I Shall Post More Often!

Okay, so I was toying with the idea of trying to post every day this month—just as an experiment. But the demand seems a bit too contrived and I can’t be arsed. Besides which, I am very seriously anxious and worried about financial matters. I have bills I can’t afford to pay right now and it’s worrying me sick. I mean it is literally make me unwell. My failure to find work has me backed into a very uncomfortable corner. I’ve been struggling against it for over a year now, to no avail. So the depression aspect’s not good. Still, I shall try to give this place more attention than I have for a while, okay? Now, look, given the pickle I’m in—if you want to shock the hell out of me by using the PayPal donate button, I won’t complain. It’s been there nearly five years and has never once been used. Hell, if everyone who reads this site sends me a pound, I’ll have… oh, a fiver. *sigh* Never mind!!

—Chrissie, 22:44 | Permalink | No Comments »

Lon Portrait

Just a quick doodle of the subject of my biography.

—Chrissie, 14:20 | Permalink | 1 Comment »

Quick Post: Lon Chaney Jr

Those curious about the biography project mention in the March 21st posting can go here to read more about it, including cover preview & extract!

—Chrissie, 13:56 | Permalink | 1 Comment »

My Dog Would Love to Get Laid

Well, maybe he will. While walking him, a car pulled up with a woman and two kids inside. The kids got out and asked me if Fred was male and would I like to ‘pair’ him with a female Westie? And have one of the puppies? I said, ‘Maybe!’ So they took my number. Apparently, a friend of the woman driver has a girl Westie and wants to breed them. No idea if I’ll hear anything back, but it’s an amusing thought.

—Chrissie, 18:00 | Permalink | No Comments »

The Big Hiatus

Again! Is anyone really still reading this thing? Do leave a comment. I just thought I’d bring 2009 to life in this place. ‘Should old acquaintance be forgot…’

I note that the last time I wrote, PaulG was due to come down and stay over for the Birmingham comics thingy. Back in October. Well, it was an okay event, and we had a couple of nice meals and watched a couple of fun videos, but no photos or reports. It’s old news now anyway, really.

Last year ended with some major financial problems—I’m still trying to get a job, but I had to switch to Jobseekers from sickness after being declared ‘fit for work’. Actually I said I felt ‘almost fit for work’ but these people don’t see the distinction… no matter, except a load of delays and, as they put it, ‘hiccups’ had me literally starving a few times, whilst making countless angry calls and selling whatever I could just to eat!! This also succeeded wonderfully in making me feel quite unwell at times, but then, these organisations seem to have a knack for achieving that.

But, anyway, I have made about 300 job applications & inquiries in the last three months. No dice—and apparently the recession’s worsening—but continuing on this money isn’t optional. I can’t really believe that anyone literally desires poverty over doing work, but after a year of it, I’ve pretty much had my fill. And I didn’t even want it to begin with. i just didn’t feel up to much of anything a year ago.

Proper, stable work leads may be eluding me for the moment, but I have discussed the possibility of doing a one-shot magazine devoted to legendary artist Alex Toth. I’m not pondering that too much at the moment, but over the Summer, perhaps we’ll make some more solid plans.

My chief project at the moment is a biography & filmography of one of my favourite, old-time horror movie stars. I don’t want to get specific about this just yet. I don’t have a publisher, but have received a bit of interest from two places. I had pondered the idea around the end of last year, but it was only about a month ago that I decided to start some serious work on it. I’ve done a ton of research, watched a load of films and written about 15,000 words so far. I don’t even think there’s a hell of a lot of money in it—it’s just something I want to do, and do thoroughly and well.

PaulG was down here again last month, just for a day visit. So that was a nice time, and another nice meal—an Indian—at a place in Birmingham we last ate at, along with a large group of other folks, back in September 1997! It hadn’t changed much, either.

I have here a piece of artwork received, and done especially for moi, a couple of weeks ago, that I will try to post on here shortly, as I was so very thrilled with it. More details soon… you know, if I can persuade myself to write on here regularly again!!

—Chrissie, 04:25 | Permalink | 5 Comments »

Wow…

I hadn’t realised it had been quite so long since I wrote anything on here. I guess maybe no one even reads it anymore! But maybe I’ll try to give the place some attention a bit more often. Dunno. I have found the idea quite boring the few times it’s crossed my mind, but…

I was busy working on the Jack Kirby Quarterly issue for Dez over the Summer. Although there’s no money in it (no, really, there isn’t!), it was good therapy for getting through the depression a bit more. I had one or two setbacks via a couple people just doing things that really got me down, peripherally related to the magazine, but all in all I am really happy with the finished result (which was printed about three weeks or so back) and hope it forms a very useful work sample for me.

You can grab a copy off Dez’s ebay store, if you’re interested and haven’t done so yet.

What else is there to say? I am looking for work, not doing so well with that, and financially things are quite poor. I have to tell you, benefit is not really designed for someone living on their own with a little pedigree dog who refuses to eat No Frills shite. Not to mention the £150 in vet bills he cost me over the Summer by getting a grass seed stuck in his paw. (Local charity vet place… isn’t very local, and if you don’t have a car, how do you get a dog with an injured paw over there? So it goes.) So I have found myself selling stuff a fair bit, including a few pieces of original art… I’ll regret it, but, these things aren’t that important in the bigger scheme of things. Whatever that is.

