Banal Pig's Review of the Year 2007 (Part Two)

Here it is, more reminiscences of times past.

July

I couldn’t really remember why it took so long to get Jolly Bear 2 out, but this is the reason:

“At the moment i'm working on a few bits. As well as JBFCSS2, of which you will no doubt be aware, i'm doing something for Monkeys Might Puke aka sleazy Dan Lester's anthology about Mickey Rourke, if there was a prize for most esoteric comic, that'd win it. i might do some awards.
Also, Jess Bradley is doing an anthology about animals which i'm doing something for, and not to mention the Rok Comics stuff and there's also a competition to get a comic in the observer which i'm certainly having a crack at. there's also this victorian horror story thing that’s been bubbling away for ages that i've got to get finished.”

Well, the Mickey Rourke anthology has still to see the light of day, as has Jess’s anthology (which I haven’t finished the thing for yet). The rok comics thing dragged out until October, and I’ve still to do the Victorian horror thing. I also did something for Jim Medway's Garden Funnies which should be out soon. The Observer thing was my main priority at the time I think, and inevitably no cigar for stevie t- more of which later.



August

we went to Caption for the first time in august:

“A lot of the small press veterans bang on about it as one of the big events in the calendar, so we were a bit surprised to see a rather poky room with not a lot going on (and not a lot of comics) when we got there, and having to pay a fiver to get in seemed a bit steep. The trouble is that people turn up throughout the day bringing their stuff, so if you got there early, you would be gutted, and not necessarily realise there was more to come, so you go home empty handed because there wouldnt be anything to hang around for. The idea of caption is really good though, you leave your comics and they sell them for you for 10% commission -peanuts compared with the cost of a table at one of the big expos, or even the web and mini comix thing, and of course you only have to give them money when you sell something”.

I sold well though so I cant grumble, although I don’t know how cost effective it is really to go to oxford and all that.

Also I came up with the web funnies idea, and projected my manifesto, as per the following:

“i have noticed a few things which i intensely dislike about certain strips, and as a result have come up with a few rules about how i am going to do my strip-
1- no geeky referencing of esoteric things (e.g. computer games, the internet in general, obscure films etc)
2- no boring continuous strips- the whole point is that its contained in 3 panels, if a story needs to be continued i'll do it as one long strip somewhere else
3- no "based on a true story" disclaimers”



-which I did stick to, apart from perhaps the strip based on Les Demoiselles D’avignon by Picasso, but its high brow and not fucking computer games so who cares.

I also said:

“i'm also going to stop moaning about the small press scene, and my terrible lot in life and concentrate on doing my own thing. i cant do anything about people i dont know, and i just need to keep making good entertaining work and see what happens. feel free to give me some shit if you hear me moaning.”

Hopefully I have been a bit more focused, and optimistic- I will see if there’s any more whiny blogs to come that I’ve forgotten about.

September

I submitted my entry for the aforementioned Jonathan Cape Observer graphic short story prize. I didn’t really expect to win, but I was underwhelmed by the winners. Have a look here for pdfs of the winners plus others, and see what you reckon.



Another thing about this competition was the fact that although the image was to be an arbitrary broadsheet size, they wanted the entries on A4 paper only (no cds or emailed images), which was logistically difficult, and undoubtedly meant that instead of receiving perfect electronic versions, they got ropey printouts which didn’t show off the images to their full potential.
*This isn’t moaning by the way, it is constructive criticism.

I was reminiscing about being a proper artist too, as I had a bit of time off. I wonder if I’ll ever make some beautiful fine art ever again. We’ll see (contemplative sigh).

October

I finished Jolly Bear and Fun Coconut Summer Special Two (there's a review here)in time for Birmingham, which as a comic expo was a bit disappointing; as previously mentioned Saturday was ok, but Sunday was absolutely dead. I didn’t even write a report of this, I think I was a bit sick of the whole business at the time, and wanted to crack on with the web funnies.

November

The web funnies continued until mid November, and although I said after the post-a-day for the first month I would do a few a week, I had run out of ideas, and wanted to crack on with BP4. I did get back a lot of positive feedback which was nice, but it was hard work which took up more or less all of my free time for that month. I might do another month at some stage, and I will still post as inspiration strikes me, but BP4 is my main thing at present.

I also came up with the idea of a Banal Pig Fan Club, which is to go ahead next year- stay tuned for more news- and I tried to flog some original artwork, but didn’t.

December

I have been quietly beavering away in December, and you can probably see December’s posts on this page so I wont review them.

All that remains is to thank you, dear reader, especially if you have bought or otherwise contributed to the banal pig, for your support, and hopefully we will see much more of each other next year.

Banal Pig's Review of the Year 2007 (Part One)

In the spirit of many a lazy journalist at this time of year, I have decided to take a look back at the last 12 months of banal piggery, perhaps it will teach me some lessons; perhaps it will waste half an hour- we shall see.

January

January found me in chipper mood, sometimes you do get a bit enthusiastic at the promise of a new year, a new start and all that shit, even though time rolls on whatever us humans call it. I made another list of “Reasons to be cheerful” which included:

crispy bacon
Queen
unsolicited praise
rowdy blues music
puns
art that i couldnt do
snow
the smell of a pub as you walk past

aw… I am an optimist you know.

