Time's a factor

Took the work into Funnel today, so it’s out of my hands till it’s done now. I’ll have to go in to check on the pages before binding, to check the colours are right (mistakes were made last time), but that’s it. I’ve got to sit on my hands till I got a call that they’re ready. I promised not to phone every day to check on the progress. Did that last time which I kind of think annoyed them a tad. It’ll be hard. One day at a time though. In the half hour meeting with Darren this morning, I’m guessing I mentioned every means they could get in touch with me:

“y’know, like if you know anything; when they’ll be ready. Any problems, anything. You’ve got my phone number? Email? Good…good…so, I guess that’s it. Just give us a bell then yeah? Or email? Whatever’s good. Ok then. Going now.”

With the last book, I’d gotten pissed one night, and the books weren’t ready so I sent Darren an email, which actually contained the words:

“I’m not being funny Darren, but times’ a factor here my friend”

Irish cider you see, s’no friend to artist/designer relations. An apology was swift the following morning, but I fear irreparable damage was done. With this in mind I think it’s in my best interest to let him get on with it, unmolested, and presume he’ll get in touch when he needs to. I‘ll give it two weeks before phoning.
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Here’s a sketch I’ve just finished for Banal Pig’s new venture into portraiture prizes.

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Today I have mostly been listening to Guitar Wolf.

Bought 4 Binned 2

The two that were binned were the two that I bought. Very poor and left in the pub. But Clare picked up a couple that stood out from a hell of a lot of chaff. I didn’t speak to many people. It’s hard to make small talk and fain interest when the goods are so bad and the body odour suspect at best. Smallzone bloke was there. Not sure about this guy. Had a look at his site and I’m not always a big fan of 50% commission, but of all the comic shops I’ve spoke to, none have heard of him or his catalogue, so I’ll be dahmed if he’s getting half of my money. Plus there’s a sliding scale of commission, so if you let him have 40 or 30%, he’ll plug your wares just a little less. No, don’t trust it. Some of the stuff he’s touting is pretty good, but you’ve got to push the boat out to earn 50% and a stained white t-shirt and a bum bag doesn’t do it for me I’m afraid. TAM1’s on sale in a shop in Manchester called Magma, which specialises in design books and is pretty pricey. They take 40%, but they earn it, as it’s a desirable place for your books to be in. Anyway, getting off track. There were some nice enough people there and the venue was lovely. The Immeasurable Adventures Of Gorky Park by Dave Hughes was worth a fair share of the train fare. Clare caused a few snide glances in the pub afterwards, laughing very loudly every few seconds, while I sat silent and gutted by my picks. It tells the story of Gorky Park, born with male pattern baldness and a chin beard, as he grows up to be a chess grand master (sponsored by Fucko), is expelled from a match against Gak Gagner for farting, moves to England and so on and childish so on. I’m shit at reviews, but that’s not why I’m here. If you like swearing and characters reading books called ‘Bonsai For Dickheads’, buy this


I could have done a better review if I hadn’t just broke Clare’s camera. S’alright now though, she’s fixed it, but I’m not allowed to touch her things any more. The second one Clare picked up was The Flowfield Unity by Adam York Gregory, a nice collection of one liners, some of which have a science bent to them, which suggests the author disappointed his parents, whom paid for his chemistry degree, only to see there money go to waste as he craps about with comics instead. GlaxoSmithKline’s loss is our gain though, and The Flowfield Unity will be sat by my loo for a while.





By the way, the woman in the picture at the top? Eating a pork pie while feeding her ferrets outside the expo venue. You can’t make this shit up.

cheers ears

thanks to venuscameback for this review

Dour? My arse.

Full of the joys o'spring me.

