Works in Progress 3: The Bee-Man

The Bee Man is the most labour-intensive project I'm working on at the moment. I actually took a break from it to finish all the Eddie and the Banshee drawings. It's a solid 7 days-a-week project when I work on it. I should be finished in about 30 days, give or take:

Works in Progress 2: Eddie

Eddie and the Banshee is just about finished. I'm going to tighten up the story and finalise the layout and that'll be that; until the Ed's get their hands on it, of course:

Works in Progress 1: New Cartoons.

I've drawn about 50 new cartoons and some have already started to age, which is the problem with cartoons about transient contemporary phenomena.

Blogger Nightmare

What a 'mare Blogger can be at times. I've just spent a fruitless period trying to update my Cartoon Fiend blog, but Blogger keeps knocking back the graphics. I managed to upload some, but I had to resave the jpegs before they would go up (no idea why). I'll try again, and if it doesn't work I'll just host them again. It's a apain.

I mentioned you in Dispatches.

One of my favourite cartoons is an old Punch cartoon by Michael Ffolkes, a couple of soldiers, in the trenches, and one is saying to the other 'I mentioned you in dispatches - I told them you're an absolute rotter.'

My Cartoon Fiend blog got a mention on two of my favourite blogs this week, Drawn and Mike Lynch's cartoon blog. I was so busy trying to upload graphics to the Cartoon Fiend blog I hadn't done my usual rounds which are, Cartoonist Club of GB Q and A forum, Darrin Bell's Toontalk site, the (cough, cough) Wisenheimer, the Comics Journal forum, my email, and then Mike Lynch's blog, Drawn, and Book Lust and all their associated links (all of which keeps me online for about 16 straight hours).

So, anyway, I was sending some email and I happened to catch a glimpse of my site statistics for the Online Cartoonist site (which is still a work in progress), and hundreds, literally, of people had paid me a visit in one day, which is highly unusual. I had no idea what had gone on, until I found those blog entries, that is. Man, it helps to have friends in high places.

Anyway, I did manage to do the rounds today and Drawn has a brilliant piece on some newly discovered drawings from Winsor McCay’s first comic strip, Tales of the Jungle Imps, which the grandaddy of animation did in 1903. Hand-coloured stuff, no less. Sumpteous. And Mike Lynch has outdone even himself, this time, with some brilliant photos of the NY NCS bash from his beloved Overlook.

Violence, Mott the Hoople were wrong!

'Violence, it's the only thing that'll make you see sense'. Well, that was easy for big-haired Ian (a man with wringlets) to belt out at the time, I suppose - but it's getting to be a nightmare out there.

The 55 stabbings throughout Britain over the knife-amnesty weekend weren't highlighted because the figure was unusually high, the stabbings were highlighted because of the irony of the amnesty. There are around 55 stabbings in Britain every weekend.

Just the other night, in Edinburgh, a 33 year-old man was stabbed in the side when he passed a group of youths on Slateford Road. So, there's a fun night out for all concerned.

We now have a situation where it seems that every yobbish youth carries a knife as an 'offensive weapon'; which is leading normally law-abiding, non-yobbish youngsters to carry knives as 'defensive weapons'. Pretty soon everyone will be armed, just in case. I tell you, per capita, if we could carry guns in Britain, we'd have more murders than there are in Iraq; where the average life expectency is around the same age as it is in the Royston area of Edinburgh. And the knife-carrying youngsters are getting younger and younger, with more and more 11 to 13 year olds
carrying the things. Now where can they be getting the impression that violence is the way to solve all your problems?

Damn, but Blogger can be quirky

Well, I haven't slipped, it's just that Blogger can be a trifle duifficult at times. I spent hours try ing to get Dave (Loose Parts) Blazek's interview onto my Cartoon Fiend blog. I tried to upload graphics for two days, to no avail, and then decided to host them myself on my Online Cartoonist site. Anyway, Dave's interview is online now - and it's both informative, and funny.

Da Vinci Code, Poussin, and Arnold Wagner

I haven't read the book, and I won't be going to see the Da Vinci Code movie. It's mainly balderdash and besides, do you really think we Scots want you lot to know that the Holy Grail is buried in the fake wall at Roslin Chapel?

