Okay, so one of the comics I bought in Angouleme was a real gem: 10 Petits Insectes.

It's loosely (very loosely) based on the Agatha Christie novel which was originally given the catchy if not politically correct title "Ten Little Niggers". Someone realised this wasn't exactly good taste, so other editions have been called "Ten Little Indians", but that's not great either, so these days it's called "And then there were none". The story is about 10 people who are invited to an island where they are bumped off one by one. That's what happens in Ten Little Insects, but there the similarity ends.

It's written by Davide Cali, who I thought I had never heard of before, but then I realised I had a book of his, "The Enemy", with illustrations by Serge Bloch. It's a really nice mix of doodles and collage, with a witty anti war message. The artist on Insects is Vincent Pianina, who I actually met and chatted to a while. Nice guy, he even drew a picture for Katy (my girlfriend).

Ten Little Insects, as the story suggests, replaces the people in the Agatha Christie setting with Insects. This allows the author to make some good insect-related gags and also to play up the grotesque elements of the story without it getting too gruesome. The art is beautifully quirky: a lot of it is just built up with primary colour planes without any lines. I wasn't sure this would work when I first saw it, but now I love it. The angular drawing style reminds me a bit of classic 1950s animation. In fact, this would make a brilliant cartoon. The characters and the humour are what make the book for me, though. Here's one of my favourites: the characters get to the island, and sit around a table. One of them puts on a record which says "YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"

They naturally assume that this is a sick joke, and one of the insects suggests they turn over the record.

Insect 1: What's on the other side

Insect 2: "You're all going to die (instrumental version)"

Basically, if you don't find that funny, you probably won't like this book. I like this book a lot. It's only in French (Amazon.fr) , but maybe some clever UK publisher will pick it up.

I hope I don't get sued for using all these images. Is that allowed?

Just returned from the Angouleme Comics Festival. To be honest, I found the experience a real downer - there's just so much stuff out there, and I can't see how my stuff fits into the picture. I'd spent the previous 2 weeks scanning pages into my computer and cleaning them up so that I could get them together: that's the first 235 pages of 'Year Zero'.

The thing is, when I was drawing them, I was doing it as fast as possible, because I wanted to learn how to draw fast and also to make up a story on the hoof. Flicking through it now, though, and it looks pretty thin stuff. I think for the next 240 pages or so (I'm on page 268 at the moment, out of 500) I'll work at it more, and put in lots of dense blacks, because they seem to reproduce well.

The Bicycle Thief still stands up though, although I'm a bit sick of people saying it looks like Quentin Blake. I love Quentin Blake, the man is a genius, but I don't want my work to be identified with his like I'm copying him or something. It's just because I use dots for eyes sometimes and I'm a bit scribbly.

Still, going to Angouleme gave me a chance to buy lots of new BDs. I think maybe I'll review a few and write about them here.

Ukelele Class

I started a ukelele class last week at the Duke of Uke store near brick lane. The classes are great and really challenging. It's quite hard to keep up. This week I arrived early and was able to do a speedy sketch.

I'm trying to do a colour page at the moment, which involves using photoshop, which I don't really know how to use. I'm following Brian Bolland's highly useful lessons at his website, but it is still an arduous process, and what i'm drawing seems to bear no relation to the style I have when I use a pen. I can post some results later. Meanwhile, here is a doodle. I spend a lot of time on the phone at work and do doodles with a biro. I throw most of them away, but if I do an interesting one, I blow it up on the photocopier and take it home. Don't ask me where this is supposed to be...

Heavy Week

I've been working all week on trying to finish something for tomorrow's small press fair. I was previously hoping to do two or even 3 different strips - but i have only just managed to finish one.

Also this week, my first workshop at Colnbrook Detention Centre (I give legal advice to detainees). The whole experience left me incredibly depressed: people who have been detained 3, 4, 5 years beyond their criminal sentence, because they are foreign. It would be fine if they were being deported, but they aren't. They are just rotting in detention, slowly going mad, because the Home Office can't or won't obtain travel documents and it's too politically dangerous to release any of them. In the evening, after the workshop, coincidentally, was the LDSG report launch on indefinite detention: detained lives. It looks like an interesting report, and I look forward to reading it. Alisdair Mackenzie spoke - always amusing and value for money, but Alison Harvey of ILPA was the most impressive and impassioned speaker.

Here is a drawing I just did. It was supposed to be a self-portrait, but doesn't really look like me, still, interesting...

Work in progress

I am frantically trying to get together something for a mini-comic for the beginning of february. Here's some work in progress. It's kind of a diary.

Yesterday I was supposed to have an operation. I got to the hospital, and got into the disposable ward clothes, and then a doctor came round. He said the procedure I was supposed to have done, he didn't do. He could do a different procedure if I wanted, or come another day. I said we'd leave it for today and come back and have the right procedure. Katy and I had breakfast in Carluccio's for a treat, and whilst she chose a gift for someone I peered out of the window and sketched the square outside St. Barts.

New Year Post

Actually, I haven't posted for nearly a year, but I intend to do it more often now. Over Christmas and New Year Katy and I were visiting our friends Kata and Kristin in Iceland. We had a great time. Here are some pictures I drew out there.



Okay this is the hut we stayed in in the middle of nowhere, outside Reykjavik. There was a hottub out back, so every day, we went out, did stuff, came back, had dinner, played games and then made cocktails and sat in the hot water in the cold air under the stars. Can you think of anything better than that?




This is the mighty waterfall at Gullfoss. You could actually go and stand incredibly close to it. The path was covered in ice and treacherously slippy.



Kristin's mother, Kristin, lent us her cabin near Borgenes, in the west of Iceland. Katy and I drove our hire car to the giant glacier Snæfellsjökull. This is a sketch I did from the car in a place called Hellnar. It was too bloody cold to get out and draw...

Below, our friend Kata is a big activist in Iceland. I drew this quick comic strip after she told me about an encounter with the police that morning...