Oblivious Abroad

2006-06-01T16:10:00.000+02:00

Here is the new one, for work and research and what ever else I choose:
[url]http://afterfrance.blogspot.com/[/url]

May 30.

2006-05-30T16:10:00.000+02:00

One day.

I broke the fast to leave an impression of the ninety-odd days for which I have been here with such lovely people and good ideas. I will take back the eating together attitude and a mashed bag of general cultural actions. I have enjoyed it here so much. I owe Erasmus a drink. Tonight we build a sad leaver's set and in the overlap between days I will pass my bagged body onboard of the train away, to the airport with a passport and a fear of the customs scan, for no reason but original guilt and fleer's shame. Such a beautiful sky where the clouds are parted to make paths for your eye. The dark greens of the river's base dare you in, the kid's canoes all bright pass over them like hot space rock through gelatine. The grass and stone around the structure of education sit staring, wondering what you'll do, if you'll tread near or on them, still passing no judgement if you chose to. The metal of the building hides under paint, slobbily rusts, wants to be ageless but is suffering a long and terrible service, gets all cold at night, burns in the afternoons. The people used to the horrible noise of the vending machines - the smashing of their purchase and the suicidal drop of their change - laugh towards each other as they make fun of life, breathing easy and scooping their prizes, just as the cars in the car park sit real and decorated with trapped warmth and junk by the seats. The roads around the place alternate clear and filled, annoying the patient crossfare, watching each other for signs, concluding at the speed of an irritant exactly what they decide to suspect. Flies from the river get in OUR way. You and I are looking at the architecture, having other thoughts, having other memories, still subject to a true line that keeps us all apart but gives us individuality, far more modern than an aura. We cross eyes and read our skins, check our clothes for dirt, any excuse to talk about us, us as ones not two or nones. I look at my fingers vibrate as I hold my flat palms towards space above, completely lost in the belief that I am scared and that I am scared of your brain, its contents and its behaviour patterns, the things that I make real in estimation, like a scrawny bridge over infinity, I have to hope that you enjoy being here, if I knew that you did not, I would be sad and still and silent and then I would walk into the background, behind every object, find a point to declare something brick strong, standing on a filmic, no, cinematic ridge shaking my clenched fist at the present, linking all of those terrible people with the same characteristic, promising repayment, then becoming aware of the scene and laughing, moving my nose side to side through the evening air, pupils on one little area that just gets more and more interesting. In the mess of everything, free of the rulings of grammar and context and maturity and origin and expectation of all our little tickbox factors, we're gone, back to the normal world that popular definition makes tedious and unfriendly, then we are gone from what we really want and what calms us, from looking at things and making them brilliant, from feeling hard and thinking in polygons, from beaming at straightfoward discoveries, from being who you reckon you should become. In the meantime, the meanest and deepest hours in thousands, you and I put the act up again, pretend that we are satisfied and blend in as fingerprints on glossy photos. Instant burial, time to skive, see you in joy tomorrow.

This man is at school. I just aren't.

Final post.

2006-05-29T18:18:00.001+02:00

I have done enough on this computer journal, so it is time to say goodbye. The dull task of printing my journal for this year, torn from four separate locations, taught me to keep things concise and consider the presentation in future. Still, the thing has functioned fine for me and helped no end to show pictures outside of the little pads.

I am going to paint big things and toy with acrylics over this holiday. I am also going to keep my journal entries to one per week because it takes too long to upload photos. I may also buy a scanner of my own. I heap my printed journal into a floppy folder and bid you ovwah from France, with no tears but a dribble of fine coffee.

A goodbye sky.

2006-05-29T11:32:00.006+02:00

Beats anything of eternity yes it does.

3 more wastes.

2006-05-29T11:32:00.004+02:00

C'mon, these are shit. I don't mind.

Good question.

This is important to my development as a communicator.

I designed others but, trust my statement at your own risk, this was the LEAST BAD.

Three diagrams.

2006-05-29T11:32:00.003+02:00

Or perhaps they are drawings...HA! Categories are CRAP and I am sick of them!

A kid of them other ones.

Wow wot a lot of shit LOL

I RIP OFF OTHER DRAWINGS COZ I AM THA LAZIEST

Two drawings.

2006-05-29T11:32:00.002+02:00

I enjoy doing these so much that I almost forget to stop. "Are they worth the time?" asks the critic. "They give you work" answers the inkster.

The first.

The second.

May 27/May 28/May 29.

2006-05-29T11:32:00.000+02:00

Four, three, two...

I read Harry 6, watched Pink Floyd The Wall, played chess, ate peanuts, bought a folder for my journal, drew some pictures, ate food, things that do not need to appear here but have, just now.

I will show some pictures after this posting has finished. Before I do, here is a small unbulleted list that represents the presentation's headings, despite what I might have written several days ago. Here it is:

Postal project (Summer 2005)
One Minute of Wonder
Aims list
Manchester
London
Angoulême
Liverpool
Xmas project
Research project

The running order:
Handout/s
Introduction
Work
Research
Conclusion
Questions

That was nice. Now for pictures.

Stop Where Is!

2006-05-26T14:33:00.004+02:00

There is no point publishing my presentation plans. This decision is of personal significance because I have never chosen to omit something so specifically. Ho ho. Although 'sharing' them (thinking like this process is a form of friendship) clarifies to some extent, I am happy to appear unclarified. I will keep showing my drawings instead and hold the rest in my pocket.

Stop Where Is!

2006-05-26T14:33:00.003+02:00

Interchange.

2006-05-26T14:33:00.002+02:00

Glory be on thy little bits of card.

Stick stuff in gaps for happiness.

Another warming fork in the sky.

Just a phrase.

Life Diagrams 1-4.

2006-05-26T14:33:00.001+02:00

I note that these may not be the style and format to which I shall remain loyal. Ha ha. I think that these are too complex/messy/ugly. Eyes on the uploads, eh?

May 26.

2006-05-26T14:33:00.000+02:00

Five.

Speaking of five, I finished the book at six this morning, hence noon rise. But enough about reading, for this web-log is for work! And here, my ally, are some:

An example of one of the many recent 'Squares' sheets I have filled. I start to need less encouragement and acknowledgement in these deals.

The whole page.

Vines Vs Wallpaper.

One Night Together.

Flu Map.

These drawings may or may not become entries into the world of the Life Diagram. Typing of which...

May 25.

2006-05-25T22:28:00.000+02:00

Six.

I have a definite presentation plan as well as a small, ongoing project for the summer. I will draw a 'life diagrams' every day and publish them when possible, then collect the best ones at the end of the year. At present I am seeing them as a method of reducing any situation into a simple shape or bunch of polygons with a title. The only rule is that I do draw them and publish them at intervals in the journal that replaces this one.

I am 2/3 through Harry 5 and made up some songs today, just to stay in practice. Tonight is food, wine and possibly some kind of Mario. CULTURED.

May 24.

2006-05-24T13:28:00.000+02:00

7 yes.

Harry 5 is again good. I am considering pushing my dissertation towards a more practical purpose than writing about comics or attempting to state the longwinded obvious about stuff in post space age galleries - I could write about some people's use of colour and stuff my research with colour theory, then I would learn it and be able to write about what would be my current interest.

That can wait for now. I am going to watch some of the films that the first years have made around the subject of Don Quixote. Meanwhile, vending machine coffee dies on my slow tongue.

A few new pictures of work tomorrow, in the mean time I must make newer work.

8 2 W8 4 L8R.

