Killin' the Mood

Ah, now this is an idea I've been throwing around for some time and it all started with the simple idea of just "serial mood killer". For quite awhile there I was going to do it as a comic strip, but I looked at it again the other week and figured out how to pull it off with just one panel. In the old days I used to use captions quite a bit on my cartoons, which I've explained before is because the magazine I used worked for wanted really easy to get jokes, so they made the jokes easier to get. Now, since I've started doing this Blog, I've been trying to change my jokes and make the kind of jokes I like and not care who else gets them. One thing I really like is having to think for a little bit to figure out the joke, so because of that I try and avoid captions now, and try and find more creative ways to convey a joke. This one obviously is the exception, as there was no real alternative, plus I don't mind the caption, not that there's anything wrong with them, I just like to challenge myself not to use them is all. Plus I think to cut it back to one panel it needed the caption anyway, so it was either do a strip or a single panel with the caption, so I went with the single panel (my prefered option most of the times anyway).

Funny story about "Vaginal Discharge"...bet you've never heard or will you ever hear that sentence again. It came from years and years ago, but when I worked for an well known video game retailer. Me and the guys who worked there used to have this running joke about forming a band, even though at the time none of us had any real musical skills whatsoever, and  no instruments. I was the bass player....just because I like bass, why not?. Anyway so we tried to think of the most offensive name to call the band so, it could never take off even if we tried (plus it was a joke anyway) and guess what we came up with? Yep Vaginal Discharge was our band name, classy hey? So that was the inspiration for the mood killing phrase used in this cartoon, and honestly I've been waiting years to use it in a cartoon ;-).

Hope you like it! Until next time!

Mike

The 2nd Hand

I hope you all appreciate this cartoon, as I had to stay up late Sunday night finishing it! I was so organised for once this week to! I had a bunch of  initial sketches done earlier in the week ready to go for the Friday and once again one of my sons had other plans. Yep, winter is here, and so are sick children. So I had to spend the day with my sick boy instead of drawing cartoons, oh well, I still have some more sketches ready for next Friday....that is if no one else gets sick fingers crossed.

One of my favourite pastimes is hunting through 2nd hand books, as I love books and I love finding bargains. Every 6 months here in Brisbane Lifeline hold a massive 'Bookfest', which is pretty much a giant room full of tables and 2nd hand books, it's awesome. I go every time it's on and buy way too many books. Now one funny thing to note is to see how many books are there that were the 'popular' book to be seen reading on a bus or a train 6 months ago. Which this time happened to be 50 Shades of Grey, there was crap loads of them, in amongst all the copies of the Twilight Saga and Di Vinci Code. Now I'd like to say that this cartoon came to me when I was at Bookfest the other day, but all the credit goes to my lovely lady Penelope, who when she saw all the 50 Shades, said to me "Wow, you wouldn't want to touch a 2nd hand copy of 50 Shades of Grey would you?" I was going to Tweet that when I got home, because it's pretty funny, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised it could be a awesome cartoon instead! This is why I don't Tweet enough, as whenever I get a good idea I like to turn it into a cartoon and not waste it on Twitter. So I pretty much had the entire cartoon idea in my head straight away on this one, So thanks heaps Pen! I went with an old favourite of mine, the 'fishy smelling' ladies angle, so I've now done 2, 50 Shades of Grey cartoons and I'm not sure how many fish smelling ones now....too many? 

I'm kind of enjoying doing some subtle background jokes of late if you hadn't noticed....can you see the 2 I put in this one?

Alrighty, I need to get some sleep, hope you like it! 

Mike

Then He Gave it a Brain

At first appearance this week's cartoon may appear to be just a simple dick joke, but no, a little more thought went into it than that. I'm not sure if it's just a guy thing, but in general if someone if given complete creative control to create something, often you'll find a certain number of them will create a dick shape. I'm not sure why, and in fact I wish I could do a social experiment to give a large group of people some clay and see just how many dicks are made. This was proven quite a few years ago when a PC game called Spore was released when you could create your own creature to inhabit a planet and even though they banned your account for a period of time online if it resembled a dick, so many people made dick creatures! If they didn't ban them, then that game would just be inhabited by dick monsters I swear. Don't believe me? Just a quick Youtube search for "Spore Penis" (I got 6,050 results and this game came out in 2008!), like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubyv9X13hR8 Now that's just wrong...Oh wait, look at this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-MnJtLIdlI

And look at all the famous inventions inspired by the penis shape; Rockets, bullets, dildos....wait, maybe not that one, but you get the idea.
So am I really giving this way too much thought? Probably, anyway so I've noted this down quite some time ago, that people just love making dick shapes. So I did play around with several ideas on this subject, mostly revolving around someone having the ability to create anything he wants and he makes a dick first. It wasn't until the other week that it finally occurred to me just who that person could be, the man who created it all, God! So being the Atheist that I am, I always enjoy making fun of the big guy, but technically this isn't really a religion bashing joke, if you understand how I got the idea. Who else is more famous for creating stuff? And I really like the idea of God just stuffing around at the end of a long day creating existence.  

I'm also a massive Gary Larson, Far Side fan and this cartoon is also inspired by one of his classic cartoons, this one: http://thebodaciousbelgradeblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/farside5.jpg Which is why, if you look carefully enough you can see a container marked "Jerks" in the background. I also added some subtle jokes on the spines of the books on the top shelf in the background, but I doubt you can actually read them anyway, so they were probably only just for me, we'll see. Oh and the "Human Clay" thing, not a reference to the Creed album, just putting that out there.....I'm not a Creed fan.....maybe once when I didn't no any better, but not anymore.....no really.

Ok, until next time my friends! (I need a cool, catchy sign off phrase, any ideas??)

Mike

Curly Traces

You know what? After all these years I think I've finally found the best system for brainstorming cartoon ideas! Riding on the bus with headphones on and a notebook on my lap. Simple yes, but effective! I can't procrastinate as I only have a short time each way and pretty much nothing else to do, I don't know why, but it just seems to get me more focused than normal. Don't get me wrong though, all my other methods still work well, as the notebooks I bring on the bus are full of random notes from many different times and locations. So all my methods combined tend to work I guess. Anyway, so I finally had a chance to take a bus ride into the city by myself last Friday, and seeing how productive it was I might try and do that every couple of weeks or so from now on. Now if you remember I mentioned last week that I had a cartoon half done and guess what? This isn't it, as I got this idea on the bus ride home to do some work  on Friday and liked it so much I just had to do it!

I've mentioned before, that sometimes all it takes is for me is to see a word or a phrase and a little lightbulb goes off in my head to let me know that there's something there to use for an idea later on. This one? I saw the phrase "May contain traces of nuts" somewhere and that's pretty much all I had written down eventually. When I first started developing the idea I was going with a joke revolving around Mr Peanut (https://www.google.com.au/search?q=mr+peanut&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=SjirUbS3BsiyiAeNn4CQBQ&ved=0CDwQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=955) and ladies who were alergic to nuts not being able to have sex with him or something along those lines. Then I thought about 'nuts' and 'balls' (that sounds wrong when you say that out loud honestly, if only I was thinking out loud on the bus, ha!), and and that a trace of 'nuts' might be a pube and then I pretty much was on the path to this idea from there. So, sorry Mr Peanut, maybe next time buddy, next time....

Alrighty, see ya

Mike