This blog began in 1997 as a single news page called Nucelus. In 2005, during a long wait to move into a new house, I decided to learn some php and MySQL and write my own blogging system, which became inkyBlog and which now powers this, my own Webbledegook blog.
Thank you to my brother, Murray Ewing, for help with some of the more challenging aspects!
The two campaigns, 'Remain' and 'Leave', have hardly covered themselves in glory when it's come to giving us - the general public - the facts of the matter. To make things worse, the EU is a bit of a mystery to most, often characterised by its more bizarre attributes, either as the butt of a joke or, sometimes, in the form of an outright conspiracy theory.
My general feeling a few weeks ago was that I'd be voting Remain. I like Europe, I like Europeans, I love visiting Europe (as I have luckily had the opportunity to do several times with my book published in a number of foreign editions), and I like Europeans being in my country (I believe diversity does not dilute our culture but enriches it - not to mention the fact that migrants give the UK a £20 billion tax benefit). Most of all, I like the idea of a shared international vision and of being an active part of that vision.
As the date has drawn closer, I've become more interested in the debate, especially in how the result will affect me - both in the things I care deeply about in the wider world, and in my own personal life. The more I've researched and learned about both sides of the argument and about the EU in general, the more I now think a vote to Remain is pretty much the only sane choice. In fact, I think a vote to Leave could be potentially devastating.
I'm not going to write an essay going into all the details and conclusions I've come to, but I would like to present some of the broad strokes, and let you know why I think being part of the EU is a good thing, despite the fact that it, of course, has many problems too.
First of all, I believe the EU is generally a force for good. It was born out of the desire to see lasting peace in Europe, and it has achieved that very well. It promotes cooperation and has what I see as basically a positive Humanist agenda. It also provides a number of checks and balances on our own government who may not always pass laws with our best interests at heart. An example of this would be various directives that serve what I call the 'greater good' - that cover the health of the environment, tackling climate change, defending human and civil rights, limiting the power of private corporations and protecting minorities. The EU does all these things.
Of these I think the question of climate change is the most urgent, and this is something that simply has to be tackled with a united front. We're not doing enough as it is, but if we break from the EU then it will set the progress we have made back by vital years, maybe even decades. A united Europe working together sets an example and raises the game for the rest of the world.
Speaking of which, there has been a lot of fear-mongering about Turkey joining the EU. The fact is, it will be many years before they are able to join, the reason being that they must first fulfil a large number of tests set by the EU. This is because the EU has a moral and technical standard that must be met - the EU makes countries aspire to be better. We don't want Turkey to join as it is now, but a Turkey that eventually passes the EU test will be an asset.
Turkey is just one of the un-facts touted by the Leave campaign, but it is not the only one. Perhaps the most blatant is that the UK "sends £350 million a week to the EU". This figure is false, as we get a substantial rebate (taken off before any money is sent) and we get a lot of money back in various forms of important funding, not to mention the incalculable extra value we get from goods, services and protections by being a paid-up member of the Union. The UK's contribution is only 1.2% of our total government spending.
Boris and his cohorts have said, if we leave the EU, we can use that "£350 million" to use as we wish, and they give the example of "a new hospital every week". The problem is, most, if not all, of the spare cash will be wiped out due to the massive economic downturn we'll experience on Brexit, which may even go as far as a pretty bad recession. And then what will we use to re-make those vanished laws and systems that we'll be 'free' of? The NHS will not get anything - especially from the likes of Boris, Gove and Farage, all of whom are on record as saying they would like the NHS privatised.
Okay ... I'm getting a bit verbose! The economic argument is the one that worries me most on a personal level. Almost every major financial institution predicts a monetary loss for regular families if we leave the EU, and quite likely a return to recession. Even many in the Leave camp agree with this assessment - though they think we can ride it out. Well, I probably won't be able to ride it out. My wife and I are both self-employed and we are just starting to get our heads above water after the hit of the last recession.
I lost clients in the last recession and it's been a struggle to climb back up. As the UK's economy started to improve, so did my own finances - but I am very close to the breadline on a monthly basis, sometimes under, sometimes a little over (illustration is not generally well-paid). Unlike the last recession, I now have two young children, so I'd be punched a lot harder this time. Even on the least-worse predictions I dread to think what our family situation could be if the UK economy shrinks again and businesses stop hiring freelancers like Ellie and me.
