Time Changes All Things

For the last decade and a bit, we had the company of a lovely cat.

 A stray, who simply came to us and stayed.

We named him Boxer, because for the first little while, after his arrival, he lived in the garden, in a heated & insulated box, that I built for him.

Boxer had a great personality and it was just as well because he grew to be a rather large and powerful cat and if he hadn't been blessed with a placid temperament, life could have been quite violent!

There were indications, over the past few months, that he was not as well, or as young as he had once been but it all came to a head, this past weekend and we had to take him to see a Vet.

It turned out that Boxer had a serious problem with his colon and after a traumatic day and a half in their care, I went in and held him, while the Vet administered the injection that would put him to sleep forever.

It is the second time, in my life, that I have watched a pet die and both times were exceedingly painful, at the time and for a long while after.

Somewhere, hidden like the Ark, from Raiders of the Lost... I have a better cartoon, that I drew of Boxer & Me

but at least I could find this one and it will have to do, for the time being.

Goodbye Boxer,

you were a loving friend and companion

and I will miss you,

My Love.

Andromeda Bookshop Card

The other evening, as I opened an old paperback book, M.A.S.H.,

that I have owned, since it twas given to me, 

by an unappreciative Aunt, in 1973 or thereabouts, I discovered a couple of things that I had tucked into it's pages.

Firstly, there was a bookmark/business card from the second location of the amazing,

Andromeda Bookshop.

Which was something that I had completely forgotten that I had!

One more small piece of my past, luckily preserved, 

like a fly in amber.

The other thing, which has more value to me, than to anyone else, 

was a ballpoint pen sketch of Conan,

from 1974, when I was 17 and Robert E. Howard's barbarian hero was my absolute favourite comic book at that time.

There are any number of things wrong with the execution of the drawing but I am actually quite amazed at some of the details of the figure that I did quite well.

Except for the fact that, I am fairly sure, I drew this while I was supposed to be doing something more constructive (at work), 

I would suspect that I was copying it from a panel in a comic book.

So how I managed to draw the figure, as well as I did, is a complete mystery.

I am not sure, if anything that I draw, these days, has nearly as much passion in it but then again, I am almost fifty years older and there has been a lot of changes in my life, since I was an avid teenager, sketching in Birmingham.

Another Brian Lewis Find!

I just stumbled across this, new to me but published in 1977, 

The Sweeney, by the late great Brian Lewis.

Originally posted on 

The Bronze Age of Blogs and

Bear Alley:

Originally published in the 1977 edition of The Sweeney Annual 

and a very nice example of Brian Lewis, 

at the top of his abilities.

We still need to have a really good, Artist's Edition, style of tribute to Brian Lewis because, seriously, he was one of Britains best practitioners of comic book art.

Maybe Titan Books will get around to it, one of these days but I would imagine, that forty years after his death, just finding his originals would take a lot of work.