In comics, I was collating the BP Portrait Prize Anthology which was a good experience, I enjoyed the editing side of things and it was nice to put something out fairly quickly and have a mixed selection. Top Shelf’s Brett Warnock described it as “hit and miss”, which I suppose is fair enough, but I think it’s a better quality of Antho than many out there.




Also in the spirit of new opportunities, I was attempting to raise the profile of the Banal Pig brand, and I think I have done to some extent with the Web Funnies and that, but we’ve still not cracked how to engage with punters at comic expos. I think it’s impossible.

February

I did this quite decent banal pig for the web and mini comix thing anthology, but they didn’t use it for some reason. I’m not doing another one.



March

Here’s an exerpt from my report from the Web and Mini Comix thing:

"it was quite a good day, and as the punters there are our specific target market we did probably as well in one day as we usually do over the weekend at the big cons. the new anthology went down quite well and there were quite a few of the contributors there to pick up their issues. i didnt actually buy anything but there was some decent stuff there- The Sound of Drowning, Dan Locke's Green comics, Monkeys Might Puke, Beaver and Steve spring to mind - there was plenty of shite there too. Plenty of fucking awful shite. Gareth managed to get Man Man 3 out too, and we were also selling good old Oli East’s Trains Are Mint which also went down well."

We're doing it again this year, by the way.

Also this selection of Road Jokes, which I feel are worth repeating:

What does a road say when he wishes to thank you?

TAR!

Whats a Road's favourite Grandmaster Flash song?

WHITE LINES!

What does a baby road do before it can walk?

KERB CRAWLING!



But of course, March was most famous for the “Sour Grapes” post, in which I vented my frustrations about the state of british small press comics. This caused a bit of stir, particularly with those people who I (and others) vented about, and I’m not going to repeat any of it here as it is history (although you can read the post and it’s comments if you like). Maybe it was unwise to blog in such a way, but it was only the difference between me thinking it and saying it, and I didn’t think anyone would read it anyway.

April

April marked the end of the financial year, and I was contemplating my accounts thusly:

“Today i am taking stock of my comics business as the financial year is all but wrapped up. i've made a considerable loss and am wondering where my profit margins can be increased. buying a laser printer and doing the job myself is one option, not doing the big conventions, and putting up the price of the comic are all options, none of them easy. hopefully i'll get some tax back again, but i've got to start being a bit more canny, which is not the side of the business i'm interested in. any ideas?”

(Whenever I write “any ideas?” no-one ever responds. I’m the same generally. A covert blog reader but not commenter, and however I try to encourage the comments, it doesn’t make a difference.)

In relation to the above, I didn’t really make any changes, but on balance this year’s Birmingham Con was too expensive (we shouldn’t have even got out of bed on the Sunday), and I don’t think we’ll bother this year. I do feel a bit ambivalent towards money making, I am in no way a ruthless business man- I always want to give the reader value for money. This doesn’t really make my business very lucrative, but value for money is my core business plan, and it has led to repeat purchases and word of mouth and all that, and hopefully that will continue to grow.

The rest of April was Ethel Sparrowhawk previews, more of which presently.

May

Of course, May was the highlight of the comics year, the Bristol Comics Expo, the reason I busted my balls to get Ethel Sparrowhawk finished (I actually took a week off work- dedication eh?). The reason it’s my highlight is because its ten minutes down the road from my house, so there’s no extra costs and there’s plenty of people I know. Ethel went down (sold) well, and we got some nice big ups from (small press stalwart) Paul Rainey and (V for Vendetta artist) David Lloyd, and I think it was a good choice to do a change of direction at this stage, and it was a different way of working, collaborating with the lovely Jemima Von Schindelberg, to make something I certainly couldn’t have come up with on my own.



I was also contemplating a small press community website thing, where it would be easy to sell and give recommendations and that sort of thing, but to be honest I haven’t given it a second thought since then.

One thing I have learned this year is that you really have to plough your own field, do your best, work hard, etc and this brings its own rewards. No-one else is going to do it for you (me). Although I haven’t seen any tangible rewards yet, I am confident they will appear.

June



Very exciting things happened in June, yes that’s right, I won £54 on a scratchcard! Happy times.
Gareth’s website, Appalling Nonsense was created too, and I laid out my hopes and dreams for BP4:

“anyway, i was also thinking about making longer comics, and i really want to step it up a notch with banal pig 4. my current vision (sounds a bit pretentious doesnt it?) involves 2 levels of comics- i.e. a main strip and a sub-strip running alongside/under/against it, and i want to continue to develop the banal pig "universe" (again this sounds a bit poncy, but it is fairly common comic speak i think) and feature more of the peripheral characters and make the general look a bit more dense, or at least vary the layouts a bit more. this means that it wont be ready for birmingham, but i'll have JBFCSS2 and maybe another minicomic, and i've got my fingers in a few other pies.”