The UK is one of the strongest voices in the European Union, along with our allies France and Germany. Together, the 28 countries present a powerful force in the area of trade (giving us international bargaining power), diplomacy (preventing other powerful states from flexing their muscles too readily) and security (with shared intelligence and joined-up reaction to events). Scientific research, resulting in better treatments for disease, the solving of technological problems, and even space exploration, all benefit from EU funding.
The EU is often mischaracterised as undemocratic, yet a close look at the way it actually works shows that it is just as democratic as the UK (despite our unelected House of Lords!). We vote for our MEPs and they have real power to accept, reject or amend European legislation. They can even dismiss the Commissioner, and our Prime Minister and various other UK government ministers hold important positions when it comes to making legislation. The lack of democracy is a myth repeatedly peddled by the leave campaign.
Going back to a more personal level, the EU provides protection for my work and my rights as an author and artist on the international stage. There are a greater number of opportunities for grants and easier access to a wider readership. Membership of the EU has allowed me to easily travel to other countries where my books are published, to get paid more easily, and even to make sure I'll be looked after should I ever fall ill on one of those trips.
On a slightly more negative note, the kind of politicians who I feel most ideologically opposed to are the ones who might come out of a Brexit vote with the greatest amount of power: people such as Boris Johnson (whose main agenda with this referendum is to get himself into No. 10), Michael Gove (who wants to scrap the Human Rights Act) and Nigel Farage (who only turned up to one out of 42 EU Fisheries meetings, despite being an MEP on the Fisheries Commission, showing just how much he cares about British interests). They are on the side of privatisation and less social responsibility, and what they might have in store for us, if given a mandate, worries me greatly.
There may well be some benefits in cutting our ties with the EU, but I have seen none that have convinced me, and none that outweigh the huge number of advantages we get by staying. The vast majority of arguments for leaving have been gut feelings, amorphous patriotic slogans, and - I'm sorry to say - rather a lot of xenophobia.
For me a vote to Remain is a vote for the future, a vote to stay involved and an opportunity to try and make things better. I will be voting to Remain, for me, my children, and for the world. If you're undecided, I urge you to do the same. Please vote.
Karate has been a very important part of my life. My last two years of school were not great, and starting karate brought back some of my self-confidence. Also at school, I was terrible at sport, but karate was something I did away from school and I allowed myself a fresh start. I took to it really well. The only person I was in competition with was myself, and that can be a huge incentive to try and excel, week by week.
My first sensei was Brian Whitehouse at his Shotokan Karate Club of East Grinstead, but when I went to live in the US for a year I took six lessons a week at the headquarters of the International Karate Association under the famous Takayuki Kubota. I returned to the UK and became the first black belt at Brian's club. A few years ago I wrote up my karate experience, just to help me remember it all - you can read it here if you wish (it's not a particularly exciting or outstanding story, I admit!).
Karate seems to be slightly unfashionable these days, largely, I think, due to the glamour of the new kid on the block, MMA (Mixed Martial Arts). But that discipline doesn't do it for me - it's too much about winning, about competition, and about who is strongest and best. It misses the budo aspects, the humility, the finesse. It misses the Art.
One aspect of Japanese martial arts that comes in for more criticism these days is the idea that practicing a fighting art can improve your character. For me, it really has. Karate has been my model for bettering myself in all walks of life and for not giving up on something I want to do. When I lose my way, I think of karate. The lessons I've learned while attempting to perfect a technique, or to keep going when my legs want to give out, find other applications. My comic strip, The Rainbow Orchid, would not exist without my karate training (not to mention the fact that it helps when I'm drawing fight scenes!). It's not a spiritual thing for me, it's a practical, real thing.
I love kata - the pre-arranged forms or patterns of karate, an imaginary fight in multiple directions, an encyclopaedia of self-preservation techniques. I feel I'm just beginning to understand how they work - a glimpse of a bigger picture. I'm constantly trying to perfect them, and am always very far away from doing so. But each time is a new challenge. I also love the fact that practicing kata connects me to the art's history, and with forms that masters have handed down through centuries, changing and evolving with each interpretation and generation. The history of karate generally is a big part of the attraction, too.
