Hey Monkey Riot

Arrived in time for the new year

2012-01-05T11:17:00.001Z

A really brief post to mark the start of 2012: Some awesome stuff arrived in the office to bring in the new year. A copy of Occupied Wall Street with my 'Occupy Everything' poster, a copy of World War 3 Illustrated with my comic about Freedom and the poster that I created for Greenpeace for the UNFCCC meeting in Durban at the end of 2011. All very cool!

And now I'm back from binge eating in Italy there's a lot of rad stuff in the pipeline for 2012; I'm excited! I hope everyone had an amazing new year and Christmas stuff time!

The pyramid of Christmas

2011-12-21T10:24:00.003Z

(click here for a larger version!)
Behold the tyranny that is the North Pole!! Elf workers of the world: organise!!!

For Christmas I decided I'd redraw the Pyramid of Capitalism, as the Pyramid of Christmas, so the elfs can organise against Santa's exploitation, or whatever. I've no real idea why, I just thought it'd be fun!

It's a bit too boring to go through everything (you know Santa embodying the state; TV false consciousness blah), but I like the idea of the bourgeoisie being reindeer. Also, this is the first time I've worked properly with pencils rather than ink; I like the softness it produced in the image.

Being serious, and dull, for a moment what I didn't realise until I drew this was that the original poster is now exactly 100 years old. The International Workers of the World (IWW) first printed it in 1911. I once had a really interesting conversation with Josh MacPhee (from Just Seeds) about the simplicity of the poster; the image removes most of the nuances and complexities that make capitalism such an efficient - and pernicious - social relationship. But I suspect it's that simplicity that's meant the poster is still being referenced 100 years after it was printed. Not surprising then that there are a lot of other reworkings of the image out there. Personally I think The New Pyramid of the Capitalist System (on Libcom) and Work (by Packard Jennings, published by Crimethinc) are the most interesting updates, and worth having a look at.

More Italian language cards

2011-12-20T13:04:00.000Z

I'm off to Italy in a week's time. It'll be my first proper visit to the country, and the first time of meeting most of my girlfriend's family. It's gonna be awesome but needless to say I'm busy revising hard!! Above are some of the language cards I've made to try and remember various bits and pieces. At some point I need to write down the whole process of using these cards because having used them now for learning both French and Italian they work really efficiently for learning new words but keeping them seperate from any English.

We are the 99%

2011-12-13T12:39:00.000Z

Tony at Cactus Network asked me to do a poster that will hopefully be part of a poster version of the Occupied Times of London (I guess like the 'Occupy Everything' poster I did back in September). Above is what I came up with. I thought I'd play around a little with the 'We are the 99%' tagline that's been adopted. There's 99 different characters who aren't really representative of anybody but were fun to draw and hopefully at least point out the diversity of the occupy movement.

Download 300dpi version

The characters, of course, from the previous poster are also in this one, including my favourite troll.

I'm going to try and do a screenprint of this, and the Occupy Everything poster, at the start of the new year. I'll let you know when they're done!Also, Occupy London have released and Occupy Everything toolkit if you're interested in looking at it.

The mystery of McKinsey's Black Box

2011-12-08T12:17:00.001Z

(Click to see full-size)

Greenpeace asked me to create a comic in November about McKinsey & Company, who are a large business advisory company who for some reason were involved in giving countries advice about deforestation. This is a comic about what would happen if the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) took their advice.

Greenpeace published it as an A3 poster in English and French (there's a PDF of the two versions here), which has been handed out at the climate conference in Durban that's happening this week.

It was a really exciting project to work on. And I hope it has some - beneficial - impact on proceedings down in South Africa!

Meanwhile... in Durban

2011-12-08T11:36:00.001Z

Greenpeace asked me to create a really quick cartoon (I had three hours!!) for some very geeky technical points that are being discussed in Durban at the climate conference down there. It's all to do with how deforestation is going to be monitored/ reduced (REDD is the UN mechanism for trying to reduce deforestation, whilst the 'leakage' and 'loopholes' are technical terms relating to subnational protection (because you protect a little bit of the forest and the rest gets logged to pieces!) And Colombia in the whole thing are the bad guys.)

