Parental Warning: Utterly Foul Language Shall Undoubtedly Ensue.

I would not want you to believe for one single second that I am a silly, superstitious paranoiac, but once again the conniving, vindictive, spiteful Fates (and what a malignant bunch of old biddies they are) have conspired against me in a manner designed purely to prevent me from entering a caricature competition. I am beginning to discern a distinct pattern forming here and the only logical conclusion one could possibly settle upon is that supernatural forces beyond human knowledge are waging a campaign of personal hate and vitriol aimed only at me and me alone. That, or my laptop is buggered.
Once again, time set aside for producing masterpieces was eaten up by fart-arsing about with things that are normally quite straight forward even for a technological illiterate like me. I even had to go about on some convoluted route in order to display the pencils for this entry, because my laptop and printer are only having a one-way conversation through the normal channels. Happily, the work-around isn't too arduous and is actually quite beneficial in other ways.
Enny whey, let us cast a critical eye at my uninked non-entry. I didn't think it was too bad actually. The shoulders needed to be broadened in order to balance out the proportions and the hands and jaw-line needed a little tweaking here and there. These are things that would have been ironed out at the inking stage HAD THOSE STINKING, SODDING WHORES, CALLED THE FATES, ALLOWED IT.
Life, eh? I am shrugging my shoulders and moving on. Christmas looms and there is wine to be drunk. Another life-affirming plus in this vale of tears is listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong performing They Can't Take That Away From Me. I got the pencils done and the Fates can't take that away from me.
If I don't get time in the next few days, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and an excellent New Year.

Curses, Foiled Again!

Frustrated? Me? You're gosh-derned right I'm frustrated. Last night I specifically put time aside to rough some pencils for an idea for this week's Cartoon Caption Competition. This morning I had also put time aside in order to 'ink' up the result. Suddenly my Bamboo refused to talk to my computer. Now, I don't know what this is all about, they're usually as thick as thieves. But this morning there was definitely a falling-out of some description. Acting as a responsible adult, I banged their heads together, but to no avail.
Two reboots and an innumerable amount of death threats to inanimate objects later, they both started functioning properly. Great, thanks. Too late now. All allotted time has been eaten up. Betrayed by machines.
I know for a fact that I won't have time next week. So frustrating!

Pre-Digital and Obscure to the Point of Utter Opaqueness

Life in general and shift-work in particular have put a huge dent in my ability to produce anything recently (dozing off in front of the telly may also be a contributory factor, but we won't dwell on that particular fact). My adoring fan-base (that's you, Dave) implored me to take a more active part in the Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain's weekly caption competition. The truth is I have, in actual fact, tried and I have several examples of roughs up in the office that act as testament to this, but of finished product I have none. I promise I will make time and remedy this dolorous situation.
In the meantime I offer up this example from the past. It is a pen and ink re-working of an older pen and ink drawing. As my adoring fan-base will attest, it is far too obscure for a general audience (or should that be readership? What the hell are you, you unnatural beast?). At base, it is a straight forward pun - a play on the German pronunciation of Weill and the English pronunciation of    leptospirosis. Or something like that. You see, the rat in the background is singing a song from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera. And the thigh-slappingly upshot is...
My goodness, that was a rather deafening silence.