2006-05-23T17:02:00.000+02:00

I nearly lost my logo for good (two weeks), so involved in Angloplans I was. It describes the now murdered conceptual presentation where I adopt colour biases for varied criticism of my work for this school year. Look at it:

Today has been dotted with leaver's sadness and summer hype. I get these very clear ideas about what I want to do and even clearer ideas about making these things become real. Ideas included definite things like seeing every one of my family and friends individually and walking the Crab and Winkle Way from Canterbury to Whitstable (with a camera - maybe make some work from the journey) and also visiting Bristol and Falmoth and Barcelona if money says 'yes'. I feel no obligation to find a job I resent (and fate still owes me from previous employment) but I do want to exploit my 'free' time (so different to here...) before the seriousness of becoming a Last Year eats my hopes entirely.

I must keep drawing and taking photographs and keeping a journal, and I must also stay in contact with my friends and family. I must learn to cook more things and practice guitar more often. I must read more and perform more often. And I must have an ice cream by the HB sea.

Egg Innards.

2006-05-23T16:21:00.004+02:00

From inside the eggs I collected these awful toys. I will be doing this no more because I have changed my mind to make them seem like a waste of money and space. Farewell Kinder toys, you really made me happy.

Town Views.

2006-05-23T16:21:00.003+02:00

I like domes because they are idiot-happy, and in this image the dome is caught up in strict lines and doesn't mind which proves how stupid and nice it is.

Town Views.

2006-05-23T16:21:00.001+02:00

I like this because I imagine that it translates as "South Singer" (although I know it doesn't) which could make a good caption-picture for a CD cover. Or so I say today. I just like SAUF.

Town Views.

2006-05-23T16:21:00.000+02:00

I found this grate to ivy very attractive to see with my eyes, but I have failed to portray what it gave and so I shall be punished. Here it is anyway. I like how the leaves contradict that stone.

Town Views.

2006-05-23T15:17:00.001+02:00

Today I will share four. Here is one with loads of green, because green is the colour that I like most (then orange - and yes, this is in the exam).

May 23.

2006-05-23T15:17:00.000+02:00

Eight days, of course.

I have been out pointing and shooting, as well as packing things to avoid that horrible rush. Here are some pictures:

All my France based paper things that I hold (some are on walls and in other houses and in bins). This sight nudged me to consider making a virtual book which collects my own favourite things from these pads.

I pretend that I have invented this combination and since making my millions I haven't looked back.

I managed three little cards in the small hours. I am now almost nocturnal and consider time to be for other people. Is that arrogant?

That Red Book...

2006-05-22T19:46:00.000+02:00

I doubt I will continue with this kind of thing. They're rubbish. But I love doing them and they are useful for fighting inhibitions.

What a silly billy.

That Red Book...

2006-05-22T19:11:00.004+02:00

Comment: I could do so much better than this.

Excuse: I wasn't really awake.

That Red Book...

2006-05-22T19:11:00.002+02:00

I won't defend these things. They ARE bad work. I have to learn don't I?

That Red Book...

2006-05-22T19:11:00.001+02:00

I wrote about these on another day.

Conflict/Resolution.

The Alien Files (no name yet).

May 22.

2006-05-22T19:11:00.000+02:00

Nine days to go.

I finished the forth Harry Potter book today and it was the best so far. Last night was a barbecue at (outside) V********'s house where fine salad, red wine and mostly first year students were together talking, eating and playing about. But that means nothing to my education, unless you count the subconscious influences that may influence my work (somehow this long joke system is getting really boring, I am starting to care less about trying to make myself smile during these typing sprees).

Anyway, arguing about these things is both pointless and boring so instead I present my birthday card and its container like a proud old man with war medals:

May 21.

2006-05-21T17:24:00.000+02:00

Ten days of France remain.

I rose this afternoon (a long night of reading and drawing helped here) and enjoyed a large cup of Nes, then Cxxxxx came downstairs and told me that today is Sxxxxx's 27th birthday, and she planned to give 27 of things (27 chocolate pieces, 27 cents in 1 cent coins, etc). Together we managed to find 27 lots of 27 gifts (some gifts were weighed to 27 grams/grammes) and fitted them into plastic Kinder Egg yolks and white envelopes. I asked about a birthday card and there was none, so I made one which you can look at tomorrow, along with its special envelope.

Ten days is ages - imagine a silent minute with someone, just staring - and so I am in no hurry to get the gang tattoos or amend my will just yet. The challenge is to have the presentation ready in my head. I am shifting from the variable viewpoint idea to something comical that reveals the sillyness of taking this occupation too seriously. It is a lesson that I have just started to learn and it lets me draw like a child because I finally believe the advice that I have given to others in the past. The best thing is that I feel simplified and happy all day, and feel excited about choosing to do something, because I have the choice and I have the time and the materials. I feel that I want to grow out of pages and on to big things, maybe not walls but certainly fridge doors. I think that the benefits of this trip are revealing themselves, and I can be alone all day and not feel lonely. I still have a little confusion as to the width of the journal requirements - in my definition these things matter and can be just as useful as tips on shading (although I have yet to care about shading and may never do so). I have chosen to keep this in because it feels important today. I will look tomorrow and perhaps dismiss it as crap, that doesn't matter. The biggest thing I am learning is to do and to love doing, it is so simple but I had to reach a point where I could ridicule all influences internal and external (as if there is a difference) and be linear from start to finish. I have more awareness and control and a deep desire to be part of a brilliant exhibition at the end of the course. Then escape Manchester. The end.

May 20.

2006-05-20T19:02:00.000+02:00

Three Harrys gone, a forth opened. Today I bought art supplies including a caligraphy pen and I have been testing it ever since, besides washing up and compiling a folder of A4 sheets for the great justification. I won't be reading any more Harrys after this one because I want to have a crowd together for memorable photographs at the end and these books are getting 3 days long. I promise to put pictures under this text, Monday if you can wait. Tonight is the French night of museums but Angoulême's official museum is closed for two years and the details of the events are like bits of crack on the carpet.

The 91 day documents - my drawing pads, the folder and this virtual journal (no I don't either) - make me satisfied with my time here in terms of production, and I have definitely read enough about comic theory to flee shame. I had a glimpse of the chosen future and have constructed a table on which my entire September 2005-June 2006 work is laid out. This happens for the presentation. I adopt the coloured t-shirt of the persona that is going to speak (remember those diagrams?) and then rip into the dirty sheets with glee. This will be the only way to travel, and hopefully, a bit funny and quite heartfelt and also a light seasoning of ContemCrit to show that I am aware of my living age and the discourse that accompanies the now in the world of the art.

As well: I am going to a Barbiequeue, though I was spared the painful wax 'n' implants by a friend who told me that it is an eating event. Must be the accent. Other things you have to know about these last hours are naughtily trivial things like flushing the toilet with the big button because the noise is better and leaving empty peanut shells on the window ledge and dancing like a I am giving birth to a demon in my bedroom to an undisclosed soundtrack.

For now I go and draw more, maybe I will talk to you later. Remember how free you are in your imagination!

May 19.

2006-05-19T20:41:00.001+02:00

I have read half of the third Harry Potter book, and I have bet myself that I can finish all six before I return to the green pavements of home. It is fascinating - reading these books has given me such clear access to my memories - one little description will present a replay of some tiny sequence, usually based in a school but also moments where I was overwhelmed, alone and exaggerating my locations to brilliance usually, perhaps it is the permission of magic within the books that leads me to times where I believed in it, at every age.

Work continues, odd pages, loose bullet points for the presentation, no big plans yet but I do have the forthcoming final show to plan, as well as the dissertation. All of it seems less important than the stories about wizards, all rational and explained. I shall be page filling this weekend and aim to have a decent underlay for the presentation by the dawn of Monday. The influence already shows, if only I could make some of my music collection appear, no point wishing, see you in the next present dear diary.

That Grey Book...

2006-05-18T19:45:00.001+02:00

Just before I shoot off. For dinner. I give to the planet another couple of playful dirges.

