Hey Monkey Riot

London elections 2012

Edd — Thu, 03 May 2012 11:49:02 +0000

[click for larger version]
An image I made about the London elections between some other work. Running with the whole ‘if-less-is-more-then-think-how-much-more-more-would-be’ theme, and trying to get the point across that ‘it doesn’t matter who you vote for: the government always win.’ Or more precisely the Metropolitan Police always win, since every candidate seems to think it’s a good idea to have more cops. One day there might be a candidate who comes along and points out that the police aren’t the golden ticket to solving social problems.

Even small things…

Edd — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:15:52 +0000

I realised I’ve been neglecting putting up finished work on here. Here’s something I just finished today, a t-shirt design for Stir to Action, a radical online journal that reminded me of Last Hours. I’ll let you know when it’s printed up.

Flags and stuff

Edd — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:33:11 +0000

I haven’t posted anything on here for almost a month. Mostly for being way too busy. Here’s a recent illustration though. See if you can spot the protesting loch ness monster, radical ducks, and a secessionist black bloc with their own island. It’s for a subscription flier Red Pepper are doing.

Red Pepper illustrations

Edd — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 11:21:41 +0000

An image about Scottish Independence and how it might lead to the end of Trident etc.

Illustration about greater independence in the North of England

Two illustrations that will be appearing in the upcoming issue of Red Pepper.

Common Sense illustrations

Edd — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:30:13 +0000

The New Left Project are publishing Dan Hind‘s new book Common Sense. It’s coming out tomorrow, Tuesday 20th March, and I did some illustrations for it. The premise is based, very loosely, around the Thomas Paine tract of the same name published just before the American Revolution removed monarchism from North America (which despite what replaced it was definitely a revolutionary action at the end of the 18th century). Dan Hind uses the title as a starting point to talk about liberty in the 21st century considering what the occupy movements mean in the West, and the speed at which their ideas generalised, and asks whether we might be able to rid ourselves of the current model of liberal democracy and markets. It’s an interesting essay and one that I really enjoyed illustrating.

Illustration for the 'New common sense' chapter

Illustration for the 'Nameless thing' chapter

Illustration for 'Common Nonsense' chapter

Illustration for the 'Present ability of Britain' chapter

Illustration for the 'We have it in our power' chapter

With the illustrations I was playing around with a new technique of not quite black ink, which I think gives a lot more variety to the tone. It seems like a happy balance between pencil and full on black ink. I think I might start using it more. Having tested them I think they’ll also work on an e-book reader screen, which I guess now is possibly one of those future test of illustrations!

For those interested (Hi Mum!) the thinking behind the illustrations is fairly straightforward. The New Left Project liked the We are the 99% poster with all the different characters and creatures representing ‘us’ and wanted to run through something similar for this. I tried to persuade them that using a multitude of golems as an icon for the ‘us’ would be cool, but we all realised that it wouldn’t really work visually (though a golem variation – the tall black thing – still runs through all the illustrations).

The illustration for the ‘New common sense’ is playing on the reclamation of the commons (now that would be awesome!) and the generalisation of the assembly with a multitude of ideas and thoughts rather than the normal homogeneity that currently exists in public debate. Also, cute creatures are having a cool conversation in a field at night-time… What’s not to like?

The ‘Nameless thing’ chapter is discussing the occupy movement, which at present, though threatening for the state, remain amorphous. I wanted to represent this idea with a giant and friend looking slightly lost on the top of a Gothic revival building (you know, like the Houses of Parliament are). Everyone knows the occupy movements have a lot of power, it’s just no-one has worked out how to wield it yet. Following on the ‘Common nonsense’ illustration shows the perceived nonsense from political parties (cunningly represented by rosettes, which I think is a uniquely British parliamentary tradition, but I’m almost certainly wrong!) and finance in their declaration of how money is created, and by extension distributed/ used.

‘The present ability of Britain’ chapter discusses what can happen in Britain in the near future. The illustration continues the theme from previous illustrations showing that these characters, the populace/ ‘us’/ the polity/ etc, have better things to discuss and consider than whatever games and showboating politicians wish to engage in. Lastly the conclusion ‘We have it in our power’ looks at how the mobilising around the idea of the assembly – into every constituency in the country – could lead to a huge amount of power flowing into these nascent movement. Here this is represented slightly didactically by different assemblies forming in different areas of Britain (well bits of the South West, Midlands and Wales!). I like the dudes in the boat!

I’ll post up the cover in the next couple of days.

Different roller derby dances

Edd — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 13:19:24 +0000

Made this for a friend’s birthday on Friday. She’s good at the whole roller derby thing, though she does seem to end up doing the tumble dance quite a lot when playing.

Customised 404 page

Edd — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:43:05 +0000

click for bigger version

I’d forgotten I’d made this little comic for my 404 error page until I stumbled across it myself by typing in something wrong. Behold the ‘page eating monster’ in all his glory. If I can prove he exists then it would be an explanation to a lot of the problems that plague the world of web designing, editing and developing. Oh, and you can see the error 404 page here.

Some gifts

Edd — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:14:43 +0000

A couple of things made for people’s birthday/ christmas/ other presents.

For a friend who's always getting me into trouble

A rip-off of an 1930s theatre invitation for my step-mum

A stupid dragon...

My printer is being difficult at the moment and I didn’t have the energy to fix them up nicely in Photoshop (hence the grey background on the first two drawings)!

Jerusalem syndrome sketchbook two

Edd — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:52:04 +0000

I had forgotten that I hadn’t already uploaded these! The sketches below are mostly from the last days of my trip: Acca, Nazareth, Tiberius and Tel Aviv. In related news I’ve made it to the end of typing up notes and transcribing interviews so I get to start writing properly now. I’ll post some of the interviews up here once they’re illustrated. Oh, and I think the title of whatever I do will be People I’ve met in an occupied territory.

The mediterranean sea-board just north of Acca

A shop in Acca just after night-fall

Some Israeli school kids annoying a camel in Acca

Night-time in Acca

The Basillica of Annunciation, Nazareth

The entrance at Fauzi Azar Inn, Nazareth

A pretentious sunset over Nazareth looking towards Tiberius

The lobby of Fauzi Azar Inn, Nazareth

Gattini!! Cats!!! around a kibbutz on the Sea of Gallilee/ Kinneret/ Tiberius

Spoken word night, in Hebrew, Arabic and English at the Rogatka, Tel Aviv

More of the spoken word at the Rogatka

Cats in the house I stayed at in Tel Aviv

View of Tel Aviv from roof of where I was staying

Tel Aviv airport heading back to the UK

I think I could probably write an essay to go with each of the images, it seems slightly strange to have floating around without context up there, but I guess that’s what a sketchbook is. There’ll be more up soon!

Three things…

Edd — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:34:43 +0000

Three things I like about my new flat

I did this during lunch today instead of reading the paper. It’s fun starting with a blank bit of paper and no idea where it’s going…