Some Comic Expo

Teaching tomorrow, some comic expo on Saturday. Teaching I’m looking forward to. Not too sure about the expo yet. I’ve got three groups across Wednesday and Thursday, who’ve got to do some text and image work. They’re not from a practice based course and don’t have much of an art background, but it should be good. Good excuse for a train walk any day. I’ll take the first group, tomorrow morning, from Oxford Road Station to Ardwick Station, keeping the tracks on our left. Then back the other way, with the tracks on our right. Ardwick’s a lovely station. Great views of Kinder Scout, grass and weeds on the platforms, knackered bridge; it’s only used twice a week n’all. Everyone should see Ardwick Station. Both sides of the stretch between Oxford Road and Piccadilly Station are amazing, but both feature in Trains Are…Boss, so I’m saying nothing. This comic expo though. Not sure. I gather it’s all small press stuff, which should be good. It’s in Lancaster, where I’ve never been, which is also good. I don’t know. I’ll go, I’ve got a day off, so me and Clare can make a day trip out of it even if it turns out to be shit. Just a hunch. The exhibitors and the special guests don’t exactly….no, no…no slagging off just yet. I’ll go with an open mind. Then I’ll come back and slag it off. The Bristol one earlier this year, was my first expo since I stopped buying and started creating, and as average as it was, I was surprised by the size. I’d been lead to believe this was the highlight of the year, and it was pretty small. Small if your interest in men in tights has wavered somewhat anyway. Hard sell alley had its highlights, but it’s hard to imagine all these lot trekking up to Lancaster. Hopefully there’s some great stuff, that I’ve not seen, that couldn’t make it to Bristol. This is a hope I’m clinging to, because if Lancaster turns out to be a watered down version of Bristol, well, we’re in trouble.

What's Chinese for mint?

Yesterday Clare booked us both flights for Japan and China next year. Ten days in Japan and three weeks in China. We’d go for longer but she’s a primary school teacher, so we’re kind of limited to the school holidays. Anyway, here’s what I’m thinking. I couldn’t be so self-centred as to wonder off for three or four days following some train line, and just leave her on her tod. But if you knew what a textbook only child I am, then you’d know I’m only too capable of being that selfish. So it takes some effort on my behalf to think of others before my needs. But in China, we’re flying into Beijing and have three weeks to travel to Shanghai, where we fly home. Here’s the best bit. Clare’s got a friend who’ll have been living in Shanghai for eight months by the time we get there. What I’m thinking is that Clare’ll be so chuffed to see her mate, that she would be susceptible to suggestion. Suggestion such as what if I slipped off for the day and followed some train line out of town. I’d only be gone for a day, while her and her mate could be lunching or whatever. It may only be a day, but I can do about six-eight hours walking in that, probably less in an alien environment but enough to get some decent work out of. I’ll slip it into conversation here and there, to test the waters and I’ll get back to you.
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No desire to piss off the neighbours, so The Beta Band it is then.
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Bit worried about page twenty-nine. The writing on it’s pretty small and when Funnel designed TAM1, they had to shrink the drawings ever so slightly, to fit them on the paper and keep costs down. The smallest text in TAM1 is on page thirty-three, down the tunnel. This is readable. Some of the text on page twenty-nine of TAM2 is a smidgen smaller. But it’s a great page (well I like it) and I ain’t doing it again. I’ll stick it up to show you what I mean.
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Bloody hell, Photoshop’s hard to resist isn’t it? Scan a picture in and magnify it, just to get a good look, you know, before committing to disk and then onto print. What’s that there? A hair? Just get rid o’that. Rubber stamp. There we go, all gone…what’s…pencil? Well while I’m here, might as well get rid of that n’all. Before you know it you’ve spent half an hour getting shot of any slight dot that’s out of place, until what you’re left with…well, it hardly bears no resemblance…just looks a bit gid. Sod that, scan it in again and wear your blemishes with pride. I’ll just get rid of that little hair first though….

2!

The headline on the board is a true story from the Lancashire Post. (Evening News?)

