left. The image shows the core from the really thick 1.00 pen so you can imagine how thin these cores get on the finer pens. Again: I’ve removed that core just to show you but don’t try it yourself on your favourite 0.25mm Rotring unless everything else fails and you’re really happy to buy a new nib!

So, start off by giving the blocked pen a good shake. I often try to get a bit of whip like action into my wrist and shake it in the direction of the barrel. Wiping the end helps as does dipping the end in some clean water. Most of the time, that’s enough to get thing going again. In fact most days this is how I begin work: by shaking the pen until I can draw a good line.

If the pen is still blocked, I move to stage 2. If I leave the Rotring unused for any length of time, I’ll have to go through Stage 2, or sometimes I’ll do it after a couple of months when it starts to become too much of a chore getting the pen going each day.

Stage 2 involves removing the barrel, taking off the ink reservoir and giving the nib a thorough clean. I bought a cheap Ultrasonic Cleaner from Maplin for this purpose. It was in the sale and cost me about £30. Unfortunately, the bloody thing stopped working after about a month and I’ll be taking it back (if I can find the bloody receipt) but it did a fantastic job on the nibs for the time it was working. So if you’re really keen about unblocking your nibs, I’d recommend an ultrasonic cleaner, though preferably one that doesn’t break after a month’s use.

With or without the ultrasonic cleaner, you need to get all the hardened and thick ink from the outside of the nib. Remove the collar (the part indicated in diagram A). If it’s stuck, you can knock out the centre of the lid and use the resulting tube to twist and remove it. However, I can usually pull it off with my fingers. Now use a damp tissue and clean all the gunk from the spiraled groove and remove any hardened ink from the top of the nip. With that done, run the whole nib under a tap and then immerse it in some warm water with a little bit of detergent for about 10 minutes or so (or give it three or four minutes in your ultrasonic cleaner). Then rinse it out, all the time giving it a good shake to get the insides rattling again. Word of warning: this is messy. I usually end up with ink all over the kitchen walls.

I can’t stress how important it is to keep shaking the nib. That’s the key with the Isograph: if it’s got a clean rattle, then it probably draws clean lines. That weighted core inside the nib needs to be loosened up before you get your pen working again.

If you still can’t get it rattling, move to stage 3 and may the Lord have mercy on your soul...

This is where you can destroy your nib and you have to be cautious. I wouldn’t advise doing this with the very fine nibs. If you look on the back side of the nib (diagram B), you’ll see a groove. You can use that to unscrew the cover from the nib (diagram C) and you then expose the end of the weighted core. Don’t take that core out unless you’re really desperate to spend money on a new nib! On the finer pens, it’s as fine as a hair and you probably won’t be able to slide it back in without bending and therefore destroying it. And you can ruin it so easily. The smallest I’ve ever removed is on my standard .35mm pen but I wouldn’t like to try it on anything finer. In fact, I did destroy a .25mm Rotring the very first time I removed a core.

Anyway, if you remove the cover, you can either rinse the insides very carefully with water, making sure not to wash out the weighted core. If you do decide to remove the core you can give everything a good clean for the absolutely best results. However, on the really fine pens, the chance of getting the core back in is so very small. Again, an ultrasonic bath gets rid of the crud really easily.

Reassemble the pen and hopefully it will be full of water. I can tell if the pen is working again by drawing on a tissue. If the pen is rattling well and you can draw with water on your piece of tissue, then you’ve successfully cleaned your pen. Reattach the ink reserve (filled with ink, of course) and try to draw something that will earn you a fortune which you can then share any kind but poor souls who took time out of their day to help you in your moment of trouble.

Good luck! And if you found this blog post useful, it has probably saved you a whole lot of time and money. If so, please consider showing your appreciation by supporting this blog with a donation. Alternatively don't. I mean, this post has been up here since 2013 and it has been read thousands upon thousands of times. And do you know how many donations I've received to say thanks? None. That's right. None! It's enough to make a man give up and join some kind of Rotring pen cult where bare chested women sit around all day blowing the ink out of blocked pen nibs... I'd do it too if I had the money, which I don't.

Too Many Spoofers...

I posted a non-royal cartoon today because it fitted my contrary mood. I'm also running desperately low on these small one panel cartoons. I drew a sheet of six last week and I've now used them all.

