A topical Christmas card December 2012

For anyone who hasn't the time to make a card this year and wants to rub it in that the 2012  apocalypse didn't happen.

It's my gift to you all (I already e-mailed it to my friends).

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Posters - 2012

These three posters were for an exhibition for 4th year work at the Paisley campus at the University of the West of Scotland in June 2012.

(These images have been reduced in resolution for loading onto this blog. 

The original images were made for printing on A2.)

The Pile

Information Overload

The Jam

A discovery in Forbidden Planet

I just been to the Forbidden Planet comic book shop on Buchanan Street, Glasgow, earlier today and I made a discovery.
It was something I thought couldn't be done on print.....

.... A comic book crossover of Doctor Who and Star Trek!

The two greatest sci-fi franchises ever to come form the 1960s (except for Ultraman and the works of Gerry Anderson) together in a single storyline! How could this be possible? (I know it has been done online, check the link below.) But the fact that it has been printed astonishes me.

Doctor Who and Star Trek Next Generation Crossover fan-fiction

I should note that the comic I discovered is a crossover of Star Trek - The Next Generation (That's the Patrick Stewart Captain Picard series for you non-Trekkies out there.) and the 11th Doctor Who (Matt Smith).

So, did I buy it.... no (I had already bought a lot of stuff that day, so I didn't. Plus, I'm not that well into Star Trek to make such a purchase (I seen the J.J. Abrams 2009 movie and a few episodes and movies, but that's it).

If you are curious enough to click the link, feel free to explore the site. There's a lot of crazy stuff on it. There's one story where the Doctor kills Stewie Griffin to prevent him dominating the world (which is very dramatically-written) and a few about him getting mixed up with a certain high school club whose interest is in aliens, time travellers and ESPers, whose leader could destroy the world (although she doesn't know that). (I'm not telling you who I'm talking about there. Find out for yourself.)

One month to the end of the World

As we are one month away from the Apocalypse (if you one of those people who believe in that misinterpreted Mayan calender stuff or are concerned about that newly discovered wondering planet, which has made Professor Brian Cox very pissed by the number of twits he's getting from you) I have a few spanners I like to throw into the conspiracy works.

Is it me, or is it a coincidence that the supposed date of the end of the world coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing?

And here's a few more events that happen to coincide with the end of the world...

(I may have got the numbers wrong, but they are close)

The 894th birthday of Archbishop  Thomas Becket
The 737th anniversary of the death of  Giovanni Boccaccio
The 392nd anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts
The 208th birthday of  Benjamin Disraeli
The 199th birthday of Archbishop Archibald Campbell Tait
The 172nd anniversary of the founding of the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers
The 105th anniversary of the Santa Maria School Massacre in Chile
The 99th anniversary of the publication of the world's first crossword puzzle
The 75th anniversary of the premiere of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The 72nd anniversary of the death of F. Scott Fitzgerald
The 50th anniversary of the finding of Rondane National Park, Norway
The 45th anniversary of the death of  Louis Washkansky
The 44th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 8
The 33rd anniversary of the signing of the  Lancaster House Agreement
The 20th anniversary of the crash of Martinair Flight 495
The 18th anniversary of the eruption of Popocatepeti, Mexico.

In fact, here's a list to sieve through yourself.

Wikipedia - December 21st

With such information, I'm sure all your conspiracy nuts could think of something that connects all these events (no matter how far-fetched). It'll give you something to do while you wait for the end of the world (and trying to find a way around that security system that's preventing you from stowing away on that rocket ship/ ark that's been built in a secret location to protect the best of the best from Earth (or whoever's got the most money)).

Although, recent excavations of the Mayan kingdom do show some evidence that the Mayans knew that some of us will assume the world is about to end because of their calculations. In fact, one recently discovered scribble on a wall has been translated and said "The simpletons will think this will mean the end of the world. What a jabe that will be - Bazinga!"

The BBC is 90

The BBC is now 90 years old. To celebrate, the BBC's various radio stations broadcast this message at 5:33pm on 14th November 2012.

What would the guys who built and run transmitter 2LO would have made of Orson Welles, Spike Milligan, Douglas Adams and Chris Moyles?

Its great that you are now 90, but sadly much of my radio listening is dominated by local commercial stations.  Today, I mostly change station during my listening time (thanks to digital push-button memory tuning) if the one I'm listening to is playing a song I don't like or a commercial.
But I wasn't always like that. During my high school days, I tuned in to the radio almost every weeknight Monday to Thursday to listen to Tiger Tim Stevens on Clyde 1. I do have fond memories of those nights (Except Fridays, as this was when George Bowie did his dance club music show (I wasn't into dance music then... or clubbing)).

My listening habits changed in 2006, when I got my first MP3 player (a small black 4Gb Archos Gemini XS10D).

