This fine ComicGenesis comic courtesy of:

Filler Ar(t)chive

27 July 2002: Promenade Dairy

The Promenade Dairy could have commanded a sterling view of the beach, the picnic benches between beach and road, an inviting locale to consume ice cream on a bright summer's day.

Instead, its windows are clouded with the minutae of small town life, handwritten and computered posters, slick and not so slick commercial blares, the gossippy squeal of women's magazines and the introverted backs of display stands.

Here is where the staff of the motel come to get fresh butter and milk for patrons, and for the patrons themselves to pick up their Lotto tickets and fixings for a meal, if they decide to eat in. And, of course, ice creams.

The dairy also hires out videos, and the motel is its biggest client. There's a video channel to all the units with four videos shown each night, changed weekly.

31 January 2003: The Red Meat Thing

This could be the first genuinely funny strip — the Red Meat tribute/parody. Ted Johnson is, of course, the creation of Max Cannon, who will no doubt set Milkman Dan on me for this.

(As it happened, only J Grant, the ogre of the Keenspace mailing list, growled malevolently.)

14 November 2003: Copout scribble

24 December 2003: Christmas Art

The Children have a lot to learn about human culture. Nevertheless, they are starting to develop personalities. I'm even getting an idea of their (human) names.

And yes, they do tend to give Greg the willies for some reason.

14 August 2004: Goo-Goo the Duck

This sketch was drawn on the train some weeks before, inspired by vague memories of a comedian mentioned in Mel Blanc's autobiography, T-T-That's Not All Folks!, whose catchphrase was, "wanna buy a duck?" (The duck was subsequently named Goo-goo, and voiced by Mel.)

For some reason, it made sense to me that Goo-goo was unpleasant (why else would Joe Penner be trying to get rid of him?); and I started drawing a animated anatid. I also doodled his straight man, the hapless Oswald (because Oswald just sounds funny). Just why Oswald is lumbered with a psycho duck whose home-made bacon was next-door's baby, and has a habit of threatening people with his own catchphrase, "I am mentally ill, and I have a toilet plunger. Any questions?", is a mystery.

Goo-goo also hates psycho rabbits, and will bait, beat or bury any he meets. Fortunately, the pubs are full of 'em. Unfortunately, Oswald always seems to get caught up in the festivities.

27 December 2005: New Scanner

My old Mustek died a month before, causing much irritation and trouble in scanning and uploading strips. I finally got the damn scanner (on my parents' credit card) from Harvey Normans, and much cheaper than I expected.

Now, several things wowed me about this new Canon. First, it needs no external power supply! It gets all its juice from the USB cable! Yes, that wows me. The old Mustek had a transformer all its own.

What also wows me is how tiny the Canon is compared to the Mustek. Hell, the Mustek's about as big as (and thicker than) the box the Canon came in! I can actually feel its absence when I look over at where the slim little Canon now rests, on the cut-down glass and steel tube side table that the printer lurks under. It's going to take a while to get used to that big thing not being there.

The only thing I don't like? The Mustek had a strip of green transparent plastic down the side, so you could see the scan head moving down the platen. The Canon doesn't. It's almost a shame, like the absence of a real-life progress bar.

Now, the test image. This is an unfinished first attempt at a... um... let's call it a "Commentoon." The idea was that I'd draw a three panels on some story in the day's paper; in this case, the juxtaposition of a report on Australian sensitivity about terrorism and photos of celebrating "schoolies", or school leavers. If I ever try to do such a think seriously, I'll probably attempt a simpler art style.