I'm still doing karate (my current club's website is here) and I still love it. I can't kick quite as high as I used to, the jumps aren't quite as athletic, and the legs tire a bit more quickly than they once did, but it's still an enormous challenge. And I think I'm starting to get the hang of it a little - at last.
Here's a short video from the days when my limbs were a bit more elastic, even if my technique was a lot less formed - in the summer of 1985, as a 7th kyu orange belt in Brian's class at the Small Parish Hall (sadly just recently demolished).
Anyway, if you're starting to think about your Christmas shopping then perhaps I can recommend a few nice little items here with my own stamp on them ...
The Complete Rainbow Orchid - if you haven't got it, then this is the version to get. The entire story in one volume with 17 pages of extras and behind-the-scenes sketches. Buy it from me (signed and sketched in), or from your local bookseller, or online at vendors such as Amazon or Book Depository.
The Rainbow Orchid Supplement - includes author's annotations for the entire story, plus notes, interviews and sketches. For the true fan, but brimful of Julius Chancer goodness. You can get your copy here.
The Rainbow Orchid volumes 1, 2 and 3 bundle - I have a limited number of these sets available in my online shop (signed with a sketch), when they're gone they're gone! This special offer includes The Rainbow Orchid Supplement. Individual volumes can also be bought through your local bookseller, or various places online including Amazon and Book Depository.
The Scarifyers - I've drawn nine covers for Bafflegab's excellent dark-comedy-supernatural-mystery series, featuring the acting talents of people such as David Warner, Terry Molloy, Nicholas Courtney, Nigel Havers, Leslie Phillips and Brian Blessed, to name just a few. These really are excellent audio adventures - if I didn't get a contributor's copy I'd buy my own! The latest is very festive, The King of Winter, and all are available from the Bafflegab website on CD or download.
The Book of the Dead and Unearthed - these two 'mummy anthologies' came out last year from Jurassic London, The Book of the Dead featuring new tales of the Egyptian (un)dead, and Unearthed featuring classic tales, including Arthur Conan Doyle's excellent Lot 249. I created several illustrations for The Book of the Dead and recently designed brand new covers for both volumes. Buy them from Amazon: The Book of the Dead link, Unearthed link.
Some of the images are a little small, so row by row, left to right: The Property (Rutu Modan), The Great War (Joe Sacco), Napoleon - Abel Gance's Classic Film (Kevin Brownlow), Goddamn This War! (Tardi), The Storytellers (Rob Jackson), Widdershins - Sleight of Hand (Kate Ashwin), The Adventures of Jodelle (Guy Peellaert), Trick or Treatment (Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst), The From Hell Companion (Eddie Campbell), Napoleon (Alan Forrest), Ralph Azham (Lewis Trondheim), Return of a King - the Battle for Afghanistan (William Dalrymple), Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson), Saga vol 1 (Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples), and The Whale House (Andrew Cheverton and Chris Doherty).
While I'm mentioning this, I'll mention a couple of other things too. The first is a very nice in-depth review of The Rainbow Orchid on the SFSite. The second is some brilliant readers' art by William Lloyd Jones, age 5 - my youngest contributor yet!
The image comes from the Ashmolean Museum's copy of the print (the British Museum has one too), though an original came up for sale on ebay a few months ago and I was sorely tempted. After a day of being on the edge of bidding, I came to my senses and realised that I couldn't afford it, and anyway, I don't know the first thing about looking after antique Japanese prints. It would be a crying shame if it faded and died under my care. It sold, and I hope it went to a good home.
So, the Christmas present was my (very nice) consolation prize. I first came across the print in 1985 after I started karate and became slightly obsessed with samurai. One of the first books I bought on the subject was Stephen Turnball's The Book of the Samurai: The Warrior Class of Japan (1982), in which just two sections of the triptych were reproduced in black and white, though even without colour I was captivated by the beautiful depiction of the dead's cold visitation on the defiant Taira Kiyomori.
