It hasn't gone unnoticed that the blog post due on Sunday did not appear in a timely fashion. In fact I had no less than seven people point it out to me with varying degrees of indignance.
I have some excuses prepared, two of which may be true:
The cake-sale-athon that appears to be taking place in my office meant that I was hospitalised with cake-poisoning, on account of eating too many cakes. What could I do though? I have a moral obligation to support charitable events even at the risk of my own health. My problem is that I care too much.
I actually wrote and published this post in plenty of time, however it was pulled into a temporal vortex and has only just emerged!
I was busy panic buying products (including but not limited to: spray starch, lemon curd, paving slabs, shoelaces, filing cabinets, sticking plasters, Twixes and beetroot) the availability of which may, at some point in the future be slightly affected by strike action, despite a lack of any actual information to support the assertion.
I was waiting to ask for the bill in one of those restaurants where physics defying waiters managed to busily have their backs to me at all times!
I couldn't see my computer past my beard.
Hans and his band of terrorists took over the office block in which Dr K works. Fortunately, Argyle had just dropped me off from the airport and, with the help of a portly child-killing cop, I was able to uncover the bad guys plan to steal all the bearer bonds in the basement and kill them all (although not before they killed Ellis) without even wearing shoes. So I was a bit too busy for blog posting!
I was the victim of a terrible accident involving a buttered goat and a very sharp wedge of cheese, which resulted in the loss of all of my fingers and three of my toes. Therefore I've had to type this post with my nose, which has taken 3 days, so far!
I had a visitor over the weekend. By the time he left I had to make the difficult choice of either writing a blog post or watching the first episode of the new season of Dexter. Obviously I chose to write the blog post... NOT!!!
I went for a curry with my bosses boss and his boss. It went on quite late, and I was far too tired to write a post by the time I staggered through my front door. Fortunately my bosses bosses boss paid for dinner which made up somewhat for the rather unpleasant brown stain on the end of my nose.
So, a friend and I had a conversation (over tea and cake) about exactly what qualified a person as a 'celebrity'.
These are the first nine 'celebrities' named on the front page of the UK's OK magazine website:
Jorgie Porter Matthew Wolfenden David Walliams Jessie J Ben Kelly Konnie Huq Sam Faiers Amanda Holden Imogen Thomas
Hell, I've only ever heard of two of those people. That said, I'm probably not the best person to ask about celebrities.
Even so, if I've never heard of 'em are they really celebrities?
Naturally we ended up referring to a dictionary:
Celebrity noun: a famous person, especially in entertainment or sport
Hmm. So, a celebrity is a famous person. But what actually makes someone famous? I wonder what the dictionary has to say about that:
Famous adjective: known about by many people
Many people, eh? Qualify 'many'.
Many noun: a majority
I think I know what 'majority' means, but let's check, just to be sure:
Majority noun: the greater number
Righto. So by my interpretation, a 'celebrity' is a person who is known about by more than 3.4 billion people.
(I know, I know. You're gonna say that I'm casting the net too wide. I shouldn't be using the whole world as my base figure - that's way too divisive. But if we start limiting the pool to people who are likely to have heard of 'em, then we might as well say that I'm a celebrity on the basis that my cat knows me!)
I'm willing to bet that, Jeremy Clarkson notwithstanding, there's not a single so called 'celebrity' on the planet who's known about by 3.4 billion people.
I mean, perhaps George W Bush is. He got a lot of press. Elvis, maybe. But definitely not Matthew Wolfenden. Turns out, he's just a guy.
I'm really sorry, ladies, but those of you who were expecting cards and presents from your offspring today should prepare for disappointment.
Despite all the advertising by the greetings card industry, there is in fact no Mothers Day this year.
You see, there was a scheduling error. Those idiots in the the calendar department went and double booked the 18th March. Today is in fact Dazza's birthday. It's been Dazza's Birthday on the 18th March for the last 30-odd years and it's not about to change. Here he is with this year's haul:
I have my suspicions about how this horrible Mothers-Day/Daz Day mix-up occurred:
So if you've gone out and bought your mum a card, I'm afraid you're going to have to ask for a refund. They shouldn't have sold it to you in the first place. And if you have received one, try not to be too despondent about the fact that it's a hollow gesture.
