Annual Chores #1...

Cleaning my tea cup at work - 5 minutes of scrubbing, scraping and general mayhem, and my Muppets mug is ready for the new year...!

Xmas Card 2010

Merry Christmas everyone!

CCGB #73

This scored 10 points! Thanks all. Interesting bit of disection from Noel Ford...

"Believe it or not, yours was the first idea that came to me but I rejected it on these grounds: (...) I realised that, for the gag to work properly, there would have to be come logical reason for the inappropriate logo to have been used in the first place. Bren's cheese wedges making up the radiation symbol and my use of the initials, CC, for instance. The idea of the Nazis having a Mickey Mouse logo is funny but illogical since there is no obvious reason why that symbol relates to the Nazis."

Something to remember methinks...

CCGB #72

CCGB #71

A good cartoon, but not good enough to score any points this week! Actually, the competition was so fierce this week, not one bad gag in the lot. It was an honor to lose to Rich Skipworth's suprememe effort "Snowman". If you want to find out more, pop over to the CCGB competition #71 and take a look...

CCGB #70 - WOO-HOO!

Would you believe it - this cartoon managed a massive 25 points in the CCGB Caption competition #70 "Now THAT's just showing off", and a 3rd place spot on the podium! It's my highest scoring cartoon to date, and just goes to show that all my hard work has payed off. My thanks to all those who voted - now it's on to the next one!

Please place your husband in the Nagging Area!

Interesting story behind this one. Every week, the winner of the CCGB Competition gives a new caption for the next competition, and on week 67, the veritable Dave C (dc1) won. After talking to him afterwards, he said that one of the captions he had thought of and dismissed was "please remove the item from the bagging area", a phrase which, if you use the UKs favourite supermarket's self service checkout, you'll know all too well. Dave dismissed the caption, as he thought it was too difficult - I agreed, but in the back of my mind, I wondered if you could do something similar - thsi is the result. Cheers Dave!

CCGB #69

Here is my entry for CCGB #69

Quick cartoon, drawn using a Kuretake Twin Graphic, and coloured in OpenCanvas.

CCGB #68

Latest entry for CCGB Compo #68 - "That's not mine." Drawn with the failthful Flair before being GIMPed and ArtRaged.
This scored 3 points - on to the next one!

Guy Fawkes - Mission Impossible...

I just love this one. Coloured version will come later on - oh yeeaahhh...

CCGB #67 - Dalek

My latest entry for CCGB Compo #67 - (Un)intelligent Design. This was done using my new favourite pen, the Papermate Flair. I don't care that it's not waterproof, I don't care that the ink is non-archival and will fade - I just love drawing with it. It's such an instinctive pen, and if Randy Glasbergen can use one, then so can I...

This received 6 points - my highest score yet!

Guess who's running the CCGB competitions?

Yup, it's me. After a wonderful run by Steve Bright (Brighty) and Helen King (Scotty), yours truly will be taking over the running of the Cartoonists Club Of Great Britain weekly/monthly competitions. I've mentioned these competitions before in these hallowed pages, but just as a reminder, the CCGB runs two competitions where cartoonists and caricaturists compete to be the best - the prize is... the adoration of your fellow artists - nothing more, and nothing less. It's all just a bit of harmless fun, that frequently produces some great gags, brilliant artwork, and some very heated debates! If you're interested pop over to the CCGB and have a look...

Come get some... Klingon!

Just a quickie today...

CCGB #64

Sorry about the lack of posts...

Sorry everyone - been dealing with a family berievement, so not many posts this week. Hopefully some more updates will come later, thanks for your patience..l

Hey, I made it!

Yup - my cartoon made the xaraxone cartoon gallery! Please take the time to look at the fab cartoons posted by some very talented cartoonists at the XaraXone Cartoon Show 2010!

Interesting fact - Star Wars

Number of times I have seen the movies...

Star Wars - too many to count!
Empire Strikes Back - Oodles
Return of the Jedi - Oodles

Phantom Menace - 1
Attack of the Clones - 1
Revenge of the Sith - 1

Draw your own conclusions... :)

Xara Xone submission

Just submitted "Keys to my heart" to the Xara Xone Cartoon Show - I wonder if they'll take it?

How times change...

Something that troubles me, is how times have changed computing-wise. The computer and I first met at school, when I tried to master that wonderful little beast, the BBC Micro. Oh, how I struggled with it, loading programs via tape, playing games that cost a small fortune, and realising that I'd never be able to afford one (£400 back in the early eighties...)


Fast forward 3 years to my first job... as a Computer Operator. I used to work on an ICL Mainframe called an ME29, the first machine I used that had 256k of memory (2 years later, my Amstrad PCW 256 surpased that). That wonderful mainframe started by turning a key...


Fast forward to 1986 - my first exposure to PCs - the Amstrad PC 8086 - I remember thinking that these were out of my price range, but loved the idea of a hard disk. In 1989, portable computing arrived with my Cambridge zx81, a lovely little laptop word processor with a rubber keyboard (Amstrad eventually took them over and released the machine under another name), but the real highlight was seeing IBM PS/2 PCs - I drooled over their lovely looks, and fantastic power (at the time) - it wasn't going to be long before PCs would rule my life.


Not soon after, I was introduced to the Atari ST520FM - and my love of computers for home use was secure. I played hundreds of hours of games, produced fanzines, programmed, trawled BBSs - in fact, I did everything I do today, on a machine that had 1MB of memory, and a floppy drive - I loved it! I upgraded it, cherished it, bought it presents - my wife said I spent more time with the Atari than I did with her (she was jealous I tell you)!

In 1994, I was given the chance to move to IT/PC Support, and I jumped at the chance. From that point on, I was a PC man. I always built my own to my own spec (a trend I only recently distanced myself from), and I learned the very deepest darkest secrets of their psyche. Not only DOS, but Windows fell before me, in all it's worst incarnations.

Today, I use a 3GHz PC PC at work, a Samsung net book for general surfing at home, and a HP TC1100 Tablet PC for my artwork, and I recently contemplated purchasing a one terabyte hard drive because they were so cheap - things have certainly changed in the last 30 years!