It all reminded me of being at Panos London when we were trying to pull together our video about REDD for Copenhagen two years ago. Oh, you can read more about Greenpeace in Durban here. I've also realised I haven't published the main comic I did for Greenpeace that they took to the conference, I will do very soon, for the moment you can read a Flickr slideshow of it that Greenpeace produced.

Jerusalem syndrome sketchbook one

2011-11-29T16:38:00.001Z

I just got back from Palestine/ Israel where I spent two pretty tiring weeks travelling around the place (mostly in East Jerusalem and the West Bank). I was out there doing research for a project whose premise I haven't quite worked out yet. All the same, I met some amazing people, saw some amazing and terrible things, and had a really interesting two weeks of collecting stories, taking photos and drawing bits.

Below are some of the images from sketchbook one. I'll put some other images up, and a more coherent explanation in the next couple of days (there's a lot more images after the jump!)

Mount of Olives (looking from the parapets above New Gate, Jerusalem)

The ninth service of Christ on Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem

The Tomb of the Rock and shabbat ending on Jaffa Road, Jerusalem

Damascus gate (then Jewish quarter), Jerusalem

Road leading from Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City

Closed up shop in Old City, Jerusalem

Garden of the Tomb, Jerusalem (some British dudes believe this is where Jesus got buried)

The Holy Sepulchure (where most people believe their fictional messiah got buried)

A tour group outside the Holy Sepulchure

Pilgrims and soldiers on top of Temple Mount, Jerusalem

Bus from Ramallah to Jerusalem via Qalandia checkpoint

Cafe above Lion Square in Ramallah

Al-Wehdeh hotel, Ramallah

Service taxi from Ramallah to Taybeh

People at the New Palms Hostel (Faisal hostel), East Jerusalem

The Twelfth Service of Christ at the Holy Sepulchure catherdral thing

A couple chatting after shabbat ended near the Western Wall, Jerusalem

The Western Wall, Jerusalem (with singing American dude!)

Train journey up to Haifa/ Acca (there were more soldiers on the train than is implied by this image!)

A guide to your room

2011-11-09T15:54:00.002Z

(Click above to see it bigger...)
I made this a little while ago, but realised I never posted it. I like the idea of bed bugs being huge and hiding behind cupboards... much more fun than they really are.

On being and living

2011-11-01T17:05:00.004Z

A short comic I did for Chris 12o5's new zine. It should be awesome: it's all about punks getting old. This is obviously autobiographical but I didn't feel like using the monkey (or any figure that looked like me!). Anyway, the park is Battersea park; when I was a kid it used to have a rad waterfall behind the Pump House, but it's gone now. The statue is by Barbara Hepworth, which is beautiful but for some reason did scare me as a kid. Last time I was in the park though it was on loan to a museum! Actually the 'ice monster' is from near my grandparents house, he lived in the ice house that sat on the hill underneath the village's manor house.

The anatomy of a banker

2011-10-31T17:42:00.000Z

(You can see a bigger version by clicking above)
So here's my monster for hallowe'en. I think we can all agree that as a species he's pretty terrifying.

This is for the next issue of the Commune's paper. I really wanted to do a ridiculous 19th century style cartoon and then realised I'd only given myself three hours; I've kept the stupid language and cliche' though.

A poor little rich kid whinging (2011 Comica graphic story entry)

2011-10-26T15:02:00.002+01:00

Click on each image to see them full scale!

Above is a four page comic that I created for the Observer/Comica graphic short story competition. It's about running from the school I got sent to as a kid. It seems slightly disingenuous to complain about being sent to a boarding school since there are far, far worse things that people go through when they're children. Likewise my time would probably be better spent trying to deal with the unwarranted privilege my education has given me. Nevertheless, I thought it was worth trying to put down roughly how I felt about the experience of escaping from Rugby into a comic. It seems strange that this all now happened a decade ago; that makes it feel like it was a very, very long time ago!