One thing that I always do is underestimate the time it takes to do anything. Jolly Bear 2 was just about ready for Birmingham, and I have decided to really take my time with BP4 and have it out for Bristol in May ’08, but it will be worth it- having started drawing it, it is actually still quite similar to this, but there wont be as many sub strips. I cant remember what other pies they were.

I was moaning because of my shit job, as is my wont from time to time, and I started doing the ROK comics thing, in the hope of winning $10,000 (ha!). I think all competitions are flawed, in as much as I never win them.

So that’s it for part one, the first six months, but I’ll be back soon with part two probably….

Merry Christmas!

yes its nearly that time of year again. if you are on my mailing list, you will have received this electric christmas card from me today. if you would like to be on the mailing list, then send me your address. it's not really that exciting, but you might get the scoop on some exciting bp news.

thanks to everyone who commented or bought or laughed at my comics, and i hope baby jesus brings you everything you want.

lots of love

stevo xxx

not christmas yet

hello.
although its a bit pointless to blog about the fact that i'm not really doing anything newsworthy at the moment, here it is anyway. i've bought an A3 scanner which i can't make work, i'm really gay for scrabulous on facebook (feel free to challenge me to a game), and i'm working on banal pig IV- citizens on patrol, which i'm working hard on (hee hee, hard on!) so it's amazing.

thanks for the fan club suggestions, i will sort that out soon- i'm gonna invest in a badge maker.

dont forget, banal pig artwork for sale- the ideal christmas and other religious festivals present, but why need an excuse?- go on treat yourself- limited stocks remaining!*




*only one of each left, except the one that i've sold, and the one i gave away.

banal pig fan club

i'm thinking about starting a banal pig fan club where you get a badge which says something like "i'm a banal pig lover" and some other shit like a code cracking wheel and a patch. what did you used to get in those sort of things? a certificate and maybe an exclusive little comic or something. thats it- i'm kind of thinking of things as i'm writing, but i could include my as yet unpublished "swearing clock" too.

any more suggestions for what i could include?

who's up for being a pig lover? just send me a postcard with a pound coin sellotaped loosely to it.

portrait corner number 1

here's a little thing i did ages ago which made myself laugh upon looking at it again.

meanwhile, i am roughing out banal pig 4 which is looking pretty good already i reckons. pig lovers can look forward to fez man dying in every panel, a 6 page cat dad story, 2 uncle ken stories and etceteras.

BPWF- 28 days later...

Hopefully if you have looked at this blog previously, you will be well aware of Banal Pig's Web Funnies . The idea was for me to have a go at a 3 panel strip for a month to see if i was capable of churning a strip out every day. Well, i've done it so the churn isnt in question, but is it any kop? let me know what you think. details over there........

blast from the blast

i found this sketch whilst googling myself from here. it's from my first ever con, brighton 2005, where i was naive and innocent. no-one asks me to do sketches at cons anymore because i am an intimidating physical presence.
also i found this lady, who likes our comics, and does some quite nice stuff herself.

steBay

any pig lovers out there thinking about what to get their beloved for christmas look no further! for i am officially flogging all my original art from the banal pig comics at the rock bottom, stone cold bargain price of £50! they're A3 size on nice thick paperstock and obviously are much nicer as drawings than laserprints.



Also. if you like any of the web funnies, i'll do them for £20- theyre 1/3 of A3 size and its just the line art (the colouring's done on computers and that).

please contact me for more details if you're interested- discounts for bulk buys available. have a look here for a reminder of whats on offer, or look at all the comics that you obviously own

joke of the day

how do you kill zombies?
-make loads of really shit comics about them!

ha ha!

seriously though, how are you?

banal pig funnies

so i'm doing alright so far, nearly half way through and i've still got enough ideas to keep me going for a week or so. the trouble is, my scanner's deteriorating so i can only scan in two thirds of the page at a time, which is a bit of a pain in the balls, and if it gets any worse i wont be able to do it. drawing the strips is fairly easy- i do them in my lunch hour at work, but scanning and colouring them when i get home is a bit of a pain, especially when i want to go out on an evening. i keep thinking that i'll do a few in one go to keep me going, but i can never be arsed, the one you see on a morning is the one i finish the night before, the pixels have only just dried by the time it gets to you.

its an interesting learning experience, and good i think to not be so precious about the strips, just bang them out, and i'm now looking forward to starting BANAL PIG IV- the quest for peace, after this month of strips has finished.

go on then...

well seen as everyone's sticking them up, here's my observer blah blah cape and ting. it seems like all us losers have posted as a cathartic experience, and talk of a collection is a good idea i reckons. there's more to see here: http://www.drawanyway.com/2007/10/16/cartoons-the-observercape-winners-and-some-worthy-entrants/ cant be arsed hotlinking, including jim medway's, which is really good, and oli east's is on his blog (trains are mint link, left)

i would have coloured it in if i had the time, but i didnt.

banal pig funnies up and running

yes, pals, as promised, for the next month or so, i will be posting a brand new and exclusive strip EVERY DAY (hopefully) on Banal Pig's Web Funnies. All comments will be gratefully received and please tell your mates.

i will do my best to keep to this gruelling (self-inflicted) schedule, but its probably likely that i'll miss a few days, but my plan is to ease off after a month but still do a couple a week, after the initial burst to get people hooked, you know.

