various nothings

I have that occasional frisson of concern when I wonder how people in other countries are going to assume/ interpret aspects of Australia. This is an image from the Washington Post's article I think today or yesterday marvelling about how Daniel Andrews as a centre left politician with experience only of being a politician can maintain popularity despite his commitment to lockdownism. I was just annoyed at thinking that people reading the WP will be thinking 'oh my god, that's what bananas look like in Australia?' I have to remember that actually I don't give a flying fuck what people who read the WP think about Australia or anything. 

 

One of the things I love about history is it so often makes me/allows me to feel smugly woke. I actually saved this cartoon because I thought maybe I could use it in teaching next year. But like a lot of historical things it is meaningless if you don't consider the context, and that a lot of it is in the eye of the beholder. Your first take on this is sexist society but then again, it's also, kids are know-nothing shits, and sexist society acknowledged in a cartoon in a major newspaper. Is acknowledging the first step towards doing something about it? Not my place to say. This is a syndicated cartoon from 1962. 

Of course a lot of us in 2020 will be like, wow she got to leave the kids in the car without someone calling the police and putting her in jail and also wow, a parking space so close to the supermarket (also wow, why no shopping trolley? but I guess that's part of the cartoon exaggeration - I'm pretty sure shopping trolleys existed in 1962). (Also, often, teenagers to help you carry your bags to the car etc, I gather). 

The only other thing that happened today is that I tried out a little bit of ink drawing to see how I would go with my second graphic novel in ink (Helmi walked over it, and without thinking I committed the cardinal error of picking her up to put her on the floor, which is of course anathema to this little free spirit who struggled in outrage and flew across the room, but I don't think she got ink on the carpet, if she did, it's not noticeable - to me - yet). The difference is, an A4 page like this has the detail I could do in felt pen in 1/6 of a page. So either I would be doing my pages at A1 size (not easy) or perhaps doing what I understand Chester Brown does, or has done: composed his comic books out of individual panels which he has assembled on the page after the fact. 

I have a vague memory that, when I did the pages for Cut Snake I wanted them in some way to be holistic, although I have no idea (and there is no evidence, to my mind) how I thought this would manifest. But maybe this is the way to go, and I should just be more freeform about the ultimate result. I shouldn't put stuff like Chester Brown's work in close proximity to mine, only one of them comes off well. He is smartly economic though in putting totally black backgrounds etc, which not only focuses the reader's attention it also, let's be realistic, saves time and effort. But what's important is it looks great. There's no doubt he could/can draw a fabulous comprehensive background if he wanted to, it just doesn't suit the story. 

My next step might be to try and redo some actual pages from I Am Not... as ink drawings, big, with a view to reducing them and composing a page against a black (or other?) background. See how it goes. 

neighbours 2012

I barely watched Neighbours in 2011 (Mia says it's because I don't get home before 6:30, but this is somewhat untrue). (Apart from anything else, I've been overseas for three months).

So now my new year's resolution is to watch as much Neighbours as humanly possible. Right now I am watching Toady and Sonya and, erm... someone else talking about Chris, who is collapsed in a garage apparently and who we have just been told is 'shutting down' and not breathing. Someone with a tie is looking after him. I don't know who Chris is so I'm not that invested in his life - except that of course he's another human being, however fictional. Sonya is wearing a very unusual white and green angel robe. Perhaps she died and Toady's imagining her a la Sixth Sense?

Toady is being very defensive of someone called Peter Noonan - perhaps over some Hermanan's Hermitans reformation? Someone (hereafter known as Woman Thing) has come to Kate's door looking for Lucas and I don't know who she is. Woman Thing who Kate wants to know has been dared by Kate to go out with her because Jade, whoever that is, and whoever Woman Thing is.

The interesting part of the Chris in the garage story is that it's a lot about a new supermarket development and corruption surrounding demolition and rebuilding. Toady has now just been visited by a scottish superintendent who has in fact insisted, not requested, that Toady come to the station to address some serious allegations.

All that happened between the opening credits and the first ad break!!!

Now Toady is being grilled by Scottie. Sky and Andrew (?) have gone to the hospital. Lucas was the man whose name I couldn't remember above, I have never quite worked out whether he was a good thing or a bad thing. Dr Red Shirt is now reminiscing about what he had to do in the garage with a stanley knife to keep Chris alive (actually by what we just saw I would have said to kill him, but according to reviews I read in the paper, it was to save his life). Now Kate and WT are drinking yellow cocktails. I give them (oh shit, I was going to say I give them 3 seconds before one of them spots a guy, but I got to that part of the sentence and they did). I got the sense Kate was about to come out or something but who knows. Another ad. Not much happened in that segment.

Then it ended. It was great! Can't wait for tomorrow's.