On a tangent - though I think it's unlikely of anyone reading this - if you ever think of sending your kid to a boarding school: don't! They're fucking grim whatever the glossy brochures might tell you. A gilded cage is still a cage.

Going back to the comic: for the record I'm not that happy with the colours. I only gave myself five days to do all four pages, from scripting/ drawing/ colouring, so some of the colours got a bit rushed at the end as I tried to finish it. But I learnt alot writing it, that hopefully I can bring in to the longer pieces I'm starting to write now. Oh, and it turns out the gig I went to on page two was probably Cannibal Corpse. They somehow seem like an appropriate band to feature as a soundtrack to leaving school!

I primi sette mesi

2011-10-20T09:52:00.002+01:00

So I've not been very good at keeping this blog up-to-date. My resolution for Hallowe'en 2011 is that I'll do better with it! Anyway, here's bits of a book I did over a month ago (more after the jump):

So I made a book for my girlfriend's birthday. She's amazing, and I wanted to make something that recorded some of the awesome things we've done together in the short time we've known each other. So, with that in mind I decided to create a book with a colourful font I made, icons for each month (using the same palette) and line drawings that represented one of the things we'd done in that month. I think it turned out pretty well, though I'd have liked to have spent a bit more time on some of the line drawings, not least since I don't think I've quite expressed what Elena looks like properly in them (but the font took alot longer than I expected it to!!). Bits of it are in Italian because she's from Cuneo and not because I'm outrageously pretentious! Anyway below are the spreads from the first seven months of my relationship!

Occupy everything

2011-10-08T14:24:00.000+01:00

Josh MacPhee - from Just Seeds - asked if I'd do a two-colour poster for a poster issue of The Occupied (a paper people have been putting together as part of the Occupy Wallstreet protests). This is one of the versions I sent. I deliberately kept it broad ('occupy everything') because right now I think that's a pretty good idea.

It's a pretty big poster (17" x 22"), but if you want you can download:

It's going to be interesting seeing how it all plays out over the next few weeks/ months. If you're in the UK you might be interested in the Block the Bridge demo tomorrow, or the Occupy the London Stock Exchange demo on the 15th. Maybe see some of you there?Oh, and here's the little dude's because they're kind of little when the poster's reduced! Hopefully they'll stay happy!!

Labour party conference

2011-09-27T13:05:00.001+01:00

There was a long period of time when I hated the Labour party even more than the Tories; now I mostly just feel a bit sorry for Miliband &co. I mean faced with a detested coalition government, and support for the Lib-Dems falling towards 10% they're only just managing to inch 1-2% ahead of the Tories. In short they're screwed. And it's mostly their fault, thanks to the total economic and social failures of their 13 years in government (w/out even mentioning the wars, repression and authoritarianism) and total failure of Ed Balls to understand economics. Anyway, I don't think they'll see their position improve - as it did in the 90s - if the economy goes to hell in a handbasket. Anyway, not that I'm a fan of the party, but the fact that there's no effective parliamentary opposition at the moment is pretty much bad for everyone...

On a tangent #occupywallstreet is still going on. David Graeber (LSE anthropologist) has written a pretty optimistic analysis of the situation there, which made an interesting read.

Oh, there was also this cartoon for the same edition:

Some letters

2011-09-14T11:37:00.002+01:00

Life has got insanely busy, which can only be a good thing! I've just moved into a new studio and I'm working on lots of cool projects, which I'll post lots about in the next few days I'm sure. For the moment, above, are some bright letters of an alphabet I'm working on for a fun project. Oh, and some fireworks I did on my lunch break!

Run you bastard!

