Bullshit Jobs!

David Graeber's article on Bullshit Jobs for Strike! magazine seems to be getting a lot of attention all of a sudden, and deservedly so. 

Though I'm a big fan of Strike! and was very flattered to be asked to contribute something to their Summer issue I was up to my eyes in comics and other stuff and so had to turn them down. Then Strike!'s editor cunningly dangled David Graeber's article in front of my face. I read it and couldn't say no. 

It's a thought provoking piece and, as someone who has more than once suspected that their current mode of employment was ultimately (whisper it) a bit pointless, it really struck a chord with me.

It's much better and more persuasively written than I can manage but allow me to quote one of my favourite passages: "A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble, and even one without science fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It’s not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.)"

It's also really good on the 'psychological violence' that results from our situation, the frustration, boredom, anger and shame that comes from that niggling feeling that you are literally wasting your time on this planet. It was this aspect of the piece that led me down the route I took for the accompanying illustration, that sense of feeling trapped, helpless but also angry. (Appropriately, there's definitely some Francis Bacon in there.)

You can read the full article here and you can buy a copy of Strike! from the same website.

David's impressive looking tome Debt: The First 5000 Years is on my bookshelf and is next on my reading list.

Hitsville UK from Great Beast comics

This is a belated post to announce that Hitsville UK has been relaunched by Great Beast Comics.

Appropriately we launched in the very musical surrounding of Manchester at the MCM Comic Con on 20 July, and you can now buy issue 1 as well as some classy Hitsville UK pop art prints from the Great Beast online shop. I'm really excited that for the first time you can buy an instantly download-able digital version of our comic.

You can also pick up Hitsville UK issue 1 from Gosh! Comics, Orbital Comics, Foyles books and Sister Ray Records in London, as well as OK Comics in Leeds and Gnash Comics in Devon, with more shops to follow.

(If you're a comic, record shop or indeed any shop who would like to stock Hitsville UK then please let me know.)

As some of you know we originally brought Hitsville UK out at the tail end of 2011, so it's taken us a bit of a while to get here. It's basically my fault for going off and doing an MA in Illustration after issue 1 and getting swamped by the workload. Dan and I are pleased as punch that we're getting to relaunch and continue the series with Great Beast. To those of you who have been stoically waiting for issue 2 to materialise (yes Alex, yes Camila) I promise promise promise that issue 2 will arrive in November in time for Leeds' Thought Bubble festival.

Why are we so excited to be with Great Beast?

Comics and graphic novels appear to be on the rise in blighty and beyond. Existing publishers and newer upstarts have released some great books at the artier, more literary end of the comics spectrum over the past few years. I think Great Beast could fill what has so far been a gap in the comics landscape (at least in the UK). GB's comics are intelligent, sophisticated, produced with great craft, but also crucially they are POP!

GB's founders, Adam Cadwell and Marc Ellerby have published their own comics under the imprint, notably Adam's vampire slacker comedy Blood Blokes and Marc's droll Chloe Noonan: Monster Hunter. They've also published collected editions of their autobiographical web comics The Everyday and Ellerbisms. I just finished Ellerbisms and am still reeling from the subtle but emotionally devastating storytelling contained therein!

Then there's Robert Ball's stunningly beautiful Winter's Knight. Im a bit angry about Winter's Knight. The artwork is so flipping amazing I don't actually think it should be allowed. It makes the rest of us look rubbish! Robert is teaming up with the equally talented Warwick Johnson-Cadwell on Dangeritis, which you can see taking hilarious form over on its Tumblr and which will be published in book form at Thought Bubble in November.

Just announced from Great Beast is Isabel Greenberg's Tall Tales and Outrageous Adventures, witty retellings of classic fairytales. Isabel won the Observer/Comica competition a few years ago and has a graphic novel coming out from Jonathan Cape soon. She also has a piece in the V&A's current exhibition Memory Palace, which I wasn't sure whether I would like but is BRILLIANT! (Go see it).

And then there's us... continuing the tale of Hitsville UK, the indy record company with the weirdest, coolest, freaks in pop music; the best (though possibly only) musical-pop-art-soap-opera in comic form.

Now published by Great Beast.

Which is why we're a bit chuffed.

The THE

Did this piece last week for Times Higher Education mag. It illustrates an opinion piece by John Kaag on juggling the responsibilities of being an academic and a dad to a toddler.

AOI Awards

I'm delighted to report that I've won an AOI Illustration award!

I won the New Talent Award in the Editorial and Social Comment section for these two pages from my MA project Capital City, a graphic poem about the City and the financial crisis.

