Pictures of me, pictures of you

A while ago someone asked me why there are no photos of me on this blog (there actually are, but you'll have to hunt around to find them). This is an art blog, anyway – so how about some drawings of me? There aren't that many in my archives, but here are some for you to look at. It's always interesting how someone else renders you in artistic form – regardless of their artistic ability!

This one was by Mladen, an accomplished illustrator. He drew it in 2014 at either the first or second monthly comics meetup in Melbourne that I attended. If I remember right, although he was sitting opposite me, he had a basketball player in mind when drawing this! He drew it in ink on textured watercolour paper and was kind enough to give me the drawing when he was finished.

A Japanese girl called Miho drew this one, in 2002. While living and teaching in Japan, as someone of a different culture I was probably drawn a bit differently than the way Japanese high school students usually drew their friends and other people. In this case, with a purposeful stride, schoolbooks under my arm, shoujo manga-esque eyes, and noodle arms and legs! That's me all right.

Another one drawn by a Japanese student, a girl named Mami. Like Miho's drawing above, it was drawn in the corner of a bit of schoolwork. I wonder if these girls drew little caricatures of the other teachers who'd be marking their work?

This was drawn by my 4 year old niece, Aanya. It's a drawing of her, her mum/my sister, and me. You might think the big person in the middle is me, right? Wrong. I am reliably informed that the smallest person, the one on the right with a single long strand of hair, is in fact me. Like most young kids learning to draw faces and bodies, Aanya is used to giving hair to every head. Perhaps she felt sorry for me so she gave me a single long strand instead.

It's another drawing of me looking vaguely dissatisfied (my default expression, it seems), done by Daniel, an attendee of the monthly PCAF comics workshops in Perth, in 2024. As you can see he used magenta and yellow graphic markers to do it and he told me that those are not 'stink lines' above my head, but frustration or worry lines. I tend to make the same facial expression as the character I'm drawing so I can only assume I was drawing a worried face at the time.

Back in 2008 another guy called Daniel did this drawing in Illustrator, depicting him, me, and two of our graphic design classmates, based on Jeremy Plumb's cover of Blur's best-of album, called, oddly enough, Blur: The Best Of. This image looks dodgy because it's a scan of a printout – I don't have the source file for this one.

See that yellow face? According to my cousin Gabby, that's supposed to be me. She drew this when she was 7, and is now 31 (and probably still draws like this). Okay, maybe not.

Another drawing done by one of my students in Japan many years ago, named Ikki. That's him looking in from the right. I'm the one at the bottom left, and I have to say, even though he nailed the caricatures of his mates Shingo and Takahira-kun, he's depicted me in a rather unusual way, complete with blonde hair. I was actually thinking of making this my online profile picture! But that would be silly.

Erica

 
Erica is a character in my graphic novel series, Airbury Academy (2007-2018). She first appeared in 2001 as an extremely minor background character, with only one line of dialogue, in a sci-fi/comedy comic called Metalheads that I drew when I was a uni student. There were eight issues made between 1998 and 2003. The bulk of the Airbury characters all first appeared in Metalheads, as did the character Miss Fox from Juliet Prime.

When Erica next appeared, in the original (online) version of Airbury Academy Volume I in 2007, she had been promoted to main character Psyche's best friend. This was a decision taken by my friend Sue (RIP), who had a hand in writing a couple of stories in it. Sue's justification was that her childhood friend was named Erica and she liked my character design. Well, why not?

Erica appeared throughout the entire series. She had a cameo at the end of Limelight in 2021, and is set to appear (along with about 75% of the Airbury characters) in a new murder-mystery graphic novel later this decade. So look out for it! Until then, enjoy some panels...

Fifteen years!

Can you believe it, this blog has been going for 15 years now! And what better way to mark the occasion than a massive artwork dump. Incidentally, I went to the massive artwork dump the other day, and I highly recommend it, if you want to see seagulls pecking at the remains of mouldering old paintings that are long past their cultural relevance. It's just past Hill House on Route 41. You can't miss it.

For the last 28 years, my friend Dave and I have been doing a series of weekly drawings where we produce a drawing on an improvised theme. Here are some of mine, which have all been done in 2025 (seeing as how this is my first post for the year). I'll explain what the theme of each one was if you really must know.

