Rocking across the multiverse

Kids! Desperate to catch the next Roads gig, but worried you might forget the date, time and/or venue? Well, now there's a simple solution! Simply print out the poster above and ask a grown-up to write in the appropriate information in the handy blanks in the concluding panel. It couldn't be simpler (unless you check the Myspace page or just write it down on a normal piece of paper)!

Enjoy live music performances but loathe The Roads from the very core of your being? Not a problem! In that case, simply cross out every incidence of the band's name in the comic, and replace it with the name of your own favourite band. Hey, presto: an instant piece of iconic music memorabilia featuring your fave artistes!

Are you deaf, or simply feel that music is not valid as an art form? This poster is designed for you, too! Here's how it works: print out the design as described above. Then, simply turn the piece of paper over and use the blank side for writing down shopping lists, important deadlines, obscure trivia - the choice is yours! You're only limited by your own imagination. Good luck!

Is it fan art yet?

Or, how a month can fly by in but a heartbeat. Sorry 'bout that. All I seem to draw these days are throwaway doodles in the newspaper (much like this one.) Don't worry, though. It's only when I make a big "this blog is not dead" announcement that you should start panicking. That's the deathly omen, like the month your favourite computing magazine comes out bound together with staples. Or the prime minister only avows 101% support for your favourite politician. Writing on the wall, man.

God's got a sense of humour

"This one time I was out with my six-year-old daughter. We were crossing the street and she said she wanted an ice cream. Just at that moment: BAM! She was mown down by an ice cream truck. ...Driven by a clown. Didn't survive the ambulance trip. I tell you, man - that God's got a pretty wacky sense of humour! It was pretty funny, though, I have to admit.""So I'm walking down the street when I hear God telling me to kill all whores. Well! I mean, I'm not even what you'd call religious, but he's the big G, right, so what can you do? So I go down the knife shop and buy the biggest knife I can see. I go out and find this whore, and then just as I'm finishing her off I hear this siren, and then God says 'Ha ha! You fucking went for it, too! I had you going! You stupid bastard. Ha ha ha!' Damn, he's got a crazy sense of humour! So anyway, looks like I'll be getting the chair for sure. Tell you something, when I see that guy I'm gonna kick him in the nuts."

Bête du jour

No, it's in the new Pokémon. It evolves into a Dadabeast. And then... uh, Pop Art something something.
I've just realised what I was subconsciously ripping off: the legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh.
Is there any context in which this isn't slightly sinister?

Knocking on heaven's door

They claim 'three doors' but I only see two

I'm not sure what's sadder: the fact that, when told by the blogging software that this was to be my 100th post, I felt that I should make the effort to draw something special for it? Or that this is what I ended up doing instead?

As portrayed by Shirley Levine

This is another commish for the Roads. Current scanning technology is incapable of preserving its wicked awesomeness.

Meanwhile, an important plot development

No, see, you haven't quite understood. It's a depiction of the characters, not the actors. You see? Kind of like the Ghostbusters cartoon, or the Men In Black cartoon. Or the Total Recall computer game. Man, that didn't even look anything like Arnie. What a total rip-off. (Hey, wait! I should have said: 'Total Rip-off, more like!' Hah. I came up with that; you can't use it.)

The philosophy of Angry Sun

I want this on a T-shirt.

And so do you. Admit it.

Also the name of the moth

Not counting the mezzanine

Yeah, the muse has been slack of late. I am choosing to blame the muse.

This post promotes cruelty towards animals

"When you hang a man, usually he has a chance to talk, or... say goodbye, write a letter. Besides, a Creedmoor - it's a Creedmoor, isn't it? - must make a pretty good mess of a human. When you hit a guy from five hundred yards out, say, why, the suddenness of it he don't even have a few seconds to make his act of contrition. Not only that but you never have to look him in the eye. Right there, that makes all the difference.

"This old boy in Wyoming, he sat down on the ground just to pull sand burrowers out of his trousers, and his skull just suddenly flew into pieces about the size of your thumbnail. That was the first time I ever heard the term, 'regulator'."

(Jack Nicholson as Tom Logan, The Missouri Breaks)

Dead plastic trees

Okay, so this one is unlikely to get beyond the concept stage. But the idea is that Thom Yorke and Jarvis Cocker (cleverly labelled to compensate for the fact that, after 24 years, I still can't draw) team up to fight crime. Not portraying characters; it should actually be them, and they only have the resources that would actually be available to them. Their success rate is very similar to what you are imagining.

There are so few things I want in life. Is it so unreasonable for me to want this?

The Process

It's no good, I have to put this up now. I'm sorry if you can't read it. I've tried tidying it up, but it loses its soul if I do that, do you understand? It loses its soul. I mean, I didn't know when I was drawing it that it would turn out to be one of my most favourite things I've ever done; I just needed to exorcise those post-deadline feelings as quickly as possible.

Commute

With apologies to A B Previtera, and indeed to anyone who happens to be reading this.

What kind of a name is Darth, anyway?

From my sixth-form years. At least I knew how to play to a mass audience back then.