This is the last page of That Grey Book that you will be seeing here. I hope it does things for you, but understand that it is not an accomplished or fully realised object of the arts. Lay off man, it's just a practice drawing. God, you're harder to please that a nymphomaniac without genitalia.

This is a joke but in French!

That Grey Book...

2006-05-18T19:45:00.000+02:00

Here, two people pretending to sing lyrics from songs.

From Nivana's "Drain You"

From REM's "Star Me Kitten"

Perhaps I will do something better than this with the idea. It will be easy to do something better. I might even scan some dogshit if the queue goes away (for the scanner). I invented the queue, I just hate the scanner. I hate the process of scanning, so boring and slow. The software is crap and ugly. The glass of the scanner is smeared with finger and thumb scum. What else need I say? Am I swearing too much these days? You are my best mate if you spoke your reply/ies. Let's not languish in our lavish language, visual/aural sensual sandwich/have you got the rent?

That Grey Book...

2006-05-18T19:31:00.000+02:00

A triple dose of effortlessly crap drawings. See what an Erasmus exchange can achieve?

Here is my personalised atom from inside my brain.

This blob just wants to be your friend.

The circuit pretends to be love but is in fact a bunch of lines and colours which are in fact only perceptions of ink and paper which are of course the names of the materials that we have created which are of course represented only by little squares and mechanisms that are too boring to understand for a someone so free.

Hyland's Half Dozen.

2006-05-18T18:51:00.002+02:00

I will make six personas from pure colours and portray my year's work through the twelve eyeballs. Look at the early plans:

The characters and a description of their personalities.

The words these people say. Fuck, that should be a title of something good, a Radio 4 programme or a film about dying or similar.

It's a pisstake of how much of a cockhead I have been but in the style of someone who can only get worse and less selected, plus it's an overview of pretending to be weird at artschool and farting into a seat with no armrests.

May 18.

2006-05-18T18:51:00.000+02:00

Last day/this day:

There was a storm. I read the first book in the Harry Potter series which I finished near to 13:00 today. I started the second. I presented improvised word patterns and then finished that grey book. I have started using that red book. Today I painted using gold paint which has thousands of tiny pixels dancing in it when you add some water. I used to be afraid to paint because I love paintings and painting and didn't wish to waste materials or bring bad paintings to the world.

I have started several little things at once. One is a series of illustrated articles influenced by a half-imagined Victorian travel writer reporting on the aliens and mutatations of an untitled location or series of locations within a larger location. One is an advice column called "CONFLICT/RESOLUTION", which I will show you tomorrow. The third thing is my presentation, which you can learn about in the following post.

Jodie blames the chorus.

2006-05-17T17:37:00.001+02:00

The Zelda tricks. Just in case, you know.

As for Photoshop (is this a bad name), it is the school's computer network that is ill - it fails every day at this time. Et plus, the heat wilts the will to do anything except die. It really isn't Autumn. Food ug I want food now. I want to show my images! *Burst* *Melt* *Regenerate* *Fail course* *Drink*

May 17.

2006-05-17T17:37:00.000+02:00

Other people's internet journals:

Oscar Ekstasìn, a student of this school

Nicolas, a student of this school

Jon and his Gruff Media, from my friend in England

And yet, I have mislaid the ability to recall the addresses of those of my housemates. And Adopey Photoshop 6.0 is not doing my cropping for me so there will be no photos for [insert time period].

That Grey Book...

2006-05-16T13:28:00.009+02:00

I have only been to a tiny bit of the world geographically.

My logo. Does it work for you as a customer and what are your expectations and needs?

Another word glitch.

That Grey Book...

2006-05-16T13:28:00.008+02:00

"Mr Ordinator" - for your eyes only

"Un titled" - You can call it pretty if you want, etc

"Gumtone" - the perfect thing to start the afternoon?

That Grey Book...

2006-05-16T13:28:00.007+02:00

I have started bubble writing such rubbish as:

"Midday and Aliases" - a reflective piece

"Kipper Tie Ely" - for the good of us all

"The Lion Song" - a classic

That Grey Book...

2006-05-16T13:28:00.006+02:00

Noses study.

A postcard from the river.

Presentation handout, rough. Persona bingo, remember?

That Grey Book...

2006-05-16T13:28:00.005+02:00

Fake Mad is a t-shirt in itself.

It is true forever, just admit it.

I tested all the 12 pens like disciples.

That Grey Book...

2006-05-16T13:28:00.004+02:00

I love making notes. It is like telling testing yourself on the theory of infinity. I mean it.

I am a sap underneath all the bravado.

That Grey Book...

2006-05-16T13:28:00.002+02:00

A floating head. I am full of these and some of them have distinct accents.

This is one of those stupid cute characters with no character whose visual death is very probable.

This is a statement about germs.

That Grey Book...

2006-05-16T13:28:00.001+02:00

I drew some selves around 2 or 3 days ago.

But they are not all my selves!

May 16.

2006-05-16T13:28:00.000+02:00

1+6=7=lucky in a good way.

And then last night we were sat near to the Nintendo Gamecube playing Mario Kart: Double Dash and then Zelda goes and Wakes the Wind Up until 06:00.

And then this morning these voices come from nowhere and I see that they are written in marker pen...very loud, very French, very difficult to appreciate. Then I found
this scene outside the window:

The people are having a birthday party for bread as part of the baking festival. Zelda is a mere clone.

That Grey Book...

2006-05-15T17:36:00.000+02:00

More tomorrow!

That Grey Book...

2006-05-15T16:55:00.000+02:00

Here is a design for a bookmark that I stole from the dream syndicate that we are all a part of.

That Grey Book...

2006-05-15T15:31:00.001+02:00

Three more faces for you to consider at a pace that only you can define for yourself.

This is a rapper who wants to be strange and unique but comes across as boring.

This is a hiding device of a tribe made of ink.

This represents the ongoing disagreements of art.

I like this intimate game.

That Grey Book...

2006-05-15T15:31:00.000+02:00

This is my new pad. I have filled many pages as you are about to see.

Here is a character from inside it.

And here is another, an over tanned smiler from Anytown.

May 15.

2006-05-15T15:13:00.001+02:00

I am no different to a man in a suit in an office, besides the fact that I do what I prefer. Let the cautions of variable income fry in the light of happiness.

Alright then Blogger, I have a chain of images that I would like to share with the internet world but you are being stubborn. So in the patience test I will do other things with pure text like this:

Pres Dev

I have a diamond vision of my presentation which involves me and a projector. I introduce and extroduce myselves - selves which star on the large screen, selves which have ideas about my year of work which are all different, it is presentation as performance which must be recorded on video as part of my work total, with a handout called Faucet Bingo. I don't care to analyse it because this is the first time in three or so years that I have let an idea be sure, the fun and challenge and surprise may win my audience and burn me in the marking scheme, or both either way, or provoke someone to scream "this is fucking awful", or for people to congratulate me afterwards and me to react happy and tired and sweating with a modest and openly triumphant smile, all I want to do is present the arguments I have as the ironic, serious and confusing things they are - the reality that I live and the deeply humourous retrospectacle to an outside eye. I want an outside eye, plus I want some 'perspective' on the mess of thinking too much in a hot bedroom in France.

Disperation.

2006-05-14T14:08:00.000+02:00

What is the origin of angst one wonders./? (YOUR choice)

I don't like the word 'angst'. I like 'ankh' though.

Comics can be brilliant stimulus. Disagree if you like.

I like the 'I' and 'you' relationship in art, it is interesting and excites me.

I have had coffee. This changes my thinking and acting.

I love creativity 'with a small c' because I know that it is only as meaningful as I permit it to be and that I could please the person I most fear and that still wouldn't stop a tidal wave. Ego oh oh ego yo-yo, got got no string though.

