A Cartoon For Prospect Magazine And An Unrelated Bit Of Text Explaining My Absence From The Cyber Realm

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For the past two weeks I have been living in the early nineties. Not in the 'thinking Jellyfish are the future of music' sense. No. But rather, in the no-internet sense. I am moving house. Or, as British Telecom would describe it, 'holding on to my career by the skin of my teeth because BT are the multiverse and I am but a mere end-user wormy clown man, say it, say it, WORMY CLOWN MAN ha ha ha'.

It's quite nice, actually. Quite stressful at first, but I rather like it now. The library is the king of my info-world. I come here to do my job. Well, here and my girlfriend's parents' house. ANd her school. (Where she works, I'm not - oh never mind).

It doesn't help that my Mac laptop - bought partly to ease the changeover from London to Hertford - started farting its soul out on my first day of the changeover. I was left stranded. So I've had to devise a system where I do the work at home, scan it at home, work it up, then run red faced and mad-eyed around this lovely country town, deadline ticking past, trying to find an internet connection. Generally I end up pelting it into Hannah's classroom to use her computer (after hours of course, I think I'd get arrested if it was before 4).

Anyway, today I am at the Library, and tapping this out furiously to keep my blog-oar in. No more am I able to instantly satisfy a vague curiosity as to whatever happened to Tanita Tikarem, or read entire Wikipedia pages about things I already know about. (Why do I have to read the Wiki page of every book I've just read? Or every album I am currently listening to? And why doesn't it really feel like they exist unless I've read the Wikipedia page? Does anybody else think like this?)

So yes, I am an info-vagrant. Scurrying around, picking up unwanted bits of internet connection wherever I can find them. I actually have to list in advance what I want to look up, and then queue for the internet. Whilst reading a book. It's almost... civilised. I think I'm going to make a habit of it. No more internet dawdling. Instead I'll just list everything I want to look up as it comes into my head. Then at the end of the day look at it and be glad at all the time I've saved.
I'm a bit worried I'll end up with too much time to do, you know... real stuff.

Hmmm. What did happen to Tanita Tikarem. I can't find out cos I've got no time left. Answers please.

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Big Issue Cover

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I did the cover of this week's Big Issue, which was nice cos I got to draw one of my personal heroes, David Attenborough. I love the man. His DVDs are the ones I watch most, often to the exclusion of anything else for long stretches. He's probably one of the only famous people I'll be genuinely upset about when he dies.

Once I actually spoke to him. I was a newspaper interview-fixer and had tried to 'get' him, and he was the only person who ever actually called me back in person and apologised instead of just turning me down with silence. It was like getting a call from God. Imagine that voice coming down the phone. "It's David Attenborough here..." I actually nearly wet myself.

So if he sees this, I hope he's not horrified. I wanted to get his hair and the way it flaps about all over the place. I also managed to get a Cassowary in. I'm not sure if he's ever met one but they're my favourite insane massive blue headed evil bird.

Choice

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WWJD

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New Strip / Cartoon / Whatever For Prospect Magazine

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Prospect magazine recently gave me a strip-sized slot to fill with a strip or cartoon or whatever works. It's wonderful to be doing paid cartoon work again, though I'd forgotten how long one of these things takes me from writing to completion. Still, it's certainly my favourite part of my work and the part which I feel is the most mine, my 'thing' whatever that may be.

It Just Occurred To Me That That Last One Didn't Make Sense Because It Would Probably Have Been Destroyed So I've Rewritten The Title Look These Things Bother Me OK

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Oh by the way I'm on Twitter. I'm still not sure about it really but if you'd like to say hello I'm here. My friend described it as "another word for howling at the moon" which I thought was quite good, but as that's what most of my life involves anyway I might as well relent.

I Love Apocalypses

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Paris

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