This is what an estate sale in Argentina must look like.

Smithfields Retirement Home Annual Jumble Sale.

“Ah, my old army paybook. Why, I don’t think I’ve looked at that since, oh, ’45 or so...“

Remember last week’s comment about originality……

Shut up. You’re not my real mum.

“Actually, I only come out here to eat my lunch, but every time I do they offer me a raise to get me back inside.”

Just a quick reminder that this entire series exists just to find a place to archive and share the ideas I had when I was considering a career in cartooning. Nothing was ever said about originality……. or quality……

“Well, I think we’ve discovered the problem.”

Ten years of working in arts administration, and oh gods, how many of these types did I come across.

Pro tip: if you dress like you think an artist dresses, talk like you think an artist talks, and patronise like you think an artist patronises, you still ain’t an artist. And if your job is to distribute money to artists, and you earn more from it than they do, then go fuck yourself. (Looking at you, pretty much the entirety of the Australian arts funding structure).

“Artist? Oh darling, where’s the money in that? I’m in arts funding.”

Look, I love archaeology and I love paleontology just as much as the next guy… provided the next guy is actually and archaeologist, or paleontologist, or eight year old boy. But we can all agree that a whole lot of the art involves creating a narrative, and that involves what can best be scientifically termed as, well, you know…… guesswork.

Still beats being a teacher, though.

“We’ve yet to establish the reason for this long, quite flimsy horn, but we assume it was important for display during mating season.”

I make no apologies.

Je-hovers Witnesses.

Come on, you have to believe that, out of all the scarecrows in the world, one of them has learned to adapt…

I am a fully grown, mature adult who people actually allow to be in charge of the education of others, and who has received plaudits for the maturity and complex nature of both his educational and creative works.

This still makes me giggle .

Look, I thought it was funny at the time. It’s not my fault everyone else has made a similar joke at some point.

Mind you, I love the expression on Watson’s face. Not entirely sure I could recreate it as well, even on a good copy.

“Don’t be too sure, Watson. Moriarty’s mad genius may lead him to anything.”

Okay, I remember exactly the scenario behind this one. Way back in the day, I worked for the Commonwealth Employment Service — the Government’s job search provider, before they privatised it and sent the whole system to utter shit. I was banished to a small job centre in Armadale, at the unpopular end of one of the train lines, to sit on the front counter and hopefully die as quietly as possible without making any sort of fuss.

Which I did. Online comics for 8 hours a day, spoiled only by the fewer than half a dozen poor jobless who hadn’t yet worked out that they’d get much better service, and many more jobs, if they went a stop or two up the line.

Nobody cared. Nobody noticed. And nobody in that particular office was under any illusion that they weren’t just marking time until the next thing came along. Which it duly did: the destruction of the CES, and reassignment to the absolute hellish landscape of the Child Support Agency, from which I never really recovered. But 8 hours a day of webcomics was pretty damn good 😉

Oh, and for those of you aged under thirty. That’s a computer monitor. That’s what shape they used to be. More or less.

“Damn. I always run out of comics before I run out of day.”

Nothing profound here, just a dirty joke that shows I’m surprisingly not bad at drawing cartoon trains when I’m bored.

Bonus points if you automatically read this in Ringo Starr’s voice.

“‘This reminds me of something dirty,’ smirked Thomas.”

There’s a very simple solution to stopping big game hunters, you know.

Put a bounty on them.

Money for villagers who might otherwise be tempted by fees to act as guides, limiting access to local knowledge and preserving the natural heritage, skills, and financial independence of the indigenous population. Plus, how many smug white dentist’s heads from middle America mounted on hotel walls do you think it would take before the whole industry just withered away and died?

Exactly.

You’re welcome.

“If I’d known it was harmless, I’d have killed it myself.”

One of those inviolate rules of comedy: death is funny, dying is pain.

Death is doubly funny when you anthropomorphise it and give it a range of normal human habits. Like marrying, and dinking cocktails. To whit: ta-daaaaaaa.

“You’d think that, but he’s actually quite a warm and gentle lover.”

Bonus points for anyone willing to share what they actually do think about Death’s performance as a sexual partner……

“I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.” — Groucho Marx’s resignation letter to the Friar’s Club.

Given how much evil would be gathered behind its gates, I can’t imagine any atheist, myself included, who would be willing to mea culpa their way into this particular club.

“How the hell does that even work?”

It’s one thing to not know what your punchline should be. It’s another to not know where it should end. That first sentence would have been enough. Also, for those who have no idea what’s going on here, he’s in a coffin. Because thumbnails don’t always have to be clear……

“What do you mean ‘Who’s there?’. I’m not dead! Just open the damn lid!”

LOOK, NOBODY SAID THEY WERE ALL GOING TO BE GOOD, OOOKAY?

Yeesh. Even by my low standards……

Je-hovers Witnesses.

One day… one day… me, midnight, a can of spray paint, a stencil…