The Week in Review

A product of my Gag Machine but also, I thought, the best way to end a week which began with a filthy cartoon about Philip Schofield, then developed into a three-day exercise in republishing a book of slightly vulgar but hopefully funny tales (current sales: a hardly surprising zero), and which ended with my experimenting with a sex change.

Next week I plan to be far less crude.

To be honest, I didn’t really want to publish this cartoon since it was already one of my favourites the moment I thought of it. Using the old Gag Machine to get my brain working, I saw the two words appear before my eyes. They snapped together like they were designed to work that way and I suppose they were. I genuinely think the great B. Kliban would have been pleased with this juxtaposition.

Not that I have anywhere that would be willing to publish it or (dizzy at the thought) pay me for this kind of nonsense. Last night, I drew two other cartoons which are more classically funny, but then I still suspect I don’t know what is or is not funny. I continue to struggle with the overwhelming urge to give up. I’ve been enjoying writing lately and wonder if it’s time to try my hand at something longer.

Not that I will give up the cartoons. First, it helps me unwind and second, I’ve another part of my brain that keeps telling me that I like the stuff I produce and I don’t see too many cartoons in my style. I was looking at some cartoons in the current issue of a certain magazine and I was again puzzled why I can’t get my work in there. The cartoons were either so obvious I’d be on anti-depressants because drawing them convince me that I’d lost my zing, or I couldn’t understand what they hell they were talking about.

Oh, this is too grim for a Saturday. Today I plan to look over some old work I produced last year but went nowhere. I want to look at it with fresh eyes and decide what to do with it. It’s odd but I’m feeling quite upbeat today, which makes me want to grab the world and give it a shake, yet I’m also burdened by my continued failure. I wrote the Stan Madeley book in this kind of mood. The Monks book too. Then came my erotic tales and then The Snoot. Today is the kind of day that might end up in six months with another finished book but also all the heartache associated with the usual sad ending.

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Why Dunciad.com?

It’s a cool domain name and it was available. Yes, I know. Available. Crazy, isn’t it?

Really?

Yes. It also helps that it’s also my favourite satire written by Alexander Pope, one of the most metrically pure English poets who also knew his way around a crude insult or two. If you’ve not read it, you should give it a try.

So this is satire, right?

Can’t deny it. There will be some. But it’s also an experiment in writing and drawing, giving work away for free in order to see how many people are willing to support a writer doing his thing. It’s the weird stuff that I wouldn’t get published elsewhere in this word of diminishing demands and cookie-cutter tastes.