When I write stuff right here, I still think of how that got me more or less accused of being a leg-swinger to get benefit. And given the ‘fun’ the last six months have brought me money-wise, I gotta say that anyone who’d do that for illegitimate reasons is a masochist. Benefit sucks. It’s better than starving, but I have been pretty close a few times, going the odd couple days here and there with just a nibble of something. (This was esp true when I had the trouble with Fred’s paw.) This kind of thing actually makes dealing with depression a whole lot harder, ironically. C’est la vie.

PaulG’s coming down on Friday to stay over a couple of nights, so we can go to the BICS launch party, and then attend the two days of the convention itself. I guess it’s kinda nice to have a biggish even like that on the doorstep. Maybe I’ll write something about that and have a few pics after the weekend.

And as his birthday is Oct 29th and mine’s the 30th, on the 30th we’re planning a double-birthday party kind of thing in London. I think. Nothing solid arranged yet, but that could be a nice break for me.

Oh, here’s a recent pic of Fred, just to brighten this entry up a bit…

Later.

—Chrissie, 21:23 | Permalink | No Comments »

Jack Kirby Quarterly #15 Cover

Retroactively posted to reflect the date of final cover design…
Big picture link.
(AKA bogus older postings for illusion of more recent blog activity!)

—Chrissie, 14:01 | Permalink | Comments Off

New Photo

Retroactively posted to reflect the date of photo…

(AKA bogus older postings for illusion of more recent blog activity!)

—Chrissie, 10:30 | Permalink | 1 Comment »

Mini-Update

Yeah, well, would you believe I’ve just not felt like writing for ages? Aside from the fact that I had a whole universe of trouble getting my benefits sorted out—mostly okay now, rent arrears sorted, no eviction for me yet!—those comments someone wrote elsewhere about my problems just put me off. Really. You know, why should I write stuff about myself if people are gonna make things up about it? I mean, if I say something about myself on here, it’s probably true. If I say I’m depressed, it’s probably true. Because if I have anything to hide or I’m pulling a fast one, the simple thing to do is not say anything about it on here. Rather than making stuff up. It’s just easier. This blog isn’t every intimate detail of my life.

Well, anyway, I’ve been busy too, sorting the situation out and working on some stuff. Unpaid stuff, before anyone wants to make a new host of rubbish up about me. Paul and I did the “Live From Kirby Plaza” event at the ICA in London on April 15th, which went down well. There’s a clip of it uploaded on my YouTube channel.

The anti-depressants have had a positive effect, so, in fact, I don’t have any wish to be drawing benefits for an extended period. I wasn’t earning money and I was in a pretty poor state. I needed help to get through it—the system can sometimes help people avoid being homeless and trivial matters like that. I felt incredibly tired and lifeless on them for a while, but the worst seems over, and my moods seem a lot more stable.

It’s the second anniversary of mom’s death in three days, which I guess will make me a bit morbid. It doesn’t seem as bad as the first anniversary, thankfully.

A few random comments on this and that…

Brilliant artist Gene Colan is not in the best of health. Keep an eye on Clifford Meth’s blog for updates.

The first issue of Joe Kubert’s new six-issue Tor series is wonderful—almost 82 years old and still kicking ass.

Steve Ditko’s new Avenging Mind book is also great, but as it was mostly essays with just a handful of new comics pages, I’m looking forward to the promised next book featuring some new characters and ideas even more.

Yeah, I’m working on a 15th Anniversary issue of Jack Kirby Quarterly (first one we’ve done since January 2005), to be published by a very old colleague and friend of mine. Probably around September/October. It’ll be absolutely awesome, even if I do say so myself. My biggest claim to fame is that I did three phone interviews with Jack. They’ll all be in here, in extended form, and lots of other good stuff.

Jonathan Ross is the greatest person ever. But I’m not saying why on here. (He’s not the publisher mentioned above, tho.)

I haven’t drawn anything since February. In fact, aside from the JKQ mentioned above, I think I may be quitting the creative game for a while. I’m officially looking for a ‘normal’ job now! That’s all for my mini-update for now.

—Chrissie, 13:16 | Permalink | 2 Comments »

On Yer Bike

Almost a week on the pills, and I can’t say it’s been very productive. I stared at the packet for a couple of days before finally taking one, feeling like I was breaking an ethical resolve or something (not to mention being vaguely unsettled by the possible side-effects listed on the leaflet). The first couple of days were moderately hellish—an upset stomach, worsened depression, astonishing torpor—but it seems to have settled down. Now I’m just very tired a lot of the time. This is possibly not as bad today, but time will tell.

For all that, after the first couple of days I haven’t felt hugely depressed. Time will tell with that too.

My mood might have been worsened by some other blogger writing some kind of speculative piece about my previous posting… but I didn’t permit it to get me down too much, and he later deleted his comments (I am not, unlike him, going to provide a link). I’m not quite sure what was being implied, but seemingly it was either that I wasn’t really depressed, that depression isn’t that big a deal, or possibly that I just fancied like sponging off the state. You know, the truth is that I didn’t make a claim for benefit till I was practically skint. Friends had been urging me to do so for a couple of months, but my aversion to signing on again was so intense that I put it off as long as I possibly could. Meanwhile, my depression over the situation was getting worse and worse, capped by contacting the better part of 100 prospective employers and getting nothing back.

There’s practically nothing about the current situation that I’m happy about. I haven’t heard back on the benefit yet, either, let alone been paid. It’s just as well that I’ve been able to scrape by, isn’t it? ‘Oh, never mind, next month will do!’ In any case, if I want to know Norman Tebbit’s opinion on all this, I’ll write to the man himself…

—Chrissie, 13:45 | Permalink | 2 Comments »