Now, my mum puts quite a lot of emphasis on Mothers Day. So that she doesn't feel all put out and everything, I have in fact purchased a card. But I didn't want to fall into the Cabal's ridiculous little trap, so I bought her a card that was far more appropriate for the day:
Now I've set the world to rights, I shall move onto other things. This week, Rochester has been very poorly. He has kidney problems and they sort of got the better of him. Turns out that he had no potassium in him, which was causing him to be lethargic and dehydrated. Kinda like a hangover...
Anyway, the vet kept him in for a couple of nights, shaved bits of him for some sort of kinky ritual, poked him with all the stuff she could find, charging me a small fortune for the pleasure, and now he's much better. So much so, that when we got him home, he thanked us by coming up to bed with us and liberally sharing his lovely diarrhoea.
There's nothing quite like having to change the bed, clean the carpets and shower at half past eleven at night.
So basically, Rochester has spent all of my savings and then shit on me. Thanks, mate. You're very lucky to live with people who still love you despite being covered in your shit!
One last thing.
When I turned on the telly yesterday morning, James Martin was making Cream Teas. Guess what I had a craving for all weekend?
Are you sure? I think if you looked carefully, that was actually a bean-burger. Or a veggie burrito.
In fact, my last meaty meal was on 31st January. It was a slightly disappointing steak baguette, and I had it with my good friend Mr Berry.
Veguary was quite a success last year, and people had been asking me if I would be repeating it this year.
So, I thought I'd try it again. But with a twist to make it more interesting: Covert Veguary. Or Invisiveguary if you prefer.
I told no-one. Well, actually, I did tell one person because I'm basically incapable of keeping a secret. But no-one else knew. Especially not Dr K who, when I told her over a celebratory plate of hot chicken wings at Nando's on the 1st March, was astounded. Look, here's her astounded face:
She didn't really say that. She's far too nice a girl for that sort of language.
For the record... here's that plate of chicken wings:
Somehow, I managed it. For a whole month, I ate nothing but vegetarian approved fayre. Blimey, it was hard work doing it in secret. Covert curries. Sneaky sausages. Fajita facades. Falsified feasts, Camouflaged Chineses. All manner of alliteratively ambiguous... er... food...
There were a few tricky moments. For example, my friend Jo very kindly offered to make us dinner one evening. She was making chicken fajitas. Yum. This presented me with a bit of a dilemma. I'd either have to feign some sort of illness, or hope that no-one noticed that I was only stuffing my wrap with cheese, onions and peppers. I kind've imagined the conversation going like this:
My luck was in however and on the day we were supposed to be going over, Dr K contracted a horrible chest infection (no, not my hands...) which had her in agony! So we couldn't go. I have to say, I've never been so pleased to see Dr K in such excruciating pain!
But no-one noticed. Well actually - during the course of the month, the lack of meat in my meal was the subject of comment by just two people. But not even they made the connection between that one meal and all the others!
(And before you start claiming that you knew what was going on all along - stop deluding yourself. If you didn't pipe up then, you can't pretend you'd noticed, you fool!)
I suppose this calls for some profound insight into how people are so wrapped up in their own little lives that they don't have a clue what's going on around them. They are, but who wants to read a post full of smugness? There's plenty of other people around being smug about their perceived superiority without me adding to it.
Instead of smugness, how about a picture of some steak:
I love steak and plan to go and eat one really soon. Who's with me?
Last Monday, I very cleverly managed to pour boiling water from the kettle onto my hand.
After I posted about my misfortune on Facebook, I was asked if I would share my wisdom and experience further by producing a list of things that you probably shouldn't do.
So here it is. In case you're wondering, all of these have been verified by me or a trusted third party.
1: Pour boiling water from the kettle onto your hand. Now you wouldn't really think this needed to be said, but apparently there are some idiots out there that still think its a good idea.
2: Eat spicy food before bed. I know, it sounds like an awesome idea, but I am reliably informed that your anus will take revenge in the morning.
3: Leave a dead mouse right where the Sky engineer is going to set up his ladder. Unless of course you like bursty dead mouse guts squirting all over the patio and his shoes!
4: Inhale tinsel. It hurts.
5: Tell people about your week off. Because they find things for you to do!