I guess I should draw some royal baby cartoons but Private Eye’s headline ‘Woman has baby’ pretty much sums up my attitude to the news. Yet there was a time when I’d be all over this royal event, producing every conceivable Photoshopped joke, perhaps even writing a spoof 30,000 word book or drawing a series of cartoons. I would have used Twitter, created a spoof account, to voice the baby’s first thoughts about the world.

The fact that I’m not doing any of that, except for one five minute Photoshop last night, is a sign of how things have changed. Everybody is spoofing, usually with lamentable results and for no real purpose. Celebrities have no reason to fear the spoof because to be spoofed successfully is to find your fame more deeply engrained in the public consciousness.

The fake royal accounts actually enhance the status of the monarchy and no longer diminish it (though the royals do a good job of doing that themselves). Spoofs can make real people seem more likable by reducing them to identifiable traits in the way that Spitting Image often worked against its own agenda. Thatcher’s puppet started out as an attack on her policies and ended up by associating her with a series of stereotypes which actually had plenty of purchase among certain sections of the voting public.

So, I won’t be spoofing the royals today. My mind is in the real world, working on a new comic strip about a peculiar group of people I’ve been observing in my local town. I’ve almost finished the first page which I’ll post later today or sometime tomorrow.

Children's Entertainers of Yesteryear

Unscrupulous Websites Already Trying To Sell First Images Of Royal Baby

This Isn't A Blog Post

After blowing four day’s work on yesterday’s blog post, there’s no blog post for today. Well, except for this and this doesn’t count. If anybody needs me, I’ll be sulking in the garden shed.

Big Dog: The Vladamir Putin Comic Strip

It’s a surprisingly quiet Sunday morning in the real world but not quite so quiet online. There's a little something I wrote for The Pangolin over there and I’ve also managed to finish my latest comic strip, which I’m posting here. I think it’s an improvement over my last attempt but not good enough to submit to any competition. Comedy never wins anything and I don’t think this would even make any shortlist. Looking over it, I can see that I strayed into my preferred territory of slightly strange humour which won’t be shared by many people. I need to write something more heartfelt, lacking humour, and with some strong emotional message. Perhaps I’ll try to get the gothic tale written and drawn that I mentioned last week. I tried but go nowhere and drew this instead… Perhaps I just don’t have it in me to be sincere and serious (see my Elephant in the Room strip for an explanation why). All I know is that this feels like a lot of work just to throw away on a Sunday morning blog post.

Naturally, click the images to make them readable...

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A Lousy Cartoon For A Lousy Saturday

 

I don’t know why I even bother blogging or working in the summer months. The traffic is so slow I begin to wonder if the internet is trying to pass a kidney stone. Even if every visitor to this blog is welcomed with open arms they usually brush me aside to ask directions to the pornography or pictures of Angelina Jolie’s tattoos.

I’m also not going to sit here for much longer. Not today. I was enjoying the calm of the morning, admiring the brilliance of the trailer for Bill Plympton’s new film when the noise began. The screaming, the splashing, the screaming, the splashing, the complaining, the crying, the screaming, the splashing, the roar of approval from granddad, the screaming, the splashing, the screaming, the splashing…

It’s hard to think. I might as well push on. No bugger will read this anyway. Let it be the stream of my consciousness as I sit here a moment longer and endure the infantile banter… I put on the hot cups of my headphones and listen to some classical music, which I rarely do since I can’t listen to music and write. Lyrics get in my head and their rhythms break the rhythms of my writing. Classical music is better but not perfect. I’m listening to Handel’s Sarabande from the Barry Lyndon soundtrack but the screams still break though. Handel never had to compete against kids doped on sugar and devolved DNA.

There is a simple explanation as to why this happens. My neighbours on one side are complete and utter bastards. From the other side, we never hear a thing. In fact, every other neighbour is quiet, their children quiet, the friends and relatives quiet. But my immediate neighbours, they are just that kind of selfish bastards indifferent to what other people think or feel. They are the perfect embodiment of white van man created by the Thatcher years: low skilled but highly waged, with money to burn on every crass entertainment produced in China for B&Q and Homebase. They buy into every crazy and fad. They are the people who will destroy the world with their unending need for material goods. Their five cars have turned their once lush verge into a patch of soil and covertly spread gravel. They park across the pavement and make people walk in the road. I used to enjoy looking at the stars until they plastered their garden with solar lamps and then installed a small mock Victorian street lamp that burns through the night. They have more money than sense and… and now the noise gets louder and I feel myself getting angry but I won’t get angry. I could stick my head out the window and blow a baleful blast of rage but I don’t do that. People like us don’t do that. We want a quiet life without any squabbles between neighbours. We turn the music louder until we can barely hear ourselves think. We grit out teeth and mutter between ourselves that people like this ruin the world and have they no consideration for other people.