I (mostly) stopped listening to the radio after that. But I still got my music fix. I have upgraded since (from two Sony Walkman MP4 players (the first one was destroyed in the washer when I left it in my pocket) to a massive 160Gb iPod Classic).

This is Gordon Wallace signing off now.

(Play end tune)

Ooohhh, oh oh oh oh oh oooohhhhh! Bye bye....!

Spam Comic Strip (2005)

This was comic strip that was planned to go on a school web site. Me and a friend of mine very briefly took part in the creation of a web site for the school (we only took part in two meetings, one been which was about what content could be place on it). In the time of this creation some vandals had recently broke into the school and smashed up the place a bit, hence the destructive theme of the strip.
This was a typical strip I made at this time (although this is the only one I made at this time). This hasn't been touched up in Photoshop, this is as it was drawn on paper. The text is handwritten, you can tell that a ruler was used for the borders and the pencil isn't fully rubbed out.
If I was doing this strip today, the only big change I was do will be the graphics on the side of the van. I would make it more like it was from the Spam company (lettering and everything).

Stealth Car (c2007)

This is a doodle I made during my first year at College studying graphics design. 

(excuse the spelling mistakes)

This was based on the episode of Mythbusters where the junior team tested out various ways to evade the radar speed trap.

They covered the hub caps with tin foil (then the whole car), then painted the whole car with matt black paint. They used flashing LEDs around the number plate. They attached magnetrons from microwave ovens on the hood.They hung reflective objects from the rearview mirror (such as CDs, keys and a disco mirror ball). They even tried a shun gun (an air cannon full of pieces of foil to create distracting reflections in radar signals (they were used for real on planes during World War II)). The only thing they tried that did affect eh signals sent out by the radar gun (sightly) was a device of their own invention (called "The Wheel of Death") that was placed on the roof (the picture closely matches it).

The car pictured is meant to match the 1970s Cadillac  Elderado they used on the show.

Stonehouse Primary (old) 2008

This is a photo-collage of Stonehouse Primary School. The collage was created in 2008 from photos I took from my parents bedroom. The building itself was demolished in 2011 and was replaced by a more modern building, which opened in September 2012. It had an open day on the 7th November and I had a browse with my parents and nephew (Who's a student there).

What you can do with a book and not with an ebook

Why didn't he use the good old Yellow Pages?

3. http://xkcd.com/750/

Parts of a 1991 Renault Clio - 2009

This drawing was made for an environmental-themed game for college in 2009. 

I had drawn pictures like this since 2001 and this is the only one I had coloured in (so far as of November 2012). The source material for this image is the Dorling Kindersley Visual Dictionary of Cars (1992) or The Ultimate Visual Dictionary (various editions).

The reason for this image been used in the game was to highlight how difficult it is to recycle complicated machines like cars. This was drawn on A3 and was one of the first images I scanned with my then new Brother A3 printer/scanner. Its still at work in my home office, scanning drawings and the contents of books and magazines  to build my digital archive (it saves carrying a lot of large books about while travelling).

PETA vs Pokémon?

On page 8 of issue 7of MyM magazine (November 2012) there is an news article about the animal rights group PETA releasing a spoof video game of Pokémon, on the belief that the game teaches children to tolerate animal abuse.

The article in question from page 8 of Issue 7 of MyM magazine (November 2012)

The game, PETA’s Pokémon Black and Blue (a play of words of the then recently released Pokémon Black and White Version 2 games), is an interesting angle on the game. Instead of a trainer played by you battling other trainer’s Pokémon, you play a seriously abused Pokémon who battle’s his/her trainer (who are the game’s human characters as depicted as they were the villains in a slasher film) for freedom. Now, I do not like the idea of people abusing animals for entertainment purposes, but I do know that not every single form of entertainment that involves an animal is out right abuse. But this story has intrigued me. As a kid who first developed an interest in the science of biology and ecology thanks to the Pokémon TV series (I don’t play much games), I’m interested right now on why an animal rights group like PETA would look at the Pokémon games in such a negative way.

According to the article’s quotes from PETA, they say that “Pokémon games paint rosy pictures of things that are actually horrible.” In other words, they think that the games make children learn to tolerate the abuse of animals by making kids battle virtual creatures against each other. It’s the same argument that says that violet video games, like Grand Theft Auto, encourage violence in the real world. I can understand why people would think that, but I know that not every single teenage boy who has played such a game later went out to get a loaded gun and… (I stop here). The point is that the few people who would do it through ideas they got from video games are the subject of other influences (e.g. social isolation). Children are not the moronic simpletons the people who say such arguments say they are. They are not “monkeys” who “see” something and then “do” it. One of the earliest lessons a child gets is to tell the difference between fantasy and reality (well, I assume it is). Children can learn early that what they see on TV, films, comics, books and video games are all make believe (except the stuff that’s true). I can tell from personal experience (been a high-functioning autistic child) that children can tell when something is real and something is make believe. When I watch the Pokémon cartoon, I don’t see poor defenseless creatures been forced to fight against each other, I see imaginary creatures been battled. Although, when I watch the Pokémon cartoon, I can see animals been taken out of their habitats against their will and treated badly…. by terrible trainers, like Paul from the Sinnoh region, or the likes of Team Rocket. I see good trainers, like Ash, who do care for the wellbeing of their Pokémon and others. But this PETA stance against the franchise has put a spanner in the works for anyone who has lived with Pokémon since they first appeared in 1996. It has questioned the core beliefs of anyone who has become a carer for nature (including members of animal rights groups, like PETA) because of the environmental messages Pokémon seem to represent.