Today's Strip: Space Whale versus Space Kraken.

Birmingham

Hello pals.

Hopefully it goes without saying that i will be presenting my wares at the Birmingham International Comics show this weekend. I know my loyal commentators will be there, but if there are any casual pig lovers out there who fancy a trip to the picturesque west midlands this weekend, then do it! The repeatedly aforementioned JBFCSS2 is now back from the printers and looking fancy, and we'll have all the good stuff, including Gareth Brookes' new book "The Smell of the Wild".
Good old Oliver East will also be joining us, and i understand he'll be bringing not only his excellent Trains are Mint series, but some of Jim Medway's books as well.

Cor Blimey! Why would you want to go to any other stall?

finished

yes yes oh yay, Jolly Bear & Fun Coconut Summer Special Number Two is finished, and i will be whisking it to the printers first thing tomorrow. here's the cover- yes colour, and there's a nice colour painting on the back too. it will premiere at the Birmingham International Comics show this weekend, so please come and buy as many as you can afford.


p.s. this image is not a true representation of the cover, and i have no idea why it's so crazy, but i like it.

JBFCSS2 Preview

yes here he is! a picture from the hotly anticipated Jolly Bear and Fun Coconut Summer Special Number 2, which will be on sale in less than 2 weeks(!) how exciting. I'd better get my arse in gear. same old same old eh? another comic convention, another mad rush to finish. i'm not gonna spoil it, but terrible things happen, as you can see, i've done it a bit painty, like.

clock i made

here's the thing i made for my lovely girlfriend's birthday. a clock with a lion on it. it's based on an antique we saw that julie liked, but as i think you'll agree, it's much better.

pastel pic yeah

quiet week. another nice picture. yes thats right i did do a painting based on this pic too. i found the image on the ground in walthamstow thanks for asking.

another piccy

Here's another one from the vaults. i didnt like it when i did it but i think its pretty good.
Meanwhile in comics, JBFCSS2 is gathering pace like a large round cheese rolling down a steep hill, and the preparations for the all new web funnies during October continue. 'citing.

more never before seen art

here's a couple of things i did a few years ago, and havent seen myself since we moved to bristol. the footballer is from my pastel phase, and the flamencos are coloured pencil (i was completely gay for coloured pencils at one stage) both pics are A1 size. i do want to get rid of a lot of my old art and prints and that but i dont want to chuck them for the sake of it, so i would be prepared to virtually give stuff away as long as it went to a good home. please contact me if you are interested.

tv guide drawings

here's a couple of pictures from an old sketchbook. i used tv guides as reference material quite a lot due to their universality and their pointlessness. i used to enjoy this coloured pencil technique, and i'll post a few more things over next week. i've been a bit nostalgic about being a proper artist and i actually started a new painting yesterday.

banal pig's art appreciation society part 1

have a look at this picture pig lovers, what a beauty! we saw it in a charity shop in wells yesterday and had to "snap" it (didnt buy it though). It is an image full of enigma and symbolism. for example, the little bear is obviously out of his depth, standing still in a world which is always on the move; he clutches a pencil- a creative soul? and his bow tie shows he is part of a society which values appearance over personality. he looks up to show he has aspirations- will he ever achieve them? - i hope so.

also, who wears a yellow skirt, red tights and green high heels? -i like it.

banal pig web funnies up and running!

there'll be no new work up until October probably, but i'm just getting the format right by putting old stuff on there, so any feedback would be appreciated- here it is! there will be a large fanfare etc when new (and exclusive) work goes up, featuring all new Crying Dog, Benny the Ballbag (from Cat Dad) Truculent Strawberry and a new recurring feature tentatively named "Office Funniez", which is a bit of a pastiche of the usual office based rubbish humour we see so much of. Gareth "Man Man" Van Brookes will also hopefully be contributing from time to time, so it should be non-terrible.

Ah, New Look

Yes i thought i'd have a bit of a facelift, so to speak. What do you think? it matches my myspace too. i am however a bit chagrined that i cant put a nice little picture as a header-i've tried loads of times but it just keeps loading forever with that irritating exclamation mark in a triangle.

Banal Pig Pics Brand New

New Banal Pig Pics from my entry to the observer jonathan cape thingy. these are three of the 20 panels of the strip, and i was pretty happy with it in the end, but the copy of it from my buttocks printer didnt do it loads of justice. edit- its come out a bit weird, but i like the composition on the cut off one- click on it for full image.

more daily pig

i'm quite excited at the moment about doing a newspaper style strip as discussed previously, and i've been doing a bit of research into web comics and the like. i have noticed a few things which i intensely dislike about certain strips, and as a result have come up with a few rules about how i am going to do my strip-
1- no geeky referencing of esoteric things (e.g. computer games, the internet in general, obscure films etc)
2- no boring continuous strips- the whole point is that its contained in 3 panels, if a story needs to be continued i'll do it as one long strip somewhere else
3- no "based on a true story" disclaimers

thats all ive got for now, but i might think of more.

