& the 'Chocolate Teapot Award' goes to...

male pattern baldness explained

& now for the science...

The Guardian - Michael Holden's All Ears 15th January

That Brian May (no relation) made his guitar out of a fireplace he did...etc.
As a real-life guitar hero(!) I find the whole concept of Guitar Hero rather puzzling, read on...
See the original article here
(Article by Michael Holden)
For a swift antidote to the optimistic platitudes of new year, there's nothing quite like hospital waiting rooms, where any rogue act of exuberance is swiftly countered by the collective frowning of the preoccupied majority. It was here that I saw a woman standing up in a room full of seated people, typing on her Blackberry and looking up occasionally to see if she had stopped acting like she shouldn't be there. An elderly woman and her adult son sat by my side.

Son (reading a text) "Guitar Hero, I wonder how he's getting on with it?"

Mother "You got him playing it?"

Son "Yeah, he's sent me a text saying he's gonna kick my arse."

Mother "Oh."

Son "Of all the versions I've bought – and I've bought five – there's no Jimi Hendrix on there."

Mother (diving deep into her own past) "Burt Weedon? Duane Eddy?"

Son "No. Stones, a lot of Bon Jovi. That's some frantic playing."

Mother (updating) "Brian May?"

Son "Yeah, Queen are there."

Mother (excited – relatively speaking) "Killer Queen?"

Son "Band On The Run – that's good to play."

Mother (eyeing the standing woman with disdain) "I dunno what she's playing at."

Son (holding thumb and forefinger together to indicate the woman's lack of long term illness) "I saw the size of her file – it was stick thin."

Mother "I've definitely gone deaf in this ear."

Son "I'll get you some shopping later."

Mother "Why don't she sit down?"

Son (most assuredly) "She will."

comic strips for Cartoon Kid

Some of the original strips I drew for Cartoon Kid by Jeremy Strong published by Puffin.
These were really fun to draw (I love a Police elephant!) & was nice to be given pretty much carte blanche on the design & layout

New children's book Cartoon Kid

Puffin have just published the first in the series of Cartoon Kid by Jeremy Strong which I done lots of pictures for. There's lots of elephants & superheroes in it so anyone who knows me will realise it's right up my street.
You can buy it (preferably) from your nice local book shop & support small local shops or else be a lazy arse & get it from t'internet

Headbutting horses...

Drawn from an overheard conversation in a pub while a group of middle class, middle aged men attempted to 'out-street' one another by recounting dubious tales of neo-football hooliganism from their pasts.

Dog coat

The view from my pub table - I'm always slightly peturbed by clothes on dogs*

(*see 'Things I Hate')

Penguin Dunces

Referring to previous post I can't help feeling Penguin books might have missed a trick with this line of titles for the 'less sophisticated reader'

(PS has anyone ever seen seen a real dunce's cap apart from in the Beano? Guess it's politically incorrect to humiliate the divvy kids now?)

The Guardian - Michael Holden's All Ears 8th January

Happy New year - after a couple of weeks of festivities I'm climbing back into my (slightly ill fitting) Freudian slip - possibly my favourite undergarment - couldn't resist the dunce penguin in the corner either...

(Article by Michael Holden)
I became surrounded on a bus by three ladies whose lunch had evidently escalated into something more sustained, causing them to abandon their cars for public transport.

Woman 1 (the most drunk) "Where does this bus go?"

Woman 2 (not drunk) "I'll tell you where to get off."

Woman 1 "When do you qualify as a psycho-whatever-it-is?"

Woman 2 "Psychotherapist. I've only just started. This is my first term."

Woman 3 (medium drunk) "Where are you doing it?"

Woman 2 " In town. The youngest person there is 21, it's quite daunting."

Woman 1 (slurring over the distinctions) "But what's the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist."

Woman 2 "A psychiatrist has more of a clinical background."

Woman 1 (delighted to have grasped that) "Right!"

Woman 2 "With therapy that's not always the case."

Woman 3 (not helping) "So at the end of the day, you'll be doing like, cognitive?"

Woman 2 "That might end up being part of it. Freud is the real distinction; he had been a medical doctor, so the psychiatrists …"

Woman 1 (interrupting) "So you can give out drugs, or is that the other lot?"

Woman 2 "Well, it's more psychiatry, the idea that the problem has a pathology to it. Therapy is different, to a degree in that …"

Woman 1 (not listening) "Well Edmund sees someone, and he's on drugs. And Peter sees someone, and he isn't on anything."

