WHEN ME MAM SAW ME GUZZLING GUINNESS DRAWING CARICATURES SHE KNEW I WAS A PROFFESSIONAL CARTOONIST!

What did my ol' mam do to encourage my  slide from grace into the dark dingy world of the cartoonist?.....In the beginning ,quite frankly ,not a lot !

My dad was the fellah. He used to be a graphic artist in the days when adverts were ink drawings and he was superb with ink . As an artist he was great , a damn site better than i ever grew to be . In his days in some intelligence unit in the RAF after the war he travelled all around Western and Eastern Europe and had beautiful ink drawings of buildings and churches and cathedrals which he gave to a thouroughly unimpressed young son. 

I remember he arranged for comics to be delivered to the house in the days of paper boys in the 60's and on a Tuesday evenin ,i was breathless with excitment waiting for the VALIENT, the LION, and esspecially the TV21 to thud to the mat along with the good old LIVERPOOL ECHO. Then one day he came home with a big bundle ...Only 4 years supply of the VICTOR comic, spent the next couple of weeks lying on my belly on the floor transfixed with the 'TOUGH OF THE TRACK'; 'BRADDOCK OF THE BOMBERS'; KILLER KENNEDY'....And on it went, jeez!..I was a 'pig in shite!'...Some of his co-workers in FORDS heard about the comic mad son and gave me dad bundles of comics ,ah happy days. I think my mum liked it as i was the quietest she'd ever known me to be .

I discovered the cartoonist RIGBY  in the SUN newspaper with his hidden little boy and bird in every drawing , dad'd help me to find them ,he helped me put a RIGBY scrapbook together. BILL TIDY used to draw the weeks news on GRANADA REPORTS  on a Friday teatime, me n' dad loved it as he zoomed through his drawings as he talked through the events of the week in minutes flat . Thats when i went from drawing spitfires and Lancasters as well as spaceships to silly squiggly cartoon characters. Dad even brought a few MAD  magazines from the lads at the factory. And i discovered DON MARTIN, ARAGONES, DRUCKER, et al !

These were the glory days when every newspaper and magazine had cartoons. Dad encouraged me to draw 'gags' as i made him laugh and he used to have some good ideas and he encouraged me to send stuff off and when i got stuff published  he encouraged me to hawk my stuff around FLEET ST !...Not the most fun packed experiance if your not used to rejection, but that was one way of getting used to it.

The potential cartooning genius had become a compulsive doodler while still at school , people still remember pictures i did of teachers in between Thunderbirds and Interceptors from UFO And Eagles from SPACE 1999. This period of honing my skills unfortunatly coincided with an intensive supposed period of study ,so maybe not too suprisingly my reports and exam results left something to be desired ,culminating in me getting my arse kicked out of a bloody good school. I could've salvaged something and done art, but chose Biology instead , no i don't know why !

Not too suprisingly dad was dissapointed ,but mum was raging mad !....Did some 'normal ' jobs and got stuff published  so eased the parental disgust over the years, but my teens and the following years got me lots of trouble and sackings from jobs . MAGGIE THATCHER started the govt enterprise scheme and i became my own boss as i'd started the live caricature work and i was doing studio work before the computers screwed it all up. Mum had eased up on me and was quite proud when customers were telling her how good 'her Tim' was !

Her brothers in Ireland working on farms and building considered drawing and esspecially drawing cartoons as nothing like a job and i was dismissed as a lazy waste of time much to my mums pain. But i started doing well, i had a daily newspaper strip and started on a range of greetings cards and for a few years was raking it in. I was on more money than 'the workers' who were knocking me ,i even bought the family home off my mother much to her disbelieving joy.

I think the main moment for my mum when she was proudest and able to show me off was one day in the RATHDRUM CARTOON FESTIVAL during the late 90's, she'd fought in my corner when anybody put me down ,apparently, but she came into the village and i was sitting there with the other lads drinking and banging out the caricatures to a long queue of people and spreading joy and wonderment to the visitors as we do. My uncle the builder couldnt believe his eyes and his ears after mum put him right on a few things. After that mum didn't have to put up with her lad getting stick. Ever since that day ,i think she was shocked and suprised and realised that i wasn't quite the useless deadbeat she suspected i was and ever since shes backed and supported me through the ,has to be said 'drought -ridden years we all suffer through. 

She says she always had faith i would be ok and successful, but i remember it slightly different, when she saw i was giving it a go she thought 'just maybe!', but she wouldn't stand for anyone putting me down and when i was earning and she saw us hammering out work and even doing jobs abroad she was amazed and suddenly proud..I'd won her over, eventually !

TO LIVE LIFE TO THE FULL YOU MUST LIVE EVERY NIGHT SITTING FLICKING THROUGH THE SHIT ON THE TELLY CHANNELS AS IF IT WAS YOUR LAST!

