One of my earliest comics from Batch #1.. another meditation on divination. It’s ‘spiritual’, I suppose.
People will have their fun interpreting tea leaves, coffee grounds or other plant fragments floating in their drink. Maybe bits of mint from a mojito? You read it here first! (Or Instagram @neo_dullard)
This was the first ‘Neo Dullard’ comic I created.
Background is coloured pencil. Everything is pen and ink, low-tech. But then I scan the image and upload it onto my laptop. I use Microsoft Paint to present the image, because I think Apple is a cult and I can’t afford PhotoShop.
Author coughs, rattles an empty soup can at passersby.
“Brother, can you spare a few grand?”
This follows from a conversation I had with someone who was gearing up for a trip abroad, but when I asked if s/he had a visa … blank stare. Said something about credit cards and ATM’s and I just nodded and changed topic.
School doesn’t really teach us anything about useful stuff like international travel and visas/citizenship. Or money, credit and interest rates. Or active listening. Or really any useful life skills. I remember high school as a collection of maths and sciences. So now I know about algebra, geometry and the order of the planets … but I can’t cook, read music, maintain a car or understand anything financial.
I’m not going to ‘explain the joke’ here, but I do want to add that these comics are made by hand. Pen, ink, markers, paper, glitter glue, coloured pencil, etc. The lettering is all my handwriting. It’s partly a reaction against many internet comics – black&white and digitally rendered. Also, I try to ensure that each comic is actually funny. Dry humour.
I often wonder about the quality/quantity of training of Australian ‘chefs’ … and why insignificant country town like, say, Ararat will have a few hotel pubs, each with a qualified chef in the kitchen. Qualified to make bangers & mash? Shepherd’s pie? Chicken parma?
I spoke with a trainer at William Angliss Institute and he confirmed my suspicions. One must study the Certificate III in Commercial Cookery for about 12 months.
After a full year of rigorous training, hang your framed qualification on the wall and add fried bacon, eggs and barbecue sauce to everything you see. ‘Aussie style’ !
This is a reflection of what I observe in Melbourne, Australia. — Not Melbourne, Florida.
The knee-jerk reaction against being pigeon-holed as common or provincial is.. what?
Embracing a different culture, perhaps a continental European culture and its various food/drink. So we end up drinking bitter orange aperitifs from.. somewhere in Italy.
I also mention Campari, which is somehow twice as revolting as Aperol.
Maybe these drinks have medicinal herbs that help relieve the symptoms of a chest cold?
Maybe Aperol and/or Campari are culinary behemoths in Italy… but is Campari dye still made with the crushed shells of insects? Even now, really? Nah — I’ll have a limoncello…
I coloured the backgrounds with both markers and coloured pencils.
The word ‘insipid’ is a synonym for shallow, uninteresting or dull. Word-a-day Calendar
Mixed feelings about re-visiting this 90’s classic, now remixed/remastered by producer Scott Litt. It’s impossible to articulate the emotional depth and insight of this album and what it may mean from listener to listener. Mixed feelings, too, about the inclusion of lyrics to the remixed album, because deciphering Michael Stipe’s cryptic lyrics was always a highlight of any R.E.M. album. You may sing along with incorrect lyrics for years, but those misinterpreted lyrics made a certain sense and had emotional resonance, so they became one’s own de facto lyrics. Maybe every listener has his/her own version of R.E.M. songs floating around in their heads.
At any rate, here is R.E.M.’s official video for the remixed version of ‘Let Me In’. Written by Michael after the death of close friend Kurt Cobain, it’s one of the most heartbreaking songs on the album. In this remix, it’s impressive to more clearly hear the vocal range and control! I also like the image of letters whipping about like flies, looking skyward.
I’d always thought the lyrics were “…words are crawling out of my skin…”
And those are the lyrics I’ll continue to sing, probably. It’s what I understand to be true.
Neo Dullard 