Woman 2 (bracing herself for a long journey, in every sense) "I see."

Merry Christmas!

...& a happy New Year

clouds shaped like spaceships by Das Fluff

Not really illustration or animation related but I play guitar for Das Flüff in between - take a look

The Guardian - Michael Holden's All Ears 11th December

Drugs are bad, mmmmmkay? I was originally going for the 'exploding stomach'imagery but decided against it in the end...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/dec/11/michael-holden-all-ears
(Article by Michael Holden)
Recently I shared a train carriage with two people whose frank exchange of narcotic chit-chat – while not without its tragedies – was at least a break from the norm.

Woman (glad to have bumped into a mate) "I thought you was in prison!"

Man (equally surprised) "I was, I got done with one bag! Donna got off with two! They said 18 months. Then, they said if I plead guilty I'd get seven. But I didn't know nothing about it. I thought I had to do the whole lot. It was a big surprise to me when they let me out."

Woman "So what you gonna do?"

Man "I'm going on the old Naltrexone."

Woman (cautionary) "If you can be bothered every day."

Man (rueful) "I couldn't sleep for a couple of weeks."

Woman "Well you gotta stay positive. What did your mum to say about it?"

Woman "Went ballistic. Thinks I'm gonna end up like my uncle."

Woman "My area's headed for one of them things where there's not that much shit about; when the good stuff comes back people are gonna start dying."

Man "The stuff I got done with came in at 37/38% – I was quite pleased with that. Did you hear about John's foot?"

Woman "Terrible. Nightmare. He was walking about with bits of bone in his pocket!"

Man (more surprised) "Did you hear about Alannah?"

Woman (nodding) "Her stomach exploded."

Man (with contempt) "Booze."

Later on the drinks trolley came wheeling past; the couple waved it by.

Smoking Nurse

A friend ad posted a Facebook update about visiting the smoking nurse to help him giving up fags & this was the image that came to mind...

The Guardian - Michael Holden's All Ears 4th December

In the interests of good taste I avoided illustrating the 'dad's corpse' reference, read on...
(Article by Michael Holden)
Upstairs on a bus, a group of schoolboys were discussing their day when things quickly took a turn for the extreme.

Boy 1 "(talking about a teacher) It's like she's trying to be you friend – she called me 'bred'ren,' which is going too far."

Boy 2 "The other guy is better, I learned bare stuff with him. More in a day with him than I do in week."

Boy 3 "But he's tough, though. He shows you one thing and you get it. And then another thing and you don't. And then he moves on."

Boy 1 "There's a boy in my class – Polish – his name is Olock. He said to me, 'How did you lose that race?' I said, 'Shut up – your name's Olock.

Like bollock.'"

We pulled up by a station and suddenly they got furtive and steered their friend toward the window.

Boy 2 (to boy 1) "You do it, you do it! You're the best."

Boy 1 shouted something inaudible but loud from the window. Moments later, the man who sells the local paper was up the stairs and out for blood, evidently not for the first time. He singled out Boy 1.

Vendor "Why are you always giving it to me, you little mug? You're gonna get stabbed if you don't shut your mouth!"

Having overplayed his hand, the man went back downstairs.

Boy 3 "He's gone mental."

Boy 2 "He is mental. What did you say?

Boy 1 (stunned at the scale of his creation) "I fucked your dad's corpse."

They dissolved into giggles.

Boy 2 "You're gonna get us killed."

Fair point, but still, it was – presumably – inventive. Reprehensible and so on, but I could hardly write it down for laughing all the same.

The Guardian - Michael Holden's All Ears 27th November

Caution this image contains gratuitous zoom lens tumescence & a very feeble pun which I make no apology for...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/nov/27/michael-holden-all-ears
(Article by Michael Holden)
One of the occasional hazards of writing a column like this is that, sometimes, the people you've written about track you down. Some write in, and others simply lie in wait. For those drinking locally they don't have to wait too long. Happily, the last time this happened the man who crossed the bar wasn't displeased by his depiction. In fact he was anxious that I carried on.

Man "I've got a new one for you."

Me (uneasy, for such assertions, however well-meant, have seldom proved true.) "That's great."

Man "I was in the supermarket."

Me (anxious for detail) "Which one?"

Man "Sainsbury's. Saturday. Late afternoon."