Badly Drawn Bid

While I'm waiting for the quote to come through, I'm spending the day scanning all the drawings so they're ready to go when it comes, while simultaneously trying to piss my neighbours off with Squarepusher. Karma's got it's own back though; as I realized I'd managed to contradict myself in the space of five pretty good pages. In the first I declare Chorley to be a joy, and this is proven with another four strong pages as I chart my progression through the town. Something must have pissed me off though as on the fifth page about Chorley, I've apparently decided it's dull as hell. I'd do the page again, but apart from the error in opinion, I like the drawing. It's a pretty simple one, but I'm not sure if I could pull it off again. I've been putting it off and drawing bids instead. Bids with trolleys. I'll probably leave it. Mmm, can't though. It's a massive error. Chorley's a joy. Chorley's dull as hell. No fence sitting there. I like Chorley. Nice train station. I know what had pissed me off and it's reflected in the page in question. White Van Man. What with their Sun and fucking ketchup on everything. Muppets, every last one of 'em. Generalising? Why yes. Not Chorley's fault, you get them everywhere. Can't let anyone pass without comment on their hair/clothes/beard/baps you name it, they'll grunt at it. I'll just scrawl a disclaimer somewhere on the page and be done with it.
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twenty-five pages scanned out of thirty-six so far and i've not wanted to re-do any of 'em yet. s'good going.
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The Jesus Lizard are also good for annoying your annoying neighbours.
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Balls. Spoke too soon. Page twenty-seven's a bit gid. Forgot this one was coming.
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If you've read this or any of the other posts I've done, and ever got the impression I'm a bit narky and usually in a fowl mood, well then, you'd be right. Mostly. But this is only when I'm drawing or typing. The reason being that I've a constant pain in my hands which gets worse the more drawing or typing I do. So seeing as all I do is draw and...well, you can see where I'm going. Which usually means that by the time I come to post a blog, I'm in some considerable pain. Clare spends thirty quid every six weeks for me to see an oesteopath, which sorts them out. Till i decide "oh, you know what? I fancy a draw". They've been pretty bad today, what with all the scanning and what not. But that's the last time I'll mention it. That's a lie and you know it. Next time they're bad, dear reader, you'll be the first to know. Mentally I'm sound, just digitally knackered. Just wanted to explain why some of the posts are more vicious than others.

Suckled By wolves

Band have been told, dust settled, eyes dried, vodka drank, bags rapidly formed and now in retreat. Today's the last gig (if Dave turns up). Two consecutive days off (a rarity), next week, provide ample time to try and resist the temptation to re-do any pages of TAM2 before taking the disks to Funnel. The drawings having been done at the beginning of the year, I think I've come on since. So the temptation is to go back and alter stuff I know I can do better. As it makes perfect sense. If you have the opportunity to do something better, then, well...do it. But people need to see the progression. It'd be too big a step from the standard of drawing in TAM1 to how I draw now. Not saying I'm fucking Da Vinci or anything, but I've improved. S'why I've been impatient for TAM2 to come out, as I thinks it's better than 1. The same'll happen after 2's out, because 3's better than that. It was the same with the band. We recorded a single, but by the time it came out we'd, in my opinion, done much better stuff and I thought the single was misrepresentative of us as a band, at best, and at worse, a bit shit. I've also got to hold back on Trains Are...Boss. I'm guessing (as my fragile ego hasn't mustered up the courage to phone up the arts council to get a more indepth analysis as to why my application was shit) that one of the reasons my proposal was rejected, was that the work had already been done. They would have preferred it if I'd applied before doing anything on the books and included the time it took, into the proposal. I need to consider my options before getting a load of drawings done. I'll be doing a more substantial funding application next year. This'll involve producing a series similar to TAM, a capitol item (desktop) and possibly time in a residency, as I fancy doing a foreign TAM. But that's way off yet. I could carry on with ...Boss and realise it as a PDF. That might work. I need to be doing some kind of drawing or I'll go spare. There'll be a considerable gap inbetween the final TAM and the printing of whatever comes next, so a PDF might fill the gap.