i'm also going to stop moaning about the small press scene, and my terrible lot in life and concentrate on doing my own thing. i cant do anything about people i dont know, and i just need to keep making good entertaining work and see what happens. feel free to give me some shit if you hear me moaning.


peace and love and good vibrations pig lovers!

the daily pig

further to yesterday's post, i've been thinking about newspaper strips, and more specifically how rubbish they are. any city dwellers out there who have to endure a tedious commute to work will no doubt be aware of the Metro newspaper's singularly unfunny strip "nemi" (is it even meant to be funny?) and that other one 'this life'. there's also a couple in the sun, "hagar the horrible" and "george and lynne" which are also quite crap, although george and lynne transcends the crapness of the other three examples mentioned and is in a weird, sexy, terrible league of its own- thus:



we dont have the same culture of funnies pages as they do in america, i wonder if they have better ones...
the e.c. segar popeye strips are amazing, and i know there's stuff like krazy kat that old school people like but i dont really get it. also the perry bible fellowship is really good, but there's no way he does one of them each day.
i aim to discover why these strips are so rubbish. is it the three panel format which is limiting? or the sheer volume of ideas needed for a daily strip? -most probably the latter. when i am finished my current projects, probably in october, i am going do an experiment where i have to do an amusing (or not) comic strip every day for a month, and then we'll see how hard it is. i'll have to do it in my lunch break at work so i'll be limited to about 40 minutes, but it should be interesting.

why dont you try it yourself? and i'll see you next time....

ting and ting

no real news on the comics front- working and that- finishing off the nice banal pig for that gosh darned obsever/jonathan cape thing, and also i'm now looking forward to the birmingham expo in a couple of months, new jolly bear for that.
i've been reading a lot about the state of the comics industry recently, how marvel and dc and that dont make any money apart from from films and toys, and the independents are lucky to break even. it amazes me how anyone makes a living in this industry. with this in mind, i dont know where my ambitions lie- should i look towards publishing my own (and other's) work on a decent scale. what about web comics? any money in that? or should i branch out- what about animation/films/toys- yeah, nice ones with lots of lead paint made by chinese people*

you need money to make money isnt it? i'd really like to make a book with two colours with really nice covers and all the rest.

i got a few comics the other day- "Hey, Wait" by Jason which is quite an old one of his but has some really nice stylistic touches, although my heart wasnt quite as broken as the quotes on the cover promised. i also got Uptight No.2 by Jordan Crane which is decent enough, and i agree with Tom Spurgeon that the format of the comic works really well and there should be more indies that look like this- 24 b&w pages with a nice colour screenprinty cover, and its pretty cheap- £1.40.

anyway, i'll repeat my request for some paid work- i'm cheap and try really hard, and if anyone wants to make cartoons of my work (for free) get in touch....





*funnily enough, someone from hong kong or somewhere sent me an email asking if i want to make a banal pig action (or should that be inaction?) figure- i'm going to see how much it is.

ANTSHREW- SHREWANTS!

Yes here be another in my non-regular series of photographs of dead animals. This is a shrew, being eaten by ants.
I'm currently doing my entry for the observer competition, a deluxe banal pig strip, which i wont win, but like they say, you've got to be in it to not win it!

Caption

So we went to Caption for the first time yesterday. A lot of the small press veterans bang on about it as one of the big events in the calendar, so we were a bit surprised to see a rather poky room with not a lot going on (and not a lot of comics) when we got there, and having to pay a fiver to get in seemed a bit steep. The trouble is that people turn up throughout the day bringing their stuff, so if you got there early, you would be gutted, and not necessarily realise there was more to come, so you go home empty handed because there wouldnt be anything to hang around for. The idea of caption is really good though, you leave your comics and they sell them for you for 10% commision -peanuts compared with the cost of a table at one of the big expos, or even the web and mini comix thing, and of course you only have to give them money when you sell something.

I sold surprisingly well however, i took 3 of each issue of banal pig, 3 ethel sparrowhawks and 3 anthologies, and sold all but the unsellable issue two* and two of the anthologies, which means i made nearly £30 with no effort. So there's no complaints from me, especially as we had a nice day out in oxford to boot, but it did seem for the casual small press fan there simply wasn't enough going on to justify paying £5 to get in, especially if you also had to travel to Oxford in the first place (in comparison, the Web and Mini Comix thing is £4, there was far more going on, and it is really easy to get to as its in London near a tube station).

I dont know what to suggest to improve this, and i think form a creators perspective it's important to have these events and support them, but everyone there seemed to be creators who know each other and were in their cliques, so you dont get the direct contact with the creators like at an expo (which can be a double-edged sword as i have previously mentioned, but at least you'd have someone to talk to if you liked the work). also there's events going on which we didnt see, but i never generally bother with that sort of thing anyway.

But i did well so i cant grumble.