6: Make fajitas with vegetarian 'steak'. It's like eating brown strips of polluted snot. You know, like when you've been in the London Underground. Yuck.
7. Offer to make a 6 episode cartoon series for your brother in your spare time. Turns out it takes up every waking moment of your life.
8. Leave the TV on BBC1. Because at some point, Eastenders will come on and make you bleed from your eyes and ears!
9. Imply that they may be a list of things not to do. Because then people expect you to show them the list. Lucky I'm good at listing things!
It's that time of year that the internet explodes with rumours about new iPads.
There are tons of exciting rumours about retina displays and quad core processors and and super HD cameras and extra strength batteries and stuff like that.
But none of that is important. The internet seems to be missing the point.
So to help them out, here are the upgrades that I fully expect to appear on the iPad3:
You will notice immediately that it is chrome. I'm bored of my plain black iPad and the white one makes me feel a bit trashy. So chrome is the obvious answer. Shiny, shiny chrome!
The new iPad will have a robot arm. Robot arms make everything a little bit more awesome. It will be useful for holding my tea. It's also very handy to have an extra hand when I'm looking at por... er... pictures of steam trains.
A Knight Rider light display is an essential part of the modern gadget. If your gadget doesn't have a Knight Rider light display, then it's probably shit. If you prefer, this could alternatively be a Cylon visor, which may complement the chrome look better. The two are pretty much interchangeable, although KITT was way cooler and Mr Feeny was never actually proven to be a Cylon, despite everything.
The one thing that iPads have always lacked is LEDs. LEDs are brilliant and I think Steve missed a trick by not including them in the original design. So it just makes sense to have a bunch of multi coloured LEDs that don't really do anything other than look pretty.
One of the things I find most tiresome about my current iPad is that fact that I have to hold it. Hover jets would be a simple and effective way to solve this problem.
Awesome apps are essential. Until now, apps have been pretty average. But with the iPad 3, I confidently predict that there will be working Death Ray apps with which to zap your enemies, or their peaceful planets with no weapons... Also, there will be a tea app, which brings me on to the final innovation...
The Spout. Genius. Obviously if you're gonna have a tea making app, you're also going to need a spout to pour it from!
Well there you have it. I look forward to buying my new iPad in the spring!
First we had to come up with a compelling concept. When we started, all Russ knew was that he wanted six episodes of a Dungeons and Dragons related cartoon.
The first idea we (by which I mean Russ) came up with was to sit four gamers around a table, playing D&D and making in-jokes about it. But that didn't really grab me. It felt like something that had been done before, and probably better than we could.
So we turned it on it's head. What if we had four fantasy characters sitting around playing a game of Real Life. That's when our imaginations started running riot. You wouldn't just be limited to jokes about nerds and D&D cliches, but you could actually have proper social commentary on real life issues as well!
Wait, did I say 'social commentary'? I meant lame jokes, obviously. Duh.
We had our basic concept. And we decided to name the cartoon after the game that characters played in it:
I worked up some notes and designs for the characters. Russ made me redo them about four million times, coming up with useful changes and suggestions.
Erric the knight, for example. My initial drawing of him looked like this:
As Russ pointed out, he looks more like a wannabe guard than a noble adventurer. So then we decided to work that into his character. Now Erric is, indeed a noble knight, however he also has a 'twin brother' in the local militia. No one has ever seen them together.
After his revision, Erric looks more like this:
The other characters went through similar reworks - Malach, may well be an uber-powerful wizard in hiding. Bilar the dwarf has a secret that he doesn't want anyone else to know - let's just say that he's probably over-compensating for something! Sheenah the barmaid was a late addition. She's only working in the bar to pay for her tuition!
The point was to take cliched fantasy characters and put a spin on them that made them a bit more interesting and, hopefully like nothing you've seen before!
The next stage was to get some voices for the characters. After all, it would be silly if I did all the voices. They'd end up all sounding the same. But we also knew that we wouldn't be able to get all the different voices we needed into a studio at the same time. Studio? Hah. We were doing this on practically no budget!
We decided to see whether we could do it all on-line. There must be plenty of people out there with half decent recording equipment and most of them will have voices, right? They could record it at home and e-mail it in to us. Then I could assemble all of the voice clips into a coherent whole.