Introducing...Super Wife!

well, we (yes, the royal we) didn't get the funding. Still kind of gutted, overwhelming pessimism aside. Calmed down though after a bath and a bannana. Quit the band this week as well, and although I'd been considering it for a while, telling Graham unexpectedly knocked me side ways. So add the rejection letter onto me not really looking forward to telling the rest of the band, and well, lets just say it's not been the best of days so far. Plus I'm working at six and England are playing. Huzzah! Fear not, dear reader, as all is not lost. For, introducing, SUPER WIFE! Or Morgo Kill to her friends. Or Stinky to her husband. We'll call here Clare for now though. Aye, god bless her selfless self. Clare has offered to pay for the printing of Trains Are...Mint 2. From sulking in the bath with a wolly hat and a bannana, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Funding would have helped obviously, not having to pay anything back a big plus. But hopefully through sales (hahahahahahahahahahahahahahah, no seriously), I'll be able to pay her back at some point. We couldn't really thrash out the details this morning, as I was still dumb founded by the offer and she was in a rush and considerable amounts of pain. But she seemed pretty insistent. So I left the bath stewing and phoned Darren at Funnel Creative. He did a great job on designing the first TAM and got a good quote, so I've asked him to get me another good quote for the forty page TAM2. I'm not going to attempt to put a date on when the book could be ready, but Clare says she's got the money now, and the book's ready to be taken into Funnel when I get the quote, and it shouldn't take too long for Darren to get back to me. Depends how busy he is of course. But, well, this morning I was facing not having any more books out for the foreseeable future, and now, well, fingers crossed, could be ready mid November.

Balls

You missed the old man

With Trains Are...Boss, I'd promised myself to spend more time on each page, more focus on the detail. With ...Mint I did about three pages a day, but I've been staring at this drawing for ages now. It's of my favourite building of the moment, it looks nothing like it, rather how I always imagine it. There's still a fore and background to fill in, but I'm not sure if any more detail would be over egging the pudding. They'll probably be some brick work in there somewhere. Big fan of repetitive drawing.

Hold please

It's six weeks ago today, that the arts council started processing my application for funding. For anything under five grand, which mine was, they say they'll be in touch within six weeks. So here's me trying to fain interest in some Buster Keaton film and a Scrubs double bill, while trying not to stare at my laptop, willing that email to come. I think it'll come by email. The rejection that is. I'm very pessimistic. By nature, but about the proposal I put in as well. For under five grand you have to right no more than a thousand words for way you need the money. Being dyslexic, to say I wasn't looking forward to this would be an understatement, to put it mildly. In the end I did the project justice, but in 1500 words, so I had to shave a third off. This is where the pessimism set in as I managed to get it down to 999 words but, in my mind, to the detriment of the project. These are two books which are very important. They need to be made. And 999 words just didn't get this across. I know what's going to happen though. I won't have heard anything by, lets say, next Wednesday. No email. No post. So I'll give them a ring:

"er, hi. Er, my name's Oliver East and I had a proposal...I sent in a proposal about six weeks ago and was just wondering if there was any news? Sorry."
"Reference number"
"sorry?"
"reference number. There should be a reference number on the letter we sent out after we received your application"
"oh, right. Sorry. Er...oh yeah...43XXXXXXXX. Does that sound right?"
"yep. If you could just hold on a second Mr East and I'll just check your file"
"ok"

an age seems to pass and I start to relaxe a bit and I'm just about to start imagining the phone lady naked when...

