A Merry Christmas to all our readers

Here's a tag cloud Christmas card done on tagxedo.com allegedly based on this blog.

Certainly gives some kind of insight into how robots see us. I only ever did one post about Nana, for instance, but the number of times I had to say "Nana" to explain about Nana... see what I mean, I'm doing it again. I obviously use the contracted form of have (ie 've) a lot, too. Or at least I think that's what it means. And why some words I've only used once and not others... but I like it, cuz of its foibles not despite them.

Merry Christmas, people.

"With regret... you're Fired."

I had The Meeting the other day. The one where you get the bit of paper that says you're being made redundant. By and large, The Organisation has done pretty well, followed all the procedures and done everything properly.

One of the things that had to be done was to "minimise compulsory redundancies". And they've done it. Only about 13 of us have actually opted to be pushed.

Back in June, when the closure had just been announced, there were 243 permanent staff members and 106 contractors. At the end of the day, there'll be about 12 in the closure team, about 45 TUPEd, and 13 compulsory redundancies. The contractors just had their plugs pulled and the rest took voluntary severance, or just left.

It's sheer bloody-mindedness that has led me to stand here and demand to be pushed. I know somebody, somewhere will say, "see, only 13 compulsory redundancies." Like everybody else had a choice. At least I can say, "AND I WAS ONE OF THEM." Maybe we ought to wear lilac in our hats like the Night Watch in Terry Pratchett's story.

Me and the minibar

Just a little under a year ago, there was a lot going down in hotels. In my world. You know, conferences, meetings, that sort of thing. In many ways it brings out the adolescent in people who should know better. Drinking, chasing the opposite sex. The sorts of things that were celebrated in the episode "Big Breakfast".

But there's another side to this hotel experience. The loneliness, the separation from your home, your support networks. So I thought of writing another hotel story, the flip-side of Big Breakfast. I was going to use the lyrics of the Dresden Dolls' song "Me and the minibar" as a monologue spoken by the Kid as she gets progressively drunk alone in her hotel room. And because the song ends with the refrain "Happy birthday, us" it was going to be the anniversary issue. But I decided to go with something lighter, to cheer people up. Though I do refer to this possible story in Frame 14 - which is pretty cryptic if you're not inside my head. Anyway, that was the song. And the Jameson-type cyborg is for Ghost in the Shell fans... cuz it looks like a minibar.

Policy Police: Anniversary Waltz

It’s been two years since I sent out the first Policy Police episode. Of course time doesn’t operate in quite the same way in the Policy Police universe. But I thought our heroes ought to celebrate, too. So I decided that though two years has passed for us, one year has passed for them. You can find the comic in THE STORIES tab, under the heading, Rapid Response. 

You may have noticed some stylistic changes to the comic this month. I’ve decided that I’ve paid my dues with Paint, so I’ve graduated myself to Manga Studio Debut.

Manga Studio works really well with the tablet and “fakes” pen work brilliantly. It really is a joy to use. I’ve had to rework the basic drawings (again), but I think the new look is worth it. Also using layers gives me a lot more scope with things like beer cans and (I anticipate) sunglasses. And backgrounds. The list is endless.

The Manga Studio package can seem a bit daunting at first but the excellent tutorials at Mario Live have helped me get to grips with it quite quickly.

The seductiveness of bureaucracy...

I was talking to my partially-sighted colleague over lunch today, and she said that she found that she was liking the Kid less lately. I’m quite pleased about this, cuz it’s intentional. What I’m trying to do here is show how the world of the Agency can be seductive. How if you’ve been pretty powerless in your life, the bureaucracy offers so many opportunities to be powerful. Most obviously through whatever position you might occupy, but also through expertise, or through being a bottleneck, or through leveraging your powerful friends. But of course, it comes at a cost. A cost of losing at least a part of yourself. This is the Kid’s dilemma. Can she continue to work within the Agency and keep her self intact along the way? And it also gets us to realise that Faren and Zee were kids too once, and think about how they got to be the cynics/monsters/whatever they’ve become.

What's happening with Policy Police over the festive season?

I've been producing a bunch of one- or two-episode stories lately and not really progressing with the longer story I had planned. I've got the first episode written and ready to draw, and I kinda know where everything is going, but it remains very much in kit form.

I think this is because the "future" is still forming for me. When I look around my world it's still like the early part of an arm-wrestling contest, where the parties "take the strain" and size each other up. So, in general I'm feeling more comfortable with a shorter time horizon right now.

Anyway. This is my plan.

A single one-off episode around the end of the month. It'll be the last one before Christmas and falls at an auspicious time for all kinds of other things too. So it'll have an air of celebration about it. And something a bit different. But I'll leave that to be a surprise.

Then another one-off in early January. This will be a sequel to an old favourite. I wrote it a couple of days ago and I'm still chuckling, so it should act as some welcome New Year cheer.

Then I'll get down to the long story. Maybe

Policy Police: Pretty vacant, part 2.

One of my colleagues used the word “slapstick” to describe the first part of this one. I think that’s right. Kind of carries on in the same vein, too. As I think I said last month, it was inspired by the humour that is born out of the dispiriting task of closing your own organisation. You can find the comic in THE STORIES tab, under the heading, Rapid Response.(NB: as the comic-book version combines parts 1 and 2, this link goes to the same place as part 1)
 I’m conscious that the current situation is pulling me towards some quite dark places in this saga. But there’s lots of humour about the place. Can’t help but be inspired by a general atmosphere of silliness around the office.

I like the idea in this story of the ones that “got away”, maybe being a bit like those wonderful Russian agents who were expelled from the US a little while back. Carrying the Soviet Union in their hearts.

Which reminds me of another story...  On the banks of what now is Lake Nasser (it was, before the valley was flooded, on a crag, overlooking the Nile) is the ruin of the fortress Kasr Ibrim. It was one of the furthest outposts of the Ottoman empire. Several hundred years ago a garrison of Bosnians was stationed there to guard the empire against whatever threat sub-Saharan Africa might pose. They were sent, and duly forgotten about. As is the way with empires. As the years passed, they must’ve realised something was up, because they took up with local Nubian girls and started families. To this day, there are red-headed Nubians in southern Egypt who think they’re a cut above the others…