It’s like PETA has reduced the game of Pokémon to, basically, a virtual version of cock fighting (don’t snigger!). I can imagine that in the ancient history of the cartoon universe where Pokémon room the Earth with “regular” life forms (the aardvarks and zebras and so on) the battling of these critters was the Unova/Kanto/Johto etc.’s version of cock fighting (you still sniggering?). Most human beings back then didn’t look at animals as another form of being that has intelligence and feelings. They just saw them as autonomous things that happen to react to things and each other, which happen to be (if heated over a fire) editable. It’s a throwback to the days of cavemen. A time when survival meant taking what you can or else you die. In that world there was almost no time to pause and think about stuff, such as what is lightning or why are leaves green. In such as world, the idea of an animal having human-like characteristics couldn’t have been conceived, hence their mass mistreatment in history. It was only until the 19^th century, thanks to mechanized farming providing all our food, that the science of biology could discover and ponder such an idea, courteously of the likes of Charles Darwin. Because of this more recent development in our history, the issue of animal rights came about. Thanks to campaigners, cock fighting (and other forms of clear-animal-abusing entertainment) are illegal and that the only things been tried on mice in labs is medicines (as human volunteers are near-impossible to get). I can imagine the same thing happening in the Pokémon world. During their Age of Enlightenment, Pokémon owners begin to treat their Pokémon with respect, and over time as the knowledge of Pokémon medicine improves the days of severe Pokémon battles ended. Soon the first organized competitions happen and the rest is history. (When did this blog become a history lesson?)

In the article, PETA has said that “if its organization existed in the fictional land of Unova, its motto would be that Pokémon are not ours to use or abuse. It argued that the message children should be getting is that these animals exist for their own reasons.” Considering that PETA was founded in 1980, by then the world of Pokémon had already moved on form the extreme abuses of ancient times. I can imagine that their education system has the “Pokémon are not objects” lesson as part of the nursery curriculum, so they wouldn’t have been a need for PETA to set up a base there…. or they should, considering the behavior of certain trainers and organizations. I do love animals, but I do know that the real natural world is a cruel place. But the cruelty of a minority of people (i.e. poachers) can be more extreme than any violent experience any animal could experience in the wild. Children can tell that Wile E. Coyote is a fictional character that suffers slapstick bad luck, but its thanks to the undertones of  non-slapstick cartoons, like Pokémon, that children learn the truth about the real grown-up world. I can credit Pokémon in shaping my views on the treatment of animals and the environment and for making me study it. With this PETA parody game, I can understand the reason why… when I watched the cartoon, I was more interested in the drama between the characters and creatures (I didn’t care much of the battles (hence, why I didn’t play the games).

On another note from the article, PETA has had a problem with Mario wearing the Tanooki costume that first appeared in Super Mario Bros. 3 in 1988. They think this promotes fur. They are too quick to judge. To all we know, Mario may have been wearing a suit made of synthetic fur. Although, on the other hand, PETA would be angry about that as well, considering the millions of innocent ancient sea creatures that were killed and crushed into a paste through millions of years of seismic activity to make the crude oil that made that synthetic fur.

By the way, I did plan for my first post to be about why the colour blue keeps you awake at night, but this story surprised me so much that I had to comment about it, so thanks PETA (and the people of MyM magazine) for prompting me to write this blog. Things are going to get very interesting in deed.

Introduction

Hello readers.

This is a blog that coincides with the Internet Sketchbook YouTube channel (And other outlets, when they get started).

This is a blog about various things (science, culture, art, even the occasional news item). It will include cartoons and artworks by me. Its mostly random stuff.

Please note that posts are going to be irregular, so don't expect a regular service.

Also, I like to apologize in advance of any offences that any posts on this blog causes. I don't know if any will be caused let, but if they do, I do apologize.
I will be careful beforehand (I'm no South Park character) before I post any entries, but if one does appear it will remain up (unless its a very serious one (which I doubt)). I believe in free speech (and I also believe that you shouldn't force you beliefs on others, unless the party in question wants to change). Sometimes, something needs to be said that can be hurtful to some. Do not shoot the messenger.

So, unless someone finds this blog seriously offensive in some way, enjoy.