From You Stink & I Don’t #8

Ooh look, is that Hindmarsh Drive or Tuggeranong Parkway?  I like it when I get to draw Canberra in a comic coz Canberra aint never represented by nobody else, so Canberrans have to do it themselves.  Tuggeranong pride 2903.

Seriously though, people from Tuggeranong actually tattooed their postcode to their arms as a lame source of pride.  Here is a list of other stupid sources of pride:

• Nationality. Everyone was born.  It takes no effort at all to plop out of your mum, and you had no say in where her clunge was when you did.  Be proud of what you’re like or what you did instead.  Every thug in jail is proud of their nationality even though their country actually pays to have them removed from society.  It’s a bit weird to be proud of something you have nothing to do with.  It’s like me being proud of Rod Stewart.   The ones who ‘flew here’ have more right to be proud of being Aussie than those who ‘grew here’, since they actually went to a lot more effort.

• Sex. Men don’t go on about it but women often prattle on about how they’re a woman and have ovaries and crap.  I guess it’s harder to be a woman than a man.  But half the world are female so big deal.  Plus minges are pretty gross if you really look at them and all manner of gunk comes out of them.  So do nobs but they’re more like a neat hose.

• Race. Who cares if you are descended from the Maories, the Cherokees, the Celts, the Great Danes or the Monkees.  I only care about interesting stories your dad might have and how physically attractive your heritage makes you.  But don’t bore me with the fucked music of your people or your dumb tattoo.   And if you’re one of those white pride neo-nazis who points to Beethoven and Newton, don’t fool yourself.  Some white people were privileged and nurtured and able to express their genius, but our ancestors were 99% sick, poor, filthy peasants with no teeth, doing anything the Church and King asked them to and eating poo for dinner for centuries because they were chicken that God might get all angry.   So unless you’ve done something good yourself, shut up.

• Religion. Followers of mainstream religion don’t seem particularly proud of their religion.  They like it but they don’t bleat about it.  New-age followers on the other hand tend to like to go on and on about their exotic made-up beliefs using the words abundant, goddess, creative, sacred, blessing, divine, journey etc etc.  This one woman I read about who practiced voodoo insisted on spelling it vodou.  If that annoys you, you can be my friend.

• Supporting some footy team or other. Pretty much the dumbest thing to be proud of.

• Living in the one place your whole life. What an achievement!

• Being able to drink a lot.

• What your mum or dad was, if you are not that thing yourself.

• Being good at a computer game.
  

• Owning an official, olympic design frisbee. This is here because I have a friend who once boasted about owning one when we offered to buy him one.  He didn’t say ‘no thanks’, he just went on and on about this frisbee he had in a really loud voice.

• Knowing and understanding these traffic lights. Another time we were riding our BMXs and he zipped across these lights, whereas I waited for the crossing light to go green.  I mentioned as I caught up to him that he was lucky the light was about to go green and that there were no cars.  Instead of letting it go, he asked me to repeat my comment, upon which he explained at length that when he was a boy he oft spent many an afternoon riding his bike around this area and so he ‘knew these traffic lights’ instinctively, as if he posesses some kind of street smarts from his adventurous youth.

• Not having eaten at McDonalds for over 6 years. He won’t even take you through the drive-thru.  It isn’t political coz he’ll eat at Subway or KFC.  But his other boycott is that he wont eat at the Tuggeranong Ali Baba because once, 8 years ago, one of the staff was rude to him.

• Putting spare change in a large jar at the end of every day and eventually accumulating $1000 in gold coins. This would be a feat if you were 16, but he’s 34 and has a job.

Here’s a drawing of my pal Tim that I did.  I entered it for consideration for this “Window Frames” exhibition which displays art in various shop windows up and down Sydney Road.  It got rejected which wasn’t too bad coz it meant I could give it to Tim for his birthday.  But I got angry when I went to Sydney road and noticed there was some art in the windows that looked like it was drawn by a rhinoceros.

Yay!  John Retallick and Jo Waite chatted with me about This Is Not Art live via the telephone and it was great fun.  The Comic Spot is a monthly feature of the DIY arts show which airs on 3CR community radio.  It’s all about what mad s**t is going down in the Australian comics scene.

click the little square!  Go on!

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Here’s one from You Stink & I Don’t #5, 1998.

Creating Comics of Smallness has allowed me to forge a new affection for my little Epson printer, guillotine and stapler.  So I have decided to print up some tiny zines of my 10 page comic “Okay on Doomsday”, which you can read at the Top Shelf website.

Each pocket sized zine is printed on the finest off-white paper with hi-res printing in blue.  The front cover is printed using a secret new two-tone technique I made up by accident which I call “sort of smooshing the blue ink on with your fist”.  The zines come complete with ink smudges, bad stapling and extra creases where I folded it wrong.

There are only four copies at the moment, and each one is numbered.   Want one?  $7 includin postage…  Seriously, they were a pain in the arse to make.  They look nice, but.  Look!

Update:  I made another 8.  Still pretty ‘limited’ though.

I spent most of Wednesday working on Comic of Smallness #2, and here it is!  This one is 28 pages and features two lovely stories about Barry Cat.  The printing quality is crisper and the artwork more intricate.  Look!  Look!  Want one?  It’s a buck!

Someone has remixed Fatal Rage!  I love crap like this.