So, you like drawing and you want to do it for a living? Here’s two simple pieces of advice:

1. Stop drawing Manga and Anthro, especially crude Manga and Anthro porn. No, really. It’s embarassing and no one wants to see MASSIVE SKUNK TITS. What were you thinking? Skunkina?
2. Read this and beware of twunts like him: http://kaitol.com/how-to-hire-an-artist/. By helping the race to the bottom, you’re fucking up your future. Don’t do that.

Follow those two simple rules and you’ll stop holding yourself back. Go take up life drawing if you want to draw boobies; it’s worth it.

There’s a lot of talk about Primark’s padded bikini and how it was aiming for the Paedophile Pound, a mythical nonce currency coined by child protection bandwagoneer Shy Keenan. It’s obviously outrageous and disgusting, won’t somebody think of the children, decay of society, etc., but it’s missing one major point about paedophiles: They are sexually aroused by children. Think about it. Can you see the fallacy?

Beware the beach, there may be paedos hiding there!

Yes, that’s right, paedophiles like pre-pubescent girls and lose interest in pubescent ones, by definition, so giving young girls secondary sexual characteristics should them less attractive to the majority of kiddie fiddlers. I’m not commenting on the unhealthy sexualisation of young girls here, as that goes without needing my scorn and better writers than I have taken those issues to task, but this is yet another example of political parties and interests running to beat up the latest bugbear in the run up to a general election. This isn’t paedophilia as a market force; it’s little girls playing dress-up.

Every penny spent, every minute invested in this outrage against paedophiles spending their hard-earned dosh on stupid children’s dress-up clothes is time and money that could have gone to solving real political and social issues that might effect real change.

Grow the fuck up, the lot of you.

All of a sudden, there was a whole new section in Waterstones. A new type of book. It had obviously cut a limb off the bloated sci-fi and fantasy section and took it for its own. The new genre had staked its claim, it was here to stay.

Waterstones called it PAINFUL LIVES

Now, for all I know this genre of books could have been there for a decade, but it must have been steadily growing because it’s got its own section now, and seems loom over you when you wander through the store. After a bit of research online it seems these tales are better known as MISERY MEMOIRS. The story is typically the life of an abused child, and an extensive, detailed account of her suffering and then ultimately redemption! Much pain, then a happy ending!

They’re all true stories, (or so the back text tells us) and it’s heartening to know the child grows and finds an escape. But it all just feels so seedy….

The other thing is that the entire catalogue *looks* the same. An indistinct photo of a lonely child, pastel colours on white, and always, Always … the purple or peach Hand Written font – ‘How Could She?’, ‘Why Don’t They Love Me?’, or ‘What Chance Did She Have?’ For all intents and purposes, it looks from a distance like a romance novel. Mrs Bloggs, sitting on the Northern line, obviously doesn’t want her fellow passengers to know she’s reading about a child getting systematically beaten by her own mother…. and is utterly enthralled by it.

And let’s be frank, this line of work is aimed directly at the female market – look at the packaging. What real purpose do these books serve? Is it a genuine concern for the plight of the child, or is it the gruesome details? Truth or fiction, the liberation at the end is to make the reader feel like they’re not a complete sleazebag – they’re reading this book for the uplifting conclusion, right? Right?

I’ve read a lot of true crime, and there’s obviously a lot of grim material in there, and I’ll admit it’s compelling reading. But it’s at least matter of fact, and isn’t designed to play with your emotions.

I guess this is my main scowl on these Memoirs – the feel bad/feel good direction and dubious ‘clothing’ these titles.

‘Oh that’s terrible…. oh, that’s appalling!… Go on…..’

Dave

Yeah, you heard me. This not my hole – nothing fits.

As you may have noticed I’ve been a bit quiet lately. I’ve been away in Glasgow getting my new flat, and since I’ve been back I’ve been either working on the freelance commitments, or packing my gear for removals next month. Herein, lies the problem…

This is the way it goes with box packing. You get up one morning and set up the first box. With me it’s either rpg books, or dvds.

The first box or two go swimmingly, because for some reason they always do. Everything fits like bloody tetris and you think ‘aw man, I’m going to breeze this’ as you look up at the substantial  dent you’ve put the packing.

Then… comes the graphic novels, and the ‘bits’. All the stuff that simply won’t go together. Yeah, Dave … this is what you get for buying those daft european comics that are all different sizes, and hardback. Then it’s onwards to staplers, desk toys, the odd shaped Magic promo box Wizards sent me last year. In complete reverse of the Amigara Fault, nothing fits in the way it should. You literally spend double the time on things that have little or no consequence in your day to day life. The only reason you’re here now is that everything has to leave the premises in three weeks.

Receipts, printed documents and reference pictures lie ahead of me. Joy.

Dava

Well, actually not really. Vomiting is something filmmakers tend to gloss over, have you ever noticed this? When (insert drunk/disgusted character) has to hurl one up on screen the director usually hand feeds them a few spoonfuls of porridge, and gets them it spit it out at the appropriate moment. Or it’s the dry heaves against a wall.

Why? – oh Dave, nobody bothers with this, why would anyone actively want to watch proper vomming on screen?

Well, maybe because we’re aiming for realism? It’s alright to have a character’s head explode digitally, casting eyeballs outward, and exposing brain tissue. But nobody in the effects department wants to sit in front of their mac and composite the fountain of spew that erupts from the mouth once we’ve all had a skinfull. We’re obviously far too delicate for this sort of thing….

We demand genuine, carrot ladden, sweetcorn ridden Spew!

Dava

Update: 2010-03-25. Since I wrote this diatribe, further documented scandals have been revealed in Germany, South America, Holland, Austria and again in the United States. How this can be anything but sanctioned institutional behaviour is beyond me. It’s past time. Stop treating these institutions as moral arbiters or as having any more right to tell us what to do than secular institutions. They don’t believe in punishment for sins; why should you?

One thing is clear in the latest scandals involving the Catholic Church and its stance of tolerance towards paedophilia: They believe there is no god. There is no way that an organisation can support the rape of children in its care with such nonchalance and still uphold a belief in hell or purgatory. No-one fearing an afterlife of torment, fire and brimstone would threaten parents of abused children into silence or would simply move a child-rapist from one hunting ground to another, over and over.

Sanctuary?

Now don’t get me wrong, I agree with the Church that god is a fictional construct, but there’s no way I’d rape little boys because of it. The religions of the world will tell us we need an almighty being watching over us to ensure we were morally just and honest, but given this recent proof of the Catholic Church’s complicity in covering up institutional child abuse, and its underground railway of pedophile priests, it’s come to the point where the moral high road has well and truly been conceded to the secular. In a country where it’s illegal to say nasty things about god, it’s perfectly acceptable to rape children in his name.

Apologies for the lack of documentation and analysis of the facts and figures, but this one was a little too ugly to be kind with. Read The BBC for proper journalistic reporting.

“The Church authorities failed to implement most of their own canon law rules on dealing with clerical child sexual abuse. This was in spite of the fact that a number of them were qualified canon and civil lawyers.”

Hey, Pope, it’s time. Just admit you’re wrong and that, like with the Spanish Inquisition, the Catholic Church is sometimes the largest force for evil in the world. Terrorists? Yeah, they’re bad, but they just kill you; they don’t rape your children. And Ireland, how’s those blasphemy laws looking now? You really want to be seen to be protecting these fucktards?