Stepping in dog shit, working in council libraries, the importance of life drawing, Herge’s Explorers on the Moon and the importance of staying positive. — Stepping in dog shit Post the pandemic, there’s been an explosion of pet dogs in London. There’s dog shit everywhere and it has become a regular habit of mine to step in some. I don’t mind too much because I’m okay with dogs. Recently, however, I got some shite stuck…

An end to another sorry chapter in Fox New’s contributions to American democracy — It is easy to forget that the map of the world that we have come to accept as an accurate representation of the Earth’s geography is far from accurate. Developed by a Flemish cartographer in 1569, the “Mercator projection”, suffers from several deficiencies. Landmasses such as Greenland, Antartica, Canada and…

This is the way (to re-invent a disjointed universe with an awkward history and a fanatical fanbase) — Warning: Heavy spoilers and confessions of family trauma. True story: A few years ago, someone I know — a whole grown man — confessed to calling in sick at work because the trailer of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) had dropped. In fact, he was not just a…

French publisher arrested in London on terrorism charges — Ernest Moret, a foreign rights manager for Éditions la Fabrique, arriving at London’s St. Pancras on the Eurostar from Paris for business at the London Book Fair, found himself arrested on terrorism charges.

The travails of the oddly-talented creator of “Dilbert” — There’s something sad and pathetic about watching old men worth millions of dollars make spectacles of themselves, constantly carping about everything being shit, and that the end is nigh. No one who is aware of Adams’ work and personality is surprised that he is using social media for attention. By…

Balancing black and white, developing a universal language, and deconstructing what made Adrian Frutiger the designer’s designer — Around 1971, a group of uniquely and eccentrically talented individuals were invited by Paul Andreu, a dynamic architect and engineer, to brain-storm design ideas for an airport under construction. This airport, to be one of world’s largest at the time, was being built in a French town called Roissy, located…

Royalty, imperialism and racism are part of the same process of history — They say death and taxes are inevitable. While Queen Elizabeth II did better than many on the latter, she could not eventually avoid the former. The media circus — a lot of genuine and a lot of performative grief around her death — was wholly expected. …

A requiem for Paula Rego —one of the most distinctive and acclaimed artists of our time. — It is often recommended to a student of drawing to study the work of a master in order to decode the basic principles of composition and utilisation of value. In my case, I chose to study Paula Rego. The reason I chose Paula Rego (after her retrospective at the Tate…

On the use of line in American cartooning — One of the most well known lineages of American cartooning is traceable from the seminal artist, Bernard Krigstein to Daniel Clowes, and then to the “Wonder Boy of Comics” Adriane Tomine (at the time of writing, a middle-aged dad). Today, Bernard Krigstein’s most referenced work is Master Race. Master Race…