Sour Grapes

As you, dear reader, may or may not be aware, i put myself forward for the eagle awards in the category of best british comic black and white or something. anyway, i'm not too bothered that i didnt get shortlisted, as it was more to be there or thereabouts as part of my awareness campaign. however, i am extremely chagrined at the fact that tales from the flat got shortlisted- it was actually the fact that they were in there that made me get involved- i thought if that bag of spanners is on there, my quality publication surely deserves a crack. i dont really understand the small press scene. there's some many pairs of buttocks masquerading as comics out there, which i think even to the untrained eye are self indulgent tripe, tales from the flat very much included, which seem to do well and be popular. horses for courses i suppose, for every arsehole who's a dickhead, theres a shit comic for you, for every conoisseur of excellence, theres a banal pig.
there. i've published my thoughts. let my sour motherfucking grapes dissipate into the etherel world wide web...

p.s. vote for the eagle awards, my recommendation would be vented spleen, anything but tales from the fucking flat please.

cameras knackered

the attached photos are taken with our camera. as you can see, its chinned. stil it wasnt bad- julie found it on the bus about 4 years ago in south kensington and weve had a lot of use out of it. ever since its been broken i cant go five paces without spotting a so-called kodak moment, like on the way to work where someones painted CLAMPING CLAMPING all over everywhere, along with baby writing saying "You will be clamping", and there were some ducks and stuff. cops with cameras on tonight. gravy!

Selling,Watchmen,Drawing

A few things i feel inclined to document today. Gareth (Man Man) Van Brookes tells me that Gosh! in London have sold out of Banal Pig 3's and are happy to take some more.This is good news as last time i sold all but one of BP's 1 & 2 which meant they wouldnt take any more. They're also taking some anthologies so if you're a smoke dweller pop down and check it out.

In other news, i read Alan Moore's Watchmen this week, which i found to be excellent. As i have mentioned in previous posts i am naive to the conventional comics world (dc and marvel et al) and before i actually started making comics i had read very little and this being oft-mentioned i thought i should read it. It was a christmas present from my sister which arrived on Monday (yeah, cheers sis). What i like about Moore's writing (and i think the same is true of HG Wells) is that he assumes the reader is intelligent and there is no flab explaining to idiots whats going on. very anti-hollywood, no easy answers, everything isnt black and white. the drawings are great as well.

I'm also cracking on with Ethel Sparrowhawk, and have started inking some bits (although its not all pencilled yet), so hopefully there will be a few glimpses of finished pages soon. i think im alright for time, ive got about 6 weeks, 10 days of which i'm off work for, but i'm doing this victorian horror story, plus Jolly Bear and Fun Coconut Summer Special number 2 is roughed out, and all being well will also be ready for Brizzle, as we moronic west country folk call it. This features another excellent verse by Gareth and is as dark as a piece of ebony in sunglasses drinking a pint of guiness at midnight.

Take care, love you, bye x

Round Winston Churchill's House/ ROAD JOKES!

Another reject from the anthology- it didnt seem to have that many funny things at the time so i put "What does fishface do?" in instead.


Round Winston Churchill’s House

So I’m here with Winston and his friend Phil in the drawing room (his dog’s in the corner as well). This one of many rooms in this large country retreat- I’m staying here tonight, and I feel very eager to impress.

Winston and Phil are smoking cigars, and he offers me one. When I politely decline he seems terribly offended, and at once his attention turns from me and I am excluded from the conversation. Five minutes pass and I continue to be ignored so I decide to ask for a cigar after all. Winston’s demeanour changes at once. His attention reverts back to me and he watches with delight and expectation as I light the cigar. I disgrace myself as the pungent smoke makes me gip and cough, and I am unable to prevent a considerable string of saliva lowering itself from my mouth onto my tie.

The next morning, Winston and Phil have already breakfasted when I get downstairs, and rather than cause a fuss, I go hungry.




Road Jokes

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!

Go on have a go!

Website update as well

Wassap my bruvvas?

i forgot to say that my website has been updated (clicka da linka----->, still cant do links). can someone send me the html for putting links in? ive just made it so it links back here, to my myspace and comicspace and other rubbish and stuff from bp3 is finally on there too. its took ages because my brother facilitates it (its basically his website) and hes bin roaming for a while. by the way (smug stand up comic voice) comicspace- whats that about? for some reason i cant upload any images other than the little profile pic. probly cos ive got a mac, thats usually the problem.

also its reassuring to know that my profile views have gone up a bit- 104 or summet which means 101 people have looked once and tutted, and you my hardcore friends remain or something. due to this popular demand, im gonna start posting a lot more. probably a load of bullshit, but 104 profile viewers cant be wrong.

more also i cheekily put the swear word cunt as one of the labels for an earlier post, and strangely enough it rates quite highly when you google banal pig. (probably not when you google cunt i would think though).

i feel quite positive after the weekends miniature successes.

Whathappenedatthewebandminicomixthingstevo?

well, i'll tell you what happened. 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 Easts Trains Are Mint which aslo went down well.
it does make me think that there should be more cons like this, as it would actually mean we started to make money at these fairs (i dont know anyone who does), although the entry fee £4 was probably a bit steep, most of this went towards the anthology/catalogue thing which was like a phone book and had colour printing but was on sale for 50p. i didnt buy this either because although i sent a submission, which i posted here first under the title "New Exclusive Banal Pig Mothercrushers!" they didnt use it for whatever reason. fuck em.

the image is the cover pic from, yes you guessed it, the portrait anthology, and the art lovers amongst you will recognise it as a pastiche of Durer's Self Portrait with Leather Gloves.

Am I still on about that fucking anthology? You bet your ass!

sup g men and home girls?

yes, the anthology is at the printers. its banal pig comics' 9th publication. not bad eh? anyway if you're reading this its more likely than not that you contributed to it and are struggling to keep the drool in your mouth thinking about it, as it so mouthwatering to simply imagine. 40 pages, colour cover (thats right!, glossy too dont you know). we'll see if it actually sells soon enough. hope so, although its not as comicy as some of its rivals on the open market. classy, cerebral you know.
the banal pig is all about value for money, but i dont know exactly what it'll cost until our man at the printers tells me tomorrow.

moving on good old ethel sparrowhawk is also underway, and what about this pig lovers, jolly bear and fun coconut summer special ...number two! wherein fun coconut finds a new film that he likes, and jolly bear goes missing, oh crumbs!

what about that for a teaser? what about this for some rhetoric?