Monthly archives: August 2009

Daily round up

This entry was posted in Spinneyhead Twitter on by

Things tweeted today, including links to blog posts here and elsewhere-

23:35 Blog: Daily round up bit.ly/Cisv8 #

23:35 Blog: "Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table." bit.ly/MRLWL #

10:09 @samscam I’m not really at the MEN, I jut contribute to their blogs. If only they’d pay me to write about bikes. #

11:04 Blog: The Movie Titles Stills Collection bit.ly/2lUg8G #

13:45 About to head up to Cumbria to cut down trees and su chlike. #

21:33 Manchester model railway show is 3rd and 4th October. Must remember to in this year. #

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Daily round up

This entry was posted in Spinneyhead Twitter on by

Things tweeted today, including links to blog posts here and elsewhere-

23:39 Blog: Tweets today bit.ly/WWyi7 #

08:47 I know it annoys some, but the daily tweet round up on Spinneyhead may be back. I’ll change the name of it to something less twee, honest #

08:57 Into town for an interview. It’s been a while. Suit was made for someone with skinnier thighs. #

15:54 Co-op bakery sells "Ambient sausage rolls". Sausage in pastry that you’re not supposed to notice? #

21:09 Why is your Walther aimed right at my testicles? #

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“Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table.”

This entry was posted in politics USA YouTube on by

At last an American politician comes out and treats an anti-“Obamacare” shouter with the respect they deserve. In fact- given that Barney Frank is Jewish and she was holding up a caricature of Obama as Hitler and saying that efforts to make the US healthcare system fairer are akin to Nazism- I’d say he treated her with several orders more respect than she deserved.

via BoingBoing

Update Further evidence of just how stupid, if not downright evil, these people are. Here’s an Israeli being interviewed about the Israeli health care system. Listen for the shout from stage left about half way through, the moronic justifications of the woman who makes it and her debating techniques when confronted- which five year olds would be embarassed by.

via Daily Kos

Tweets today

This entry was posted in Spinneyhead Twitter on by

10:51 May be found in a corner later whimpering and babbling about manifold/non-manifold vertices. #

11:34 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I just want to be able to select and weld two bits why is it so fucking hard!!!! #

11:35 Blender tutorials seem to tell you everything except how to select the parts you want to work on. #

12:38 Bless you and bless me. Bless the bees. And the birds. #

15:36 Typical. Wait in until 2.30 for Amazon delivery. Give up and go out to post stuff. Delivery arrives in the half hour I’m out. #

20:11 Tomorrow’s film will be Inglourious Basterds at 6.15 at amc. A bit early, but the best option. #

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I’m a photographer, not a terrorist

This entry was posted in photography on by

Photography is under attack. Across the country it that seems anyone with a camera is being targeted as a potential terrorist, whether amateur or professional, whether landscape, architectural or street photographer.

Not only is it corrosive of press freedom but creation of the collective visual history of our country is extinguished by anti-terrorist legislation designed to protect the heritage it prevents us recording.

This campaign is for everyone who values visual imagery, not only photographers.

We must work together now to stop this before photography becomes a part of history rather than a way of recording it.

I’ve just printed out their bust card in case I’m stopped next time I’m photographing anywhere.

via BoingBoing

The first of the chainring clocks is nearly finished

This entry was posted in Bikes Buy direct from Spinneyhead clocks Products on by

I still need to work out how to hang it- I’m thinking brake cable, to keep with the theme, or I have some headset spacers that may do the job.

More concept sketches for the space comic

This entry was posted in Comics Design Point of Contact Sketch on by

crew concept sketch

Here are a couple of ideas for crewmen of the spaceship which crash lands on Earth in my still unnamed “space comic”. The starfishy fellow strikes me as an engineer- all those hands that can work on multiple problems at once and an ability to orient itself in all manner of ways. Of course the ship would have to have bars hanging from the ceiling of the crew areas so it could get around, but that’s just what you have to do if you have one of these multi-dexterous creatures onboard. The caterpillar thingy with three arms and many eyes looks like a bit of a bruiser, possibly they’re security. That is supposed to be a gun- built for something with two opposing thumbs and two fingers- within easy reach of its left hand.

ship concept sketch 2

And this is meant to be the spaceship. It’s meant to be similar to those big container ships which cruise our oceans. There’s a pod at the front which houses the crew, controls and any special cargo (and which has a hold where our human characters will take up residence), lots of containers- each carrying something different- and big engines at the back. I’m going to use a cop-out to get around the questions of the long timescales involved in interstellar travel. There are a series of “ports” into a parallel dimension with different physical characteristics and ships simply cruise between them. If, for any reason, a ship should drop out of this dimension they’re doomed to travel in real space, potentially for millennia, at sub-light speeds to get to the nearest port. Or they can wait and hope someone will come along and build a temporary- or establish a new- port where they are.

