Sunday, December 23, 2007

Rocking across the multiverse

Are you blind, or unable to read my terrible handwriting? This alternate text is for you!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!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Is it fan art yet?

'He made my face look like one big freckle!'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.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

God's got a sense of humour

It says 'stop me and buy one', but it doesn't matter that you can't read it. FUN FACT 1: I just now drew these to accompany the text, which is from December 2004."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."FUN FACT 2: I wrote them in an IM conversation, but have since realised that they were good enough to justify an audience of more than one person. So why did I put them up here, then? It's anyone's guess."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."

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Bête du jour

CubeastNo, it's in the new Pokémon. It evolves into a Dadabeast. And then... uh, Pop Art something something.
Blaargh!I've just realised what I was subconsciously ripping off: the legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh.
'Get in the van!'Is there any context in which this isn't slightly sinister?

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Friday, October 26, 2007

They claim 'three doors' but I only see two

0-45mph within 20 seconds! Seats 3 and a half! AM radio! Detachable wing mirrors! Tyres included! The Fentrix Micro... Let her draw her own conclusions.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?

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

As portrayed by Shirley Levine

See no weevilHear no weevilThis is another commish for the Roads. Current scanning technology is incapable of preserving its wicked awesomeness.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Meanwhile, an important plot development

Maybe we're looking at this thing the wrong way. Maybe there ARE psych symptoms... What's the differential diagnosis for dressing as a bat and fighting crime?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.)

Friday, October 05, 2007

The philosophy of Angry Sun

Angry Sun says: I stopped liking your favourite band before you'd even heard of themI want this on a T-shirt.

And so do you. Admit it.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Friday, August 31, 2007

Not counting the mezzanine

WOMAN: Is it true someone jumped out of the building here? POLICEMAN: Ma'am, I can't tell you that. Please move along. JOKE: I have failed to survive the transcription process.Yeah, the muse has been slack of late. I am choosing to blame the muse.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

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)

Friday, August 24, 2007

Dead plastic trees

Thom Yorke and Jarvis Cocker are the Alt-rock Justice Squad... criminals beware!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?

Saturday, August 18, 2007

The Process

I'm not transcribing the whole thing, but I will point out that C&R 6 and Perry's are both chemical engineering textbooks. So at least now you know why you don't get those bits. INTERESTING FACT: (for a given value of 'interesting') The last frame being 45 minutes to deadline is a pointless reference to the Iraq war.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.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Commute

It's the beginning of a new journey and already I feel empty inside. Must existence be defined by hunger?The City draws me into its grasp. I have been sent to toil in hunger. The City shows no mercy. There are no lunch breaks in the City.With irony I dwell on the night before. I was ready to abolish hunger. With arrogance I stocked up on milk, thinking I knew everything there was to know about preparedness.Too bad I already used the last cereal.With apologies to A B Previtera, and indeed to anyone who happens to be reading this.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

What kind of a name is Darth, anyway?

WORKMAN: Okay, that's your plumbing fixed up a treat. You'll not have any more problems with the sinks. Oh, by the way, before I forget, I noticed you've got an open duct leading all the way from outside this thing to a reactor core, a little ship could get through, could be pretty disastrous. Want me to seal that up? I'll do it for free. VADER: Naaaah.From my sixth-form years. At least I knew how to play to a mass audience back then.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Phoenix Wright for the lonely (parte seconda)

Ah, Lotta. You and I could be so good together. You could be the bit of rough I don't let any of my friends find out about...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...

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Monday, July 30, 2007

The SatNav to peace™

Fear and Loathing in the Middle East (after Ralph Steadman)Yep, I'm back out on the road tomorrow, so let's celebrate with some more already hopelessly outdated political satire.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

YOUR HEAD A SPLODE

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.

Monday, July 16, 2007

I have the measure of you, Humpty Blix

I am unable to produce alternative text describing this image. I am sorry.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.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Phoenix Wright for the lonely (parte prima)

Oh come on, Franziska... we both know what this is REALLY about...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.)

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Presented in glorious Some Colours™

Shagohod, baby!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?)

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Hiatio

Au contraire mon tres bon frereI'm a busy guy. I just moved and the internet is thin on the ground. Updates will resume.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Brain Dead Fred: Anxiety

STEVE: Yo, Beady F. Still ticking? I was just chatting to one of the nurses. Apparently they're really desperate for beds. Pfft, eh? I can't decide whether I find nurses sexy or frightening. I suppose it probably varies from nurse to nurse. *TWITCH* 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.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Back to the smoke

(in car) Fine, DON'T let me in, you thundering GAYLORD... (confronted by charity worker) Dammit, there's got to be SOMETHING smaller than £1 in here... (slogan) LONDON: it's a state of mind!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.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Brain Dead Fred: Transference

STEVE: It's just through this door here. So I'm new at this; do we pay you afterwards or in advance? HARLOT: You must be joking. I'm out of here, you sicko! STEVE: Oh well. Happy birthday anyway, brain dead Fred.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.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Brain Dead Fred: Denial

GLADYS: I've brought you an audio book, Fred. It's 'Will This Do?', the autobiography of Denis Norden. You like that sort of thing. Oh, hello, Dr Penrose. PENROSE: Hello, Gladys. Have you given any more thought to what we were discussing? GLADYS: Sh! Not in front of Fred. I've been meaning to ask, Doctor. Have the nurses been washing Fred properly? He smells a little funny. PENROSE: That's because his extremities have started rotting, Gladys.Mankind does not yet possess the technology to draw Dr Penrose the same way three times.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Ask not for whom the bell tolls

HI, I... OH, NO, DON'T WORRY. IT'S NOT ABOUT THAT. NO, IT'S JUST THAT I WAS AT THE STATION AND I FOUND THIS WALLET ON THE FLOOR... IT WAS BEHIND A PLANT POT. YEAH, AND IT'S GOT YOUR NAME ON IT... IS IT YOURS? OH, THAT'S GREAT. GLAD I COULD HELP. NO, NO, A GOOD DEED IS ITS OWN REWARD. YOU'RE WELCOME! ANYWAY, SEE YOU.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.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

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.
I'm not transcribing the dialogue because it has a swear in it, but this is what the sign says which you can't read. 'CANDIDATES: DO NOT leave the room until you have finished your paper, unless you want to fail or something. DO NOT talk to other candidates or use a phone. DO think before you open your stupid mouth.'Or is your glass half-full, like That One Guy™ (seen here in his student days)?
'Whoops! I seem to have accidentally paperclipped a crisp, new £10 note to my ... oh, well! These ...'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.)