We put together a short sample script and then Russ put out a casting call. We expected a little bit of interest. Maybe twenty or thirty auditions, if we were lucky.
We got over a hundred.
Apparently there's a lot of people out there who want their shot at fame, even if it's only through the medium of cartoon! Even I put in an audition!
We had to listen to every single one of them. We've both agreed that if we ever have to listen to those lines again, we might just give in and drink the Kool-Aid. Some of them were easily dismissed because of terrible performances or awful sound quality. The rest was not so easy. After a week of listening and choosing and changing our minds and arguing over who was best (me, obviously!), we eventually settled on our cast.
From left to right: Malach (Me!), Bilar (M. Darin Young), Dee (Melody Mooney), Duncan (George Ledoux), Erric (Joe Gawronski-Salerno) and Sheenah (Karen Bogen).
At this point, we pretty much had a recorded script. Not wanting to waste it, we decided that we would turn it into an introductory mini-episode. So I had to draw it and animate it. And draw it and animate it, I did. That was a lot of drawing and animating! But once the drawing and animating was done, I had templates for future episodes. Hopefully there will be less drawing and animating to do for the remaining six episodes!
Look. Here's a picture of me animating that wasn't hurriedly staged this afternoon for this blog post at all:
Before you ask... no I didn't comb my hair for the photo.
While I was busy doing that, Russ amused himself with the fun stuff - contract negotiations and the like.
We even had a theme tune provided by my longtime collaborator, Jon Steadman.
And then we had a minor crisis a week before the episode went live:
As mentioned above, we had decided to use the name of the role-playing game as the title of the series: 'Real Life'. Shortly after Russ started to do a bit of publicity, he discovered that there was already a web-comic out there called 'Real Life'. We didn't want to upset anyone, so we decided to change the name.
Well that started a week of agony, trying to pick an alternative. We tried pretty much everything on to see if it would fit. Variations on the original title like 'Playing Real Life' or 'Real Life Adventures'. Nothing really floated our boat.
Then it occurred to us that we had the perfect title sitting just outside the Tavern in which our heroes were gaming. The name of the tavern: 'The Perturbed Dragon'!
And that's pretty much it. The genesis of 'The Perturbed Dragon'. Also a potted history of the last month or so of my life - well, the bits of it when I wasn't at my day job, anyway!
Here, for your perusal (and hopefully, entertainment) is the first episode. Or the Pilot. Or the Prequel. Or whatever you want to call it.
What's the collective noun for beards? A matt of beards? A clump of beards?
Much discussion has been had about my ever expanding facial hair. While most people agree* that the more beard I have, the more handsome I am, another vector of comment has generally been along comparative lives. Specifically, that people think that my beard makes me look like other people.
I thought it would be interesting to illustrate this post with sketches of myself with the facial hair of the people I am accused of looking like. So here goes:
The manager of my local comic book store told me that I looked like Brian Blessed. Mr Blessed has the single most awesome beard of all time, so I consider the comparison to be a favourable one!
Several of my workmates seem to think that having a beard and wearing glasses means that I look like Ricky Tomlinson, because Ricky Tomlinson is the only other person in the world who has a beard and wears glasses. Hah. Bear and glasses only make me look like Ricky Tomlinson in the same way that having hair makes you look like Shane McGowan!
My boss' boss recently informed me that I reminded him of Rasputin. Far be it from me to disagree with my boss' boss. I'd like to think that I'm a bit less of a whack job than the Rasputin... but I'd probably be deluding myself.
At the time I was accused of resembling Hagrid, I needed a haircut. It wasn't this bad though. I did, however, take the hint.
A couple of weeks ago, my Dad refused me entry to his house on the basis that I looked like a terrorist. That said, he's a Daily Mail reader, so you can't really take anything he says seriously.
One of my nicer friends told me that I looked just like Teen Wolf. You remember Teen Wolf, right? That awesome movie where Michael J Fox played the handsomest basketball player in the world! He's a bit like Hagrid's better looking younger brother. As it happens, I have an older brother who's not as handsome as me, so the parallels run deep!
My favourite accusation though, took place just before Christmas when a mate informed me that I was almost certainly Young Santa.
( * by an unconventional definition of the word 'agree' )
.JPG)
