In Heaven (or Hell): An Occasional Cartoon Series

I'm going to try and post one of these every week. I always wonder what it might be like in the afterlife, with all those dead celebrities hobnobbing. "Dead Celebrities: Now Up To 90% More Interesting Than Live Ones!" I didn't want to make any character judgements though, so I'm never going to say whether I think they're in heaven or hell. If you want, you can say purgatory. That might require slightly more knowledge of Catholic dogma than I have time for, though.* I think people get too hung up on trying to guess what the afterlife is like. As far as I'm concerned, Heaven is a nightclub, and Hell is a place in Norway.

#1: Freud meets Oedipus

(click for bigness and legibility)



*Not really true, I actually find Catholic dogma pretty interesting, even if my karma does run over your dogma.

Welcome Speech

So it has come to this. A blog. Everywhere I look, blogs. Want a job? A creative job? Got a blog? No? Well, get one, dumbass. I was in the pub the other night with an old school friend. She had a blog. See? Everywhere, from all sides, blogs, blogs, blogs. You must get one, she said. You want to be a writer. How on earth are you going to be a writer without a blog? She makes a good point. Everybloodybody has got one. You might just as well try and be a writer without feelings of existential angst and espresso. You might manage it, but you wouldn't be a real artiste. (You can go and read her blog as well, if you like. She's religious and stuff, but don't hold that against her).

I realise that with this opening post I'm breaking the cardinal rule of good writing, and blogging about blogging itself. If this irritates you, heed my warning now: this trend may continue. I'm a tremendously self-indulgent writer, after all. But self-indulgence is what you need to blog, surely, isn't it? It's just a big narcissistic look-at-me, after all, right? I'm comfortable with that. Besides, that's what all writing is. Your main character is always you, the author, or a refraction of you, anyhow. Let's just step through that barrier while we're here. This is about me. My blog, my rules. It's my blog and I'll cry if I want to. And other assorted hackneyed phrases with the pivotal noun replaced by 'blog'.

My main motivation in doing this, aside from my desperate craving for attention, is the sudden realisation that, unless you get web-savvy, no-one's gonna see your stuff. I hate whoring myself out as much as the next man, but prostitution of your art is the only way to get by nowadays, what with all the web two-point-ohs and twitterings, facespacing mybooks and user generated content, consumer-customising, fanfic blogspotting blueberry mobile-marketing, Wired magazine reading wannabe Douglas Coupland technophilia going on. For in these plagued streets of pity, you can buy anything, and for $200, anyone can conceive a God on video.

A second warning: when I write, I tend to adopt a pissed-off tone most of the time. I can't help this, it's because I'm usually pissed off most of the time. Please accept my apologies in advance. "I don't mean to sound uncaring, but I am, so that's just how it comes out." But I'll try not to make it all that this blog is about in future. Aside from journal articles and general 'stuff-and-things' pieces like this one, I'll try to do the odd bit of music and film criticism, just generally about things that interest me. So, uh, that'll be articles about 'difficult' music that I'll look down on you for not appreciating, then. I'll stick up some short stories and chunks of creative writing. I might post the odd wry cartoon or suchlike. A link to something that amuses me, here or there. Mainly though, it'll be about the philosophising and ranting. Lots of ranting. Boy, can I rant. Like that bit earlier. I've got a facebook. I think Wired is an excellent publication. I actually really like Douglas Coupland. See? I'm so damn gen-x that I even pick holes in the things I enjoy. God, I hate me.

Ooh, this is going to be fun.