‘Grandma!’

‘Grandma!’

‘Grandma!’

Have I ever mentioned that these kids don’t even live around here? We just get their noise.

I’ll get no work done today unless I go to the local library which might be my only option.

I hate the summer. Summer belongs to my neighbours, snout lizards of the lowest order of cretin.

 

Red Alert! Condition Critical!

Stewart Lee's Usual Friday Morning Rant

As a fan of great comedy writing, I tend to hang on every word of Stewart Lee’s agitprop, which is why I feel so bright and savage this Friday morning. I lay in bed chucking over Lee’s latest policy statement about the place of writers in stand-up and, by the time I’d finished, Lee's feisty words had certainly got the blood pumping. It contains some fruity insights, a few slices of Bacon, and only one disappointing nugget in the form of his denial that he took a ‘sideswipe’ at Michael McIntyre. It’s a great way to begin the day but an even better way to spend your morning is to watch the hour long lecture that accompanies the piece. It’s very highly recommended for anybody interested in writing processes, comedy, or stand up. It reminds me again why Lee is one of the good guys and I'm even more committed to finding the money to buy a ticket for his Liverpool show even if I have to steal a swimming pool from a neighbour's garden and flog it at the local flea market.



Meanwhile back in the land of the failing comedy writers: last night I endured another episode in the long-running sitcom, ‘Neighbours in the aforementioned swimming pool’. The latest ran two hours and included the classic line: ‘Grandma! Do a backflip!’ Sadly, no backflips were attempted because I didn’t hear that other classic line: ‘Grandma! Why are you being admitted into a spinal trauma unit?’

About 2am this morning, I finished drawing the main lines of my latest strip, which I hope to submit to a competition in the coming days. My previous strip was full of heartfelt biography but probably didn't hold together, whereas this new strip is outright satire and has a more coherent narrative and some bits that might make people laugh. Or I hope it does, once I get all the crosshatching finished which is what I should be doing right now…

Almost Dangerous Hobbies

I Should Have Asked Kenneth Branagh…

Big news! The neighbour’s inflatable pool/urinal disappeared last night!

I gazed out the window at eight o’clock and saw a patch of dead grass which, to my eyes, looked as wonderful as any green patch of Eden. I went to bed happy and slept blissfully until I awoke this morning to a dim grumbling. At first, I suspected peptic troubles but then noticed that the noise was coming from somewhere about 25 feet below my lower intestine.

I peeled myself from my bed and padded over to the window. I threw open my curtains on a scene that would have made lesser men drop a third testicle. The pool was back and an electric pump was inflating it to an Olympic size. I swear this pool is getting bigger by the day! If I didn’t know better, I’d even say that the swine next door had gone out and bought a new one. They’re putting serious investment into their inflatables too. A huge dolphin meant to be ridden is now floating on the pristine waters of The Lake. This is going to be a long hot summer, about as relaxing as a crisis in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, I’m suffering with the heat. I’m currently working on a new cartoon strip which is progressing well. It’s funnier than my last one (or I hope it is) and with two of the four pages already done, there’s only two more to be pencilled in today whilst cricket it on in the background and I await the arrival of ‘Hell’s Klaxon’ aka next door’s grandchild.

It’s a strange business all around… I noticed that Kenneth Branagh was answering questions over at The Guardian. He’s currently in the area, appearing in Macbeth at the Manchester Festival. I racked my brains to think of something intelligent to ask but, in the end, I gave up and got two replies for my troubles. Despite my pretensions otherwise, I guess I’m as much a sucker for the aroma of celebrity as anybody… I now wish I’d sent him a Stan letter…

However his tip regarding ways to keep dogs cool in summer is proving very helpful. Not for any dog but for me. I’ve now got a commemorative tea towel (Rhyl variety) draped over my neck and it is definitely keeping me cool. I should have asked him about ways to take out an inflatable swimming pool from a distance of 25 feet. He seems a bright bloke. I have the feeling he might have known the answer.

The Proud Father Cartoon

The Summer Fun Cartoon

Yesterday's discussion with Barman got me thinking about the hygiene properties of swimming pools and it occurred to me that we'd probably think differently about sticking kids in these fungal pits if we described them exactly how they are.