I love drawing and writing and talking and learning and moving and reading and seeing and tasting. LIVING. That's that one sorted out. I enjoy living because of the experiences that accompany the process. These experiences make the world feel new and unexplored. I need this feeling to fend off the evils of supercynicism and know-it-all hidden misery.

I love people. Every person has so many things going on in their heads and you can learn so much from all of them. Unlike some people, I am not fussed about facts and truth, I follow meanings and myths and feelings. This is the main reason that being a purebreed academic is not realistic for me and so I will get a job being normal and then do my proper work in my spare time.

I love music. Sound has more presense than anything else. I can hear seconds of music and be inside it, just ears and a set of reacting body parts. I would live a lie if I could have music to balance it with.

I love thinking. It is all I can do. Thinking leads to action, even the tiniest and quickest action has thought in it in my definition. Like an arm has bone.

I love working. But I do not know what work is.

I will go and draw under the influence of popular music. This is all valid for my journal because this is how I organise things. If I am making a bad journal I will march to Learning Support for seminars about Writing for Tutors. Now we understand each other.

May 13 and 14.

2006-05-14T13:24:00.000+02:00

The subject of my dissertation will be either comics or those posters that explain art to you in galleries, but is that a little too personal and obviously pointless? So comics it is then. I shall let a tide out right now.

Narrative art sequence boxes frames rectangles squares gaps gutters pauses links characters dialogue faces clothes costumes planets times technology nature conflict violence morality cash repeaters safety catch strong graphic illustration characterisation realism in the 80's US, UK? Europe and the rest of the world, places of purchase, customer identity, reasons for buying, entertainment hierachies, serious comics for important intellectuals, free cartoons in unfree newspapers, web cartoons, borders of animation and slideshows, history and heritage, family comics, just paper and pictures and words, engrossing method of storytelling, beyond storytelling, storyasking, costs at all stages, library services, availability, illusion of choice, physical object with a weight, size, texture and smell, not just for children...all of this has been said...

Comics/comicbooks/graphic novels/cartoons...these are just words. If someone has a prejudice against the very idea then they may have overlooked the breadth of the material published in this format, in the same way that I tend not to look through the Reggae section in the music shop because I don't really like the style and message that I assumed it will present.

The mind change crusade. Plenty of people go on about what comics will and can be/become. I just like reading them. I have developed tastes quickly by trying new books - I tend to go for the more personal and autobiographical ones that show life's mould as well as its fruit pieces. I love the reality in which I live where thanks to money making monsters I can find a keyhole that leads to someone else's brain. The brains of others provide the stimulus my brain needs. Imagine it - being emotionally altered by lines on a page! Next thing you'll be telling me is that words change the world!

I am interested in the confusion between 'the' and 'my'. I feel that it is pointless for me to even attempt to write a non personal essay because I am always talking to my S E L F. Maybe that is a comic...I can never let go of the Numbskulls (a Beano comic strip about the tiny people that live inside us and tend to each of our senses). I cannot write a non personal essay because all I care about is my opinion and my perspective. Or really it is because I want to write something that people will want to read and will feel entertained by. Maybe I should do an essay in a comic format, like Scott McCloud, and demonstrate my points by drawing them? I will have to think about this.

My presentation is well - a plan to deliver it partly in person and partly in (projector) projected persona like the a busy American at the Brit Awards slumbers on the pad - and I have dialogue coming instantly. I am scared that I am not scared of presenting a bunch of confusing shite and laughing to myself. In fairness, I am allowed to do anything legitimate and I love to perform. I detest 'in fairness'. Only wankers seem to say it, as if being a wanker is a reason to end your life. Our insults are crap. And we all crap. Oh the dizzy lows of lingo.

Back to base: more terrible felt tip pen drawings will be crawling up lens and down USB tomorrow, then you can see what my expensive (to 'the taxpayer', a character waiting to happen etc) education has earnt the sponsors - art and comics may not be the primary mirth form for every vastly superior and instinctive common sense engine that don't got a degree bloke, but you, you evil fucking composite of sitcom good guys, you watch Corination Street, so your opinions are fucking useless, worth even less than mine are, and they are like bits of dried leaf stuck to a tramp's rash-covered elbow.

And this, sadly, is the way it can be between innocent me and the resentful protestant ethical worker. I present this situation as delusional oracle fodder and have no interest in developing it. All I am saying is: the art world is fucked and plenty of people couldn't care less about it. SUPERCULTURE is a batch of crap. The debates are boring and depressing. The journalists and critics are boring and stupid. There is proof available to anyone who agrees with me - this is what I am saying. I do not care about any of the fake smart that surrounds cultural things, those people who never tried doing it themselves and those people who wanted to make others feel stupid and the insults...I am as bad, reflex hypocrite.

In conclusion, I am confused: free to think and say anything because none of it means anything but desperate to communicate (even by this indirect means) because I am unsatisfied with my own stale company and sick of theory books that make me feel intelligent because I laugh at their academy club whimpering and ugly language but thick as a McShake when I remember that I am STILL reading it, like a dunce, like someone moaning about Tom Cruise all the way through Top Gun. I am pathetic but come on, it's Sunday. Wouldn't church be worse?

In real conclusion, I release this bag of woodlice because I wanted to write and write and never stop. I am too emotional to worry about being intellectual...hang on, I'm talking rubbish. Time to start again.

ISBNdgame.

2006-05-12T15:25:00.000+02:00

Since I am on the dreaded Apple PowerBook, fitted with a dirty old Intern Exploder that will not allow the automatic controls to load, I will have to sort this out later. The purpose of this post is to anchor another armful of reads on the bed of written history, don't pretend to be so shocked.

Here are the codes:
0815333447, 1560974389, 1852868996, 058289245.

I don't want to go out, I don't want to read any more comics and I don't want to think about the 'human condition' (besides, I hate that term, it reeks of science opera). I really am lucky to get this presentation reminder. I want it to be a winner.

May 12.

2006-05-12T15:15:00.000+02:00

Flip. Here are the demands. No matter what country I am in, never seem to generate enough material.

This email piece says enough:

"...can you return as soon as possible after the 3 months is up and be prepared to do your presentation then. You also need to hand in a 5 minute video or DVD documenting your work from this year. You also need to hand in your journal then aswell, assuming you can't email it to XXXX in the meantime. You will also have to arrange a Theory tutorial with XXXX XXXXX - come to that with a few ideas and any preliminary research about what subjects you may wish to make your study about. All of which will make XXXX a very busy boy at the beginning of June. "

Couple this with another recent message:

"I thought you should know, if you don't already, that your assesment is scheduled for Monday 15 th May* in the afternoon 1.30 onwards in Lecture Theatre 5 G.Manton Building. 15 mins to present (in your own inimitable style!) 5 mins for questions, 5 mins for forms. which leaves 5 mins for change over."

*a-a-aaaah

A list!

5 minute video - I will have to do this when I am back in the United Kingdom
15 minute presentation - I will make a plan over the weekend
Journal - this is it, is it really worth printing?
Theory tutorial - I have that spillage of possibility from a few weeks ago to begin with

Presentation preperations it is then. The course feels important all of sudden. Thank you deadlines.

Confusion: not allowed on a CV (because they are always bad?)

2006-05-11T18:26:00.000+02:00

Let's you and me (definitives) describe today's lot at the auction as a text day and not ask either of our selves why. I must be careful not to end up as a one trick circus, but let tells me to do it. This is like a child with an imaginary friend, me and my let, and in fact (I say in fact quite often now, a decision emulated from my French (but they would write french) friends) the King's Street area of Canterbury, Kent, England once had a trading system called 'Lets' which didn't last very long.

