Pretty Tied Up.

Hi folks.

Remember my Swinging Dead Girl post?

Well this is her just about to be killed:

It’s not finished yet but that’s how it’s looking so far.

OZ Book Covers (PART II): Thompson.

When L. Frank Baum died,
Ruth Plumly Thompson took over his OZ series.
Illustrator John R. Neill continued to produce the artwork.

These books are very rare these days and so,
Some of the pictures I’ve used are not the best quality.
It’s still very easy to see how good John R. Neill was by looking at them.

OZ Book Covers (PART I): Baum.

I’m at a stage in the OZ project I’m working on that I haven’t been looking forward to.
Although I’m still preparing inside page illustrations,
I need to start thinking about a front cover.

L. Frank Baums’ series of books had the best covers!
You just can’t wack ‘em.

The first book in the series was illustrated by W.W. Denslow and a first edition looked like this:

The great Books Of Wonder do justice to Baum’s OZ books these days.
I love these covers and I’d like to create a cover in the vain of John R. Neills’ originals.
I’m going to put all of Neill’s covers in order up here over a couple of posts so you can see why I admire this guy so much and also so that I can turn to this when I need inspiration.

Like I say,
The first one was illustrated by Denslow but everything from “The Marvelous Land Of Oz” is Neill’s work.
Obviously.

Here are Baums’ titles:

Glasgow Green Fireworks.

Went to the fireworks display in Glasgow Green the other night.

The way it was billed got me imagining half an hour full of massive, loud, colourful fireworks timed to cool music.
I was expecting something like this:

What happened was 15 minutes of fireworks with crappy Clyde 1 FM music.

Don’t get me wrong, The fireworks looked pretty cool:

Over to the other side of the park was a crane with that prick off the radio George Bowie.

The fireworks lasted exactly 15 minutes then stopped.
Just stopped.
No finale.
Fuck all.

Then the music stopped.

Then George Bowie:

“DID YOU ALL ENJOY THAT?”

A Few Thousand People: “YYYYYYEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!”

George Bowie: “DO YOU ALL WANT SOME MORE?”

A Few Thousand People: “YYYYYYEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!”

George Bowie: “Well it’ll probably be on youtube tomorrow. Thanks for coming folks!”

Heh heh.

Prick.

P.S. It is on the tube.
HERE.

Fucking Beetlejuice.

6pm.

I’m standing in my hallway with my ear to the door.
It’s Halloween and I’m thinking about 2 things.

1.

Have I just written the best song ever?
Have I?
Or,
Have I just completely ripped off ‘Like A Rolling Stone’?
-Again.

2.

Is my neighbour sobbing and upset?
Or is she having weird sobbing weirdo sex with that weird guy who passed me on the stairs yesterday?

I never found out.

I never found out because I felt something on my foot.
I looked down just in time to see a small brown mouse run like hell from my foot into my kitchen.

A FUCKING MOUSE!

A few weeks back I had suspected a mouse may be living with me.

I’d take bread out in the morning and find holes in it but it never got any further than me cursing Warburtons.

So anyways,
This mouse ran (They can run like fuck!) into my kitchen,
Did a few circles,
Then disappeared under my washing machine.

I did what any respectable man approaching 28 would do.
I hopped about on alternate tiptoes shouting:
‘FUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!’

‘HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET IN HERE YOU……MOUSE FUCK YOU!?’

‘I HOPE YOUR MOUSE EARS ARE LISTENING ‘CAUSE IT’S FUCKING CURTAINS FOR YOU!’

Then I decided that it would be much better to just think these things rather than shout them out.
That said,
It did drown out the weird sobbing sex sounds or whatever the hell the couple across the landing were getting up to sounds.

I’d never ever kill a mouse of course.
Ever!
Matter of fact,
I like mice.

I once found a dead white mouse when I was a kid.
It had blood on its belly and was in a drain and I remember being really sad for it.

I like ‘em!
I just don’t like them running around my flat.
Or eating my bread!

So,
This was at 6pm and I was due in work at 7.

So I went to work.

I locked the mouse in my flat,
Walked down my stairs and opened the main door to my building.

What was there when I opened the door?

