Social Life - The continuing adventures of Space Dorg

Yes, I realise that (the appeal for) this medium is probably very niche, particularly now the novelty has worn off, but I can't stop drawing it.

Dear Reader, the feeling of release is immense, you should try it yourself - depicting your daily life in cartoon form, it's far more therapeutic than simply writing it down. You could start your own comic strip and then, because your artistic skills are so much more advanced than my own, yours will really take off. I'll have to try to pretend not to mind when you achieve massive success for your own comic adventures! Then you can thank me when you win a prize, and everyone will say - who is that?

Ahem, anyhoo:

Our conversation (mostly) passes the Bechdel test

That's not the case with my old pals, though

David Bow-Wow-Wowie

What other art form has the power to lift, penetrate, sear through and pierce you?

Comfort Reads

I read this delightful little article from BookTrust the other day:
https://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-and-features/features/2019/april/the-soothing-power-of-uncomplicated-pleasures-why-we-should-treasure-comfort-reading
All about how we should encourage children to read whatever they like, without passing judgement and it's a good thing for them to take comfort from books, in an uncertain world.  It talks about how books can be an anchor of reassurance when we are children and that kids are far more likely to re-read their favourite books than adults are. I have to take issue with this point, about it being only in childhood that we return to our favourite reads, as I often re-read books, particularly in times of stress. Sometimes, when I'm reading a particularly good book for the first time and it sends thrills of appreciation through me, I know I'm going to read it again. The last book I read that had this effect on me was Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans.

Evans used to be a comedy TV producer and I think it shows in her writing. Crooked Heart is funny, seemingly, effortlessly so, but also devastatingly moving. It is set during the Second World War and tells the story of ten year old NOEL, a precocious child who has just lost his only family - in the figure of his godmother, MATTIE, and is evacuated to the countryside. He lands up with a woman called VERA, who never has enough money and is constantly scheming to try and scratch a living. When I say that this book is moving I mean that there are moments in it that hook you right in the guts, but it never tips over into sentimentality. The characters seem so real, right from the beginning, that you feel that you are walking right alongside them, smelling the dust as it's stirred up from the roads. Someone once took issue with the fact that my copy of  I Capture the Castle (one of my very favourite books) had a quote from J.K. Rowling on the cover that said that the protagonist of the book was one of the 'most charismatic narrators she'd ever met'. This person sneered at Rowling's use of the word 'met' but surely that is what a really great book should do - bring the characters totally to life for you and make you feel as if you know them. Rowling is right, by the way, Cassandra from I Capture the Castle is immensely charismatic (IMO).

Going back to the childhood reads. I loved reading, as a child, as much as I hated P.E. My obliging mother used to write notes for me, excusing me from P.E or Games, as her own mother had done for her when she was a child (I come from a long line of duffers). Once a sceptical P.E teacher had looked at my note, saying that I couldn't do P.E as I was currently suffering from scurvy, and said;
"Well, you needn't think you can sit there doing nothing [during the P.E lesson] - you'll have to read a book!" She had no idea how happy this made me! Not only had I got out of performing some kind of humiliating assortment of physical contortions, I didn't have to watch anyone else doing it either! And I got to read Prince Caspian. At the time I was making my way through the Chronicles of Narnia, probably for about the fourth time.

So yes - I definitely turned to books in times of crisis, stress, boredom and panic. Books blocked out the rest of the world on public transport, they provided comfort in unfamiliar places, they accompanied me on hospital visits. When I got so stressed about taking my A levels that I thought the chest pains I was having meant I was having a heart attack, I turned to the Paddington books by Michael Bond and they worked - they helped me to relax. The worst thing about being depressed, as a teenager, was that I lost my love of books, they stopped 'working' for me. I never lost my appetite for food, as other people did, I lost my appetite for reading, which was a far greater loss as far as I was concerned.  Thankfully it came back to me.

What books did you love as a child?

Which ones, if any, do you re-read now?

Doggie Tales

Greetings! If you are still coming back after being presented with a series of my poorly drawn cartoons, I salute you! Below are more of the same.

I think the less I 'say' the better, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I've added captions to the ones where the writing is particularly scrawly.

A Harry Potter moment

Meanwhile, life goes on

I

Family Life

If you have children and they have reached or passed school age, you will be familiar with the following discourse:

Parent:
- Can you get dressed please.
- We’re leaving in 20 minutes, can you get dressed.
- Have you brushed your teeth?
- Why are you not dressed?
- Oh for god’s sake - GET DRESSED NOW!!!!

And you think - when did I become this dull, shouty, awful person?

I have a confession to make, I’ve got you here under false pretences because all I’m giving you is some more cartoons. I said I can’t write at the moment and it’s easier to draw. The next set of drawings are based around family life and it’s a lot easier to represent how I felt when my daughter told me that she wished I wasn’t her mother, than to put it down in words. Thus you have a dog howling in the park rather than a woman, er, sobbing in the park, behind her sunglasses (I think the dog says it better).

Even if you don’t have kids I hope you can relate.

The trials and tribulations of a 'dorg'

Hello there reader, I hope this finds you well.

I haven’t written in a while because I haven’t really had the heart for it. Things have all been a bit meh, a bit shit and a bit arghhh! I was lying awake at 3 o’clock in the morning one day and thinking about lots of things and my inability to express them and I had the idea to put it *all down in a cartoon. A kind of visual diary.  *I say all but of course it won’t really be ‘all’, it will be part censored and part fictionalised. I’m not under any illusions about my drawing skills, it’s not really about that, but I do find writing and drawing the cartoon enormously therapeutic. The idea is that if I carry on drawing, within a year, my technique will have improved, either that or I’ll get bored with it and give it up.

I’ve called the cartoon ‘Space Dorg’ because I think it has a nice ring to it but, as yet, it has nothing whatsoever to do with space. It’s ‘dorg’ because that’s how one of my kids pronounces the word ‘dog’ and I just like it.

Did you really need another collar?

The production values are very low.