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Brain Dead Fred: A Cry For Help

The best thing about having brain dead Fred as a friend is that he's a good listener. I've taken up shoplifting, brain dead Fred. So far I've got away with about £60 worth of goods over a three month period. The other good thing about brain dead Fred is that he can keep a secret. Ah, the tales he could tell if he wasn't basically just a human piece of meat on a respirator!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!
The same, only scribblier.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Slow Wave has nothing to worry about

Once there was a spirit, and this spirit played a trick on God... For it found a wealthy man of debatable morals, and the spirit said to God, 'This man is evil. Allow me to inhabit his soul, and I will turn him to good.' God agreed to this. But the spirit planned to accumulate more souls to this body, to grow in power. He would steal these souls from other humans. He did this by playing a WICKED GUITAR SOLO...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.)

Monday, April 30, 2007

Do you see, though? Do you see?

THAT ONE GUY in: 'Life on Deimos!' GUY: (THINKS) I wish I didn't have to wake up from that dream about the fit one from out of Hollyoaks. I bet I could have done a sex on her. ... GOD, this meeting's boring. I might as well KILL MYSELF. GUY: And I probably would have, but as luck would have it I dozed off a few minutes later. This time it was only the slightly less attractive one from out of Grange Hill, but I have to say... still TOTALLY worth the verbal warning. GIRL: No... it's definitely not as uplifting the way you tell it.I probably should stop harping on about this. It was mostly a good programme.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Only slightly autobiographical

Why is customer service so poor? - an explanation. *FIRST DAY* RECEPTIONIST: (It costs nothing to be civil.) Nice weather for ducks, eh? Anyway, here's your key! Glad you made it through the storm! CUSTOMER: (What... is she coming onto me?) RECEPTIONIST: I can tell you, I'm not looking forward to the walk home! CUSTOMER: (She's DEFINITELY coming onto me.) Okay. You know the room number. Give two short knocks and one long knock. *ALL SUBSEQUENT DAYS* RECEPTIONIST: Here's your key.I really can't stress this enough. (Oh, sorry I drew her all rubbish in the second and third panels. By the way.)

Sunday, April 22, 2007

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
THE ROADSBack
THERE GOES THE SOUND. 1: Hear No Evil 2: Earlybird 3: Know You Better 4: Jack Frost 5: Means To An End 6: It Ain't MeI actually like these more, but never mind it. You can see a tidier version of the actual front cover here.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Know your market

'Assertiveness training' SHEEN: Stop LETTING yourself be a victim, you piece of SHIT! WOMAN: I'm *huhgh* sorry! SHEEN: The price has gone up. Make sure you bring £25 to next week's session. MAN: I... I don't, um... SHEEN: You need to keep coming back because you're still a LOSER. 'And the results can be seen in MONTHS!' WOMAN: I am nothing. Walk over me. 'Success! The student is able to issue clear instructions to colleagues.' STOP BEING SO PATHETIC - Why you are a total waste of space, and what to do about it, by 'Dr' Max SheenThe commercialisation of people skills marches on, but some people are never happy...
Mr T, I appreciate your concerns, but I'm sure you must realise that there is no T in team.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Works better than "free my mind," anyway

FLYING DREAM. Hey, this is fairly easy. The trick is to wilfully ignore the laws of thermodynamics. Something... for nothing! Something for nothing! It's that simple. Hey, I'll buzz the office! Ha, ha! I hope I can land without breaking my legs. *OOF* Now, how do I get down from here? *RING* Who's calling? 'Why aren't you at *work*?' Aagh!This story contains the key to my inner psyche. Presumably.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Mr Stevens: slight return

This weekend sees me feeling supremely uncreative, so here's some more stuff from many years ago.
'I sense you've taken a backward step, Mr Stevens...'Hey, nice interior! I should probably put that Mr Stevens story up some time. This, however, should remain firmly in the past:
MONKEY-WHELKING: ...the barbaric practice that must be stopped

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Wild speculation

My name is Squall Leonheart. I had an accident and woke up in Final Fantasy VI. But am I dead, insane, or all three? And why would I want to get back?Yeah, okay, but listen to the theme music from Life On Mars before you call me a liar.

And now that my pointing-out-things-that-seem-like-other-things credentials are established, feast your eyes on this little comparison.
On the left: The Reverend Jack Cheese in The Ren & Stimpy Show, originally broadcast 1996.
To the right: Odin Quincannon from out of Preacher, published 1998. 1998, people.

Exhibit B: The Demon, volume 3 issue 49, July 1994.
GUNN: Get away! BAYTOR: I am Baytor! GUNN: I'll shoot! I mean it! BAYTOR: I... am Baytor! It is not I who am crazy... it is I who am mad!So guess who can't realistically claim never to have watched Ren & Stimpy? That's right, Ennis, your days are numbered. I'm blowing the lid on this thing. I'm going all the way to the White House. You can call this PREACHERGATE.