This method of writing (or typing because I associate writing with a pen which I presume is a bad association) is useful but could I make a living off of it or is it just an exercise and would some people consider it art? Who cares? I do, I am living in a very real world of hunger and crime and competitive markets and taxes and adulthood. Just. The longer I can stay out of the sun the better.

In retrospect, life is nice. I use my time well and I love a lot of things. And grades are not important in my field. Yes, I have decided to farm art in my field. My furrowed brow and fertile brain patch. My happy island next to yours in virtual land. Text is text, on screen, page or poster outside a long closed shop. Ideas are ideas. I am letting myself (brain and body) go (move) to (action/destination) the (definitive) FRAC (place, look it up if you like, for a bit of entertainment, freedom from boredom, but at what price?).

To make it easy: my tutor can decide if this is work or journalism. I see no point in dividing them because this (the above and below and left and right and all combinations thereof like my eye text list) is how I think about the world and about thinking about the world. So there. Read it and mark it and come to a decision.

M a/e/i/ sc.

2006-05-11T17:56:00.000+02:00

'Objects of genre' have a bias of content and objects bringing in/out other things are exciting. How much time is spent worldwide on opinions and arguments every day?

For every single second, a whole seconds is thrown to the charities of conflict. This is too much.

As you can tell, I have an unfulfilled wish to be a voiceover. If any VIP types at the BBC are watching these lines, I hope that they act on their brilliant instincts and add a comment.

Of course, the narrator here is the text itself, not the blog or the machine, or the writer. The text speaks doesn't, don't I? The writer just did it. The text is still but cannot keep still. It leaks into other brains and gets distorted successfully. It floats free of either island, because all men are an island, and I do mean one because all islands are joined to the earth as all men (meaning humen, not malemen) are joined to it by gravity and gravity is worthy of our attention enough for Gorillaz to make a song about it and I included that because this is me Josh again and not text talking for itself and to be honest writing keeps me happier than drawing because I feel clever when I write and scared when I draw but a lot of the time I feel nothing whatsoever what so ever when I do either because I forget all about the confusing world and its gravity inhabitants and their fictions. I am in a great period for creativity because I am surround by people with lots of it, like a bug, I will find the people with lots of it because I have none really and everyone knows it and you can tell that I have discovered the secret of art is that meaning is so fickle and desperate and supremely wonderful that all you can do is let things emerge your deepest lightest established rubbish conflict contrast accident celebration, like a party and you have invited your friends and family and enemies and strangers and memory versions and imagined versions and you are then just like me crying with happiness because you are standing next to everything you have ever loved and made and missed and lost. You are standing with me in my afterlife, but it is now and we are smiling. All I want is your smile because then I can relax and know that my friend is happy. And I care about that because there is nothing else worth caring about.

Eye/s.

2006-05-11T17:14:00.001+02:00

I am studying cartoon eyes. I address it directly because then I can reprogram myself like a computer and I use them enough for it to work in a way that could impress an adult whose opinions matter because something in the description of their life and status makes them better than you could ever be. I think I’m being silly now. Stop ok. Ok. Ok is Ok in all languages, ok? Ok, I mean, ok. Stop fooling around, fool. That’s how I got the job, not by answering wordsearches.

Enough children!

Is that a statement about our planet?

No, but here is the heart of the issue that I offered to the readers of these letters, for they are letters in every sense.

Leave it there.

Leave it open.

I love to be lost in directions.

The pupil has nine main directions:

Centre
Up/down/left/right
Up-left/up-right
Down-left/down-right

The eye lid/s are represented by covering quarters of the eyeball.

1/4, 1/2, 3/4, closed.

You can close:
Horizontally, vertically and diagonally.

You can combine closing directions.

You can have two lids at once closing a quarter or a half.

You can get sneaky and use 1/8s and feel like a real drug taker, don’t giving not a shit no about the parents none.

You can substitute shapes – eye sockets, pupils, irises, eyeballs, eyelids. You can use any colours. The essentials are obvious and simple and beautiful. You are free to sculpt eyes. Start with eyes because they are finite and yet prone to many variations. Remember how the iris is unique? Why does that make you need to cry? Don’t be so ridiculous!

The eye, then, (that “, then, ” was intended to be like a TV flat speaker, you know them, the really lawn straight men who know their cars and have nothing that makes you feel like you would ever become their friend) a remarkable slice of biological technology, older that the memory of the first genius, and remember, you must add the ages of every reference to the name of this genius that have ever been made to make this a fair experiment, which includes all of those mentions found in the spoken world past which you cannot recapture, does THAT make you cry to think that so much died a long time ago, it brings me close because I am a sappy old bastard, but you distracted me with your terrible emotions, the original point I had intended to present was that the eye itself is better than anything your could put into it, much like a non-stick pan is better than frozen vegetables. I speak from experience, so you know that it makes infinite and undeniable sense with five big underlined letters. And I fucking hate that shit head that got sarcastic about some gig I did years ago. I have a huge bag of revenge for that arsehole. He is going to regret what he said when I humiliate him in his own kingdom, the dimwit dwarf shrine to Thom Yorke tarmac bleeding box frame knockout spirit fried cock torn bullet neck.

No more coffee!

May 11.

2006-05-11T16:47:00.000+02:00

"Male Evan" is the name of today's date-inspired, undrawn star of the page. Evan is a introvert book weed who wants to get revenge on 'alternative comics' for getting clever and lazy about representing everyday life and the ugly challenges of the neurotic self study through all of the popular age divisions.

But, and here is the nylon brief elastic twist, he does not exist. And so he becomes a part of my character (because he wasn't before of course) and I have to design and draw and (in)animate him and get all metabollockal and postsomething. And he wills me to be reactionary to the status quo, to blend the superhero and the antihero and the infinite contradiction of subjective reality and play stupid word games and attack references to the audience's childhoods and give him a pretty face and muscular physique and tour through artistic history giving out leaflets about the hopelessness of it all and let him fall in love and become a baby and then a knight and all of the boy things and then lose faith in symbols and science and turn to the writings of the classics library and tear it up once he has read all of it and then leave the comic and live through me and then bust ideals and turn sour and commit suicide in the peace of our little flat which nobody visits anymore and we get our blood all over our stupid piles of smug integrity collections which will be raided by ghouls and relatives and still be the same physical objects as ever and yet seem more valuable somehow and we will laugh from our floating positions but whimper when every individual can spend their immortal soul time watching back recordings of our thoughts and feelings and actions but in the end since all mankind does bad things and good things and all things none of that really matters and we will be split in the afterlife, my creations and I, and the I that I created with your help, and all of the millions of instances all billowing around fall down at the same time when we are all liberated from ideas and meaning and thought and free to fly around all of our infinite dreams forever.

But don't take my/our word/s for it/them. I love my dreams and I am scared that they are becoming more important. Especially than work. And I have no guilt or fear. I just want a little food and a bed. Entertainment is interchangable and lazy. Art merchandise entertainment enlightenment. Yes big pot of dreams. Not my dreams. How do I know? All dreams are mine if I allow them. What makes my dreams feel different to yours?

And so I reinvented myself for the summer. The end. Thanks Evan!

3 names to end my login session.

2006-05-10T14:20:00.012+02:00

Joey Heatherton Rondo Hatton Tank Girl

I am going to do emails. Tonight, bet your space bar, I will be running my felt tips into the ground.

Shoddy.

2006-05-10T14:20:00.011+02:00

I may have forgotten Ralph Steadman's quote, but history has not. Glory to books and computers.

Leftovers.

2006-05-10T14:20:00.009+02:00

I hate to have a favourite child but...

I honestly detest people who refer to their artistic output as their children. You dead rats.

Snoboi shall return better to roam dodgy bars with Puzzle Knight.

This is 05:00's influence at play.

The goods.

2006-05-10T14:20:00.008+02:00

Here they are at last, the late night things that I am happy to have made.

Page 1.

