carrot_rope ([info]carrot_rope) wrote,
@ 2007-10-09 13:13:00
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The Masculine Front / Giz a croggy

The Masculine Front
Originally uploaded by shotformeat
So, did anyone win the Observer/Jonathan Cape graphic short story competition then? I'm still waiting for a call... ha. I was quite hoping I'd know the winner, mind - what with both all these talented people on my friends list (I was expecting a post comprised entirely of whooping to pop up) and some other folks I know who make some marvellous stuff. With any luck that shall turn out to be the case!

Anyway, on a completely unrelated note - here is a new strip I made around the deadline for said competition and which handily adheres to the size and format specified within the rules for that competition also. And which also due to deadline demands (that I imposed entirely on myself and certainly weren't anything to do with starting a competition entry too late) got a bit scrunched up. So: only two pages instead of four, dialogue edited right down and crammed in, no colour, and no time to make corrections! But still, have a read.

Also: Hey, I know a lot of you might have trouble understanding me and perhaps get a bit baffled when I turn up to your house on my bike offering you a croggy - especially you Americans - but listen up, this might help you.

A fair portion of these are complete bollocks, but it's funny to note how many are pretty accurate. I was inspired to look this up when I heard two kids shouting outside my window "Giz a croggy, giz a croggy!" and suddenly thought that a lot of people probably wouldn't know what that means, simply because I hadn't heard it in such a long time. Like, "Don't get mardy because you dropped your oakey!". Oddly enough, all this reminds me of being a kid. And also reminds me that I really should use some of these in a comic...

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[info]cadwell
2007-10-09 03:21 pm UTC (link)
Great stuff, Mr. Rope. I thought the Observer would be calling the winner on Monday but then I re-read the T&Cs and it says within the week starting the 8th. Just to keep us hanging on a little longer. I can't wait to see who wins it.

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[info]carrot_rope
2007-10-09 05:12 pm UTC (link)
Thank you kindly!

Aye, I'm looking forward to seeing the winning strip too. And I almost feel slightly validated in my assumption that I would know the winner, at least in a roundabout way, by the runner-up being a member of the Manchester comic collective! Haha. It's nice to know community works!

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[info]cadwell
2007-10-09 05:17 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I was kinda chuffed by that too. Just goes to show there IS great stuff coming out of this big, wet city.

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[info]carrot_rope
2007-10-09 05:39 pm UTC (link)
Oh indeed! And an even bigger community outside that, too. It's quite reassuring to be aware and familiar with everyone else and their work, and feel that we're all related somewhere along the line.

Oh wait, that doesn't sound very good at all! Arf.

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[info]carsmilesteve
2007-10-09 03:33 pm UTC (link)
hmmm, "croggy" was (is?) certainly in use in durham as well...

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[info]carrot_rope
2007-10-09 05:34 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I always thought croggy must have a pretty wide usage, in that it almost seemed surprising to realise that there were some people somewhere in England to whom it might seem alien and strange.

All these words do seem to have a strange basis in childhood though, for reasons I can't work out. Probably cos of all that time spent down by the woggy discovering discarded old dobbers, I imagine.

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[info]caf_pow
2007-10-09 03:56 pm UTC (link)
love it! :)

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[info]carrot_rope
2007-10-09 05:14 pm UTC (link)
Why thank you!

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[info]mockduck
2007-10-12 10:57 am UTC (link)
Hello! I got curious about who the winner of the competition was, so did a quick blog search and landed here.. only to find you're on the friendslist of some of my friends too. I hope you don't mind me 'adding' you in the hope of seeing more of your fabulous work.

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[info]carrot_rope
2007-10-12 11:27 am UTC (link)
Not at all, pleased to meet you. And thank you very much!

Did you enter the competition yourself?

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[info]mockduck
2007-10-12 11:30 am UTC (link)
I did, but now I've had a surf around, looking at other people's entries, I can't believe I had the gall. My stuff does not compare. Sigh, oh well, it was good for me to sit down and draw a whole strip for once. I'm well out of practice.

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[info]carrot_rope
2007-10-12 11:59 am UTC (link)
I think most people feel similarly about their own work! I'm still a bit disappointed I didn't manage to enter something that feels a bit more finished or proper. But still!

You know, I think your comic is quite unique and I really like the layout. I hope you don't feel discouraged and do more! Because like you say, it did at least give a reason to sit down and knock out a whole strip which is always nice.

I hope it doesn't sound offensive to say it reminds me a bit of some of my older stuff, there is a little naivety to it which I think adds greatly to the whole feel of the thing and that its all a stream of swirling thoughts and moments coming together to make up one thing... well, these are all things of which I am very fond!

Do you ever use watercolours or marker pens and such? I think your style would be really well suited to having everything done by hand.

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[info]mockduck
2007-10-12 12:08 pm UTC (link)
Thank you for your kind words. It was a bit of a personal triumph for me to find time to draw it, as I work full time and also have a young daughter. I had to fight hard to free up any time.

I wonder if I'll ever be able to draw in a polished way. I am 38 years old and I even have a degree in Illustration, but I did it later in life - maybe too late for it to affect my style. I just look in awe at some of the stuff I see, and I can't even really say what the indefinable quality is that makes the work look so polished. I just know it's different to mine! Ach, maybe it does just boil down to constant practice. And I certainly have a rathr slapdash approach to drawing. Well, everything.

My background is certainly in watercolours and inks, but these days, with time being at such a premium, I have been doing more and more on the computer. It's so beguilingly easy!

Sorry to go on. Ha! New LJ friend and you get the history of my life.

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[info]carrot_rope
2007-10-12 02:53 pm UTC (link)
Not to worry, I like a good ramble!

You know, I think it's easy to get caught up in the technical aspects of drawing and such - I certainly know I can get almost incapacitated with awe looking at some people's work (and often suddenly deciding I need to do things more like *that*) - but I don't think it's something you should worry about (which is a bit rich coming from me, especially considering how much I worry about stuff like this!).

But there's a certain honesty to your style, it seems in keeping with what it's about. I think more polished work can lose a lot of the feeling your comic seems to be all about, and that is something to embrace and develop. And there certainly don't seem to be a great amount of 38 year old women drawing comics! I think it is probably fresher in some ways than a lot of stuff I see nowadays. And definitely not something that's too late to develop - I think this is the wonderful thing about drawing, you can get cartoonists working well in to their old age!

It is hard to find time in which to work, isnt it? And I really don't have any such excuses so it's impressive you got anything done at all! I really hope you find the time to do more, and develop this sort of look. I think it would be great if you could get together a little collection of pages like this and put together a mini-comic.

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[info]mockduck
2007-10-14 05:29 pm UTC (link)
I guess the bit of this comment I really wanted to reply to was the bit about there not being many 38 year old women cartoonists (I just wrote cartonists. I wonder if that might be an alternative profession worth looking into?). The male dominance of the comic-strip scene was definitely the reason I started cartooning back in my late teens. I saw it as a good way of getting close to the really desirable men - the comic strip artists - tee hee! And so it proved to be. However, when I moved to Brighton, I soon met Erica Smith, Carol Seatory, Corinne Pearlman, and many others, mainly through the woman's comic Girlfrenzy. It seems that, here in Brighton, at least, there are plenty of over-30 women cartoon artists.

Thanks very much for all your encouraging comments, though. I appreciate it. Hopefully we'll both have plenty of work to show in the near future, though I may have to pare down my LJ habit if I want to carve out more time for drawing... sadly, Lj takes far less effort than artwork.

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