That’s right folks!
It was Beetlejuice.
Beetlejuice pissing on my lovely red door.
What else!?

To be fair,
It was Halloween and Beetlejuice was actually a very drunk student who managed to give me a:
“Oooh fuck, Sorry mate”.

Me: “What…the FFFFUUU????”

Beetlejuice: “Sorry. …Do you know where The Duke Bar is?”

Me: “Nope. I fucking don’t as it happens”.

(I do).

Beetlejuice: “Well…….Me neither. Happy Halloween!”

“Yes. And a Happy Fucking Halloween to you too Beetlejuice.
You utter cock!” I said to myself.

It’s now 5am and I’m completely tired and awake.

My shift at work was full of ugly horrible pretentious people with zero wit, Manners, Personality, and who were all under the impression that they were cool, cutting edge and stylish just because they were silly enough to believe that The Scottish Style Awards Ceremony actually is Stylish.
Or Scottish.
Or cool.

On the upside,
Sophie Ellis Bextor presented the awards ceremony and she seemed nice.

Downside?
There’s a mouse in my flat which I can’t find.

Fucking Beetlejuice.

Chuck Fucking Berry.

Chuck Berry is playing Glasgow in a couple of weeks.

There’s a wee bit of me that stupidly wants to fork out the 35 bucks or whatever it costs to see him.
But no.

Fuck him.

Last time he came to Glasgow,
I went along.

“Chuck Fucking Berry!”
“I’m going to see Chuck Fucking Berry!” I kept saying to myself.
Has a nice ring to it!
“Chuckfuckingberry”.

I’ve loved Berry’s music ever since I heard “You Can’t Catch Me“, “Roll Over Beethoven” & “Back In The USA“ on my Dad’s old crappy (But state of the art at the time) AKAI Stereo.

I loved those records and still do!

Anyways,
So last time Chuck came to Glasgow he ended up a no show.
He’s well known for being difficult and in the end up,
He didn’t play.
Every week he plays a gig and the one I went to didn’t happen.

This was due to a few reasons.
Some of those were:
(a) He wanted to drive without a licence from his hotel to the venue.
(b) He was drunk as fuck.
(c) He refused rehearsals and sound checks.

Kind of dissapointing but fuck it.
It’s not like he moved with the times or changed is it?

It’s not like he’s gonna be great like he once was is it?

Don’t get me wrong,
I kind of admire the fact that he refuses to bring a touring band with him.
I kind of admire the fact that he just shows up and expects a hired band to know all of his tunes in the keys he chooses.
I kind of admire that because it’s just not how you do things.

But!
As far as paying a fortune to go see him live?
At what, 83 years old?

Fuck him!

Swinging Dead Girl.

This folks,
Is a working sketch for the seemingly endless Nonestica Project.

And yes,
It’s a young girl who’s had all Holy Hell shot out of her hanging upside down naked.
I’ve had to tone it down quite a lot from my original drawings but there you go.

I can just imagine people cracking their necks to see this the wrong way round so:

Al.

Circus Character Sketches.

I was going through some notebooks and found the bare bones of a story I once attempted to write about a circus.

I’ve decided that it’s worth finishing so I sketched out some possible characters.

I’ll post things up here as I develop it.

Whatever the hell it is…

Scribbling.

Been sketching quite a lot in work lately.
I throw a lot of them out but I thought I might upload the ones I like here.

This Morning, Robert Carlyle.

Are you interested in becoming a TV presenter?

Interested in interviewing major talents of Radio, Stage & Screen are you?

Well.
Here’s an example of how to completely waste an opportunity with Robert Carlyle courtesy of all round eejit Eamon Holmes and his dizzy spanner of a sidekick Ruth Langsford on ITV’s ‘This Morning’:

I have no interest in ‘Stargate‘ but did you actually listen to that pair?
Fucking clueless the two of them.

Was it just me or do you also think that Robert Carlyle was thinking:
‘DIE. DIE YOU DIZZY BITCH!’

Just me then?

Oh aye,
The part where Langsford mentioned ‘Cracker‘.

She called him a ‘Nasty Boy’.
He was more than ‘nasty’ love:

What a waste of an interview.
Saying that,
Eamon Holmes has never been that good with the old interviewing.