Have you been out today?

SOB A6 sketchbook number 5, late '94.





Rather fond of a couple of images in these two. Makes a nice change.

Presumably you all know who Reg Varney is (or was - is he still about?) Quite why I had him in mind fourteen years ago I can't recall.

"Oedipus Schmoedipus" refers to the old Jewish gag: "Oedipus Schmoedipus - so long as a boy loves his mother". Something like that.

SOB A6 sketchbook number 5, late '94.





That sleeping rabbit died not long after, poor thing. Not, so far as I'm aware, through embarrassment at being badly drawn though.

A delightful (as ever) visit from mighty Woodrow Phoenix yesterday
during which I bemoaned my sluggardly work rate and compared it
unfavourably to his own prolific industriousness. Generously he
shared with me the secret of his success in this regard:

"The secret to drawing faster is to draw faster".

So I shall be giving that a go in the following few days and we'll
see how it works out...

SOB A6 sketchbook number 5, October '94.



The dinosaurs, as I recall, were to do with an idea I had for a story about Ben, Ned and Rex (where Ben and Ned were little boys and Rex was a tyrannosaur but everyone was oblivious to that fact). They would investigate the recent spate of grisly deaths around the village but never quite work out what was at the bottom of it all. Meanwhile Rex would quietly grow plumper as the story progressed...

Ladies and gentlemen, Tim Ten Yen.

Marvellous.

Tim used to work at the old Arts Cinema in Cambridge at the same time as me and yet I singularly failed to ever get to know him properly. It turns out he has since become a pop genius (perhaps he already was) and I curse my lack of social effort then as much as I now eagerly await the release of more songs or, all the more so from what I hear, the opportunity to see him perform live.

I went to what I believe the young people may (or may not, I have no way of knowing) still refer to as a "gig" on Saturday night, joining m'good friend Vikki to see Minnesotan minimalist miserabilists Low in Norwich. Now I like a bit of miserable, me, if it's done well. And Low, at their best, do do it well. But a couple of pints down before we arrived at the venue had me unusually perky and bordering on the mischievous such that, at times during the set, I was amusing myself by trying to provoke giggles from Vikki or resisting the monumental urge to shout "cheer up, it might never happen" between numbers or to request a cover of "If You're Happy And You Know It". So what I'm saying, I guess, is that I possibly wasn't quite in the right frame of mind to best appreciate the show, which, given that I'm struggling to remember how long it's been since I last saw a live band (over a year ago I think, possibly The Dresden Dolls) is a shame. Which is not to say that there weren't moments of transcendent, transfixing beauty along the way (there is something very special indeed about the goosebumpy interplay of whatsisname and whatsername's voices), just that they were matched by other moments, as yet another song about death started slowly up, where it all stopped teetering on the brink of self parody, pulled on its Speedos and dived straight in, thus amounting to an evening averaging out at "quite good".

Further drinking at a pub afterwards where a birthday girl sported the most amazing footwear I have ever seen in real life (vertiginous shiny red and black numbers) and a fellow, whom I took against when I heard him boring on about Funny Games, ended the evening by projectile vomiting across the table (he had apparently been drinking with a visiting friend since 3.00 in the afternoon). I am assured by the endlessly forgiving Miss V (who was sadly in the line of fire) that he's actually a perfectly lovely fellow under normal circumstances.

So, if not quite the night I had expected or hoped for, still a delight to see Vikki after too long and certainly a memorable evening, and that ain't nothing. Is this how it always is when one goes out?

As of yesterday, when I completed work on two short Good Dog, Bad Dog strips for The DFC, I am merely busy with work rather than frantic, sleepless and going slightly mad. As such I might actually find time to post here a little more than has become the norm lately. Hope so anyway.

To begin, I've been dipping into the cartoons of Patrick and Alex Latimer at The Western Nostril and enjoying them very much. They are odd and proper funny. Take a look.



Via (as so often) Drawn

SOB A6 sketchbook number 5, October '94.

It's my birthday tomorrow. I'll be forty.

But please don't make a fuss.

SOB A6 sketchbook number 5, October '94.



That man Josh Dyson once again on the right hand page there.