Buy this blog a cake!

Well, it's been two years since I started keeping a blog, with this as my very first post. It's been a very up and down two years, (mostly downs, probably, but I would say that, being both a Brummie and a pessimistic old git!) but the fact that my witless prose (213 posts and counting...)is read and enjoyed by some people is a gratifying one. Thanks to all my readers that have left comments, they've been, for the most part, amusing, supportive and complimentary, (except for those nasty ones from those menopausal celibates who moaned at me for having a go at Sir Cliff; They're entitled to their opinion, but apparently, I wasn't entitled to mine! It was only a little sly dig as well! Imagine what the response would've been if I'd actually said something really bad about the bloke. Like my opinion of his 'music'.) and thanks to those regular readers who lurk about but don't say anything. Make yourself known! Share the love!
Anyway, this blog is now two years old (well, tomorrow it is, anyway, but I'll be busy tomorrow banging my head at a gig. It's about time they put higher ceilings in at the Academy!) and like any two year old, it occasionally craps itself, but it's still full of unfulfilled potential. Any blog birthday cakes will be gratefully received.

Cheers.

Frankenstein, Dracula and a Crocodile?!

I had to laugh at the newspaper today. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a monarchist at all. There's this inquest happening at the moment, which has cost upwards of £10 million pounds, just to rule that Lady Di died becaused she was being driven by a pissed up bloke at high speeds and forgetting to clunk click. What a waste of money. Or so I thought, but new evidence has come to light from Mr. Al Fayed that Prince Phillip's real surname is 'Frankenstein', he's a Nazi and a racist (those two do tend to go together, Mr Al Fayed) and this mockery of man stitched together from cadavers* and wearing an SS uniform was head of a conspiracy (that included the secret service, Tony Blair, and Di's own sister!) to kill the Princess Of Hearts, just so his son could bring a crocodile he was shagging into the folds of the 'Dracula' family that is currently ruling Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
I don't know about you, but that sounds reasonable to me. He's never going to get that British passport now. And Fulham are going down. That's probably the Duke Of Edinburgh's fault as well. Scheming Nazi Undead racist bastard!

*I know Frankenstein was the scientist and not the monster. Just thought I'd get that in before some smartarse does.

Oh, and the picture is from a series of strips I did for the 'newspaper strip'-type anthology Lost Property called The Adventures Of Prince Phillip. Check it out if you can!

Roll on May 22nd!!

I know today is V.D. day (Valentine's day), but my letterbox was hardly overflowing with cards from sex-starved secret admirers, so I'm going to go off-tangent. Well kind of, because this is sort of about something I love, the Indiana Jones movies. I remember first seeing Raiders Of The Lost Ark at junior school, it was an end of term treat. We all packed into a classroom, sat on desks as well as the chairs, and the blinds closed out the encroaching summer, and we watched the film on one of them new fangled top-loading betamax video recorders. It blew my mind then as an eight year-old, I remember that day very fondly, and now, when I'm well into my thirties, I still love that movie, because it still entertains me as much now as it did then.

(There are things now, though, that mildly bother the thirty-three year old me after repeated viewings- Like, how does Indy know that to avoid being melted by the ghosty/angel/demon things at the end you just have to avoid looking at it? You assume he's read it somewhere, but it's not explained. And when those blokes from the government come to see Indy about a top-secret mission, Dr. Jones just happens to have a big antique book about the Ark of the Covenant under his arm? Or when they decipher the markings on the headpiece to the staff of Ra, we're told that the staff should be 72" tall, yet when Indy uses it, it's at least 18" taller than he is, which means they've bollocksed it up or Harrison Ford isn't much taller than Kenny Baker. I'm letting these things go, though. I don't want to sound too much like a net nerd!)

Anyway, I only bring this up because I saw the trailer for the fourth instalment, I'm excited, now (even though it's got Ray Winstone in it. Kinda sick of looking at his mush for some weird reason, but I'll get over it!) and it's coming out on my Birthday! I just hope George Lucas hasn't brought his 'fix it 'til it's fucked' philosophy to this franchise like he did with Star Wars . Have a butcher's yourself and see what you think:

Radio Ga-Ga, Marley Ta-Ta!

Well, it's (more or less) finished. There's a couple of panels that need re-doing because I've drawn the wrong building (it was Google's fault! It's best to do it again, because some smartarse reader would've pulled me up on it!), and there's problems with the scans, (but that should be sorted shortly) but, mostly, Septic Isle is completed. Look left for a sample image!

