Maoam: Dirty Perverted Sour feckers.

One of my few pleasures these days are Maoam sour ten pence chews, yeah, sad ain't it. The have a web site here, but there's fuck all of use on it (for my perverse purposes) so I scanned in these decidedly dodgy. Looks vaguely fun and wholesome, doesn't it, they're just some fruits having a laugh....

But look closer, wee cherry's having a right ole time nuzzling at the crouch of a happy lime. Orange and lime are an even more perverse pair.

With orange keeping one eye open during oral sex while lime is giving him the ole tap on the head to signal that it's his turn....

reminds me of these guys,

Aspirational tv - Charlie Brooker

Kevin Pollack On letterman

Kevin Pollak does killer Star Trek comedy

Bono and Bar Flies

I did a wee photocopied minicomic to give to people at the Birmingham Comic Show, a new strip below (click on it to enlarge):

A few spaces in the layout were filled with some hasitly drawn bits:

Bob's Birmingham Bonanza

Another excuse to show some of the Birmingham pics, Bob Byrne has done a Birmingham Comic Show report with funny photo captions, and me pissing in an alley way.

other blog reports of the show for prosterity.

Dec Shalvey
Fran Johnson
Lew Stringer
PJ Holden

Birmingham Mail Video
Forbidden Planet Blog
Forbidden Planet Flickr Stream

that's enough nerdlinger action for a while, back to perversion and bleak depression then...

Stand Up Part Deux

Discussing "Ballbags and Buttplugs: How to stick things in your body...and retrieve them"...

The first time I tried standup (post here) I didn't tell anyone I knew in case I was shite. This time I told a load of people who on the night all brought friends I had a whole side of the room that knew me and whiney ranty geeky shite I come out with, thankfully I didn't suck and it went well. Thanks to Labhaoise and Pete, the Belgian Monk crew, Joe & Jen, Tim & Lucy, Dan, Clare & Pierlugi, Aaron and Nathan, and anyone else who survived my perverted ramblings.

The Belgian Monk crew, Staz looks pleased but I have seemed to sent Rach to sleep...

Dale and Danni are aroused and embarrassed, respectively...

Pietari K is a)wrongly accused of being my cousin and b) made to act like a dwarf by compare John Kearns.

Tom Moran looking very rock and roll

...and relaxing with a post-gig fag and sauv-blanc

Photographic proof of me once hugging a pretty lady...

Not so funny now, are you funny man....

Jimmny finally meets a certain Bobbity Byrne...

One of personal highlights of the Birmingham International Comics Show was meeting Bob Byrne of Clamnut Comics fame. As we both knackered/hungover on the Saturday morning we spent a pleasant few hours sitting out in the drizzle and talking whilst making occasional attempts to beat the geek queues. It was a genuine pleasure to meet him after a year and half or so of email rants and blog madness. I surprised at how dark and demented Mbleh is check out pdf samples here or shell out a tenner to buy issues 1-3 from his site.

Iz it becauz I am a Mug?...

In the youth hostel we stayed in I decided this would be a fun mug drink my morning coffee in but it had a really annoying voicechip in it that was running out of batteries which sounded like the most unfunny drunkard in the world doing an Ali G impression while simultaneously having a stroke.

A display of Bob's MBlehs at the Olive Press table. One of the other highlights was minding the desk for a bit while the lad's attended Matt Hollingsworth's colorist masterclass.

Me talking to Mike Conroy, the new editor of Comics International and author of 500 Great Comic Book Action Heroes. Don't think I was making much sense at this time. Interview with him here from the Forbidden Planet blog. Pic from Bob.

A pic from Bob's camera of the last ones standing about 4am or so.

I'm looking at the man in the revolving door, I'm asking him to chhhange his ways.

Give it up for the Clammaster

Comic Geeks Unleashed!! Untold Birmingham Tales!!

Comic Conventions... this is the sort of shit you want, right!...

When telling folks I was going to a comic convention they all asked ...'hehe are going to dress up?' But the most visible people in costume all seemed to be paid actors for promotional purposes with prebought costumes, if you want to dress up as a superhero...make the costume yourself. Like these ladies above they were promotional models for a City of Heroes stall, with a sign that said things like 'Talk to the Girl: 5 Pounds, Stand Next to the Girl 10 Pounds'.

So here is my photoessay of events of the Birmingham International Comics Show. Warning this may bore you to tears if you weren't there, but it was a lot of fun. Have added links to the relavent talented folks under the pictures so check out their amazing work.

12 October, Opening night event. This was hilarious as a whole plush bar had been reserved for us geeks and people kept trying to get in and then peered in an went, no actually you're alright...

Artist Declan Shalvey and a young lady.

Will Sliney and Stephen Thompson

Shalvatron keeps it real...

Esad Ribic and Dec.

Day Two, Saturday October 13, 2007, and a certain Clamtastic young man arrives...

A certain Bobilicious Byrne arrives

Bob basking in the glow of his MBlehs

Jimmny and Bob, with young Fran Johnson in the back there.

Dec and Wil want you...

Will, Stephen Mooney, Lisa Jackson Stephen Thompson

D-Shalv practices his choking techniques

It's getting late...we somehow got into the residents' lounge of the Britainnica Hotel.

Whilst Dec explained some stuff to fans

Meanwhile I was more transfixed by this painting, wondering what this gentleman uses his cane for after he's walked his lady friend home.

Where all Irish people abroad end up, the chipper, for chicken burgers....

Birmingham Comic Show Highlights: Erotic Comics and Hunt Emerson

One of the panels at the Con that I was sure to make was Tim Pilcher discussing erotic comics. The panel, unfortunately cut a bit short was based on his forthcoming book on erotic comics from Ilex Press and went into some of the connections between comics and erotic cartoons. Notably the genius and tragic life of Jack Cole, more famous in comics circles for creating Plastic Man. It's weird with cartoonists there is this public preception that they are all going to be wacky fun-loving guys, but I think Cole's work and also the recent Charles Schulz

biography are interesting for looking at the darker areas of comic artists minds.

Had a quick chat with Mr. Pilcher the next day was glad to see the work of John Willie and Eric Stanton will be in later chapters of the book that he didn't have time to discuss.

Whilst in the queue for the the erotic comics panel, I got chatting to a very nice couple that turned out to be Hunt Emerson and his wife. I was reading a MBleh in the panel and he had just been talking to Bob so we had a nice chat about British and Irish comics and the Comics Britainnica Series.

Hunt Emerson

Brimingham Comic Show Highlights: Jamie McKelvie, Leah Moore and John Reppion.

Jamie McKelvie.

Jamie McKelvie: Suburban Glamour

Round the corner from young Bob Byrne and Declan Shalvey at the Con was a certain Jamie McKelvie who effortlessly combines comics and a fashionable hip sensibility which is hard to pull off, Suburban Glamour is like a British Betty Page/emo-tinged Black Hole.
One of the happy accidents of my Con experience was when I was waiting to get my copy of Watchmen signed was when Leah Moore and John Reppion sat down beside him with their stuff. I got a copy of their Raise the Dead signed.

Leah Moore and John Reppion: Raise the Dead 2.