Today’s creative act for me was to shrug off that nagging script-writing job that was due, and get some flipping sleep.
Those editors can take comfort in that I know what I’m doing. Here’s the story plan,
167: Creative Planning
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168: Beano, Menace, Codswallop and Hand
Every so often, on anniversaries, press releases and the final Dandy in print, there’s a chatter of codswallop that goes something like this, give or take some aspects:
The Beano/Dandy isn’t British anymore. They’ve changed it. He isn’t allowed to hit Walter, who has a girlfriend now. He’s all “rad, dudes!”, and he doesn’t look the same, and he does nice things. They’ve changed it, They’ve changed it, They’ve changed it!!!
Talk to teh hand, cos ze face, it ain’t lissenin.
My FB feed seems to be a good place for rational discussion (heheheehe YEAH, YEAH) When these same ignorant generalisations came up a while back, I decided to post some ignorant generalisations of my own. Here’s the crib:
1. Social attitudes towards homosexuality in the 1950s when Walter was created was one of “the other”, or “the enemy”, disgusting and open for ridicule. A bit too cutting edge to make Walter gay, but they certainly went for camp and feminine. In the 1980s and 90s, Walter was shown engaged in a fair bit of transvestitism and shortly after they began to roll back from “the LGBT baddie in a kid’s comic”. Until this time, there is very little change in the set-up: which leads us onto my next point.
2. Why the Darria would kids of today want to read a comedy about a cool punk and his society holding 1950s values?
3. Journalistic/Reviewer integrity: If I’d a quid for every journalist who wrote, “I’ve cancelled my Beano/Dandy subscription because it’s not what it was”, I’d be doing okay. Double that where they hadn’t read those comics since they themselves were kids, and I’d be a rich man. Liars. They contribute to falling sales and less job security for brilliant cartoonists. (eg. Jamie Smart) Come on, where’s your evidence that you actually bought those comics recently or had them bought for you as gifts? Let’s get academic here. The entire debate glosses over ‘reader types’ anyway.
4. Dennis the Menace US and UK are two unlinked entities, both created in 1951, with the UK version published five days ahead. Have never read the comic or seen the film and can’t comment on the crappiness of either. I did see Beavis and Butthead do their rendition of the Brady Bunch theme tune and that was quite good.
169: Photos – Birthday Buffet Afters
Today I wrote a blog post managing to include commentaries on the work ethic, the play ethic, and someone who pissed on my parade taking a knife to his own creative nose. I thought you might be better off with some photographs from a birthday gathering for my girlfriend Dawn,
…Michael, and Julie…
Yes, Julie has Tennant-cake.
The noodles, I did not try. My previous encounter with a buffet left me in agony, tears and a difficulty walking. Whether it was the Yorkgate cook or my own inexperience with buffets, I could not say. Either way, it seemed safer to eat things I do find exciting about the experience: dry brown items, particularly sesame seed prawn toast.
Michael and Dawn are both vegetarians and I think I’m right in saying, had a much better experience at the Chinese buffet in the Victoria Centre than at the other buffets in Belfast where a wick selection had them working mostly at the dessert end.
Dessert selection is atypical at these places, but there was a cut above here. I think this lass is eating prawn crackers and maple syrup.
Okay, maybe not. But seriously, savoury and sweet will mix to win if vol-au-vents always make you happy.
Victoria Square, China Buffet King: How people smile after dessert generally makes for a good review of a place.
170: Suspenders Troll
Ducky suggested I draw a troll.
Lethargy is eating at me today, my skin is burning up. I’ll manage that photo blog post tomorrow and try for an early night.
171: Edwardian Character Sketches
172: Locked Doors
There were no electrics, just the feel for blood and fluffy spider’s homes, abandoned saucer, and a penny from another age. The echoes were gone, stopped after the door was sealed. A lopsided rotary telephone, pale green waste of the 1980s hung off the orange sponge. There was no room for ghosts, but the photo seeped in regardless, and the buttons, nuts, screws, washers and bolts. The key hung in the lock always then, black and thin, but it was enough. Too easy it turned. When us boys were of age the doorway saw it’s last influx – a surrealist inferno of snakes and ladders weeping through these Elysian fields. The Rubik cube chucked, Evil Kinevil came off his bike, the 1981 Sapphire and Steel annual was 2-D only.
The sports-men retirement didn’t seem so bad – twilight years reading editions of Valiant, and Lion. The Arsenal Subbuteo team counted among them a fatality, two cripples, and the comics attracted silverfish and held the damp. In time the dust fell upon Bond’s car clogging the engines, the plans of Thunderbirds International Rescue were of no use to anyone.
In happier times, I’d locked my brother in there.
I returned to the house to help them move but when I got to the cupboard, the key had been removed, just as it was when The Brother Wars were at their fiercest. It was locked. On the other side, Action Man and Buggy Boy, Streamline and Lego Tom Baker waited. In that keyhole chink of light they heard the compact digital that played only 80s music. It should have been a living hell but provided consistency and stability, like nursery rhymes. The glint of new neighbours illuminated the chequered red and white table-cloth, the shinier bits of the cutlery and the cleaner laminate. The curtains came off and the muddy old windows were exchanged for the 21st century. Children entered the house again. They regarded the keyhole with curious eyes. The middle class parents made them watch Blue Peter were sugar-drunk presenters raved about British Pathe, time capsules and the Wayback Machine.
173: Pork Chops IV
174: Pork Chops III
Lovely day at the Game-a-Thrones yesterday and doing the causeway of giants today. Photos to come, but now, I know you want some more fine speciality meat products.
175: Pork Chops II
Why pork chops?? A conversaton with GarethJam, led to his producing a pork chop from his fridge freezer which he showed off with great pride, and no plate.
176: Pork Chops
Today, I’m sharing with you the sketches that started this attempt to pull myself out of the malaise. Create something new, whatever it takes. No matter how silly, stupid, pointless or futile, create. And do it regularly. So, I decided, I’d draw some pork chops.
The last sketch came about because I was entering internet webcam chat rooms and asking people to bring their pork chops to the camera so I could draw them. Oddly, I didn’t get any masturbators, nor did I get any pork chops, but vegetarians making themselves known, in a way that suggested I had just punched their mothers in the ribs. That sketch is for them.
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