*if i ever start a different comic series, i am not going to have an issue two because it has proved very unpopular, even though it is far better than issue one, and other comic creators have confirmed their issue twos sell badly as well.

banal pig's hot celeb goss no. 1

so we goes shopping today yeah, like we normally do to bedminster asdal, and they're filming one of those "celebrities working at asda" adverts, yeah, and it was ian wright working behind the fish counter, and we got a monkfish tail, and ian wright served us. they didnt film it though, so i'm not going to be on telly. stay tuned for more hot celeb goss!

chek dis right here jb fans!

so here's the latest colouring in project. all of you pig lovers will be familiar with the tale from banal pig 3, but i hope you like the pretty colours. i do. the eagle eyed amongst you will notice i've removed two "fucks" from fun coconuts dialogue to make it a bit more suitable for all ages, and the decaying corpse is obviously in good humour. consider this a teaser for jolly bear and fun coconut summer special 2, which will be ready for the birmingham expo. of course, this was done for the rok comics website, and that $10,000 prize is announced next week i think- good luck me. i'm also cracking on with the observer thingy, but the submission guidelines mean i have to draw full size, and the way i've divided up the page means the panels are tiny. oh well. i've finished my thing for the forthcoming monkeys might puke anthology, another thing ticked off the list, another thing on the bottom.

something for the weekend

here's something i have done for a feller called pigeon dave, and he's organising an exhibition of these cards from drawing people all over the country. i'll post when they're all online.

leafy green jokes

thanks to jvs, here they are:

how did victorian leafy greens get around london?
-hackney CABBAGE!

why was the leafy green ill at ease at the fancy dress party?
-because he looked RADDICHIO-ulous!

whats the leafy tina turner song?
-simply the CRESS!

why did the leafy green titanic sink?
-because it hit an ICEBERG LETTUCE!

let's have it!

E for Ethel Sparrowhawk

David Lloyd, famous artist off V for Vendetta and everything likes Ethel Sparrowhawk, and judges you if you dont have a copy.

Fishface in (1) colour (purple)

All new! Old strips coloured in!

yes friends, another stab at the rok comics thing, another coloured strip. i'm not 100% happy with this, but it's ok- i'm getting a feel for colouring in and how it works. i've not done any jokes for ages have i? i'll think of some next time for yous'all, or if you want to get involved now, why not suggest a pun theme?.

Fingers In Pies

Hullo pals! At the moment i'm working on a few bits. As well as JBFCSS2, of which you will no doubt be aware, i'm doing something for Monkeys Might Puke aka sleazy Dan Lester's anthology about Mickey Rourke, if there was a prize for most esoteric comic, that'd win it. i might do some awards.
Also, Jess Bradley is doing an anthology about animals which i'm doing something for, and not to mention the Rok Comics stuff and there's also a competition to get a comic in the observer which i'm certainly having a crack at (cheers for heads up Oli- that boy's got his finger on the pulse). there's also this victorian horror story thing thats been bubbling away for ages that i've got to get finished.

Loads o' tings, ai.

Old Pro

On the advice of John Freeman, who runs rok comics, this Cat Dad strip is on the Pro section of the site, which means you'll have to pay for it if you want it on your mobile. But you know me friends, i'm not gonna rip you off, so here's part one in glorious banalcolour. oh yes. i'm quite enjoying colouring the old strips in. it gives the strips a new lease of life i think, but takes a bit of time.

Jolly Bear in colour

here's the last one for a while- i've got other stuff to do and have to go back to work on tuesday (boo) also, gareth gets a heads up on top shelf's blog (click link on right, cant be bothered finding link, the hey bartender bit).

here's another

yes, uncle ken in beatiful sepiatone. dont ask me why the second panel is orangey. please feel free to rate and download these things (they're free).

I'm on your mobiles

not my mobile, because mine's shit, but this seems like a good idea so i'm trying it. i think i'll colour in a few old strips and put them on there too. theres also a $10,000 prize for the best new one (incentive).

Post 100, 1 year on.

Yes as previously mentioned, i've racked up 100 posts in exactly 1 year, for what it's worth. As its my birthday, why dont you send me some cash, and i'll send you one or all of my comics. If there is anyone reading this who doesnt own the entire portfolio of Banal Pig Comics, here's a reminder of what's on offer:

Banal Pig 1; Feeder and Wife, Hairy Feller, Retard Dad, Incompetent Shark, Womany Man, and Banal Pig and Friends in "Gutter Stupidity" £4 inc p&p

Banal Pig 2: More Feeder and Wife, Incompetent Shark, plus the introduction of Jolly Bear, Lickle Bastard and Ugly Mind Reader, and Fez Man in "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" £4 inc p&p

Jolly Bear and Fun Coconut Summer Special: JB goes about his business in the slums of Hackney, and we meet his flatmate, Fun Coconut who is obsessed with the film Basic Instinct SOLD OUT

Banal Pig 3; More adventures from the BP Gang as the trilogy comes full circle and the prophecy is realised. With the introduction of Irate Robot, and "The Ballad of Homeless Goose" £4 inc p&p

The Banal Pig Portrait Anthology: featuring portraiture-themed work from the finest UK small pressers: hilarious, but really makes you think. £4 inc p&p

Ethel Sparrowhawk: The story of a seemingly unlucky girl who will try anything to improve her luck, a collaboration with Jemima Von Schindelberg. £4 inc p&p

Also, the excellent work by the man who puts the "ig" in Banal Pig Comics, Gareth Van Brookes.