The book (I still have it, somewhat battered now after years of perusal) is full of such magnificent musha-e prints, and I immediately fell in love with the form. I don't know if the ligne claire of Tintin prepared the ground for my attraction to the pure line and flat colours of ukiyo-e, or if my love of both the prints and Tintin are a result of some other predisposition to such things - but I've been enamoured ever since. Turnball's book also introduced me to my favourite director, Kurosawa, as he used several stills from his films as illustrations leading me to seek out, at first, The Seven Samurai, and then more of this master's work, as well as that of his contemporaries (Ozu, Mizoguchi, Naruse and others).
Taira no Kiyomori (1118-1181) was head of the Taira clan, leading its domination over Kyoto through powerful government positions, defeating his rivals, the Minamoto, and seeing his grandson take the emperor's seat - only for it all to come crashing down at the feet of his revitalised enemies not long after his death. This is told in the Japanese epic Heike Monogatari, and from this comes the scene in the print - Taira (played by the kabuki actor Nakamura Utaemon IV) at his Fukuhara palace, haunted by the vision of all those he has slaughtered in his climb to the heights of power. Mizoguchi actually made a film about the young Kiyomori in 1955, Shin Heike Monogatari (New Tales of the Taira Clan), one of only two colour films he made, and one of the last before his death in 1956.
The artist is one of the big four or five most famous ukiyo-e creators, Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), most well-known for his Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido. Other artists have also depicted the scene - Fukao Hokui (a pupil of Hokusai) in about 1835, and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (a pupil of Kuniyoshi) in about 1882. I like the others, but for me Hiroshige's is the best - the central figure of Kiyomori, grasping his tachi as if he fully intends to defeat all his vanquished enemies once again - though with perhaps a hint of uncertainty in his eyes; the concubine - we're not sure if she too sees the Chancellor's nightmare vision; and the silent, accusing ghosts in frozen white - which at first you may not notice, and then, like the Lord Taira, you start to see everywhere you look.
I must also apologise for the fact that The Rainbow Orchid vol 3 is still not up on my online shop. I have the stock sitting here, but I'm so busy with work right now (even more so since I've had a couple of days off ill) that I can't find the time to update the web-page, and I'd also find it quite difficult to fulfil the orders at the moment, anyway. Hopefully it won't be too long, but probably not this week.
My third apology goes to everyone who is awaiting an email response from me. I'm way behind on my emails and can currently only deal with urgent work-related ones.
I'll catch up at some point - I promise!
The Rainbow Orchid volume 3 is getting there. As I write I have six pages left to draw (pencils and inks) and 13 to colour. I'm hesitant to say the end's in sight, but I will say I'm about to turn the corner from which the end will be in sight. The big thing still to do is the cover, which requires some working out.
All work and no play means I don't get much time to read (though audiobooks entertain me while drawing) but I don't stop obtaining books and comics so have rather a large pile of reading material to catch up with at some point. There are some wonderful comics being made available these days! I got back from a meeting in London on Wednesday to find Jason and Vehlmann's Isle of 100,000 Graves, Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse: Race to Death Valley, and Tillieux's Murder By High Tide had arrived. Waiting in the wings is Moore and O'Neill's Century: 1969 (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), Hubert and Kerascoet's Miss Don't Touch Me vol 2, Tardi's The Arctic Marauder, and, oh, quite a few more (including a small sub-pile of Cinebooks, not to mention all the non-comics stuff).
Film watching has also taken a back seat, except for the ones I have to fit in for the Adventure Films Podcast, of course. In recent weeks Murray and I have recorded episodes five and six - David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia and Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits.
If you've ever wandered over to the events page and thought it looked rather sparse recently, you'd be right. Up until a couple of weeks ago I had no events planned for this year (due to work, publication dates and new baby), and that's still largely the case except for, now, one little appearance that will be in Maidstone on 6 November - Demoncon 2. It's a bit different for me in that it's organised by a comic shop and The Rainbow Orchid isn't a very comic-shop comic (at least that's what comic shops in general seem to indicate), so I'm really chuffed to have been invited and am looking forward to reaching a few new readers if possible.
Lastly, but not leastly, pop over to the readers' art page where you can see a lovely new addition in the shape of Evelyn Crow from illustrator Chris Askham.
