ernst and not alan

max ernst 'une semaine de bonte': water (1933)

it's been a some time but for easter i visited my friend sara pape garcia in madrid. whilst there we undertook a trip to the fundacion mapfre for an exhibition of max ernst's series of collages 'une semaine de bonte' ('a week of kindness'). the attention to detail in these collages is amazing, often it is almost impossible to see where one image ends and the next begins. we left the exhibition in awe.

studies for 'tube shelter scene' and 'figure in a shelter' 1940-1941

maybe because of moore's relation to the surrealist movement ernst's collages reminded me of an exhibition i visited at the imperial war museum in 2007 of henry moore's drawings of people taking shelter in london underground stations and tunnels during the second world war and of coalminers. although the image above is the most representative i could find, there was a beautiful series of smaller drawings which worked as a sequential narrative. (as i recall the catalogue was so badly printed i decided not to buy it, maybe i should have.) if i unearth any images of these smaller drawings i'll put them up.

pining for the fjords

so my little piece of pigeon non-fiction is more or less done (real size approx. 20 x 82 cm). and i have just sent it off as an entry for an anthology jimi gherkin is putting together. let's hope it'll make it.

jimi is organizing some crazy shit by the way: a 5-day alternative press festival of comic, zine and small press goodness. it will be on at various locations from 29th july - 2nd august. i'll keep you posted.

birds

birds... they aren't easy to draw and anders nilsen hasn't made it any easier for anybody. in his 'big questions'-series a lot of the characters are birds. i would go as far as to say that when people think of birds in comics they think of nilsen's birds. they are good birds in a good story, no doubt about it.

sketch for pigeon non-fiction

on my way to work the other day i came across a piece of non-fiction involving a pigeon. it was too good not to make into a short comic and so i google-image-searched the web, observed a visitor to our garden and got to work.
i've drawn my pigeon the only way i know how. all i can do is hope that noone will compare my pigeon to anders' birds.

i also came across the image below, which i have tried to stop myself from posting. you have to choose your battles carefully, i suppose.

news of all varieties

20th century first holy communion card

when i went to sleep last night i promised myself a lie-in. i was still tired from meeting a deadline for a course i am doing and i felt as if i was coming down with something.
at 0930 hrs this morning there was a knock on the door. still groggy and far from fully rested i stumbled downstairs to open the door to what i was hoping to be the postman with a parcel. instead two kind individuals were wanting to bring me good news. not wanting to encourage anybody instead of my usual 'sorry, i am an atheist' i went with 'sorry, i'm not interested'. they nodded and moved on.

however much i wanted and needed i could not get back to sleep. so i got up, made myself some breakfast and started reading the new york times. there i first came across this article, and then this. coincidentally both articles mention the influence of the in this case roman catholic church on respectively women's and children's rights and science.

two friends

although i could not find the excellent guardian supplement on abortion, which i think was published in 2006 and which featured one or more very eloquent articles by zoe williams. some other articles she wrote for the guardian on the subject of abortion and reproductive rights can be found here.

serious business

jimi gherkin made me aware of the fact that chapter 2 article 49 of the coroners and justice bill is currently being reviewed by parliament. there is some concern as to how this may affect comic artists, writers, publishers, readers and retailers.

please sign this petition to ask the prime minister to take these concerns into account.

quality is not a chance

this weekend i ended up joining hin chua on one of his photographic exploits along the thames. we stocked up on pasties and jumped on the train to gravesend from where we wandered to higham. it was a bit of a trek but the sun was out, the company good and the food mediocre, what more could anyone ask for?

the aptly named gravesend owes its fame to being the last resting place of pocahontas. who we found immortalised in a mural just outside the station. (that's her on top of the bearded ginger white man on the left.)

on our way to the thames we passed an industrial area, where on the side of a van we found the following sage advice:

a couple of meters on we took this short course in hand signaling:

and rambling and clambering on, passing a power station and shooting grounds, dangerous waters and three separate forts we encountered some more signage. i was impressed with the trepidation of the wee man looking over the edge at the water and the other little man's balancing act.

it's not quite gravesend but in february i spent half a day in amsterdam and came across the image below outside of madam tussauds. if i'd had some time to spare i would have taken barry up on the offer.

i like knowing that all of the text and images above were carefully crafted by someone somewhere. someone woke up one morning and half asleep thought 'chance...choice...quality... eureka! quality is not a chance it is a choice!' then they got up and spent the rest of the day feeling chuffed.

we do what we can.

anders nilsen on a roll

so anders nilsen has been at it again. 'monologues for calculating the density of black holes' the follow up to his stream of consciousness comic 'monologues for the coming plague' is out. now. go get it.

if you are willing to flog your bike and ipod you might also be able to afford sammy harkham's latest editorial effort 'kramers ergot 7'. it is big and i haven't dared look inside it yet, but it is supposed to be good.