I have very few connections with Roslin, apart from the Robert the Bruce death mask inside the place. My ancestor, McKie, shot the Bruce standard of two crows killed with a single arrow. It's a cute little place, but basing the company that made Dolly the Sheep a stone's throw from the Chapel that boasts the DNA-Helix inspired Apprentice Pillar seems a little, well, stage-managed. Don'tcha think? And isn't it odd that The Queen's bodyguard, at a time of tensions with some Middle Eastern factions, should be a member of the St Clair family, owners of Roslin Chapel?

Anyway, I digress, when I was younger (a long time ago) I read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and it had the same imaginitive leaps in the narritive as the Da Vinci Code. I was interested in Rennes Le Chateau, not least because a relative has a house in Rennes, but because that really was an interesting little tale, but 'Et in Arcadia Ego', the painting by Poussin was the thing that most caught my eye because I like that strange painting. I mean, a Sheperdess standing beside two men in Masonic poses pointing to the inscription 'I too am in Paradise' - what is that all about?

So, anyway, Celts, and things mystically Celtic, and my chum, cartoonist Arnold Wagner, author of The Idiots Guide to Cartooning. Where does it all tie-in? Well, Arnold told me a while back he was reading up on the Celts, and I just wondered if he had any room inside that head of his for any more knowledge. If you want to know anything about cartoonists, about cartooning, about pens, about nibs, about just about anything in this business you can ask Arnold and if he isn't too busy, and even often when he is, he'll tell you what he knows. He is a mine of information, and tremendously good-hearted about sharing it with you.

So anyway, Arnold's ill at the moment. Despite this he managed to pop round the boards he frequents and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he even updated his blog (he's that kind of guy). Why, he even apologised to me for not getting round to doing his Cartoonfiend interview on account of - his being ill at the moment. I tell you, they made human beings from better stuff in those days.

I'm about as sure as I can be that this is just another little test that Arnold will come through with flying colours, and just to help him on his way I'm sending modern-day digital prayers and good wishes, and ancient Celtic mystical fluences all the way to the US to wish Arnold a speedy recovery. You know, the www is already a lot duller while he's offline.

Time to Vent

I haven't really had a good rant for a while, so I've stored up one or two little niggles. I'm pissed on behalf of the English at the moment, and their hose-pipe bans. The Blair government privatized the water companies and then did nothing when property-developers were allowed to buy reservoirs which has gone on to cause...yes, a water-shortage, in one of the most miserable rain-soaked little islands on the planet.

Looking after the shareholders first, of course, puts added pressure on the profits and the half-wits haven't reinvested in the basic infrastructure so the tatty old pipes loose hundreds of gallons of water a day - so they impose a hose-pipe ban, whilst continuing to charge the same water rates. Man, this is a great country in which to be utterly incompetent, lob a big FU at the people who pay your wages, and still make a chunk of dough.

My other big bug-bear is those bastard loan companies who try to screw the gullible and the poor into signing away their own, and possibly their children's, future. Day-in- day-out they try to sucker people with unsecured debt into consolidating their loans by putting up their houses as security. I've started muting the TV when those ads come on, for fear of putting my head through the screen.


Don't think I'm not as annoyed as hell about the worsening situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, or this Mexican border business, because I am, but I'm trying to remain calm in order to get some work finished. My one glimmer of hope for international affairs is that it is now just as difficult to find anyone who voted for Blair or Bush, as it was to find anyone who voted for Thatcher, and in a few short months her own people kicked her the hell out.

Spectator Cartoons get worse.

Let me make my position clear on this; I know exactly where I fit into the cartoon firmament. I get paid $800 a cartoon, but often work for less, especially in my home country. I've got work in collections and museums. I have nothing left to prove. I have no need to work for the Spectator, and have nothing to gain from criticising their cartoons - but I'm going to do it anyway.

Mike Heath is the Cartoon Editor of the Spectator, so he ultimately must take the blame for the risible crap they publish, but the cartoonists themselves are actually producing the crap and cashing the cheques - so they aren't blameless. Here's a link to the cartoons: Spectacularly unfunny stuff.

Clearly, there's a problem, or two. Well, they don't pay well - that's a given. But I think there's another problem, and that is the closeness of the Cartoon Editor to the crowd at another direly unfunny publication; Private Eye. The majority of the Eye cartoonists stopped being funny years ago, around about the time most of them hit retirement age, and yet they are nodding to indicate they wish to 'stay on'. And all the same unfunny-cartoonists' names crop up with depressing regularity in the Spectator. The effect of this is similar to the problems the British sit-com experienced when Terry and June was given air-time, namely, that aspiring youngsters mimicked what was already being bought. So not only is the Spectator stuffed with crap old cartoons, but it's also attracting crap new cartoons as the 'beginning' cartoonists out there copy both the look, and the parochial humour of the publication.