2011-09-08T14:39:00.002+01:00

I'm running a half marathon for Care International at the end of the month (the Run to the Beat one around London Docklands). I drew this before going training the other day. I was ill at the time and really didn't fancy running! If you feel so inclined I have a Just Giving page where you can donate to Care International: http://www.justgiving.com/EddBaldry

A year ago today...

2011-09-01T15:33:00.000+01:00

Exactly a year ago I was somewhere in Olympia, WA getting confused about some comics I was selling into a store there. This is the comic I drew later on in the day after a slightly disastorous talk!

It's weird today was the first time I felt able to re-read the 'Zines on Toast' tour comic I kept of the trip across the USA (all 160 pages!) I need to do something with it because it's a pretty good document of a roadtrip. Watch this space...

Police ban

2011-09-01T10:22:00.000+01:00

A brief response to the City of London police banning all marches in the City (and other bits of London) for the next 30 days. The ban stems from the state stopping an EDL march. The EDL are clearly racist wing-nuts and should be opposed on and off the street, but the state banning all demonstrations for 30 days, given the current political climate, is a pretty worrying (over)use of their power.

Nina Power over at the Guardian has written Let the EDL racists march that highlights alot of the concerns I have with the ban.

Le verdure

2011-08-31T10:57:00.000+01:00

a. una pastinaca; b. una zucca butternut; c. un porro; d. una zucca; e. le pepperone; f. una cipolla

a. i piselli; b. una cavolfiore; c. la foglia; d. una barbabietola; d.i. lo stelo; e. un granturco; f. una kika; g. un cavolino di bruxelles; h. un pisello; i. una herbacipolina; j. lo scalogno; k. un aglio; l. la patata; m. una pentola; n. la fiamma; q. il fornello; o. un robinetto; p. una salsiccia cattiva

I was in Madrid over the weekend so didn't have a chance to keep this updated. Anyway, the Italian's continuing. I'm still playing around with different image making... and vegetables are always more fun when they have arms and legs!!

A warning on the vocabulary (well more accurately, what my girlfriend warned me whilst we were waiting outside of Yalla Yalla before eating food, so this might not be properly rememebered!): parsnips don't exist in Italy, so una pastinaca is probably a straight transliteration and will be met with blank stares. I find this difficult to believe since parsnips are clearly one of the best things about winter and can't believe they don't really have them in Italy!

Also, una zucca butternut, is another angloform. Apparently a butternut and pumpkin have the same word (una zucca). I've no idea how they tell the difference, or avoid making jack o'lanterns out of the wrong vegetable!?

Elena also told me that peas - whether they be runner beans, field peas, whatever - are all just i piselli. Again with the confusing!! Oh and lo stelo may exist as a word in Italian but possibly isn't recognised in Piedemonte. Confused? Molto!

Meat, meat, meat

2011-08-25T13:06:00.002+01:00

a) Un macellaio; b) un coltello; c) l'affilacoltelli; d) un tecchino (turkey); e) la pelle; f) il petto (breast); g) l'ala (wing); h) la carne macinata; i) una fetta; l) la cotenna (rind/ gristle); m) la bilancia; n) lo costoletta; o) l'osso; p) il grasso; q) le salsicce; r) la bistecca

More learning Italian stuff. The plan is to do a page a day! It seems weird doing a page of meat, but I know from experience of French and English that meat related words show up in the weirdest places as similes/ metaphors. Oh, not that it's particularly important, but the red underlined letters are where the word is feminine (because I can't remember the genders otherwise).

Goes without saying though that:

I'm going to (punk) hell for this

2011-08-24T12:50:00.000+01:00

These are some portraits I've done for a literary festival. I'm pretty happy with them to be honest (especially the one of Rabbi Lionel Blue (above)). Considering my usual stance on religion though it seems strange to be illustrating something for a festival whose strapline is 'the literary festival with a theological slant'.

(Above: PD James, Michael Hobbs, William Fiennes, Profs Gordon Campbell + David Crystal, Tony Jordon and Dr Jane Williams) The portraits are going to be used in the programme to highlight the individual authors.

