Barnyard

I've never lived on a farm, but I live in the countryside these days.
These are all animals I enjoy.

When I was a kid one of my major influences was a comic strip called Footrot Flats, drawn by a fellow called Murray Ball.
I mention this as there's been a lot of talk about Ronald Searle on both drawingboard.org and also on the blog rounds.
Murray Ball worked with Ronald Searle on Punch for a while during the 60s, before he returned to New Zealand to do Footrot Flats.
He was very very much influenced by Searle.
FF is set on a New Zealand farm and the humour in it is very NZ/Aussie (I actually didn't realise it was a NZ strip until my teens).
Anyway - the best examples of his work I can find are here .
It's just a fan site and the link is to the character section.
Below each strip is a "next" button leading to the next character.
I hope some folks take a squizz.



I'd also like to thank Cara Carmina for providing links at her very handy blog to the websites of the always delightful Eric Carle who has been creating amazing illustrations as long as I can remember (about 30 years) and even more so for the link to Quentin Blake, an illustrator who has been a huge influence on my work since I was 5.
Thank you Cara!


I had a pal who had a bunch of goats living behind his house.
We used to go out and feed them oranges.
I have no idea whatsoever why we fed them oranges in particular.
There is a local restuarant that serves smoked goat ribs when they are available.
It's making my mouth water merely thinking about it.

Also.
Someone anonymously posted this on my Tom Hanks comments space -
"ah! the man comes thru.
good for not being a fan of cheap, mapless chocs, I say!
why do I see "vibrator"? "
If anyone can shed any light on this I'd be interested to know what the hell it means.