In March I received an e-mail from Hachette NZ Ltd. asking if they could use one of my Jitterati cartoons for a book on the history of drink and drinking in NZ. It occurred to me to check out their website to see if the book had been published… and soon I had trotted down to Central Library and was standing in the NZ collection gazing at my cartoon printed across two pages, at pretty much the same size I had drawn it. Fortunately I’d paid attention to detail one bleary morning in 2005.

It looks pretty good. I wish I’d asked for a free copy.

I was amused to see that the latest four additions to Central Library’s CD collection are all offering advice:

I hadn’t seen my 14-month old nephew for a fortnight, and all of a sudden he’s started talking. He can do nouns (“cat”) prepositions (“up!”) and proto-sentences (“agaboogadaba? Gabadoo.”)

Once he masters adverbs, he’ll be qualified to present breakfast television.

Interesting post from last week on the Comic Riffs blog about shrinking newspaper comics. Apparently Doonesbury is now 41 picas (17.3 cm) wide in the Washington Post. This is comparable to the Dom Post’s 44 picas (18.5 cm), the minimum size contractually required by the syndicate. By comparison, Jitterati is 43 picas (18 cm), albeit in full colour and in a juicy position on page 3, booyah!

Throughout the ’70s, Doonesbury was criticized for poor art* and one of the notable features of Garry Trudeau’s ’80s retooling (along with suddenly increasing the age of the characters by a decade) was an improvement in the look of the strip. The artwork even became experimental on occasion in the ’90s, and although it’s settled down, ironically it’s now one of the best drawn comic strips around.

To combat legibility problems (newspapers have been shrinking their comics since the ’80s, hence the need for contractual size requirements) most new comics are extremely simple. So are the successful old ones - Dilbert, for example, although the visual look of that particular strip may be more influenced by the fact that it’s deep into its ‘autopilot’ period, when the creator stops giving a damn and just rakes in the licensing cash. See also Garfield, although its studio-produced artwork is very good.

*Compared to Pogo, they had a point.

I finally got around to watching Lawrence of Arabia, one of those films you’re expected to watch at some point in your life. It’s presented fairly preciously – it’s 216 minutes split over 2 DVDs, with an intermission, and there’s five minutes of blackness at the beginning of each half with an orchestral overture, because apparently that’s how the director intended it. Good thing he didn’t intend us to watch the film facing east with underpants on our heads; you know the cinephiles would insist on it.

Anyway, like many of the classics it’s a series of set pieces with quite a lot of air in between, like the bits of Hamlet when he’s arsing about with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. It’s been edited down to three hours before, and frankly it could’ve lost more without many people noticing. Lawrence’s real life was obviously more complex, and some of the more important details are unsuitable for a film made in the early sixties… it takes a while before you realize there aren’t any women in the film! If it’s ever remade (and you just know someone in Hollywood is working on it) there’s room for a really, really gay version.

Peter O’Toole is astonishing, of course. It’s amazing he ever worked again, so strongly does he inhabit the character. In the end, the film is more a stunning technical and visual achievement than straightforward entertainment – a film for film fans, like Citizen Kane and Intolerance.

I’ve been uploading cartoons to the Jitterati website for four years now. At some stage Comic Genesis changed the admin page that allows you to refresh and update pages immediately, and since then I’ve been using an ftp program to add things, which isn’t exactly flexible. I could probably quit Comic Genesis entirely to create a ComicPress site, but not until I have some spare time.

Six of the Best
Murray Ball
Hodder Moa Books 2009

A few months ago, a handsome new Murray Ball book appeared in the shops, in the same format as the deluxe Footrot Flats collections published a few years ago. There are certain obvious marketing problems associated with this product. It’s not Footrot Flats. It comes in a sealed slipcase, with no text on the front or back to explain what it actually is. And – gulp – it costs a hundred bucks. You would have to frickin’ love Murray Ball to buy this straight off the shelf.

Anyway, thanks to the fantastic resource that is the Central Library, I lugged home a copy. Six of the Best consists of six comic strips Murray Ball has produced over the past forty years. The most significant selection is from the Punch cartoon Stanley, a much sharper version of the dreadful B.C.. The caveman Stanley is a similar character to the Dog, although less sympathetic. There have been two previous compilations of these cartoons, although they are super-out of print. You would think this would be a definitive collection, and yet although the images are sharp and the paperstock high quality, this is a dreadful, dreadful compilation. The cartoons have been shuffled, making nonsense of the storylines. The scans of the cartoons are uncorrected, so there are hairs, pencil lines and stray pieces of ziptone on the pages. For some reason the daily strips, half-page ‘Sunday’ strips, and full page magazine strips have been segregated, so the quality and chronology zips up and down. A missed opportunity.

The other cartoons are for serious Ball fans only. Bruce the Barbarian is from Labour Weekly, a vivid if unsubtle attack of Thatcherism that would seem gauche even in a student newspaper. The Prophet is a short-lived anti-imperialist cartoon from the Noughties. The Doctor is an average medical-themed strip, but Nature Calls and The Kids are both charming comics which show a strong Leo Baxendale influence.

Ball’s strength has always been in his unsentimental characterisation, and his main weakness is his portrayal of female characters. The Seventies were not a progressive time for him. Most of these strips have dated badly and I wouldn’t pay a hundred bucks for the book, handsome though it is. Bizarrely it’s advertised (on the inside) as being the third part of a collector’s trilogy, the other two parts being the Footrot Flats collections, even though the first book (a selection of the daily strips) only covers five out of 19 years. I wish they’d reprint the original collections – I’m missing vols. 1, 2, 13, 16, 17 and 22-27.

So, some gaps there.

Another excellent flat party. It was more talky than dancy until someone stopped messing with the volume control on the stereo. For some reason there was a prodigious amount of wine and women in their mid-twenties, but I am not complaining. It didn’t finish until 3:30am. No-one threw up, broke windows, puked on the neighbour’s cat, started a fistfight, or decided that the “least drunk” should drive, so it wasn’t a party for the newspapers.

Decidedly Non-Party Soundtrack:
Psonic Psunspot ~The Dukes of Stratosphear
Permanent ~Joy Division
The Gorey End ~The Tiger Lillies & Kronos Quartet

Soak chickpeas. Clean Venetian blinds. Vacuum. Move loose stuff into cupboard. Chop up crepe paper. Borrow ladder. Nail crepe paper to ceiling. Install cobwebs. Clean bathrooms. Make hummus. Make 8-hour playlist. Rearrange lounge furniture. It had better be a good party.

I was invited to a NZ Cartoon Archives function tonight at Capital Books. British cartoon historian Dr. Mark Bryant happened to be in town, so the Archives and Press Corp got together for a chinwag. I was the only cartoonist there, and for a time the youngest person in the room by 20 years, until a rather brusque Phd student turned up. He was unimpressed until I mentioned Brunswick, and I hope none of you will think less of me that I found his momentary flicker of awe extremely satisfying. I also met a certain famous illustrator who had never heard of me, but was extremely miffed that it took me a few minutes to recollect who he was. I had to choke back a mighty oath when introduced to someone as “the young aspiring cartoonist”. It’s all comparative, matey-boy.

The best conversation I had was with the guest of honour, who was not at all well. I think he was gratified that I was a fan of H.M. Bateman and Fougasse, and helpfully pulled out a copy of his Dictionary of 20th Century British Cartoonists and Caricaturists when I asked what kind of injury crippled Fougasse at Gallipoli. He’s also the only person I’ve ever met who’s actually sat at the Punch table.