Avengers Vision (Paul Bettany)

My favourite new character in Avengers Age of Ultron is the Vision as played by Paul Bettany.

After the dark lines of my Chris Hemsworth Thor I've been pursuing a more digital painting look.

Battle Bus Battles

With a week and a half left of the UK general election campaign to go most of the public are already fed up with the campaign lurching as it does between stage managed don't meet the public appearances, speculative and uncosted policy announcements and rubbishing of the opponents girlfriends,/football supporting credentials/childhood Sindy hairstyling.

I think the time has gone for a new way to resolve our inevitable hung parliament ... the battle bus leader battles. I would have liked to have included the Lib Dem battle bus but it broke down on the way to the cartoon.

Terrible Tories Tales about the SNP

I'm no SNP supporter but living in Scotland you get a bit fed up with the building  #GE2015 Tory narrative about the terrible perils of the supposed Labour SNP alliance which may play well on English doorsteps but causes more division in the United Kingdom.

After the intervention of Blairsaurus comes another ex-PM John Major to warn about instability and SNP blackmail of a weak Labour party.

Blackadder's Queenie (Miranda Richardson)

Here is my digital caricature of Miranda Richardson as Queen Elizabeth aka Queenie from Blackadder 2.   After my Chris Hemsworth Thor I tried a more painterly approach with fewer dark lines.

Chewie we're home!

My first thought after watching the 2nd official trailer of Star Wars The Force Awakens (watch it on Youtube)  was the force was strong with this one.  My second thought was the corridor (presumably of the Millennium Falcon) looks very very grubby.

On the first trailer I complained about the sword hilt but I'm relaxed about that now.  My only other problem is this a trailer for a movie thats not out until Christmas so it feels wrong to be getting too excited just now.  If you need something to keep you going you can always check out my previous Star Wars cartoons.

Kids and Manifestos

What if our kids spoke in political speak?  In todays cartoon I borrowed characters from a much earlier strip about pancake Tuesday.

Sting and Paul Simon

The Sting and Paul Simon tour arrived at the SSE Hydro on April 10th and the gig was excellent. Not only was Paul Simon a genius and perform flawlessly, Sting added something to the duets and got the arena rocking to some of his Police anthems including Roxanne, So Lonely and Message in a Bottle.
  Simon and the amazing joint band proved they could boogie as well to numbers like Me and Julio and Call Me Al.  Yet my favourite moments were perhaps some of the more thoughtful numbers like The Boxer, Shape of my Heart and The Cool, Cool River.  If you can still catch the tour before it ends in Amsterdam you won't be disappointed.
  I drew the caricatures the night before based on reports of Sting's new hipster look.  On the night Simon wore his trademark hat but ditched the purple shirt and put in a pretty impressive stint for a legend in his seventies.
  The only other concert related cartoon I've done is this one about manufactured pop.

Blairosaurus

Todays #GE2015 political news was eclipsed by the news that some scientists are lobbying for the Brontosaurus name to be revived just as everyone was getting used to smugly putting down its use for the more accepted Apatosaurus.

Oh and as well as a man in a moustache on the dreek STV Scottish debates an old relic Tony Blair popped up to say that leaving the EU was perhaps not a good idea and that he thought Ed was good for the PM job.

I like drawing dinosaurs but my Blair needs a bit more work.

Guardians of the Galaxy Glenn Close

A cartoon about Glenn Close and Marvel's 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy for a caption competition "Wow! That was close!" which fell flat because it was not obvious enough that I was trying to be clever with different uses of the word close.  It was a shame as I quite liked the artwork particularly my miniature Rocket!

For cultural references to work in these competitions they have to be obvious like this Star Wars Stormtrooper ballerina gag.  Examples of other fall flat cultural references include this old Hobbit Pub gag from 2013.

GE2015 Leader Debate

Watched the General Election Leaders Debate while my son was listening to X Men Evolution which added useful sound effects like explosions and fight scenes.  After that I wished there was more batman fight words on screen.

Having said that the women came across better in their opposition than Ed particularly Nicola Sturgeon (and I'm no SNP supporter).  David Cameron wasn't very convincing