I'd already heard rumours of a student protest taking place - targeting Professor Dawkins because of his assocation with A C Garyling's New College of the Humanities, so I wasn't surprised to see a police presence outside the building where the old UK Comic Art Conventions (UKCAC) used to take place, as well as a slowly growing crowd of protestors (their Facebook group had just over 100 names saying they'd attend).
After getting inside and standing in a queue for a bit, we were allowed into the hall and I found a seat and watched my fellow humanists, rationalists and assorted others arrive. I think the last time I sat in this hall was to see an interview with French comic legend Moebius. Suddenly there was a commotion at the doors and I looked over to see the security guards trying, in vain, to keep a mob of slogan-shouting students at bay. They inevitably failed and a crowd of about 15 protestors (with more just outside) rushed in and took to the stage. Because their slogans weren't really that clear, I think most people assumed they were a religious group of some kind, but word soon got around as to their true cause.
Their occupation lasted about half an hour, delaying the talk by 15 minutes. They were monitored by two or three policemen and throughout the 'siege', they were engaged in discussion with various audience members, many who went down to see what they were about or to implore them to leave. A couple of audience members were disappointingly short-fused to the point of rage with them, but mostly it was lively and shouty, but peaceful. At one point a member of the audience started shouting out lines from The Life of Brian - "You're all individuals!", which got an immediate answer from a good 50% of the crowd "Yes! We're all individuals!". Then several people took off one of their shoes (none of us had gourds) - very funny. At one point, as a general reaction to the confrontational manner of the invading students, practically the entire auditorium stood up and turned their backs to the protestors' shouts and taunts. Another highlight was a chap getting up on stage, complete with backpack, asking the protestors to leave as he had travelled all the way from Romania to see this talk, to much applause from the hall. Soon enough police reinforcements arrived and the protestors were taken out, without too much kerfuffle, it has to be said. So, an exciting start to the evening!
I didn't go to university and can, rather annoyingly, see points on both sides of the argument concerning Grayling's New College. I don't think all the facts are in yet, and there's been a lot of Daily Mail-style ranting about it from people who tend to have a visceral reaction before knowing a lot about it. Politically, I do lean heavily towards a world of public services and social equality, and have some uncomfortable feelings about an institution that plans to charge £18,000 a year in fees, despite the greater number of full-fund scholarships this will allow. I think the root of the problem is the government's stance on education and privatisation of services, and picking on one example, high profile as it is, is not quite aiming at the right target. I wasn't annoyed by the protest, though their accusations that the paying audience were implicitly supporting a two-tier educational system was completely misplaced and rather offensive.
There were a couple more protests during the talk. Early on Richard Dawkins commented how both he and Myers were "interested in science" at which point someone shouted from the back "and in profit making!". The interloper was quickly taken out by police (who were now standing at every exit) as Dawkins made it clear that every penny he earns from his lectures he gives to charity (I did wonder if this was the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science rather than something like, say, Oxfam - not that the RDF isn't a very worthy cause!). Some way into the talk a young couple got up, hand in hand, from the front row and stood in front of the stage reading out their protest to Dawkins almost face to face. Dawkins told them rather firmly that he would take questions at the end, and they too were escorted out. Sure enough, at the end, despite the last question having been taken, a girl leapt up and took to the microphone and with much civility asked if Dawkins, as a humanist, would withdraw his support for the college. To his credit, the professor gave a fairly lengthy answer to this, with some good points, but also some not quite so good ones. He did strongly imply that he voted Lib-Dem at the last election because of their stance on student fees (a stance, sadly, since U-turned). It's a difficult issue, and no doubt one that will continue to attract attention and discussion - and protests - for some time to come.
The talk itself was absorbing and excellent. My favourite part was the first 20 minutes or so where the two biology greats discussed evolution, particularly how it might work in an extra-terrestrial environment (would it still be Darwinian?), and also the number of times certain traits (for instance, the eye, sonar, claws etc.) have evolved independently. Much of the rest of the talk concerned the question of religious belief and how the two of them are perceived in relation to their work in that area. They talked about what would constitute evidence for a supernatural claim, and how the natural world provides wonder enough without the need for faith-based belief as well as the indoctrination of children into the ideas of belief without evidence. There was about half an hour of questions at the end.
