It's Weird But...

Borghal's piccy.

Okay, I know you'll think this is weird, but I can't write anything at the moment because of the Feng Shui (wind water). I'm afraid my Qi is just all messed up at the moment, man.

I have two set-ups you see, computer, scanner and printer, in one area and it faces "in-the-way" (no directional sense , sorry - might be East). In the other room I keep a laptop and all-in-one printer where I draw. Where I draw faces "out the way", through a picture-window, to landscape - it's the opposite of this. That is my writing area. However, my laptop AC adaptor blew, and I have to get a new one, but I forgot and ordered P.G Wodehouse's Woodhouse Playhouse; thanks largely to Brian Fies and Mike Lynch and I suppose Raina Telgemeier,

Digression: Stop Press; how cool is this, I just added the link and spotted that Raina Telgemeier has original art from The Baby Sitters Club books, up for grabs. What a great present.

because a conversation concerning all three was on my mind when it should have been Fujitsu cable.

So here I am, reluctantly sitting at the computer facing the wrong way, and for some reason it makes me uneasy and unproductive, so I'll leave shortly and go watch John Alderton as Mister Mulliner, and Pauline Collins as a variety of very attractive, plummy gels.

If you ever wondered why cartoonists are lone creatures who dislike working with other people, you now know why - they are just a little bit off-kilter. I'll be back when the Feng Shui works, and when my new cable arrives.

A (comic) book of delights, that's Nick Mag.

I hate posts on noticeboards and websites where people say 'a lot of people ask me' and you think well who? Who are they who ask? I don't know people who ask. Why do they ask you? More often than not they are just making it up, I think. I mean, I've been doing this a long time and the only time 'people' ask me anything is when I'm in the pub and they say 'you're a cartoonist, do you know ...?' and I answer 'he/she is dead'.

However, other cartoonists ask one another things all the time, but usually in a round-about way, so as not to arouse any suspicion. Like this: 'How are you, I hear such and such a publication is now taking emailed submissions; are you aware of this?' This usually means that they have picked up an unsubstantiated rumour, but if you verify it and maybe supply a contact address, they can check it out. I think that the maroons who send out those Nigerian banker-scam 'phising' emails could learn a lot from cartoonists.

Anyhow, I am often asked (I've been asked twice now) 'what do you consider to be the best cartooning publication out there'? Well, in terms of sheer creativity, and energy, and space and for experimentation, I'd have to say, Nickelodeon Magazine (US). Susprised you eh? I've never failed to be astonished by the sheer energy in the magazine and I know of no other publication that so successfully mixes artists, illustrators and cartoonists from the indy and mainstream scenes. In any one issue you might find work by Kaz, Sam Henderson, Johnny Ryan, Charles Burns, Robert Leighton, Aaron Reiner, Dave Pilkey, Raina Telgemeier, etc, etc, etc. It is like, at times, a barely contained whirlwind of artistic styles and talents, which is a big testament to the skills of the editors involved. I just wish we had something like it over here (whisper: the British version blows).