motionless voyage

Sunday, 1 April 2012

LEFTLION RITE OF PASSAGE

Portrait of the Young Man as an Artist

So, after a year of being involved with the mighty LeftLion, 10 months as Sports Editor (my trial period hasn’t been officially terminated), the editor, Nish, deemed that I was worthy of featuring in the Contributors section on page 1. To this end, I had to submit a photo and, joyfully, this meant a use, at last, for some portrait shots artfully taken by a friend and coursemate from university, Liz Dunningham, some time in the late 1990s, when I had hair…

Scott Oliver, Sports Editor
Born in the World capital of darts, Stoke-on-Trent, Scott came here to study Spanish twenty years ago, only returning to Staffs on summer weekends to play cricket, usually after a night of throwing improbable shapes at the Marcus Garvey or Sky Club, The proud holder of a recently completed PhD on Argentine history, using the work of Gilles Deleuze (one of his two heroes – the other being Jeffrey Lebowski), the things Scott likes most about Notts are its deep house musical heritage and the Forest 'Rec. A writer of two blogs – false9.blogspot.co.uk for football and reversesweeper.blogspot.co.uk for cricket – Scott has also written about kicky-bladder for The Blizzard and clonky-cork for Spin. Despite playing against over fifty international cricketers, his greatest sporting moment remains the 160 checkout he fired in at The Priory on Derby Road before it became a Toby Inn.

The Lord of the Nish has accepted me. I have arrived.

Friday, 9 March 2012

GORETZKI'S MISCELLANY

And finally, cartoons that defied my mania for categorization, cartoons that either need their own category (Transportation and Force Majeure; Complexities of British Engineering and Fairground Mishaps… Thinking about it, they could both have squeezed in under transport) or need Goretzki to work on some more that are thematically germane, allow me to flesh it out. I know he has a thing for British Rail’s bus replacement service. And that one about being charged for a sick bag could be shoehorned into a Transport category. Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed this quick buzz through my favourites of Jake’s work. Please Tweet these or email them to friends – he deserves these comic pearls to reach as many people as possible. Spread the chuckles!

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> Keep abreast of Jake Goretzki’s stuff either on Twitter, or at his website.

> To speak to Jake about a commission: e: jake [at] grtzk [dot] com

GORETZKI ON FOOTBALL

When looking at right-wing idiocy, we could well have been talking about Jermaine Pennant. Or Paolo di Canio. Especially Paolo di Canio. But we weren’t. For Goretzki has increasingly been turning his pen these last couple of months to the comedic wellspring that is football, for a website called The FCF . Clichéd it ain’t. Here’s a sample:

> Back to index (or, you might like the next post)

> Keep abreast of Jake Goretzki’s stuff either on Twitter, or at his website.

> To speak to Jake about a commission: e: jake [at] grtzk [dot] com

GORETZKI ON TWO FACETS OF THE IRISH ECONOMIC MIRACLE

Normally, I wouldn’t advocate such blatant national stereotyping, but I think this is justified on account of Goretzki thinking long and hard about such matters, and if he’s happy drawing it, I’m happy publishing. Three guesses which airline he’s lampooning here?

> Back to index (or, you might like the next post)

> Keep abreast of Jake Goretzki’s stuff either on Twitter, or at his website.

> To speak to Jake about a commission: e: jake [at] grtzk [dot] com

GORETZKI ON RIGHT-WING IDIOCY

The Daily Mail. Aren’t we lucky to have such a colossally benighted and intolerant organ to stoke the already knicker-wetting fears and prejudices of Middle England. The acceptable face of facism and the real reason proper socialism has such an uphill struggle in this country, with its gently insistent discursive arc accomplishing the populist displacement of constructive political anger on to some ill-defined ‘Other’ (terrorists, gypsies, thugs, anarchists, chavs, immigrants, etc) for people who know their bally place and are quite happy thank you.

> Back to index (or, you might like the next post)

> Keep abreast of Jake Goretzki’s stuff either on Twitter, or at his website.

> To speak to Jake about a commission: e: jake [at] grtzk [dot] com

GORETZKI: CARTOONS FEATURING EAST EUROPEAN FIGURES (inc. AUSTRIA)

Starting with a gag that could easily have gone in the previous section, we have here a troika of Eastern European-themed cartoons, drawing on this great region of melancholic high art, pitiless organized crime, post-communist micro-paranoia, lugubriousness, muscular female tennis stars and an abundance of amazingly gorgeous women, many servicing the sex industry in both DVD production (front of camera) and live dancing (on stage). Iron Curtain, we love you.