Overall, it was a memorable evening and highly enjoyable. I wish there had been more talk on evolution, even if in relation to its power in dismantling theism, but it was definitely worth the trip up. The main topic of conversation on the way out was the protest (as is the bulk of this post) so you have to admit it had an effect! Having said that, the BHA website report doesn't mention it, but that may not be so strange considering A C Grayling is the incoming Association President! (Edit: Not any more - he's resigned before taking office.)
For me, Darwin's bravery in the face of a theocratic establishment, his open-mindedness and realisation of new ideas, his brilliance at communicating those ideas and his genius in general make him the greatest contributor to the understanding of what it is to be human, or to be alive at all.
Below is a quick drawing of Mr Darwin taking Indohyus for a walk. Indohyus fits somewhere very early on in one of my favourite evolutionary tales - that of the whale, a mammal that went from the land back to the sea and of which the fossil record, including some stunning examples of the intermediate stages, tells a remarkable story. Look at a whale or dolphin skeleton today and you will see one of the many irrefutable proofs of evolution - vestigial organs, for sea mammals retain rudimentary bones that were once hind legs, though they don't do a lot now they have become fully aquatic.
Another fascinating clue to the whale's terrestrial origins is the manner in which it swims, not like a fish, waving its body side to side, but in the same way that a dog or a cat runs, with the spine undulating like a ripple.
Spines... that brings me to a completely different topic, but something I thought I'd share. That drawing of Darwin above is the first thing I've drawn in over two weeks, a rather miserable couple of weeks if I'm honest. Two weeks ago I leant down to pick up a leaflet that had come through the letterbox and did my back in. Big ouch. My back is susceptible for a couple of reasons and I'm used to having a bit of a stiff back every other month or so. But once in a while, maybe every two or three years, it really goes, and this has been one of those times. The piercing muscle spasms render me almost immoveable to begin with, and the trouble this time is that after I started to get some freedom of movement back, I became over-confident and it went again, this time worse, prolonging everything.
Another big ouch. But in time, as it always does, things got better - the remedy beginning with a bag of frozen peas and lots of rest and moving on to heat patches, a back support and light movement as soon as I could. Interestingly, as things improve, the pain moves around, from the middle left, to the lower right, to the left side and eventually up to my right shoulder (just to make sure I really couldn't draw even at the end!). Today is the first day I feel virtually pain free, though sitting too long at the desk still produces an ache or two - so I'm being careful. (Of course, sitting at the desk for too long was the cause in the first place, picking up the leaflet was just the accurately proverbial straw (it broke the camel's back, you see, and the camel, being an even-toed ungulate, is a paraphyletic cousin of the whale - just to keep things Darwinian). Anyway, a regime of daily walks is now on the schedule.)
This, unfortunately, has consequences for the Rainbow Orchid publication date, though I'm not sure yet to what extent. In addition, none of this has done much for my mental attitude, and where the intense work ethic required for graphic storytelling is concerned, that is a hurdle to overcome - which I will, as I get back into things (so don't worry).
I do have one other remaining symptom of my back going, and that is an irregular sharp pain in my right heel. It's slowly fading, but I often have such hurtiness in my foot arches and just yesterday I realised that this may well be related to the state my back's in at the time, so I'll keep an eye on that.
Hm... and that brings me back to Darwin. An article in Science this week has shown how Australopithecus afarensis, an ancestor of modern humans who lived over 3 million years ago (the most famous example of which is Lucy), almost certainly had arched feet, evidence for bipedality - standing and walking upright. The thing about walking upright, wonderful as it is, is that we have not fully adapted to it - as with the entire evolutionary process, it's a matter of compromise after the fact. I became interested in evolutionary medicine after I saw Richard Dawkins interview Randolph Nesse, especially when he talked about how the spine is a mechanism that developed horizontally and is just about ideal for that kind of creature, but when it is moved into an upright position, a recent development, the internal organs that once hung perpendicularly now drape down, causing a few problems - for instance entangled intestines, a number of issues relating to pregnancy and, not related to the organs but to the new posture, good old back ache. Understanding evolution shines a very illuminating light onto all kinds of things - thanks, Mr Darwin!