Of course, there are territorial disputes in the High Spaces, and pirates roam them. They attack, plunder and commandeer craft and occasionally one is “sunk” back into normal space. Which is how the story begins.

The squid man goes to the Creation Museum

This entry was posted in Creationism Evolution Fundamentalists Religion on by

DSCF0671, originally uploaded by Action Skeptic.

Sensible people have visited the loony Creation Museum before and posted reports of just how wierd it is. But last Friday P Z Myers, one of the US’s highest profile atheists, and around 300 others attended. Here’s his report.

Because of my long held fascination with dioramas that depict surreal and often gruesome events I found myself hunting down pictures of the Ark diorama. In what must be the final section Noah and his chosen passengers (including, no doubt, dinosaurs) sail away from the unsaved, who fight for space on the wave washed rocks and have to fend off tigers and bears. It’s like something Jake and Dinos Chapman would come up with, only with less Nazi regalia.

There is no health care system in the world that could cure this level of stupidity

This entry was posted in Health idiots USA on by

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

From something called Investors’ Business Daily, which has now removed the line after so many people pointed out how stupid it was.

via Dispatches From The Culture Wars

The comic adventures of one of Britain’s great heroes- translated from French

This entry was posted in Biggles Comics Nostalgia Planes World War 2 on by

I just read Biggles Vol.1: Spitfire Parade, a comic adaptation of one of W.E. Johns’ tales of his pilot hero, adapted and drawn by a leading proponent of aviation comics.

This is the first of Cinebook’s reprints of Bergèse’s Biggles comics. Their next release will be 666 Fighter Squadron, but there are also some copies still available on Amazon of earlier Red Fox translations- Biggles and the Battle of Britain and Biggles: Flying Detective. Biggles and the Pirates of the South Pole is currently unavailable as are Biggles: Le cygne jaune, Biggles: Le dernier Zeppelin and Biggles De Vlucht Van De Wallenstein. This page gives a list of some of the other comic book incarnations of James Bigglesworth. None of which I knew of before now.

The comic is large format and printed on quality paper with highly detailed ligne claire artwork complemented by fine colouring. I did find, as you can with this style, the figures occasionally lack animation- appearing to be holding uncomfortable “running” poses rather than expressing the motion- but there is no such problem with the machinery. It helps that Biggles and his squadron are flying one of the most beautiful machines ever built, but it’s not just the Spitfires that swoop around the panels.

Thankfully the translation is good, or Cinebook went back to the original novel for the dialogue. Either way, this comic is lacking the poor English that afflicts some other translated strips. It still reads as slightly stiff, but in the way you’d expect lines from a different era to.

I want to dig out my old Biggles books (handed down from my father), but I think I may have finally said goodbye to them a couple of years ago and sent them off to a charity shop. I want to read the Red Fox editions of the comics, but I also know that Cinebook should be supported in bringing them back to market so I should wait for their version. Blimey, I’m just a little frustrated chaps.

The White House Flickr feed

This entry was posted in Barack Obama Comics flickr Point of Contact research White House on by

The official White House flickr feed. Photo reference for the Space Comic. I’ll stick Obama, or someone who looks a lot like him, in the comic but not Brown. For one thing Obama is going to have more international recognition than the British Prime Minister. For another, it’s unlikely the scotsman will still be in office by the time I finish. If there’s an election whilst I’m drawing the comic there might be a “call me Dave” cameo.

Questions of format

This entry was posted in Comics Point of Contact on by

Befoer I dive into doing art I really need to work out what size my final pages will be on the Space Comic. I’d really like to do something large format rather than US comic, because I see it as being more European in style and I plan to pitch it over there when it’s finished.

Lulu do A4 (8.264″ by 11.694″) as one of their size options. ComiXpress, a more comic oriented print-on-demand company does an 8″ by 10.5″ format and is working on a distribution network to comic shops now that Diamond has set its minimum orders cut off lower than most small comic companies can hope for.

If I want to get the comic printed in this country Fallen Angel Media prints comics, including in A4, but I’d have to order in bulk from them. This is an option if I can get enough pre-orders I guess.

A4 is the way to go, I reckon. So I’ll be drawing it at A3 (slightly less, probably, to allow for bleed at the page edge).

I already need a new scanner. Guess I need it to be a bigger one, too.