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.

Dr Who, Time and BBC Contracts

I sincerely hope I have the lay-out correct for this entry, otherwise it won't make much visual sense. Thinks: Why on Earth do they allow old men access to computers? It shouldn't be allowed. There ought to be a law. Ad tedium.

Annie whey, the black and white pikchar is the one I entered for this week's caption competition AT THIS PARTICULAR SITE WHICH YOU REALLY OUGHT TO VISIT BECAUSE I GUARANTEE YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED BY IT. Now, I thought long and hard about this one. It must have been all of two minutes. You need to understand that, in my head, that is an eternity, which only goes to illustrate the mutability of Time and its relationship to the vast, unending vacuum of space between my ears. My original thought-lines ran along Dr. Who's companions looking despairingly at their BBC contracts and Matt Smith looking smug (if such a thing were possible - he doesn't strike me as the sort of individual that 'does' smug), because his contract outruns theirs. Companions are expendable, but the Doctor goes on forever.

Then I started thinking about the Tardis. Tardis is an acronym for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space - at least, it was when I read it in my Armada Paperbacks for Boys & Girls (Dr Who in an exciting adventure with the DALEKS, by David Whitaker. 2/6 from all good book shops) in 1965. (Drifts into a nostalgic reverie). These things change in an ever changing world. It occurred to me that three people standing around, staring at contracts was unlikely to be the most arresting image in the world of cartooning, so I thought a little bit more and eventually came up with something even more obscure than my original thought. Tardis is Time and if that started running out... well, the Doctor wouldn't be quite so bloody smug, would he?

This would be my masterpiece (one of -ooh- so many you couldn't count them) and subsequently I set to with a will. Pencils came together well and I also intended to submit a coloured cartoon this week, but (irony of ironies) I ran out of time. I still got a very creditable number of points. The majority coming from some VERY distinguished names. I'm not a name-dropper and I actually think it would be very vulgar of me to mention Andrew Birch and Roger Kettle, so I won't.

I was very pleased with my drawing and I still wanted to colour it. So, post competition I worked on it and gave it a new caption. The result is above (HINT: it's the one that isn't black and white). Faults? Too trivial to mention really. The biggest fault is that the Doctor is behaving completely out of character, but I think that's just a bit of bravado on his part to cover up the lacerating pain he feels about the impending departure of Amy and Rory. Possibly.

Two Naked Men In A Urinal: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Do you recognize the joyful glee represented by the lettering in this addition to my infrequent epistles to the virtual ether? The drawing on the left here gained me bronze (in Olympic parlance) on the weekly Cartoonists' Club caption competition podium. The theme this week was gold.
 I'll let you into a little cartooning secret here: walking the dog releases the mind. While the dog wuffles about concerning her mind with things of doggy import,your author (and artist) is left free to wuffle about the cartooning corners of the cartoonist mind.
The theme was suggested by the London 2012 Olympics and thusly my mind turned to the ancient Greeks and thence to King Midas and after that the whole intellectual edifice came crashing down and my mind, as usual, descended to the toilet and men's gangly bits for a cheap laugh. Regular readers will know that I have no scruples.
So, why are they naked? I thought it would be a nice touch to emulate the style of the black-figure images on ancient Greek pottery. That's all. Nothing sexual at all. So, if you've come here looking for smut you'll be sorely disappointed won't you?
I drew some pencils in preparation for this one and for the first time in a long while I am more pleased with the final result than with the pencils. All in all, a jolly good week. I am, most definitely, a heppy, heppy ket.

That's The Way To Do It!

Now this, O best beloved, is a bit more like it. Pencil preliminaries, Universal Pictures horror reference and ladies' wobbly bits. What more could a struggling cartoonist ask for?
This is the third cartoon I have drawn involving Frankenstein and mammary glands. Could this be the start of a worrying trend? Watch this space, but only if you're a little bit warped.
Onwards and upwards and alongwards and hospitalwards.

Guess What?

Those of you blessed with great acuity may have noticed my sudden inability to compose a blog page. Do you know what? Life is just a long series of poo-ey events and then we snuff it. True, no returns. Infinity. I win.

I'm Reviewing The Situation.

  What you have displayed before you for your delight and delectation are two recent(ish) entries to The Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain's caption competition. The purpose of this particular exercise is to illustrate a new approach on my part to cartooning. I have banged on in the past about my need for speed and looseness. I work quite slowly and always felt that my drawings looked cramped and tight; especially in relation to any preliminary pencil drawings. So, these two are the result of a conscious effort to, you know, like, chill out and relax and just put in, like, the essentials, you know?

  I'm still dissatisfied. They look hurried and unfinished to my eye. I feel ill at ease with the results and that is not a good place to be. They are both entirely digital in terms of composition and execution and both are lacking a, I don't know - a certain je ne sais quoi. Technically, there's an essential line missing from the magician cartoon which indicates to my mind that speed equals sloppiness of execution. I have subsequently reverted to pencil preliminaries, the results of which may be seen in later blog entries. I feel a lot happier with the results AND I have loosened up a little. I suppose we all need a comfort blanket of some description.