Me "Right."

Man "So I moved into the bakery area, because I'm after a cheesecake."

Me "Uh huh."

Man "Now, ordinarily I would go for the three-for-two thing but I've seen an individual one. I'm about to get it when I get a text, so I take out my phone."

He took out his phone by way of illustration.

Man (amping up the tension) "But! Just as I've done so, the fella behind the counter goes, 'Hey, you cannae take pictures of these."

Me "The cakes?"

Man "The cakes!"

Me "Like a security thing?"

Man "Who knows? But I'm in no mood to argue, so I bought it and then as I'm moving away I say, 'Can I take a photo of it when I get home?"

Me "Did he laugh?"

Man "Not a flicker."

I did, though, and bought him a drink, which seemed like the right thing to do.

Tube dogs

Felt tip dogs drawn in an inebriated state on thetube

The Guardian - Michael Holden's All Ears 20th November

(Article by Michael Holden)
Rush hour found me standing near a young couple seated on an underground train. They were headed for the airport and had the luggage to prove it. While others struggled gamely around their bags, the man hid his head in the free paper while she – with their baby strapped to her chest – talked about last night's TV.

Woman "I saw that Banged Up Abroad thing. It's scary what happens to these people. They're not like long-term pushers or anything. But they end up in all kinds of trouble."

Man (emerging from the paper) "Eh?"

Woman "That thing I watched. The people in prison overseas. It's terrible. It really scared me."

Man (vaguely) "Yeah."

Woman (fixating on bad things happening at airports and nodding toward the baby) "We won't have to put him through physio will we?"

Man "Physio?"

Woman "X-ray. I mean x-ray."

Man "No."

He opened the paper to show her an advert for a new film and pointed out an actress.

Man "Do you like her?"

Woman "She's got fatter. Fatter round the mouth."

Man (turning the page to an advert for a digital tablet) "They're really pushing these at the moment."

On the next page was a huge picture of a badly burned man.

Woman "WHAT'S THAT?"

Man "He ran through a bonfire."

Woman "WHY?"

Man (gleeful) "As a dare."

Woman "Oh no."

She looked away, rocked the baby and held it closer to her as if to shield it from all the idiocy of the world. I wished them luck.

Disturbing discoveries...

Unfortunate gentleman upon discovering his nostrils are merely drawn on...

Felt tip monster #2

...& another (part of an occasional series)

Felt tip monster #1

Creatures made of pure felt tip...grrrrr

The Guardian - Michael Holden's All Ears 13th November

No nice animals were harmed in the making of this image.
(only a few nasty ones)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/nov/13/michael-holden-all-ears
(Article by Michael Holden)
The morning after Halloween, the local pub's landlady was up a ladder, dismantling extensive decorations from the weekend, while one of the hardcore locals, a guy of around 65, finished a pint and looked up from his newspaper.

Man "Can I have another?"

Woman (from up on the ladder) "Help yourself."

He moved behind the bar, poured a drink and sat down again.

Man (looking at his beer) "I'm gonna stop drinking."

Woman "Why?"

Man (joking – but not entirely) "It says in the paper it's worse than crack. I reckon I'm gonna get into crack, go up a crackhouse."

Woman "Good luck."

Man "I reckon it's cheaper."

Woman "It won't be any cheaper than that – you ain't paid."

She came down carrying a decorative witch's cat and bunch of fake webs.

Man "That looks like my cat."

Woman (shocked) "You have a cat?"

Man "It's a bit feral. It follows me to the other pub, starts meowing, all that. So I feed it this and that. But then it goes off on a killing spree. Eats anything."

Woman "What like?"

Man "The other day it got a squirrel, then it walked past the pub with its tail sticking out of its mouth, trying to get it down. My mate, you know him, he's in a bad way. He thinks it's got two tails. It rattles him, he can't figure it out. Thinks he's imagining it."

Woman "And?"

Man "He's gone to rehab."

Woman "You didn't tell him?"

Man "Didn't want to break the spell."

Woman (fetching down more occult trinkets) "Fair enough."

'unwelcome space jazz'

Was just listening to Brian Eno on the wireless talking about imaginary musical genres...I'd love to hear some unwelcome space jazz!

(see also 'random thud' http://stevemaystuff.blogspot.com/2010/08/musical-genres-1-random-thud.html)

Bastard suit

Wonderful quote from the Dr Feelgood documentary Oil City Confidential...