Phoenix Wright for the lonely (parte seconda)

Come on, you can't tell me that everyone's favourite fish-faced paparazza doesn't have a mad crush on the lawyer. What was all that running around Kurain village about, then? Or the hiding in the crate? When does Trials and Tribulations come out, anyway? I needs me my intensely linear defend-'em-up fix...

Tell us a joke we know

The SatNav to peace™

Yep, I'm back out on the road tomorrow, so let's celebrate with some more already hopelessly outdated political satire.

YOUR HEAD A SPLODE

You enter the StrongBadZone at your own peril.

Oh, also I forgot to mention yay, one whole year of Jim's doodle blog, hoorah etc.

Before the highly successful "glasses, dark hair" rebranding exercise

Brain Dead Fred: Turmoil

I just read Last Cereal and realised I still have a long way to go.

I have the measure of you, Humpty Blix

Do you remember how the war on Iraq was CANCELLED and never took place, and then Saddam Hussein just sort of apologised and stepped down from power? Of course you don't. That didn't happen! The reason why that didn't happen is because I never released this cartoon, drawn at the time. If I had simply posted this to the Guardian, Steve Bell would have been out of a job and the scales would have fallen from everybody's eyes. But in the end I realised it was just too much truth for people to handle. I only feel safe publishing it now because most of the people in it are dead.

Phoenix Wright for the lonely (parte prima)

What's this? A haircut? Ha! The joke's on you: this is what I really look like! That long hair was merely a cunning deception which I cultivated by not going to a hairdressers for five years.

(Oh all right. The truth? The truth is that on September 11th 2001, I made a solemn vow. I made a vow that I would never again have my hair cut until justice had been done. And now that Saddam Hussein is dead, I am free of my compact.)

Presented in glorious Some Colours™

This was drawn without references (ooh, hark at him trying to talk like an artist) and it shows*, but you get the idea. Well, roughly 18% of you get it, anyway.

*(Oh, man! It shouldn't have caterpillar tracks; the back half acts like a hovercraft. Those rocket boosters should be further forward too. Also, what the hell's going on with that IRBM launcher?)

Hiatio

I'm a busy guy. I just moved and the internet is thin on the ground. Updates will resume.

Brain Dead Fred: Anxiety

Brain Dead Fred, falling disappointingly between the disparate stools of madcap comedy and psychological horror! No actual joke this week, it would seem. Ah well. At least you didn't pay anything for it.

Counterfeit when you look at it

Back to the smoke

I have failed to comply with the comedy rule-of-three. This is partly because I wrongly imagine my technique is advanced enough to play around with the rules, but mostly because I couldn't think of a third panel. I am sorry.

I am also sorry for my homophobic vernacular and to a lesser extent my tight-fistedness although in mitigation I point out that a beggar had already caught me in his tractor beam and in any case the one who donates the least is rewarded all the more richly by Jesus or so I have read.

Brain Dead Fred: Transference

The quickest yet: this one was all done this evening. My evil plan for an artless, Jim-Davis-esque cartoon production line is starting to work! Pity I can probably only think of about two more of these, really.

Brain Dead Fred: Denial

Mankind does not yet possess the technology to draw Dr Penrose the same way three times.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls

One from ought five, I'm afraid. I'm trying to do more Brain Dead Fred, but am hampered by the fact that I am rubbish at it. Just try to bear with me here.

Got so many people but it's got no soul

Some Pictures is brought to you today by an internet café!

Do you have an exam? Do you have an exams? I quit taking exams after I graduated, but my heart goes out to you, in this post only.
Or is your glass half-full, like That One Guy™ (seen here in his student days)?
Sigh. What is it about the big city that depresses me so? No offence intended to Greater London or its inhabitants, but I don't like any of you.

(If you are a resident of Greater London, don't worry. I probably meant everyone except you.)

Brain Dead Fred: A Cry For Help

I'm experimenting with ways of making these more legible. With quite a breathtaking lack of success, as you may have noticed.

Bonus material: the original, from 2004!

Slow Wave has nothing to worry about

This is from a dream I had a couple of years ago. By establishing this I hope to partially absolve myself of responsibility for the quality of the material. It's difficult to transfer the content of a dream onto paper, and probably unwise (well - at least to put it up here, anyway.) This is at best a rationalisation of disconnected, half-remembered imagery, created whilst awake. My drawing special effects budget ran out by the final panel, resulting in the underwhelming conclusion you see before you. Worth it for that solo, though, surely?

(Why post this now? Because someone said they liked that other dream comic. It's that simple, see? It's that easy to dictate the content of this site.)

Do you see, though? Do you see?

I probably should stop harping on about this. It was mostly a good programme.

The riddle of Hippocrates

Only slightly autobiographical

I really can't stress this enough. (Oh, sorry I drew her all rubbish in the second and third panels. By the way.)

Preserve the human race in Myspace for future generations

Hello to anyone who got here by following the link on the back of The Roads CD (ha! Ha ha! Ah, I delude myself. But seriously.) In fact those weren't the original covers; there was a time when the case would have looked like this:

Front

Back

I actually like these more, but never mind it. You can see a tidier version of the actual front cover here.

Nobody shook him