A weekend

2011-08-22T16:42:00.001+01:00

I finally managed to make it to the Miro' exhibition on Saturday. As expected it was incredible. If I have one complaint there was slightly too much canonising of him as an artist. There's a statement he made that was reprinted at the end of the exhibition saying, '...an artist is someone who in the midst of others' silence, uses his own voice to say something and who makes sure that what he says is not useless...' I think Miro' was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century but I'm not sure he always lived up to that high sentiment, no doubt because of the complexity of trying to live under Franco's fascism, but that was never fully addressed in the exhibition. Still, an amazing experience, especially his Barcelona Series of lithographs from 1944, which are spectacular.

I then had a train journey down to Bristol to visit some friends where I drew. This is one of the spreads (at the time the BBC was reporting five dead in Gaza; I think it's currently standing at 15). I was just messing around mostly with images and text that don't necessarily sit together.

Finally on the train home I did some of my Italian studying. I'm trying to make my language cards a bit more interesting (this is what they used to look like) Not sure that it necessarily helps with the language retention though. Nor do I now remember why I felt like I needed to learn words relating to cattle!

Strange people I've met #46

2011-08-17T14:41:00.001+01:00

I'm not sure two images can be counted as a 'series', but anyway, here's the next strange person. S/he showed up in a dream along time ago, so I guess I was just looking for an excuse to play with watercolours and draw a strangely shaped bird.

In totally unrelated news - though I'll be putting some of my sketches from the trip up in the next few days - I got back from Budapest yesterday. I headed there for Sziget festival, which was an awesome experience; one that could have only been improved by the Prodigy playing 'Wind it up'.

Process fail

2011-08-16T15:05:00.000+01:00

All things considered - such as the Prime Minister cheering on the punitive prison sentences currently being handed out - this feels like a bit of a trite update, but I'm trying to work out how, and to an extent, why I make images. These pages don't answer the question, but they look interesting. Plus one of the cancer cells suddenly appeared out of nowhere; I haven't seen him since I drew all their strips in Hey Monkey Riot #1, so thought it was worthy of an update.

A "mindless" riot

2011-08-09T14:21:00.005+01:00

So this image is probably glib, inappropriate and offensive. But I'm getting fed up of these protests being described as "mindless" (such as David Cameron today declaring, "This is criminality - pure and simple - and it has to be confronted, pure and simple."). They're many things, but the people involved can't be written off simply as mindless criminals. I was out in Hackney last night - I posted stuff to www.twitter.com/heymonkeyriot - and it's pretty difficult to justify some of what's happening out there, so I won't try, but these riots have been a long time coming. To be honest right now everything just seems incredibly grey, and there seem to be very few suggestions of how to resolve what's happening in the streets. And I'm continually struck by the fact the media just doesn't seem to be interviewing any of the people involved with the riots. Anyway, I'm working on another couple of pieces relating to the riots, so I guess I'll post them up later.

There's a bigger version of the image here where you can actually see what's written!

Also, I thought these articles, beyond the obvious stuff on the Guardian, BBC and Twitter, were worth reading:
London riots: the underclass lashes out - Telegraph

A message to a country on fire - Anti-cuts space

Don't moralise, don't judge... - The Commune
Talk of 'rioters attacking their own community' misses the point - Snipe

A diamond wedding

2011-08-08T11:52:00.001+01:00

It was my grandparents' diamond wedding anniversary on Sunday. There was a big party for lots of their friends and family. Each table got named after one of the twelve houses they've lived in over their lives. I wanted to do the name and then a small picture of the building, like this:

But ended up having to keep it more simple

It was designed to be in the same theme as the front-piece writing I'd done for the photo album we all made them to celebrate the anniversary!

(Sorry for the bad camera phone photo!)

Not particularly 'radical', but I think Grandjim and Granny Ginger appreciated it, so it's all good!

