Music on Monday: The Who.

Look, I know: following comics with Dr Who. Death by nerd. Let me say then that as far as my interest in science fiction goes, this isn't the tip of the iceberg, this is the whole iceberg, comfortably run aground in its whole ice-cube-like minisculity.

And this isn't about oooh, The Seventies, Sweets They Don't Make Any More, the Ford Capri, white dog shit, blah blah blah. This is about Delia Derbyshire, a woman so far ahead of her time she invented drum and bass in 1963 (really: scroll down to 'Experimental dance track' here.)

Quite apart from all of its soggily nostalgic baggage, the theme tune to Dr Who is an extraordinary piece of music, all the more so considering it was composed by Ron Grainer and Delia Derbyshire in the early sixties. It's worth remembering that while the Beatles were sticking random bits of circus noise together on a tape and being hailed as geniuses, Derbyshire and the Radiophonic Workshop were undertaking a quiet and often completely anonymous revolution. As it says on the clip, "it's, what, forty years old [fifty, now] and still sounds like... the future."

On Delia:



Deconstructing the theme:

The Devil is in the Detail.

Some details taken from the Hellboy strip.

It's odd drawing something - a character, a whole world - that is so firmly locked in with someone else's style. I wanted to achieve something that would fit in with this world and without being just a copy.

I made the devil look like Mr Punch because Mr Punch is the creepiest thing ever to crawl from a human mind. It's like entertaining children with a Denis Nielsen puppet.





I can't tell you how much trouble I had drawing the approach to hell. I had it nearly completed, all inked up and 98% done when I decided I didn't like it so I started the whole page again from scratch. That page is now patched all over with pieces I re-drew on top; I don't think there was a section of it that I didn't re-do two or three times. God bless GIMP and what it covers up.

Let The Train Take the Strain

The only way I'll ever get to draw a Hellboy strip is to just draw one, so I have. It's like the joke, "My Grandfather whistled the national anthem for Queen Victoria. She wasn't there, but nonetheless that's who he was whistling it for."

I've always been interested in the old blues legend of the singer going to the crossroads to make a bargain with the devil, exchanging his soul for musical talent. Likewise I've always had the notion in the back of my mind of illustrating folk songs or blues songs; one of my favourites is the diabolic, close-shave-with-damnation vision of 'Down Bound Train', particularly the riotous version by Steve James but written by Chuck Berry, of all people.

The idea of a bluesman going to the crossroads and meeting an unexpected sort of devil seeded the whole thing and it crystalised into this story. Besides, steam engines and hell and so on seemed to fit nicely with Mike Mignola's vision.

I'll do a post sometime about just why Mike Mignola's artwork is so good (lots of black, for one thing - proper black black)but for now here's my pale imitation.

With a tincture of Bo Diddley for flavour.

The fonts are Letter-O-Matic, and Duvall Outline for the title.















Legal, please-don't-sue-me disclaimers: 'Down Bound Train' lyrics copyright Chuck Berry. Extracts from 'Who Do You Love' copyright E. McDaniel. Hellboy character copyright Dark Horse Comics and Mike Mignola, and I dare say I've infringed rampantly all over you. Sorry.

Sincerely Yours.

Two quick tips for electioneering, based on some correspondence this week.

1. Handwritten letters are personal. Yes.

Letters that appear to be handwritten but which are in fact mechanically printed and addressed to 'Dear Resident' are not, and actually cause disappointment. (Handwritten address! It's a letter to me! No It's not, it's electioneery bollocks. Boo.)

The bottom line is, not only have you not written to me, but you have momentarily conned me into believing someone has. I am not left thinking, 'ahh, the personal touch,' but rather, 'ahh, you faked up some sincerity. And I thought it was a real letter. You twat.'

This is no better than sending out cheques with YOU'VE WON A MILLION POUNDS!!! and a watermark of Noel Edmonds' face on them.

2. Said faked up personal-touch sincerity is not set up to succeed in the first place when your poor put-upon stamp-licking electoral-register-thumbing biro-wielding apparatchik spells my name wrong.

Music on Monday: Morning, Son.

I expect there'll be another ancient bloke picking a backwoods tune next week, but in the meantime, three hairy men being rowdy.

Squarescapes

I've got a fair/exhibition (a public flogging as I like to think of it) coming up over the Easter weekend so I've been working on some more small square landscapes.

Really enjoy doing these, although having said that, I did move one on from mediocre to better by attacking it in a rage with yellow ochre. Turned out all right.






There are seven new ones in all, uploaded to my website. If you're near Warkworth on Easter Sunday (April 24th) there's a range of artists and craftspersons showing their stuff in the village hall.

Kindle Schmindle: a Curmudgeon Speaks.

TV is telling me just how spankingly different a Kindle is from an ordinary book. You can store up to three-and-a-half thousand books on it, which is good because previously when I've wanted to go on holiday with thousands of books I've had to go camping in the British Library. (We had a fortnight in 940.2, Renaissance Italy. It was lovely.) But Kindle doesn't stop there.

You can keep it in a drawer!


This is good. It means next time you go round someone's house instead of looking at their bookshelves (to judge them, their moral character and intellectual strength) you can now legitimately nip upstairs and riffle through their pants drawer to see what's on their Kindle. Same thing.

Your dog can lick it!


You can read stuff off it while you're chillaxing in a hammock and Converse.


Yeah, you wear Converse and say chillax, because this is your top end:

You live in the perpetual sunshine of those indeterminately Americo-European cities on mobile phone adverts and you laugh all day on your touchscreen phone and use the word 'apps' without wanting to slap yourself in the face. That phone's not even on. Look. It's just shiny shiny shiny.

Your dog can lick it!


You can secretly leer at women!


And the latest one's got a camera in it, so while you're masquerading as a drawly bed-headed Converse-wearing fixie-riding hipster, you can grab a photo of her arse and smuggle it home.

You can give it as a present - although, because it costs one hundred and eleven quid, you can't now afford wrapping paper.


In perhaps the most radical departure from books, you can put it in a pocket! Wow!


Oh.



Hundred and eleven quid. But your dog can still lick it! It's all over the screen, look! Dog slobber!


I hope you're reading dog training book, because your dog is out of control. And you, you're happy to have dog drool on your stuff. Which you then give to your kids.



And then eat off.


Kindle: If You're Rich but Unhygienic.