I spent all of last week staying up until very late (at one point I had two cigarette lighters holding my eyelids up. I couldn't find the matches.) getting the last eight pages pencilled, then inking the last twelve or so pages. While I was doing this, I got very, very fed up with my CD collection. I have hundreds and I must've listened to each one at least twice in the last month or so. So for the final stint, I resorted to the radio.

Evening/late-night radio is a very different beast to its daytime equivalent. The playlists are different for a start, and the phone-in show is king. I'm allergic to Radio 4, I think. I can't be bothered with reviews of the latest pile of shite on at the Barbican, or interviews with the latest shyster to unveil another bigger pile of shite at the Tate Modern, and I've never found I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue that funny. I think Radio 4 is something you listen to when you grow up, and I'm yet to do so, and I'm too old for Radio 1, too young for Radio 2 and not enough of a classical music buff for Radio 3, and BBC WM is utter, utter bilge (unless there's a Villa match on, natch.) so I was stuck with the commercial stations. Now, you listen to enough of these for a while, you learn a few things.

The adverts, for a start, are mostly the government telling you to behave. Road tax evasion, benefit fraud, binge drinking, sharing needles and unprotected sex are all frowned upon. And so they should be, but it was like Chinese water torture listening to these ads again and again. There's one particular ad that warns against unprotected sex, which is a lad with a Liverpudlian accent telling me about his genital herpes that I must've heard about seven hundred and fifty-eight times in the last week. Talk about the City of Culture! I got so sick of hearing about this Scouser's scabby scrotal sac (alliteration!!) that I'm never going to wear a condom ever again just to spite him. (That may sound reckless, but it's okay, as Pope Benedict XVI probably gets more action than me lately!)

The people who get on these late-night phone-in discussion shows must be vetted to make the host sound clever. I've always wondered who can be bothered to phone up these shows anyway, and why are they still up? They can't have any work or anything meaningful to do, as they'd be doing it and wouldn't have the time. They obviously don't want to sleep, or they do sleep during the day and miss every news bulletin because most of them don't have a clue what's going on around them. So, generally, the host draws his conclusions on the topic of the night on the opinions of a bunch of lonely, ill-informed insomniacs with nothing better to do. For example, one show I listened to had Nick Pope on, he was the MOD's UFO investigator for a few years, and he was talking about all his reports which are soon to published under the Freedom of Information Act, and he said something along the lines of 'some information, such as addresses, and sensitive military and technical data will still be censored, this is for security reasons, but the conspiracy theorists will have a field day saying it's something else.' To which some bloke (from Sheldon, just up the road from me) phoned in and replied "Why does he use the words 'conspiracy theory'? It ain't a theory, it's real. Aliens have been coming down and mutilating our cats for years! That's a fact!" (Actually, later on in the same show, they had James Randi on, the famous sceptic, who has offered a million dollars of his own money to anyone who can conclusively prove to him that they have psychic powers. The money's stayed in his account so far. During his interview, they had a break which featured an advertisement for Derek Acorah's upcoming show at the Birmingham Alex. Well planned, that was. It's almost as if Derek knew...)

Anyway, I've survived listening to all this (I found it amusing, for the most part) to get this book finished, and it's going to leave a bit of a hole in my life for the immediate future (actually, some of the characters end up with a bit of a hole in them as well!) but there might be a sequel, so I don't think I've seen the last of Marley just yet. I was just thinking the other day that since i started working on this I've gone through a marriage break-up, a house move and four other break ups. Bloody hell. Let's hope the sequel is drawn during a less 'interesting' time!

Got it covered.

Hey there! Long time no see. I've been busy working on Septic Isle, and I'm on the home stretch now, all the pencils are done, and I'm now inking the last few pages. I've stopped for a bit, to show you the fantastic cover, by the outrageously talented Declan Shalvey. It's been on here before, but this is the completed one, with the coverlines and everything. Cool, eh? Also, a little ambition of mine has been realised; I've got my name on the cover of the comic! (I've had my name on a back cover, and on the inside cover, but never on the front.Fame at last!) When it comes out, I want all seven of you to go out and buy a copy, right?

Anyway, I hope you're all well, but I've got to get back to my drawing board! See you soon.