Again, thanks to everyone whose supported me over this annus mediocris.

Nice One Laters

Yours Truly

Stevo xxx

Jolly Bear drawing

watercoloury drawing as trial for jbfcss2.

Frustrations etc

This is what usually happens when i have a bit of time at work- i dont feel like going back, and start thinking about doing something else. Unfortunately, there's not a lot out there for me at the moment.
I'm frustrated because i feel i have got a lot to give in terms of creativity and intelligence, qualities that i have never used in any full time employment, and i dont really know where to start. i'm very envious of people that enjoy their jobs, especially if they get paid well for doing it, and i cant tick either of those boxes.
i know i should be more pro-active but doing what? realistically, i'm not going to get paid well for doing comics for years if ever, but i could have a go at illustration. i'm a creative problem solver, yeah! and i can spell correctly and construct sentences. i can also play a number of musical instruments to a basic-intermediate standard.
on the downside, i dont really have an entrepreneurial spirit and dont particularly like pushing myself forward.

any careers advice would be duly appreciated, cv available on request.

Post 97- Chatterings

Yes friends it's very nearly the anniversary of this blog, and its also nearly the 100th post. so what have we learned? that i write down things that i am planning to do and then a bit later i either do them or dont bother. sometimes i cause controversy and sometimes i make up puns, and reprint stories that i have written.

by the way, when i lived in london and only used to work 4 days a week (those were the days lol! ha ha!) i started to write some novels. the first one was about a mysterious event which wiped out all but about 100 people, basically your last man on earth fantasy, but with the idea that the few remaining survivors were all bastards, like being on big brother or something. i got to about chapter three and got cold feet. the second one i though had a bit more potential. i stole the premise from an obnoxious african woman who gareth went to a creative writing course with, and the name of her novel was "fourteen intelligent men build a castle". i dont know what her story was actually about or anything and dont care, but mine was an (attempted) victorian h.g wells pastiche about this group of gents who are brought together to a remote scottish isle/loch/ whatever to build a castle for a mysterious genius recluse (you know the type), and certain members of the party start dying, you know, mysterious. anyway, maybe i'm writing this so i dont forget it forever, but if there's anyone who'd like to read either of these books, send me a cheque for £15,000 and i'll send you the manuscript, and we'll split the profits 50:50.

anyway, i was also thinking about making longer comics, and i really want to step it up a notch with banal pig 4. my current vision (sounds a bit pretentious doesnt it?) involves 2 levels of comics- i.e. a main strip and a sub-strip running alongside/under/against it, and i want to continue to develop the banal pig "universe" (againy this sounds a bit poncy, but it is fairly common comic speak i think) and feature more of the peripheral characters and make the general look a bit more dense, or at least vary the layouts a bit more. this means that it wont be ready for birmingham, but i'll have JBFCSS2 and maybe another minicomic, and i've got my fingers in a few other pies.

there's exciting things going on over at Man Man's house too. Gareth's decided that he's gonna take on a few more challenging projects, including a development of the bastard teachers thing from the portrait anthology, and an adaption of his own short story about a young boy who decides to make himself some sex dolls, with varying successes.

there's also a reasonable (unsolicited) review in the new Comics International no 202, of Man Man 1 & 2, which says it's funny and good value for money, and then gives it a lukewarm 6 out of 10.

anyway, i'm off on me holidays now, laters!

First Look! Jolly Bear and Fun Coconut Summer Special 2!!!!!

Yes, hot off the presses, or at least hot of a pen via my hand or something is a little sneaky peek from JBFCSS2. This is part one, where Fun Coconut gets obsessed by the film showgirls, and i'm hoping part two will be a bit different visually, but i'm working on it at the moment so i'll let you know when i know.

Appalling Nonsense!

Hello, Pig Lovers!

Gareth "Man Man"Brookes, raconteur, character actor, alcoholic and vice president of Banal Pig Comics has thrust himself into the 21st century by finally making himself a website, Appalling Nonsense. Have a look, why not?

warmest regards

stevo

Another Sketch

Yes due to overwhelming poplier demand, here's another sketch. Jolly Bear and Fun Coconut Summer Special 2 was started in earnest today, and its good i think, featuring a very ambitious and gruesome poem by gareth. i won £54 on a scratch card on friday, which was nice, but 50-odd quid is not quite as exciting as a grown-up, as it was when i was 16 or something. i bought some pork pies and my grocery shopping for the week, and kept £20.