Page 2.

A little more Let.

2006-05-10T14:20:00.007+02:00

And what a little.

A couple of scenic logo prototypes.

And another?

Pomo Promotions.

2006-05-10T14:20:00.006+02:00

Here are two leaked examples of recent business 'cards':

Do you like it?

Do you like them?

Oujiagraffiti.

2006-05-10T14:20:00.005+02:00

Ages ago I took photos of usual Herne Bay things like shops and signs and printed them onto Avery L7160 address labels, which seemed to be free from my employer at the time. Some I stuck around the town and some I stuck to paper. In my unhurried stance I gathered some together for my Erasmus trip which dumps them neatly inside the present.

I began to write my memories of these pictures, then add a layer of stronger fiction, then dabbed on a poetic/controlled layer, then some lightly aggressive rant and so on. The results are in, a mess with potential for improvement. I gave it the title Ouijagraffiti because I had the name hidden away for ages. I think it shows that in our contradictions, we are all mad but in slow motion.

3 drawings.

2006-05-10T14:20:00.004+02:00

I did this with a fancy pen in the pad of another.

I have a soft spot for this. Soft now.

This name came from three hometown signs. It would suit a good daughter.

Another day, another diode.

2006-05-10T14:20:00.003+02:00

This was silly. I still love the Knight.

The logo becomes a noun.

Let logos.

2006-05-10T14:20:00.002+02:00

Two pictures of logo trials for a one-off band thing mentally definite for August.

From the milky way.

Detail.

Drawing is my middle name!

2006-05-10T14:20:00.001+02:00

From another day.

From the night last.

May 10.

2006-05-10T14:20:00.000+02:00

It sounds like 'mating' with the right accent, though I cannot imagine anything funny about 'Mayeleven', short of Jewish bread jokes...

Anyway, last night a team of us decided to make a film of us at the dining table, short at three different times. Once was in the evening over dinner, once far into the night with us mainly drawing and writing, and once at 05:00 where we swayed in sleep free confusion over a sweet bread, unopenable grandma jam and a steaming pot of Earl Grey.

Whilst I cut down some images of images that were drawn during this period, here are some others from yesterday:

Sumpikgz.

2006-05-09T18:21:00.000+02:00

All of my contemporary photographic files refuse uploadal so I shall do it tomorrow. I dealt myself a brisk bibliography and feel cocky as a porn factory, such is the list. Goodbye for the present.

May 09.

2006-05-09T13:46:00.000+02:00

The last day I can make a 'mayo' joke.

I have been eating up the products of L'Association, and boy do I love the flavour! I am off to the comic library right now with Othmane and I intend to finish the English language collection this week. Only a handful remain. Fucking ace.

May O6/May O7/May 08.

2006-05-08T16:44:00.000+02:00

ISBN BN.

I have been loading myself with livres and feel like a mighty good student. I also wrote a letter home, constructed as a comic strip in part. I have realised that I do not care for superhero comics and that autobiographical and tragic ones suit my tastes best.

So without further ado, here are those winning numbers, and their links:

2915517037

1894994051

0930193636

1560970707

0967056675

1896597106

0811821994

1898094209

At present, the brilliant David B is my favourite comics author (so far). Epileptic 1 is the best graphic novel I have read so far, I was lost inside its imagination and emotion and clean lines for as long as it took to finish in one reading. There is much about dreaming, day and night, and his drawings are so beautiful. Especially after I tried to read one of the Swamp Thing stories that Alan Moore had written...hippie word strangler. It was nice to see Batman with a nosebleed but I am far happier without a cloud of shamanistic bullshit turning the page to crap.

Other names for me to research include:

Debbie Dreschler

Sasha Mihajlovic

J. C. Menu

Kevin Scalzo

Killofer

Louis Trondheim

Johnny Ryan

Craig Thompson

Marc Bell

Julie Doucet

James Kochalka

Christine Sheilds

I discovered that the University of Kent at Canterbury has a study centre dedicated to cartoons and charicature! There goes part of summer...and I have two quotes to add tomorrow too, one from Steve Bell and one from Ralph Steadman.

I have read almost all of the English language books in the comics library, including theory, so I will begin to submerge my head in French waters...there are many great artists and stories to discover, but this is some kind of Bank Holiday so tomorrow it will be...

This I forgot to publish, and a blind baby could see why...

2006-05-05T18:22:00.000+02:00

Puzzle Knight was walking awake and true metal exterior, all just what was had outside. This Knight was like bits of Wotsits to speak to, savoury dust, all this annoying and unholdable conversational lint, just pure questions besides the polite bookends.

Story. The separate and definite carrier towards an end, some easy and nice finish or else a meaningful opposite.

The Knight was walking, what is so interesting about that, the Knight was making sounds unintentionally due to its armour, why does it wear this armour, would it be a real Knight without this uniform? Why else would you call it a Knight if all it did was ask questions besides 'being' its appearance? We can say this of the Knight, it is a living thing with a brain that operates in a specialised way and a body that carries its brain and a disguise that gives it a place and a name in a culture that has an idea about what a Knight is and what it does, except this Knight does not do what Knights are supposed to do because of its specialised brain and what is wrong with that?

The puzzles jet out of its gaps. Does it brush its teeth? What makes it keep the armour on when you can get comfortable synthetics for next to no money? Does it have or use money? Does it eat? How is it different from the modern human being from my own culture? How is it unlike me?

The Knight is. I made it an is. It walks around my imagination waiting for the excuse to nip out into yours, for exercise and adventure, for use and to collect points for me in trade, transfer and all that.

Who is this all for?

May 05.

2006-05-05T18:02:00.000+02:00

I read three of the essays, one about visual sound in Asterix, one about the comics of Chris Ware and the one about Roadrunner. The book did not fit my way of thinking (or reading) and was therefore returned to the CNBDI library 'unfinished' (this is not my fault, ha/ha). The writing was too dead to accept.

Another inverse victory: Puzzle Knight is dead. I tried my hardest to conduct an imaginary interview on paper and, in frustration, things got overtly critical and the Knight was exposed as the Holy Grail rip off he really was. Quiz Knight would have been so much funnier.

My total stay in France will be 92 days. This, I discovered this morning, means that I will have stayed for thirteen days for each day of the week, except that I am saved by Wednesday because there is a forteenth.

I have good books now, the covers will appear on Monday or even the weekend or Tuesday.

PS: I have songs.

Two.

2006-05-04T19:11:00.002+02:00

Guess the good book.

Comitation.

2006-05-04T19:11:00.000+02:00

I will 'do' a distatn about comics because it would be an easy challenge concerning my current interest.

I read the Beano and all that* then didn't read many comics until I found that Robert Crumb's ones had sex in them, then Daniel Clowes because I loved the clean lines and then discovered the sex in them as well and now I like comics both with and without sex, and you can in fact 'tastefully' represent the acts of sex in this medium but it may not be as popular.

* The full list must included:
The Beano, The Dandy, Whizzer and Chips, Snap, The Beezer, The Topper and some other cheapo hybrids and holiday specials and annuals before I bought a Sinclair Spectrum magazines, then Amiga, then Sega and then music ones, especially Kerrang! and some irregular mainstream alternatives. The shame. The catharsis.

It is time for photos isn't it?

I liked the look of it because of the layout and colour.

I did it with crayons and felt tips.

I did it with sugar and felt tips.

May 04.

2006-05-04T17:37:00.000+02:00

In the end, I ditched Blutch for Liebidow. Since then, I have been alternating between daydreaming and watching people do things. I have two new books, one I read last night:

This was 'living shit' as I have taken to label the bad media.

This is funny. See the next post.

May 03.