Here's the sort of cartoon you won't find in the Spectator, that is until one of their favourite 'cartoonists' produces a variation of it:

Defrag My Puny Brain.

My God! I forgot my password to this blog all day yesterday. I keep all my passwords in my head. For some reason they store in that normally safe area I reserve for literary quotes and allusions 'She was an outstanding light heavyweight with a commanding eye and a square-jaw' (Mulliner Nights, P.G. Wodehouse). But it vanished completely. I was flumuxed.

I am doing quite a bit extra these days, but it can't be work-related. The Cartoon Fiend blog (brilliant interview from Brian Fies, author of Mom's Cancer) isn't really work, it's fun, and although I'm faffing about with Java to turm my Mezzotint adaptation into an actual online book (literally), I didn't write the code, I'm just tweaking the easy to manipulate bits.

So I reckon all the information is just becoming a little more jumbled-up in the old noggin, so I need to defrag it. I'm going to write down everything I know (it'll take hours) and see if that helps compartmentalise everything back into place. Lord knows I'll be forgetting my own name next.


Best,

Aubrey Bottinghole III.

Here are a few static Mezzotint pages for you Ludites:

(You know the drill, click to see larger pics)

Cartoon Fiend updated!

I've been busy on the Cartoon Fiend blog, where I've added interviews with Peter (Apocalypse Nerd, Hate) Bagge, Rick (Baby Blues) Kirkman, and veteran gag cartoonist Dave Parker.

The Cult of Bod!

Man, that Ian Ellery just blew my mind. He stuck a finger up my nasal-cavity reached in and swirled my brain around, like a swizzle-stick agitating the ice in a huge glass full of something like Martini with ice, metaphorically, of course, when he brought up Bod on the UK Cartoonists Forum.

You know, when I was younger, kids TV was pretty trippy. I mean, you think the Teletubbies is trippy? Come of it, they had really weird stuff, back in the day. Now Bod, Bod was weird by any standard, and seeing it now, it seems even weirder. I mean, I'm asking myself just how big an influence on modern culture Bod was. Was Sacha Baron-Cohen (Ali-G) a Bod fan? It sure looks like it.



And then there's Moby, and comedian Harry Hill, there's no way that they 'accidentally' look like Bod, if you ask me, there's some kind of universal media-type Bod cult going on out there.

Feel there is something missing in your life? Join The Cult of Bod - IF YOU DARE!

The Cartoon Fiend!

Okay, here's what happened. I know a lot of cartoonists, and I'm a real cartoon fan - what you might call a geek (for cartoons). I have always been obsessed with cartoons and comics, which is why I became a cartoonist. Anyway, I thought it might be a good idea to start a blog that contained nothing but interviews with cartoonists, so The Cartoon Fiend blog was born, but, and here's the interesting part, they would all answer the same questions.

Anyway, it's turning out pretty well, apart from the anonimity that is. I was being a little bit coy about my identity, playing the Fiend if you will, but I filled in a blogroll thing which gave me a search engine on the site and has something to do with site-watching and feeding and things. And right there beside the 'search button' is a 'profile' link, and I click it and lo-and-behold the the site announces who I am. So, what can you do? I am the Cartoon Fiend - there, I said it.

Rod McKie, aka The Cartoon Fiend, at work.

So far, the Fiend, sorry, I, have posted interviews with Chris Browne, the cartoonist behind Hagar the Horrible and Raising Duncan, Sandra Bell-Lundy, who draws Between Friends, prolific magazine cartoonist Randy Glasbergen, who also draws The Better Half, multi-talented cartoonist and designer, Stephanie Piro, who also works on Six Chix, the prolific, and hugely talented book illustrator Christine Tripp, and enormously funny UK-based magazine cartoonist Kevin "KES" Smith. I'm adding more interviews daily. Including one from the shy, reserved, and seldom controversial (Malcolm) McGookin.

Awards Ceremonies

As a British cartoonist I've always Admired the NCS of America's Reubens Awards Ceremony. It's a real black tie affair, which I appreciate, and then there's parties and dancing (because ladies go to the thing) and Kareoke, and even lolling around in and around a pool afterwards. I tend to contrast it with my dim-memories of the British event. Which I remember as being almost entirely male-affairs, and always in London, during the rain. Of course my memory might be coloured, yellow, because the last time I was there I returned with Jaundice.

