We all have our cross-hatchings to bear ...

This great pic comes courtesy of The Surreal McCoy, who did it as a birthday card for me last year (I was 28 at the time) and the furtive-looking figure in it is me!!!

I know this for a fact because there is another version of this where I'm nowhere to be seen ...

Actually, I don't just do cross-hatching, as the cartoon with the anthropomorphosed bread in it also features a bit of stippling and filling in with potatoshop.

Illustration Friday - Satellite

You need to be careful with these things ...

I've received this wonderful postcard from Chichi Parish ...

Here it is:

You can see more of Chichi's work here.

"Been Away?"

This is another CCGB Caption Competition entry; they really do concentrate the mind wonderfully.

In the meantime, I had a great idea which was to do a book of cartoons but with very long captions which tell a story if you string them all together - clever, eh? Then I realised that this would mean it was a picture book and I've been doing those for years. Never mind. I may have another idea tomorrow, or some time next week even.

Dear Agony Auntie,

I thought I might try a bit of online dating and checked out the available men in my age range (95 - 102). Unfortunately I already know most of them (and a right bunch of wasters they are too), and I'm related to the rest. I want to play it cool and not look too desperate. What should I do?

Yours,

Emmeline Bagpuss xxx

It came second in the Pira-lympics!

Yes, the cartoon below came second in the weekly CCGB Cartoon Contest. As Steven Smith said when his came second, that's great and you don't have the responsibility of coming up with the caption/theme for next week's jobbie!

You can see more details of the competition and the other entries here.

Here's another CCGB Entry

This week, it's a captionless cartoon on the theme of, erm, pirates. I hope you'd noticed that already.