RAQ (Randomly Asked Questions), Part 2

I checked my blog audience stats today. Don't know why I waited until 2 years and 4 months into this blog's life to finally check who my viewers are, but there you go. There were a lot of views from Australia of course, but I discovered that my blog also has quite a few viewers in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Brazil, Malaysia, Russia, Indonesia, Portugal, Latvia, France and Italy.

I have no friends at all in any of these countries (except the USA and UK), so thanks to all of you for checking the blog out! Don't be afraid to leave a comment, either.

It's time now for the 2nd instalment of Randomly Asked Questions – I haven't posted one of these since October 2010. Thanks also to the friends who each asked a question in the hope they would get a sane answer out of me. Submit a question if you like – or don't. Your life.


Why don't you do a post bagging out the London 2012 logo?

On this blog, it's not my focus to denigrate others' work – go here for that. I personally don't like the logo, but if it was red, white and blue and the numbers were a bit clearer, then I might like it more.

You should review movies on your blog.

No I shouldn't.

Why is it that those comic lettering fonts you can download for free are all buggy? Some of them don't have the numbers 1 to 9, or apostrophes, or quote marks or whatever. There's always something missing.

I don't know. I designed my own, so I don't use them anymore. I spent 4 days straight on it, so not including the numbers 1 to 9 is a bit slack if you ask me. I even did 10 ligatures that I'll never use. Sad, isn't it.

You know the Kirin cycling...I heard that was a Japanese thing, but the Japanese word kirin means giraffe! wtf?

The word is Keirin – 'professional cycling'. It was invented in Japan in the 1940s for purposes of gambling. 'Kirin cycling' – ha! An animal with such a long neck would not do well in such an aerodynamically-oriented sport.

Why don't you do a drawing of 18 characters each wearing a different AFL team jumper?

Only if you ask nicely.

RAQ (Randomly Asked Questions), Part 1

Five questions I have recently been asked:

How much of what we see in your comics is based on your real-life experiences?

All of it. I really have crashed a spaceship into the planet Earth from space.

With Spike's age, in some places it's 22, in other places it's 27.

How old is he?

27. At first he was 22, but when I began to approach that age myself, it didn't seem that 'old' anymore. My sister told me to increase it to 27.

Why does the number 61 keep coming up?

61 is my lucky number and I put it into every one of my comics and some other artwork as well. Try and find them! In the fineliner sketch of Flinders Street Station on my deviantART page, I put a 61 on the dome where a tiny circular window should be.

Did you know the band China 5 have a song called "Theme From Juliet Prime"?

Yeah, it's no big deal. Notice how they don't actually say Juliet's name in the lyrics so they can't be sued for copyright infringement.

How did you learn to draw like that?

Like what?