Astro Beach #7

Parlor Tricks

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Astro Beach #6

Be Prepared

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Astro Beach #5

A Little Vacation

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Astro Beach #4

Buyer Beware – part 2 of 2

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a++++++ would mention boobs again

Astro Beach #3

Buyer Beware – part 1 of 2

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Astro Beach #2

Dinner is Ruined

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Astro Beach #1

Hector Has A Question

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The Loneliness Of The Lighthouse Keeper

Moderately NWS, if you have a particularly uptight boss.

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Just imagine how much better these would be if I could actually draw.

Endemol’s bell ringers

It’s almost time for another Big Brother, which means we’ll be in for three weeks of the same boring old wrong rants from idiots who presumably think they’re being wildly original with their edgy, against the flow anti-BB opinions.

“They should let a serial killer into the house! Day five, and Jeffrey Dahmer has eaten everyone! You’d watch that, wouldn’t you, mate?”

Yeah, you’re the first person in the eight years since it started airing to ever suggest such a thing, or to say that the BB house might be enlivened by the introduction of a live rhino, or a pack of rabid wolves. Every series, without fail, office jokers everywhere think they’re the first person to ever humorously suggest that we “imagine if Harold Shipman was an ‘ousemate!”

People whine and complain that you can’t avoid BB – you can, it’s really not hard to just not watch it, and to not buy The Star – but the only thing you really can’t avoid are the fucknuts putting on an over the top Geordie accent to say “day 58 in the Big Brother Hoos, Michael has gone mad, shat into his own mouth and gone into the diary room with Jessica’s severed head,” before looking very pleased with themselves. As far as biting satire goes, it’s up there with Ian Hislop saying “Tony B-Liar, more like!” and pulling the face a baby makes when it fills its nappy with plops. Presumably these people are so disgusted with the celebrity cult that they’ve espoused the owning of a television altogether and wouldn’t be seen dead with a rolled up red-top under their arm. No? Oh. These are the same bell-ends who cheer in an over the top way at any slight misfortune to befall Paris Hilton, like the Pavlovian twats they are, or who hear a story about herpes ridden Scotch Tape advert skeleton Amy “re-record, not fade away” Winehouse doing something drug related and offer the wildly fresh and witty remark that they tried to make her go to rehab once, but she said no three times. Oscar Wilde remaining completely motionless in his grave, there.

“Television is shit these days, and it’s all reality TV’s fault. Nevermind, reality TV will be dead soon.”

Reality TV is just a genre now, like soaps, sport or programs on BBC3 with titles like “FUCKING HELL, MY SMELLY ARSE SMELLS OF SHIT!” and it’s here to stay. It’s only more prominent now because it couldn’t have existed back twenty years ago, even from a technological standpoint, and while there is a massive amount of absolute garbage, just like every other genre, reality TV has still bought some amazing televisual moments. The Ultimate Fighter’s “fatherless bastard” episode, Leo Sayer’s spectacularly unhinged breakdown or Paul Burrell being camp towards some rats are easily up there with The Sopranos or whatever the critically fellated show of the moment is in terms of entertainment.

“All these ex reality show contestants on TV all the time, plastered across the papers, becoming proper bleedin’ celebrities. Who do these Z-Listers think they are?”

What, like they were in the 80s? When pretty much everyone you saw on prime time came from New Faces or Opportunity Knocks? Victoria Wood, Lenny Henry, Cannon and Ball, Jim Fucking Davidson, Davro, Pasquale, Wilmot, and so on. The majority of the celebrities you cackled over in your zubaz pants and football club sweatbands came from the same “doing something in front of a panel” format that Chico did. Of course now, the failures and the freaks squeeze their fifteen minutes out of it as well as the winners, but who wants to live in a world without the Cheeky Girls? Not me, for sure. Besides, stop romanticising about 80’s TV. It’s 95% shit now, it was 95% shit then, something being old doesn’t automatically make it good.

“Yeah but these BB fucks ain’t got no talent, they just got their minges out on a show.”

Unless you’re going to plead your case for why Little and Large, The Grumbleweeds or that fat bloke who used to bang a tray against his head were the Larry Davids of the 80s, again, this isn’t a new thing. Sure, Welsh Glyn or The Twins are hardly dripping with talent, and don’t even have routines, unless you count being wilfully stupid and liking a colour, but if you’re complaining about seeing too much of them, you must have been accidentally peering through their letterboxes again, because they’re hardly lighting up Saturday nights or starring in the 21^st century equivalent of Bobby Davro’s Rock With Laughter. The only way to even see these X-listers is to be at home, in front of the TV, watching a pretty shitty program in the first place. I for one have never seen Chico cameo in Arrested Development or Kinga sat behind the Question Time desk, although to be fair, I don’t think she’d have the bottle – tee hee. These people are genuinely very easy to avoid, so is Big Brother itself. I mean, nobody wants to see Jade Goody, but as long as you steer clear of the sort of shows or magazines she’s in, you shouldn’t have any problem. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for these witty, witty people with their wildly original opinions.

Still, maybe one of the contestants will call Brian Sewell a ‘darkie’ and the whole thing will be shut down.

Ants

Professor Quimgargle’s Fabulous Device

Another old one dug out. Pretty sure I never even finished it.

Rudebear

To start things off, here’s a comic I did for an old, abandoned project that fell to bits last year. There are a few more finished ones, plus a huge stack of rough strips that need doing. I’ll post both up here eventually. For these old ones, please excuse the roughness, they are basically prototypes.