Unconventional ways to celebrate New Year. If you're going to try this, at least wear goggles.

"The Tomb in the Sea" came out of a title generator, I think. The artwork was required to be round. I combined elements from two Tintin books: the cover of The Red Sea Sharks and the floating sarcophagi of Cigars Of The Pharaoh. Yes, that is Cap'n Haddock's First Mate, Allan.

I can't remember what the theme for this was. DO NOT look up "corset willy". Just don't, OK?

Hey, what if Phil Collins wrote a book? What would it be about? What would the cover look like?
Why Phil Collins, you ask? His name was picked at random from one of my compilation CDs. It could've easily been Cher. But I'm glad it wasn't.

Creepy mascot for an abandoned amusement park.

I've always liked that Shadow Of The Beast-style fantasy art from late '80s/early '90s video games. Not the women in chainmail bikinis, that's quite naff — but the wizards, castle towers and dungeons and things like that. This is Ace, Dave's character. And where else to put him but high above the clouds in a castle tower. Because that seems like the sort of place he'd go. Well, I think so anyway.

This one was inspired by The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, a 12th century book of poetry. ('Rubáiyát' means 'quatrains', because all verses in the book take this form.) The English translation first appeared in 1859, and although it is only a translation, it brings vivid visual images to life. This is my sorry attempt to capture it. Okay, I'll do better next time, no need to worry.

And one more, for now. A well-known character (Martin Handford's Wally), but stretched and distorted. I took some visual cues from the Garbage Pail Kids on this one.

 

I'll most likely post some more drawings later on in the year. Keep checking back, if you feel like it! Or you could also see my Instagram, @airbury. Some of these end up there as well. Or you could do neither. Up to you.

 

Kalamunda Zine Fair 2024

I had a table at the Kalamunda Zine Fair held in Perth's hills on Saturday, May 11. It was held in the space beside the Zig Zag Art Gallery, and was the first time the event had been put on, so it was great to be there for the first of what will hopefully be a long running zine fair. Thanks to the Zig Zag curator, Gok-Lim Finch, who organized the whole thing.

Here are some photos from the day. They were taken by Emma Daisy, so all photo credit belongs to her (@emmadaisy.photo).

                                         The zine fair space. Great weather for an overcast day.

Inside the gallery was this table for people to make their own zines.

Elton D'Souza (@elton_d_souza_art), a talented illustrator and animator.

Some of Elton's A3 illustration work.

                                                                        And some more.

This is Dan Grant (@misterdangrant), who does zines, linocuts and prints, and stickers. Look at his little printing press! Just look at it! Isn't it cool. He told me where I could get one and how much it costs, but I'm old. So, naturally, two seconds later, I forgot.

Dan's table and a levitating kid.

Free popcorn and fairy floss. I scoffed the whole tub, despite my plan to save half of it for later.

Hey, it's Ben Yaxley (@no_faff_). We did a zine swap, and his 2014 zine Democratic Peoples Republic Of Yowiee is really rather good. The zine he got from me was Your Kids Are Losers, originally written in 1994. He was surprised to receive a zine that was made in the year he was born.

Ben's zine. Not to be confused with benzene, which is a carcinogenic chemical compound (C₆H_6).

Some of my zines. Jonathan Lennon Reviews British Albums From Beyond The Grave completely sold out. I wasn't expecting that. And everyone who looked at Your Kids Are Losers had kids, I noticed.

The 'no talent' area of the zine fair.

This is Natasha Provan (@wamgoozle), who was next to me. She lent me her chair, because for some reason they didn't give me one. She knows how to do a great table setup, I tell you.

Her full colour zine Space Thots is very funny. She got it printed at Snap. Well worth considering for the colour zine maker on a budget.

Inside the Zig Zag Gallery of Art Work and Associated Art Work Things, there was artwork, and also, it was where artwork was displayed. In fact in this gallery you could see some artwork.

Another family happily making zines entitled Your Kids Are Losers. Well, maybe not. But who is to say? You weren't there. I was.

The musical entertainment for the day, Simone and Girlfunkle. I never found out which is which.

