The Sunshine Room

I’m as guilty of this kind of thing as any sports fan. I regularly lounge in my seat at the Sydney Football Stadium and between mouthfulls of pie offer beery advice and constructive criticism to Alessandro Del Piero. Just to outline my credentials: I haven’t kicked a football in over four years and when I was 14 the coach of the team I played for once opted to leave me on the bench and start a match with 10 players.

The pub interior is loosely based on my old local, The Hand in Hand in Brixton. I would often sit in the back room, watching live matches in the company of football critics whose collective tactical genius remained criminally unrecognised by football authorities. England may have won the last two World Cups if the FA had only tapped into this rich vein of thinking.

The pub exterior is based on The Selkirk in Tooting; a fine establishment with a bar billiards table and nice selection of beer. I miss both pubs.

Just a quick one to add to the enormous volume of Pope jokes currently weighing down the internets. I probably should have put something in there about horse meat lasagne for added originality.

This isn’t as expansive as some of my other cartoons, as I had to skimp on the detail  in order to get it out there before Benitez gets the sack. There’s no time for fancy cross-hatching when Roman’s finger is on the trigger.

Here’s something I drew for my chums over at the Swindon Town web fanzine, The Washbag, as part of their ‘Hall of Shame’ series. It helped to generate a bit of interest in my stuff and resulted in a few more people following this blog, all of whom will unfollow when I post the cartoon I’m currently working on, which is on the subject of Newsnight. Yep.

A relatively new phenomenon in modern football is that of the morose supporter realising that his or her misery is being broadcast on the stadium screen and immediately perking up to exhibit near orgasmic levels of joy. This is particularly prevelant at large international football tournaments;  keep an eye out for it during the European Championships next month. 

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything new on here (and even then it was a picture of some testes), as I’ve been working on episodes seven, eight and nine of Mungo for Twohundredpercent, to whom I am extremely grateful for allowing me to take on the doodling for a few months. It was a real treat, but I’m all done now, so I should have a bit more time to post cartoons more regularly in The Sunshine Room.

I’m not entirely sure what I’m trying to say with this cartoon, but I think I’m suggesting that Harry Redknapp has a scrotum under his chin and within the folds of that scrotum can be seen the face of Arsene Wenger. Yep, that sounds about right.

Of course, this North London testicular jolity is merely a vehicle for me to direct you towards episodes five and six in the latest adventures of the world’s most inept footballer, Mungo McCrackas. There are only three more episodes left until the end of the season, after which I’ll be spending more time working on comics for long-neglected Sunshine Room.  Like you care.

This is something I drew a while ago, but I thought I’d share it.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on here, but I’ve not been completely idle (although mostly I have been, obviously). I’ve been writing and drawing epsisodes three and four of Mungo for twohundredpercent.net. Hoping to find some spare time soon to stick up some new stuff in The Sunshine Room.

There’s a scene in the film Notes on a Scandal in which Judi Dench’s character says: “My father followed Charlton and it never seemed to give him much pleasure”. Now, my immediate and obvious reaction to this was: “Charlton, LOLZ!”, but Dench’s line is applicable to most people who support teams other than the small group of rich, successful, dubiously-financed, clubs. However, the lifetime of disappointment, ridicule and frustration is more than compensated for by the occasional days when everything clicks and it briefly feels like you support the best team in the world.

I actually depressed myself a bit drawing this – especially the last panel, featuring worms mocking the rotting corpse of our hero. Still, anyone who wears a replica shirt to the pub kind of brings it on themself.

Apologies for not posting any new stuff for a while; I’ve been pretty occupied doing stuff for the excellent twohundredpercent.net, who have been kind enough to ask me to take on the illustration of their online comic ‘Mungo’. It’s a real honour to be asked to take it on. You can see my first two episodes here and here. If you have time, I’d also encourage you to sit down and read the entire back catalouge, created by the frighteningly talented Dotmund.

I’m not picking on Chelsea (I am a bit), I just like drawing Roman Abramovich. I’m sure he’ll have the last laugh when he’s watching me be torn apart by a dozen robot sharks beneath his glass-bottomed yacht. In the meantime, I promise this is my last cartoon on the subject for the time being (unless he does something rash in the coming months, which I absolutely doubt).

Next time, something completely unrelated to football. Yes, you may well gasp.

The Football League returns this weekend, with those lovable Cockney scamps, West Ham United, finding themselves back in the second tier.

When their relegation was confirmed there wasn’t exactly a national outpouring of sympathy for either the club or its odious owners; some people even seemed to find it funny. Imagine!

However, with a good squad and an experienced manager it won’t be too long before they’re back in the top flight, blowing hard.