Here's the Hogan's Alley photo collection from the Reubens 2004 weekend, and the Reubens 2005.

Anyway, this year I know a few of the people up for the US awards, and I'd like to wish PAT BYRNES, GLENN McCOY, DAN COLLINS, GARY McCOY, TOM RICHMOND, and MARK PARISI well for achieving the great success of being nominated for these awards. Whoever wins, it will be well deserved.

My chum, Dan Collins, who of course is always introduced as 'Hustler Cartoonist Dan Collins' is one of the cartoonists up for the Greetings Cards awards. I try not to refer to him as 'Hustler Cartoonist Dan Collins' because although he is one of Hustler's best, and sharpest cartoonist, that moniker plays down the other facets of his cartooning personality. In addition to working for Hustler, Dan is also an editorial cartoonist, an illustrator, and has a new book coming out soon through Fantagraphics. Dan is also one of America's leading Greetings Card artists. I've likened him to Britain's great Greetings Card artist, Donald McGill, I genuinely think he is that good.


There is, of course, another massive cartooning awards ceremony in the US, The Eisners (I was a huge Will Eisner fan and I still collect The Spirit comics and books), which I'm pleased to say has a Web Comic category. Here's a list of last year's Eisner winners. I think that the excellent Copper, is just about my favourite web comic these days. For a while it was Bee Comix, which I still really, really, like. But the standard is so high these days that we really are spoiled for choice. Here's a selection of some of, in my opinion, the best web comics out there:

The superlative Copper
The groundbreaking Supernatural Law
Ssh, Secret Friends
The massively talented Hope Larson
Dicebox, brilliant
Love Bee
Girl Genius, well, genius
Huge talent, Roger Langridge's Hotel Fred

The excellent Little Dee by Chris Baldwin
Adam Reed's superb Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life
The Perry Bible Fellowship Archive.
Fantastic comics from Raina Telgemeier.

Jason Thomson's marvelous, The Stiff
Just super, Templar, Arizona, by Spike
Astronaut Elementary and other wonderful comics, by Dave Roman
Scott Kurtz's phenomenally popular, PVP

Little Cenobites mini comic

I'm still waiting for Shoitcrock to get here, but that's hardly surprising as it's parcel post, which takes forever. I've put the mini comic Kim, Dominique and I did, together as an Adobe Acrobat file, which you can download here. Either right-click and 'save target as' into your 'My Documents" folder, on IE, or click and Acrobat will open it online and you can save it. On Firefox you can click it open with Acrobat, or right click 'save link as' and it'll save the file to disc.

Little Cenobites (feat' Little Pinny) and Other Tales, mini-comic.

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

My goodness me. Talking about smoking cartoons, I drew a cartoon about anti-smoking regulations in 2004, it was about New York and it featured a 'Smoke Easy'. Well, I sold the cartoon to my favourite crime-fiction magazine Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, but it's a bi-monthly publication and it takes a while for cartoons to appear, and today my copies arrived. It's next month's issue, June 2006, so I won't put the cover up as a spoiler, but I'll put a copy of the cartoon here, shortly:

Thank you Stephanie.

My friend, cartoonist Stephanie Piro, sent my daughter Dominique a surprise package today containing one of Stephanie's brilliant tees. That's right, in addition to drawing the syndicated stripSix Chix, and Fair Game, and cartoons for the book Love Me or Go To Hell : True Love Cartoons, multi-talented Stephanie also makes badges and strikingly original t-shirts.

For the first time in weeks my daughter has a smile on her face and a spring in her shuffle.


A quote from Stephanie.
About Six Chix.

Hey Matt

Matt, I sent that one out a month or so ago. Maybe Phoenix used it, I'm not sure. I didn't know people could post. Hope you're well.

The Chatter

You might spot a current theme (well themes) on a couple of the cartooning blogs I link to. It's old TV shows and dolls, er, action figures. That jammy so-and-so Mark Anderson has gone and picked up a bug-catcher Spiderman doll, er, action figure, and I want one. Mike Lynch, meanwhile is listing some great old TV shows (my favourites were My Favourite Martian, Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, etc,etc) and Rick (Baby Blues) Kirkman mentioned Captain Scarlet. Well, it just so happens that I have my Captain Scarlet doll, er, action figure, right here beside me as I'm drawing. Yes, I've given up the helper monkey and Captain Scarlet now picks the pens for me. Today he chose a Rapidograph Ko-i-Noor: