Monday 4 December 2017

This Is Just To Say



This is just to say that, yep, this three-part obsession could get relentless. For a while anyway. I'm imagining this thing printed at its native size of 85cm x 30cm (essentially a sheet of A3 flanked by two sheets of A4, a proper euro-spec triptych), or perhaps a bit smaller to tighten things up, then framed with a generous border, about 110cm x 55cm overall. Large, but not ridiculously large. Or maybe that is ridiculously large? Do speak up if you have any views.

Listen, why not speak up anyway? It's boring for me never to hear from so many of you, and – who knows? – some early feedback could save me from myself. Although it's true my reader numbers have taken a dive in recent years, I can't decide whether this is because people are voting with their metaphorical feet as my content is no longer so interesting, or a symptom of a general fall-off in interest in blogs as such. Curse you, TwitterBook!

By the way, for another kind of three-parter, why not check out the current Wondermark cartoon? It's a classic, although if you don't recall a certain famous poem, and in particular the name of its author, it will make very little sense. Nice one, Malki!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heh, that cartoon reminds me of the character "Major Major Major Major" in the novel Catch-22. If I remember correctly, the name "Major Major Major" was given to him by his father as a vicious joke (which made his mother die with grief). After enlisting, the name triggered a bug in an IBM machine which caused his immediate promotion to Major.

Back on topic: A lot of your collages have a war-like aura to me - there are lots of things and creatures flying (wasps and birds and planes), and it often reminds me of "Battle of Britain" illustrations. Is this just me, or is it intended?

Best, Thomas

Mike C. said...

Thomas,

I'm impressed you've read "Catch-22" (in English?) -- it was one of the books I read and re-read as a teen.

War? Yes, maybe, though it's perhaps more that my childhood memories are very war-inflected (probably v. different in Germany, but war comics, toys, and games formed a large part of a 1950s/60s boy's childhood in Britain) and are coming back into consciousness, perhaps in response to current events around the world. I create these pictures semi-spontaneously out of what comes to hand, not with any plan in mind. If it seems to work, I go with whatever happens.

Mike

buggerthis said...

Well some of us are still hanging in there. I for one enjoy your blog and never miss an episode

I like this latest triptych, and I don't appreciate all of your work, but to me it doesn't suggest war but winter and Christmas as my initial impression was of a frosted window but then my eyes are very old and recovering from cataract surgery.

Anyway please keep up your blog.

Mike C. said...

Thanks, um, buggerthis (you must surely aometimes wish your parents had chosen William Williams)!

There's no question of giving up yet, even if I'm just talking to myself -- I take great pleasure in both writing and picture-making, and would only stop if the impulse dried up. Although I wouldn't *mind* a bigger audience; It might help if readers would occasionally "like" things on social media, and I'm never sure why nobody seems to. Perhaps they think I'm already too full of myself...

Mike

Andrew said...

Hi Mike - I just tried to find you on "social media" (Facebook / Twitter) and couldn't! It might well be me being stupid but all I could see was buttons to tweet / share a particular blog post, and Mike Chisholm seems to be a much more popular name than William Williams. Do you have accounts on either I can follow, like, share, subscribe etc?

Mike C. said...

Andrew,

No, I don't really do social media myself, but if you ever felt inclined to "like" a post, those buttons along the bottom of each post are the way to do it.

There are a lot of MCs out there, it's true, in the main Canadians of Scottish descent, including one notorious politician, various ice hockey players, etc.

Mike