Who? What? Where? How?

Hello, Sickbaggers!

I am not dead, nor nearly dead, nor dead but kept alive by a horrifying rage virus - to be honest, I have just not felt like writing for Digital Sickbag for a while, so didn't. Hey, it's a free country (unless you are reading this in a country which heavily infringes upon your civil liberties. In which case I doubt you will be reading this anyway.)

So: what has been going on since the last time I spewed forth into this blog? Well...

* I gained part-time, Christmas employment at HMV, which was good fun! Jimmy Carr came into our store twice, which would be impressive if it wasn't for the fact that I hate Jimmy Carr. But then...

* ...the job's contract ended, thus leaving me unemployed (again). Boooo! Back to watching Jeremy Kyle repeats I go!

* But! I have been quite productive with my new-found spare time. (Of course, it depends on your definition of 'productive).

* I drew THIS, for example! Hee-hee!

* I have also been updating Lord Likely, as well as setting him up a Facebook Group, a Twitter page and even a shop.

* I made these celebrity ghost t-shirts. Here is the ghost of Queen frontman, Freddie Mercury:



I also did Elvis, and Kurt Cobain. Why not buy one?

* I had many poos.

* I found myself getting Popmashed by the excellent Mike Whaite, in celebration of his relaunched Popmash website. Groovy!



* But, best of all, I have met an incredibly beautiful and completely lovely woman, and - rarer still - one who does not seem to be completely repulsed by me, despite me being so wretched. Hooray! She makes me very happy indeed, and is super-special to me already. Bless you, honey!

So yes. Great ups and downs, lefts and rights, but I have been keeping myself busy throughout. I am hoping to be able to bring you some more exciting news shortly, if everything goes according to plan...

Failing that, I shall just fill this blog with nob jokes again, then disappear for months on end.

See you soon!

- Fanton.

Follow me on Twitter. It may or may not be fun, I am not entirely sure.

I Wish I was a Doodlebug

It's Doodle Time!

The lovely Claire is once again throwing open a doodle-based challenge to all those who read her frankly fabulous blog, A Little Piece of Me.

The challenge? To doodle, dammit!

I missed the last Doodle Week, (due to me being slightly crap at getting around to stuff) but this time I'm ready. I even have my finest crayons at hand.

The theme of today's Doodle Challenge is the Doodlebug, and so here is my take on this particular theme:

Man, I wish I was a Doodlebug. Those extra limbs would come in handy for completing the many projects and ideas I have floating about, but for which I never seem to have enough time.

Curse you, Doodlebug! Why must you mock me this way?

Talking of doodles and projects that have been neglected (God, I'm great at linking things together) today also heralds the return of my semi-successful webcomic The Carrotty Kid. It's been six long months since I last did any carrot-based cartoonery, and I have missed the little orange bugger a bit. Look, here he is now, doing some kung-fu or something:


Bless him. Why not visit the homegrown hero at his website, so I don't wind up having wasted an entire day? Please?

Right, I'm off. I think I've got artists' cramp. Then again, it might just be wankers' cramp. It's hard to tell, really. I've done a lot of drawing today, but I've also done more than my fair share of tossing, as well. Ah, well!

Next time I take on Brent's challenge, thrown down from the almighty Comma! Will I succeed, or fail terribly? And why is everyone out to challenge me, anyway?

Find out at some point this week!

Tara for now!

- Fanton.

So Close, And Yet So Far

Those of you who follow the fate and fortunes of the publishing industry may already know that The Friday Project - a small publisher set up in 2005 with the aim of converting the best of the web to proper books - went into liquidation last month.

What you probably won't know is that last December I had quite a jolly meeting with the (entirely lovely and very amiable) folk at The Friday Project, with a view to publishing a proper, fully-fledged Lord Likely book. With pages and a cover, and everything.

The meeting went very well, so this news is doubly sad, as it means the end of what could have been the Greatest Literary Event of All Time. But hey ho, such is life.

I'm making quite a habit of getting tantalisingly close to having my work published or screened. As well as the Lord Likely book, I also managed to get very near to getting an animated series made based around another of my characters, The Carrotty Kid. I got all the way up to the pilot episode stage, before the UK kid's TV market seemed to implode in on itself, and the series never came to pass.

Still, I got a shiny DVD out of it, containing an exciting glimpse of what could have been:

So, I'm still struggling on, and still hoping that one day one of my ridiculous ideas will finally earn me some money.

Now, can anyone spare me a tenner?

- Fanton.