2006-05-03T13:58:00.001+02:00

Blutch has come to the school. May O2 is in limbo. I have ideas in my pad and will share them tomorrow. I read all of Maus from roughly 01:00 to 05:00 this morning. I will not make a biographical comic about a chip wrapper despite that sheer quantity of 'cultural kudos' that may arise.

I miss the news. Not the time for it now, an artist is downstairs! Love is in the air conditioner!

May 02.

2006-05-03T13:58:00.000+02:00

A bit of a list.

Yesterday, a lecture about art history involving Hans Holbein and his hidden skull. Look for it:

I took a few yards of notes about what the presentation a success and the importance of how you present yourself in such a situation. Our speaker (name unheard) reinvented his shape with each burst of words - a universally engaging fellow is he.

After to Xavier's, then the service station for supplies, then music from Cream and comics from Calvo and Daniel Clowes:

and Ghost World again.

Then a film from Spain called Cria Cuervos:

A quote to round things off.

2006-05-02T14:44:00.003+02:00

If, as Norman Cousins points out, "...sequential thought is the most difficult work in the entire range of human effort...," then the work of the sequential artist must be measured by comprehensibility. The sequential artist 'sees' for the reader because it is inherent to narrative art that the requirement on the viewer is not so much analysis as recognition. The task then is to arrange the sequence of events (or pictures) so as to bridge the gaps in action. Given these, the reader may fill in the intervening events from experience. Success here stems from the artist’s ability (usually more visceral than intellectual) to guage the commonality of the reader’s experience.

Will Eisner did it on page 38 of ISBN 0961472812.

Maus.

2006-05-02T14:44:00.001+02:00

The covers of the books that I shall read over the next few days:

Book 1.

Book 2.

These two books make up the famous, prize-winning graphic novel about Nazis and the problems that the Holocaust caused and continues to cause, a personal and family-based true story, a mess of emotions and facts still disgusting when adult Tom and Jerryfied. But I can only start these when I have finished intaking Will Eisner's comic grammar lessons, so I am going away to read and read and read until I know everything.

Matt and Magnets.

2006-05-02T14:44:00.000+02:00

I discovered a collection of Life In Hell several years ago or more in a cheap books salesplace in Margate. It was Work Is Hell and the draw (ha ha) was obvious: a green cover, an aversion to the grown up working world and the man who gave birth to The original Simpsons. And so I read the book and felt smashed by its bleak overtonnes. And so I read other books and had less of the original experience. And so I read this Childhood Is Hell volume and wasn't affected all that much. But Matt Groening loves lists, pictures and words, and I do too, so I forgot my initial feelings and took a photo.

You can clearly see the lovely clutter. I included to the corner of the other book because the CNBDI library adds a red sticker to books in languages other than French. I have bet myself that I can finish this collection before I leave the town. I have booked my train ticket and will sort my flight out later today if I can.

Also, I have toyed with the French poetry magnet kit, then I imagined a visial/comic version, then I thought of clip art and then of lots of other things that you have no right to read about.

And this mystery is the thing that sells the blogs.

Bill Pympton.

2006-05-02T13:47:00.004+02:00

Definitely the hand behind the Nik Naks advert of old, Bill Plympton's unique drawing style I feel is let down because he has stunted his subject matter at the boyish sex and murder stage and features no questions of clever and reclusive writers from hidden Europe. On the plus side, his books got published in French. Here is the cover of a book that was published in French but I found in English and a page that demonstrates Bill Plympton's drawing style with text in French which I found in my bedroom:

Typical.

Somehow pretty.

Egzampuls.

2006-05-02T13:47:00.003+02:00

The urge for a phoenetic change.

Here are some selected ambient works from the radical comic theory tomes:

What I love about Scott McCloud's book is the fact that it itself is in comic form despite being 76% academic. Full of religious energy toward the future of comic art, digital creation and delivery...

Will Eisner wrote his book further back in time so it isn't as cool. But it does explore the conventions of the form and toy with them, and almost all of the examples he uses to show theoretical bends are his own work, often from his strip The Spirit. Will Eisner was the apparently the first person to argue that comics could be or become art. Both of these people seem nice.

Two Local Views.

2006-05-02T13:47:00.002+02:00

Since the month of May is giving Angoulême its annual facelift, I decided to catch some frames for the eyes of the world. That is all:

This is my road. Look at our blooms! Enjoy our Irish flag and signs!

This is one minute's run from my bedroom door if you're careful. Beautiful, eh?

MAYDAY/MayDay/May Day/mayday/may day.

2006-05-02T13:47:00.001+02:00

Crowned Creator of Bootfairs visited Angoulême and I bought nothing. This doesn't mean I took nothing...

A box of useful fuses and diodes, possibly for servicing a television.

A breed of diorama where glue was outlawed.

April 30.

2006-05-02T13:47:00.000+02:00

We went to the library, I borrowed and read. And look at what I got:

In my growing fever for sequences I declared that I have contracted BD from the French.

April 29.

2006-04-29T21:30:00.000+02:00

I finished "Writers On Comics Scriptwriting" today and am 1.5 interviews away from ending Alan Moore. Earlier whilst reading by the river I was greeted by a student who had her cat in a strange upper body bumbag thing and was taking it to the islands down river from the school so it could enjoy a wee roam. I would publish some quotes from the book, and the cat, but I am using a historic Apple machine and the automatic switches do not appear...html is too harsh man. Instead of quotes, here is a list of all of the writers interviewed in the book, for future reference (and so this finally becomes journal like):

Kurt Busiek
Peter David
Chuck Dixon
Warren Ellis
Garth Ennis
Neil Gaiman
Devin Grayson
Dan Jurgen
Joe Kelly
Jeph Loeb
Todd McFarlane
Frank Miller
Grant Morrison
Mark Waid

To crush the book into a few words, these people are special for making superheroes human/er. Earl Grey takes revenge at this point, excuse me...

Music+news=null muse?

2006-04-28T21:40:00.000+02:00

Having bought White Town's Your Woman single for 60 euro cents, Blur's Song 2 for 1 euro and Tripping Daisy's I Am An Elastic Firecracker album for 5 euros, I was dizzy with gladness. Chance rolled a double six when I met two lovely characters from the last fortnight, one of whom is allowing me to accompany them to Cognac on Tuesday. I passed a newsagent and hoped for a paper for the first time in many, so I bought an International Guardian for 3 euros. I still find newspapers too depressing to read in full, after two articles I usually need to speak at the floor or similar. This time I discovered some very interesting features after the political scandals, money wars and fame waste, and one of them is making laughter happen downstairs as I type.

I want to finish my two books this weekend so I can have a whole new thing in my bag when I arrive in Cognac - I will be there all day and half of the evening. Tripping Daisy made me happier with their 'regular American kid' attitude. Love is not deaf.

Dissertation, a few more floating topics.

2006-04-28T13:58:00.000+02:00

Mr Blobby falling onto the food table at a gangster's daughter birthday party: Is Video Art Beautiful Enough For The Classical Ghost?

Longs titles, short queues for the toilet: My How Galleries Change.

Paper Menace: Entertainment In The Dock.

No Academic Merit: Why I Stopped Worrying About Sigmund And Learnt To Love The Bass.

It's all getting a little unrefined around here: Word Volume up the Internet Now.

I Give You The Oars: Is This Seriously An Essay? The Joke's On Everyone!

The Waking World: Students and Sleep.

A Brief History of Seriousness.

New Vocabulary: Discovering You Can Ejaculate.

HAT/Humane Art Theory - Crapronyms - Real Life For Finishers/self importance for dummies - Why agree - Interesting History - writing is a product of thinking and think of being, what do you think of being? - Is this an orignal question? - Island People: Meeting the World Late - Definition/separation - dead continuum - art relationships - environment as a character.

April 28.

2006-04-28T13:54:00.000+02:00

Considering the thoughts of others...