"Mr East?"
"...mmm...mmm?"
"Sorry Mr East, it's a no"
".....oh....kay"
"have a good day, good bye"
click.

and that'll be it. They'd have kept me hanging for six weeks until I was forced to act, and not even a foxy phone manner able to soften the overwhelming sense of anticlimax and then dread. Dread on how the hell will I get the books out know? There's options. None that great, but the second episode of Scrubs is on.

impending climax forces my hand

The impending climax of my trial of Dream Weaver has forced my hand. It's sooner than I would have like, what with 2 being far from printed, but you can now preview the first ten pages of Trains Are...Mint 3 at the Rolling Stock Press website. The only bit of 3 that needed doing was the cover, so I had to do it today, but with 3 not coming out till at least next march, I'd fully intended this cover to be replaced. But I think I'm quite pleased with it. Ask me again in a couple of months and I'll probably tell you something else, but for now I'm content.
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Should I be ashamed that I've attempted some lame innuendo as a title for this post as a desperate ploy to get people to look at it? Probably. I'll do it again though. Not one for learning from his mistakes.

Clerks 'n' vegatarians.

Distribution is very important for the books and gaining it through some distributors has proved dahm near impossible. Doesn't help that I've only got one book to sell at the moment. When TAM's 2 and 3 are ready, it may be easier to strike a deal with someone. But to be honest, I'm enjoying the way I'm going it at the moment. You're kind of limited by a few factors when distributing by foot. Like how many books you can fit in a satchel? And do you pack it as full as possible? You know, in case there's a bit of movement in there and they could mark each other in some way. This has become an obsession of mine, where if the satchel's not entirely full, I'll hold it away from my body, so as not to rock the books too much. Of course they're also in a plastic bag inside the satchel as well. Anyway, obsessive compulsive behavior aside, the act of going to a shop to drop some books off, and make small talk with the guy/girl about how badly/badly they're selling, is all a part of this D.I.Y. ethic I've gotten myself into. Of course some shop assistants are moodier than others, keen adheres to stereotypes that they are (see also bar workers and vegetarians). Some are also more attractive than others. Whether eye contact is required or headphones removed depends on a number of these variables. Most are lovely though. Working where they do, pretty much all of them are creative in some way, so are sympathetic to my needs. Although they all seem slightly unnerved by my talent for sweating and stammering in tandem. It's even better if distribution by foot involves a train as well. Leeds is only an hour away and I'm due to check up on the ten I left there. I'm spending christmas at Clare's folks in Bristol this year, where they've sold two from the fifteen I left there in May. I'll take an empty bag with me. But the second I get some kind of distribution, all these romantic D.I.Y. ideals will be quickly forgotten...hold on, neighbour's are at it again..

"SHUT THE FUCK UP ALAN"
"FUCK OFF"

lovely. I do have to keep reminding myself about why I started making (and at first giving away) books, with this D.I.Y. ethic, when I get distracted by things like sales and distribution. The online presence was important. But as long as the books are sound, everything else is secondary. Jesus, must be in a good mood or something. Don't worry dear reader, it'll pass.
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Just realised waiting for an answer on a £3200 funding application might not constitute D.I.Y.. Oh well. If I had that kind of money, I would do it all myself. I'll have to make more tips at work. Might try smiling.

Sod Tracy in accounts

I used to think I made artists' books but I don't any more. Judging by the wares on show at the artists' book fair on saturday, I think my stuff's just seen better in a book. All these earnest stalls discussing different glues and massive books, for no good reason, just because they could make a massive book. This is what I hated about most photography students' work while I was at college. All these students making massive prints just because they had the means. Nothing to do with the content. Just because they wanted a huge piece. Look at me. I'm in the room. Same with these books. A handful warranted the size or the fold out design or the fabric pages, because of the content within. Many didn't though. I don't think these are my people. Too crafty. Banal Pig was there. Very good Viz style comics. Some muppet with his autobiographical comics about his crappy life in his shitty office. Brilliant. More of this please. Because there just aren't enough small press comics about fat/skinny, goatee wearing/ balding office workers who are a bit gid with girls. Sod imagination. The world needs your musings on commuting and Tracy in accounts. I think my people are in the small press somewhere. Just don't think I'm looking hard enough. Mine aren't autobiographical and they're not out and out humour comics either. Magma asked for another five so I must be doing something right. I think I just destined to make comics that sell badly in comic shops. Although I might not be making much of anything if this funding doesn't come through.