An evil priest

2011-08-05T12:48:00.000+01:00

I designed the artwork for the latest album by Left for Dead (the punk band, not the video game). You can check out the artwork on the my site (or just go buy the album from Active Distribution <- and only £4.02 at that. No idea why they've added the 2p!!). Anyway, they wanted a t-shirt of the evil priest dude I'd done to go next to one of their songs. Anyway, this is the evil priest dude, and a comp of what the t-shirt might look like (I'd just like to say I didn't do their logo. I might be a punk, but I also like my type to be a bit more refined!)

Currently trying to convince the band they also want to print up gold t-shirts of the design, because I think that'd look rad!

New blog

2011-08-04T12:15:00.000+01:00

I decided to start a new blog away from Last Hours where I wouldn't feel conscious about whether I was putting interesting stuff up or not. Anyway, this will be the new home for random illustrations I've made, work in progresses, finished things and anything else I feel like putting up. You can see all my old posts on Last Hours - at least for a while - by going to: www.lasthours.org.uk/content/blogs/heymonkeyriot/

Vain self-promotion

2011-08-04T11:59:00.000+01:00

I made a new business card because sometimes (about once a month) someone asks for one, and I think I should look 'professional' and have one. I spent nearly a day messing around with colour combinations and variants of the back. I have no idea why I'm always so indecisive!

(above is the 'edited' selection)

Anyway this is the final version.

But I kind of wish I was brave enough just to print this as the card.

Really liking the whole coloured pencil thing at the moment.

World War 3 illustrated (process)

2011-08-03T10:42:00.033+01:00

I got to draw a comic for World War 3 illustrated, which will hopefully be in the next issue. I got a bit in to the process of doing page three (which had a pastiche to Frans Masereel/ Clifford Harper etc. as one of the panels). It's not like I deviate much from the standard pencil > ink > colour department but it's interesting for me to see how it changes as I work. Anyway, this was the final page:

You can see the rest of it below the cut...

First I did really basic thumbnails of the pages (and vague character designs). The relevant thumbnail for this page is the bottom right of the four pages.

So I started with rough shapes of where I wanted stuff to be...

And decided that the fireworks were the most important bit of the piece/ bit I was least confident about, so I started with those...

They were 'inspired' (read 'stolen') by one of the pages in Frans Masereel's The City...

Inked in the people having a party...

Couldn't be bothered to pencil the people dancing on the street (and didn't feel I needed to) so just went straight into it...

Finished off the street scene before moving onto the buildings so that the two didn't overwhelm each other...

Again, didn't bother with penciling in the building details, I knew what they needed to look like...

And finished! A rough approximation of what an anarchist/ free communist/ libertarian left/ blah revolution would look like in my dreams!!

Drawing hungover (always a bad idea)

2011-08-02T16:22:00.001+01:00

A sketch from Sunday after a heavy party the night before... possibly not the best time to be trying out new materials!!

Un dente perduto

2011-07-28T10:51:00.008+01:00

I just had one of my wisdom teeth taken out. This was a comic I did the evening before when I was freaking out about the whole needle/ pliers/ crunch thing. It's all fine because it was a pretty evil tooth to begin with. I'm glad he's not in my mouth anymore!

On a tangent, thinking of restarting the diary comics again. It's nearly three years since I stopped my daily comic and I'm thinking it might be time to start again!

Strange people I've met... #27

2011-07-12T10:06:00.000+01:00

Start of a new project. Wanting to mess about more with the process of how I make images/ write words, and using strange characters from my dreams is probably a good way to do it! I gave it to my sister for her birthday.

Happy anniversary big society

2011-07-04T10:53:00.001+01:00

An illustration I did for Unite. They're apparently going to use it for a card to send to David Cameron et al to point out the flawed nature of the big society idea. Edit (03/08), there's an interesting article on the Guardian - based on findings from False Economy - that show how damaging the UK government's cuts are to the voluntary and charitable sector.