The two books, the Alan Moore one and the scripting comics one, are very interesting indeed. Much of the Alan Moore book is filled with people saying that his writing saved comics and made them fall back in love with their favourite childhood format. The other book is rife with (indirect) pragmatic advice typical to American business artists - none of that painful making money/not making money crap.

Here are some quotes that fell from the pages. If I start saving quotes now, they might be useful in the circus that my dissertation wants to become.

From the Alan Moore is Bloody Perfect book, something by Stephen Parkhouse:

In the interim, I had learned something of the craft of storytelling. I could draw a cartoon in two in about half a dozen styles - and was ploughing a strange and somewhat lonely furrow as a freelance illustrator. I had kept various contacts since IPC days - the most notable being Dez Skinn and Paul Nearly, both of whom had been involved in setting up a British office for Marvel Comics. Everybody talked a lot about doing something new. Every time comics people get together, beer flows with the conversation and great, majestic vistas unfold of unlimited creativity. There's invariably a wistful edge to these conversations - largely because people recognise the fact that comics have never been a true part of British culture. Comics are, and always have been, regarded as children's entertainment and are consequently marginalised in the national psyche;

From ISBN 094679006X, page 83, paragraph 4 to be exact.

He, an adult with infinitely more practical, industrial and life experience than I have had, said it so it can only be true. Plus it gives substance to my statements about comics having a lesser status 'back home' than here in France.

Then a quote from Michele Medda's tribute The Alanmoory Lesson, page 208:

It is a typical English and American idea of art, the idea which named the dramatic works with a word - "play" - setting itself in opposition to the traditional Catholic-Communist dismal seriousness which still currupts the Italian culture (comics included, authors and readers).

Lastly comes this from Link Yaco's piece, some normal text under the bold banner (but italic for my purposes) Alan Moore: Post-Modernist. Page 252!

The reason Moore's rationalisations work so well for many of us is that we get to enjoy the somewhat guilty pleasure of reading comic books, for an intelligent adult viewpoint has been overlaid in the visceral thrills of the material. We have the best of both worlds - a youthful sense of wonder and a mature reflection upon it.

I want my work to be described like Alan's is the last line.

The other quotes are straight out of ISBN 184023069X, with their placement in my edition detailed.

Quote 1, from page 26. Said/written/'encredited' to Kurt Busiek.

It's the multiple perspectives on superhero stories that, for me, is the key to Astro City. What we did in Marvels; take a normal person, be it a criminal, an innocent bystander or someone caught up in the events, and see what all of this like through his eyes. But we've gone beyond that, we've gone to the question of, 'Okay, what's it like to be in a supervillan's head, or that of a ten-year-old super hero, or the superhero discovering he's going to become a father?'. At Marvel or DC the main thrust of their books is to make you a spectator to the action, but I want to get into someone's head, someone's emotions. What I want to do is say: Here's the big fight. See that guy watching it, he's late for work, he can't get across town 'cause there's a superhero fight in his way. What's going to happen to his life? What's it like for him? I'm postulating that this alternate reality exists and then playing with the rules of it.

Quote 2, straight off of page 69 (pure chance mate). A metautterance of Warren Ellis with a question by the book's author, Mark Salisbury, who is a filthy journalist and therefore deserves no link. Poor journalists.

Your work is, by and large, deeply political. Do you think comics as a medium, make for a good political soapbox?

Well, it's one of the last mediums of you can get a soapbox in. It's one of the last media not to have had all of its interesting quirks and creases ironed out of it by corporate control and the demands of a mass audience, because the mass audience wants its football and tits. This is one of the bonuses, if you like, of working in comics. We're not addressing the culture as a whole, so we get to do things like be on a soapbox or write our comics on drugs and be quite open about it. It's nothing you could do with film or television any more.

More to come.

Trois.

2006-04-27T16:41:00.002+02:00

Three books, one 'read' and two borrowed:

CNBDI.

2006-04-27T16:41:00.000+02:00

I have just spent an hour and a half lost in the comics museum, or Centre national de la bande dessinée et de l'image as it is truely named. I love it there. Here are some pictures of it that are loaned from its own website.

Bookshop (great layout)

Museum (not bad, noises annoying)

Library (best part)

Some other drawings.

2006-04-27T13:05:00.001+02:00

I will start on stories soon.

Some drawings.

2006-04-27T13:05:00.000+02:00

April 27.

2006-04-27T12:57:00.000+02:00

Dissertation:

I will go through my various internet journals with which I have been involved since starting Interactive Arts, gathering ISBNs and so on for *.ographies. I made list last night, and here it is but with magical links instead of curvy arrows:

Joshyland: November 2004-September 2005
Joshinteractive: September 2005-January 2006
2000 and Six: January-March 2006
Oblivious Abroad: March-June 2006 (for the duration of the Erasmus exchange)

I also composed a list of places that have cased me since my official art education began:

Herne Bay
Canterbury
Manchester
London
Angoulême (so far)

The institutions:

Kent Institute of Art and Design (now University College for the Creative Arts), Canterbury
The Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester

The output:

Notepads (drawfuls, but quant ain't qual)
Photographs (a lot of the disk space on my dirty old iMac is digital photos)
The installation with Jai Abbott
Internet journals
Loose paper
The bee that was smashed up
Piss take sculptures (used in last year's final show)
Performance (as security guard, musician and Layton Kinch)
Audio (Bee Song and other compositions with Jai Abbott)
Video (as performer, plus bags in the wind etc)
Writer (but everybody writes so this is stupid, I just want renaissance man status)

My objectives for this year were/are:

This year I intend to:

Increase my technical knowledge of language [relearn grammar and learn to be concise]
Practice structured storytelling
Develop my photography skills [learn the basics from experts then try it for myself]
Increase my imagination
Read more often [I've not finished a novel in a long time]
Read a more diverse range of material [from library and from friends]
Visit more galleries [there are some still yet to find in Manchester]
Attend more events [keep up to date with relevant news]
Learn to make more objective observations [read more criticism]
Resolve my work

Not too close or far, and the academic year is only middle aged.

An example of our wonderful library's loan list trick.

That is all for this post.

Comics 3!

2006-04-26T15:53:00.003+02:00

The last 3. See if you can find more about them by reading the image titles.

Oblivious Abroad

May 30.

Final post.

A goodbye sky.

3 more wastes.

Three diagrams.

Two drawings.

May 27/May 28/May 29.

Stop Where Is!

Stop Where Is!

Interchange.

Life Diagrams 1-4.

May 26.

May 25.

May 24.

8 2 W8 4 L8R.

Egg Innards.

Town Views.

Town Views.

Town Views.

Town Views.

May 23.

That Red Book...

That Red Book...

That Red Book...

That Red Book...

May 22.

May 21.

May 20.

May 19.

That Grey Book...

That Grey Book...

That Grey Book...

Hyland's Half Dozen.

May 18.

Jodie blames the chorus.

May 17.

That Grey Book...

That Grey Book...

That Grey Book...

That Grey Book...

That Grey Book...

That Grey Book...

That Grey Book...

That Grey Book...

May 16.

That Grey Book...

That Grey Book...

That Grey Book...

That Grey Book...

May 15.

Disperation.

May 13 and 14.

ISBNdgame.

May 12.

Confusion: not allowed on a CV (because they are always bad?)

M a/e/i/ sc.

Eye/s.

May 11.

3 names to end my login session.

Shoddy.

Leftovers.

The goods.

A little more Let.

Pomo Promotions.

Oujiagraffiti.

3 drawings.

Another day, another diode.

Let logos.

Drawing is my middle name!

May 10.

Sumpikgz.

More reads.

May 09.

May O6/May O7/May 08.

This I forgot to publish, and a blind baby could see why...

May 05.

Two.

Comitation.

May 04.