More Sketchbook pages

i dont know if anyone cares (tell me if you want to see more) but here's a couple more pages from my sketchbook, featuring the roster of unsuccessful characters, as previously mentioned: truculent strawberry, strong baby, gay banana, boy with see through head, ignorant horse, doctor octopus, battle of britain kitten (which i will make a strip out of) dead scrote, hungry dog, sexy ghost, cute dog sadness, and draclier.
also uncle ken with a shopping trolley and some other rubbish.

good luck everybody, "c" you next time

popeye

i bought myself the first Popeye collection by fantagraphics the other day and i thinksk its marvellousk. as it explains in the preface, the animated version that we're all undoubtedly familiar with is a bastardised version that basically plays out the same story again and again (popeye versus bluto over olive oyl) and removes the charm of the original 30's strips. there's no spinach either, he's brutal without the need for leafy greens, tinned or otherwise, and generally goes round punching everyone whenever he feels like it. it's really bizarrely funny and i recommend it heartily. ug ug ug toot toot blerp!.

here's my tribute, popexe, and his nemesis, fat martin, and some other sketchbook stuff. as you can see i just use lined paper in cheapo journals as i think when i'm just freestyling it makes me less precious about committing ideas to paper, and i dont have to worry about the cost of the paper i'm writing on. did i mention i'm as tight as a gnat's chuff?

Small press

i was round my old pal gareth man man brookes' house this weekend and he was showing me some of the small press he'd picked up from gosh! comics. it's good to see theres a wide ranges of styles and some are undeniably arty-farty, which i suppose you either subscribe to or you dont, and they must appeal more to artists than comics buyers. This is fair enough, and there is definitely room for all that stuff, particularly when its high quality, but what did make me raise my eyebrows was the price of some of these things. pricing is very difficult, but it's kind of taken for granted that all the time you've spent creating this stuff is never going to be compensated, so £5 for a few sheets of A4 does seem pretty steep. i try to base my price on the printing cost alone, and even then i cant compete with the big published comics (obviously) but i always try to be good value, and want to make something that i'd buy.
this kind of leads onto another point about the small press scene today, the fact that there is your also-rans, the weak home published stuff, and the fantagraphics/top shelf stuff and there's the middle ground, high quality small press stuff which is too small scale to go into diamond (the major comics distribution catalogue) and as a result will always struggle to be seen by its potential audience. obviously the web has helped this immensely- i cant imagine how difficult it was before to sell more than 10 comics- but i've got it at the back of my mind that there's an untapped potential thing that could unify and promote all the excellent small press creators there is out there.
a uk small press version of diamond sent out to all the shops in the uk who stock small press comics so they could contact the makers diractly, or at least have a previous knowledge of the comics when approached would be a good idea i think, and if it was put together by the makers themselves it would mean no-one else would take a slice of the pie.
good idea, this sort of thing takes time and effort that i havent got after working all the time and actually making comics... any volunteers?

Nice words regarding Ethel

Paul Rainey liked Ethel Sparrowhawk it seems. What did you think? What's that? You've still not bought a copy? No problem, send me four quid, i'll sort you out my friend.

Don't cry. It's all right.

What's going on?

Well, i've gotten in to the swing of doing conventions now, so as you can imagine i was a bit disappointed when there wasnt another one this weekend. I'm trying to find a balance between not doing comics constantly at the expense of everything else and finishing comics in time for the cons without working every single hour in the two weeks before deadline. There's 4 months before birmingham so if i start now with a decent effort i should have a good books worth in time, but if i finish a couple of weeks before i'll have the nagging feeling that i could have done another few pages/comic in that time. I would have liked a bit more time on Ethel Sparrowhawk, but it's always the caase that the cons are the best place to shift a lot of comics quickly, and this was true this time as well. swings and roundabouts.
I'm well bored of my job and would like to just make comics and art full time, so if anyone would like to sponsor me, just send a cheque for £15,000 and that will keep me going for a year. i dont think that's greedy. alternatively, some nice illustration jobs, commissions etc would go down well.
gizza job!

Bristol Expo

Its all over and its been a great weekend i reckon. We all sold well- pictured is our display, Man Man and Bingo Bonanza on the left; Gareth had a new comic, Mediocralypse, which is more in the style of the "bastard teachers" strip in the BP Portrait Anthology, with more funny drawings and little stories about wanking with grandads and that.
My stuffs in the middle, including the new comic Ethel Sparrowhawk which sold well and has had a lot of good words said about it, and it seems the things we wanted to achieve with it have come across. I'm gonna put the first 6 pages on the myspace at some point today, so please check it out if you havent seen it.
On the right is Oliver East's Trains Are... Mint including an exclusive with the first few copies of Trains Are Mint number 3, which i read last night and is as brilliant as the other two in the trilogy, so check them out if you havent seen them already.

Also pictured are Oli East (beardy, red check shirt) and Gareth (Charles Hawtrey) who were sharing the spoils.

I think there are a few reasons why we did much better- we had much more choice of stock this year, 17 different titles to choose from, and from my own point of view it is nice to have something a bit less vulgar than the Banal Pigs (i.e. Ethel Sparrowhawk) which broadens the appeal a bit i think. Not that there's anything wrong with calling your dad a cunt, pissing on old mens heads, and anthropomorphic geese sucking men off for crack is there?
Secondly, we've got a bit more of a reputation now, we've been around for a couple of years, and also as Bristol's my home town i've actually got some mates here now.

I picked up some good stuff by the looks of it, which i may review or mention later, and we drank with the good old Monkeys Might Puke boys, and i would advise you to follow the link and watch the short films, especially "When a man loves a Chicken", which is genius.

See you later