Well, here’s a blast from the past and no mistake! I came across this cornucopia of crap in the bottom of a cupboard I was cleaning out. I’d forgotten most of this stuff ever existed. Actually, looking at the piss-poor quality of most of it, I probably deliberately banished the memory of ever having done it. It all seems to date from around 1988-1989.
I don’t know what the feck I was on here, but I must have been trying out some kind of minimalist and primitive technique. I’ve certainly succeeded, if the target was to produce artwork that looked like it had been done by a 3-year old with terminal brain damage. Oh well, one or two of the 'gags' aren’t too bad. Just a shame about the appallingly crap drawings.
PS: I’ve had to cheat a bit with a lot of these and add the captions on today after scanning them, as on most of them the caption was just scrawled in pencil on the edge of the page.
MP Series
As with previous, the drawings are atrocious but, again, some of the jokes aren’t too shoddy. I actually seem to have managed to stick with one theme long enough to produce a small series –which must have been a first for old butterfly-mind me.
File under 'Random'
I also found this old wanted ad from an unsuccessful attempt to put a band together around that time. Maybe you saw it in Affleck’s Palace? Maybe you thought "I don’t want to be in a band with that dick!" and ignored it?
In-VIZ-Able
I have a vague recollection of sending the following ones to VIZ comic at the time, in the vain hope they might want to print some of my drivel. Needless to say they didn’t, although I did get a quite good sarcastic rejection letter, suggesting I try submitting them to the "Gardener’s Question Time" column in the Radio Times instead.
"Donna C and Her Mushy Pea"
Was based on my girlfriend of the time. Having just arrived from Ireland, I found her Mancunian accent and strange cuisine [Pudding, Peas, Chips & Gravy, anyone?] highly amusing. Unfortunately no-one at VIZ saw the funny side!
For some reason these were drawn across two A3 sheets [yellow] cellotaped together to make A2. Not the easiest thing to digitise on a crappy A4 scanner, but I did the best I could.
The Prince’s Distrust
Me and my mate Danny were getting hassled by the dole to find some work, so we decided we’d apply to The Prince’s Trust to see if we could get some funding to start a magazine. It was going to be some kind of alternative music mag with reviews, interviews and cartoons. Danny [in spite of being barely literate] was going to handle the reviews and interviews whilst I drew the cartoons.
Here was the cartoon strip we submitted along with some of Danny’s articles, to The Prince’s Trust board. They turned us down saying that, while they thought we had talent, the Prince’s Trust couldn’t be associated with such material.
The guy who was advising us in putting our pitch together told us that the only other people he’d ever heard of being turned down for the same reason were The Macc Lads. So we were in quite illustriously bad company.
The strip is based on me and Danny’s never ending quest to pick up girls at the legendary Jilly’s / Rockworld club in Manchester –and also features a cameo appearance from Danny’s dog, Sinse*.
[*Short for 'Sinsemilla', which may give you a hint as to where the inspiration for all this puerile drivel was coming from, at the time].