Yes indeed. 'Make zines'. Make zines, you out there on the internet!

This was in fact the last photo taken by Emma Daisy on the day. Kind of apt, isn't it? I guess I did desert my post to sidle over to the zine making table and bash something out on the typewriter. Comment below if you want to see what I typed, and I'll post a picture of it.

Thanks to all who made this day possible. And to you, gentle reader.

Make zines.

Eurovision 2024: Don't break the trophy!

Oh, is it Eurovision time again? Can someone get the Swedes to postpone it to another weekend when I'm not stuck in bed with a really bad cold? No? That's a completely pompous request, you say? Then can you ask the CEO of Ikea? No? Management of Ikea is based in the Netherlands now? Since when? Well, that's just ludicrous. A totally wasted international phone call.

Eurovision is being held this year in Malmö, a city I didn't know existed until it was referenced in an off-colour joke in MAD magazine in the late 1990s. They designed a plus-sign-shaped stage with video screen and the artists' green room was actually behind the stage behind two vertically-rising panels which also serves as the video screen backdrop. If you're struggling to visualize this, here's a picture I nicked from some website. 

Ah, Sweden. I missed your irreverent and wacky humour. Petra Mede was once of the co-hosts, and as she did when Sweden hosted in 2013, she sang a song during the voting interval about how Sweden kind of feels bad about winning Eurovision so many times, but don't hate them for it as they just love Eurovision too much. The other host, Malin Åkerman, sang a line about how there's more to Sweden then "depression and Ikea". Of course for some people, depression and Ikea is the same thing.

The only country to improve on its best result was Croatia, who came second, with what was a pretty solid (and loud) song. So, who won? Well, guess what? France has not won Eurovision during my entire lifetime. And after today, that...is still true. But they came 4th, which is a good result for them. The eventual winner was Switzerland, who have not claimed first place since 1988. Their only other win was the very first Eurovision in 1956. It's always good to see a winning drought of several decades being broken.

Speaking of things being broken, Switzerland's singer Nemo broke the glass trophy during the reprise of the winning song. I didn't catch exactly how it got broken, but maybe put it down on the stage before singing next time? Oddly enough this isn't the first time that's happened – Alexander Rybak (Norway) did it in 2009 and I'm sure it's been done on at least one other occasion.

There was a lot of controversy this year, but the biggest item of note for me this year was that Luxembourg are back! A former Eurovision powerhouse with five wins to their name, they last won in 1983 and have been absent since 1993. Returning this year with what was a pretty decent song, they placed 13th in the final. (When Italy returned in 2011 after a 13 year absence, they were rewarded with second place, just as a comparison.)

The age range of the performers this year was 17 to 52. Another thing they did this year was for the first time, the so-called 'Big Six' (the five countries that automatically qualify for the final plus last year's winner) performed their songs during the semifinals, and not during the final only. "Yes, we've found a way to make this show even longer," said Malin Åkerman.

So, to the controversy. Just as the Russian invasion of Ukraine hung over proceedings in 2022, the Israel-Hamas war caused the same situation this year. So here and there you'd get performers or vote announcers advocating for peace and whatnot without directly referencing the conflict. I'm not sure what the penalties are. Cessation of booze rations in the green room perhaps? 

Anyway, there was a lot of booing, audience members turning their backs to the stage, walk-outs, and other things not shown by the cameras. You can read about that in your own time if you want to know more. 

Also, the Netherlands were disqualified. Booted out. Given the old heave-ho. Their singer Joost Klein qualified for the final with a song equally silly and heartfelt (something the Dutch pull off well), but after semifinal 2, the jury results were recalculated so the Netherlands would not receive any points. Their song, which would have been placed 5th in the running order, was skipped in the final – so there was no song in position number 5.

Klein's name was not even mentioned during the final. I could write up the reason why he was disqualified, but I haven't got the energy. So that's another thing you can look up yourself if you feel like reading anti-jury screeds from whiny malcontents.

Here's my annual map, with very few changes. Luxembourg is now blue!

And so...in a year with so much tension between certain countries, the neutral nation of Switzerland won. On a stage that was shaped like their flag. That's a huge plus.