Here's what the judges had to say about my work: "We really liked the sense of narrative and social comment in this work. The words are written by the illustrator and so the text and image work together rather than illustration responding to a text. It is a very impressive piece of work, the spreads are stunning. It has real impact and has a lot of atmosphere. "

I'm very excited about being part of the exhibition at Somerset House 2-27 October, and I believe there will be an awards ceremony shindig, for which I may buy a new shirt.

You can read more about the AOI Illustration Awards here http://www.aoiimages.com

Bowie Odyssey (oddity?)

Was it really back in January that David Bowie released his surprise single 'Where are we now'?

At the time it struck me that despite knowing the hits, and having some Bowie-obsessive friends, I'd never really listened to any Bowie albums. Right, I thought, I'll listen to the classic albums in order and see how far I get. 

Around this point I stumbled upon the amazing blog Pushing Ahead of the Dame (named after a lyric in Queen Bitch), that dwells on each Bowie song more or less in the order that it was recorded, and it got a bit obsessive.

Well, it's the end of May now and I've just started on Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). Not sure how much time I'm going to dwell on some of the 80s albums - my understanding is that it all goes a bit pants after Let's Dance, but it's been a great journey so far.

It's a tough question what my favourite album has been so far, but at a push it's probably the wonderfully unhinged Diamond Dogs, which led me to create this illustration, inspired by the Guy Peellaert album artwork, but with a schoolboy humour, Aladdin Sane twist.

Enjoy!

Ps. David Bowie - Five Years on BBC Two tomorrow sounds like it's going to be dead good.

Strike!

I have a couple of pages in the Spring edition of the brilliantly titled STRIKE! magazine.

These are exerpts from my MA project Capital City, a phantasmagorical take on the City and the financial crisis.

I'm dead keen on STRIKE! This is only their second issue but it's a compelling publication so far. It wears its lefty politics on its sleeve but it's not po-faced about it and it chucks interesting, provocative ideas about rather than preach a party line. It's also wittily and beautifully designed and has attracted an impressive collection of writers and artists so far, including Ralph Steadman, Mark Fisher, Alain de Botton and Stanley Donwood as well as less famous names, myself included.

The Spring edition includes articles and polemics on Blair and Iraq, Indian cotton farming, the Occupy movement and anarchist economics, all accompanied by brilliant illustrations, including this terrifying Tony Blair by Edgarr.

I'm still getting to grips with a lot of the stuff in this issue and this is what I really like about STRIKE! For only a quid an issue you get a hell of a lot of food for thought for your buck.

You can see a list of stockists or order issues 1 & 2 from the STRIKE! website http://www.strikemag.org and find them on Facebook here

Mud, football and Readers Digest

I just illustrated this entertaining piece for Readers Digest by James Brown about the perils of the football pitch in your late forties. I was commissioned by Martin Colyer, who was a pleasure to work with from start to finish.

This commission presented two problems: 1) the unusual shape, across two pages of text, 2) I don't know the first thing about football. However, the closest I ever got to an interest in the beautiful game was reading my brother's Roy of the Rovers comics when I was a kid, so I hit upon the idea of contrasting James' youthful footballing dreams with muddy, squelchy reality.

Thanks to Matt Dooley for the lend of the football comics book.

Below is my original sketch and how the final piece looked in the mag.

Meditato!

World, I give you... Meditato!

S/he is of course a committed Spuddhist.

(This might be my favourite picture that I've done so far!)

GREAT BEAST!

You might have seen last week's very exciting announcement that our comic Hitsville UK is joining the roster of Great Beast comics, home of the UK's best independent comics and creators!

Great Beast is the brainchild of Adam Cadwell (Blood Blokes, The Everyday) and Marc Ellerby, (Chloe Noonan: Monster Hunter, Ellerbisms) and their ethos fits with ours like a sexy, pink glove: "Our comics will be brimming with pop culture, but still retain their heart" and "We don't think pop is a dirty word". Amen to that!

Great Beast will be re-releasing issue 1 of Hitsville UK in July, and publishing brand new issue 2 in November, in time for Thought Bubble comics festival. There will be physical and DIGITAL versions of each issue.

http://www.greatbeastcomics.com/2013/04/new-title-hitsville-uk/

The other artists on the Great Beast roster are Robert Ball and Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, whose amazing Dangeritis will also be published in July. We are in fine, fine company.

To celebrate this great news, here's a picture of the other great beast Aleister Crowley enjoying issue 1. Spooky!

One from the vaults

Far be it from me to jump on the bandwagon that is currently whipping a dead horse, er Prime Minister up and down the street* but here's a vintage William Blake, Taxi Driver strip  that seems relevant again.

This was originally published in Time Out in 2008, when there was a speculative brouhaha about whether Mrs T would get a state funeral. http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2008/07/state-funeral-thatcher-labour

*Apologies for some seriously muddled metaphors