                                                                              To live life to the full you must live every evening flicking through the shit on the endless telly channels as your last!
       My missus the 'Lovely Lynne' works down in Birmingham all week and comes home at the weekend and quite often plays with the MANCHESTER SKA FOUNDATION band out and about,which she enjoys greatly, they are a popular bunch and have quite a following and are getting a lot of 'gig' work. The longest we spend together is going shopping at ASDA on a Sunday afternoon.

The Big 'Little 'un' is normally like every kid her age in another room ,texting away on phones or lap tops or ear phoned up so anything short of a nuclear explosion  wouldn't have a cat in hells chance of attracting her attention.

Me n' the dog have the living room to ourselves and the universe of choice that SKY telly has to offer....A mass of channels with absolutly nothing on,except some real shite. Now our telly has all the mod cons so i can record shite ;I can get shite ,on demand: I can buy or rent shite.

I 've even started reading again, normally it was just in bed ,but now in the evening , I feel like Ken Barlow on 'Corrie' as he is always sat reading a 'tome'.....I'm also ploughing through a heap of comics i have on disc...Marvel and DC ,but old stuff like TV21; VALIAN; LION;VICTOR and a heap of stuff  which have brought the schoolboy back out of this 54 year old fart and thats fine by me!

Me n' the dog sit together and discuss the affairs of the day ,i am getting worried as he's starting to make sense ,in fact more sense than me!

   

I WENT TO THE TOILET WITH BATMAN !!!

Last week i went to my very first comic festival, and a very strange affair t'was as well. The fine Hunt Emerson and his lovely lady Jane let me stay in their humble home and fed n' watered me , so thanks for every thing.(the cheques in the post!). There was an opening night party at a pub in 'Brum' city centre and Hunt and his band 'Let rip' ,he's a fine 'Little plucker' is our Mr Emerson. Then they were followed by two editors from DC, a brit n' a yank who hadn't rehearsed, but they were quite good. They were followed by a bit of a heavy rock band who weren't bad, they played some unusual songs, given a rock twist and came out quite well. (e.g. 'The avenues and alleyways and Delilah',as heavy metal songs.) I got upset as they did a version of The Osmonds 'Crazy Horses', turned into the Who's 'Wont get fooled again', then from The Who back to the Osmonds' Crazy Horses'....hmmmmm?????!!!!!!






The following morning i was booted off the very comfy settee i snored the night away on. A gallon of tea and a loaf of toast and off we jolly well went to the Millenium point ,i think it was called, a very impressive building with one floor full of comics. We set up Hunts stuff and i got coffee for Hunts friends and guests, (arent i wonderful?..Didn't i mention i was wonderful?); Tony, the publisher and salesman, Paul, a canadian artist and Steve ,who Hunt does work for. All nice guys, not as wonderful as me, but who is, eh? I went out to get the drinks and passed a very long queue of very strange looking people, for it was they, the comic fans. A lot in fancy dress and some real weird dressed ones who became weirder when i found out they weren't in fancy dress. Finally the doors burst open and the hoards powered in ,i dont know about bulls in china shops, but herds of buffalo's in comic shops. Lots of comics ,maybe not too suprisingly. But i was made up to find an IPC stand with sheets of original artwork from all the British comics ;Lion,Valiant,even the Eagle ;Robot Archie; The Steel claw,etc, etc, No Dan Dare, but the Eagle stuff was great. It was all very enjoyable .There was artists drawing away, a couple really good guys i managed to view past the crowds queuing around them. I was sent for coffee just as a slightly recovered Jane made a showing. It had taken a couple of gallons of strong tea at her friends breakfast table to attempt to drown the 'Hangover'(never?). But she was her usual cheery self soon enough. Poor ol' Hunt's suffered tho' ,he's done his back in and lost a filling the day before on a plate of muesli(there ,i told you these health foods'll do you no good. But does anyone listen?)....So, that was giving the 'lad' a bit o' gyp. But our hero ,beared up manfully, he wasn't going to let a busted tooth get in the way of making money.

I decided it was time to retire to 'The Bog', so without a second thought i found a cubicle to accomodate my very specific requirements, and set too fulfilling those requirements. As i sat there, listening to a sexually orientated convoluted conversation, which i felt i should let them finish before i showed my face. So after a good flush i walked over to the sink( you've got to be seen to make the effort, haven't you.) I just happened to glance up and the speaker was Batman! Not a crappy Adam West schoolboy vest version, but the whole moulded suit, i'm sure Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman dressed him that morning.Thoroughly 'gobsmacked', i walked out desperatly needing a strong drink.







When i said i was going to the comic 'do', Elara ,the daughter ,when she found i was seeing Hunt, "Hunt Emerson,COOL!"....Hunt through the years gawd bless'im has done bits of work for her, and shes a big fan and never misses the Beano, for Hunt Emerson. But i bought a couple of Hunts more 'Artistic' Stuff ,shall we say? Firkin the cat ,etc I don't think i'll show this stuff to 'My little angel', cos at the end of the day "your a very sick/strange/weird man, Mr Emerson, but we love ya!"