Zine Stall tomorrow: featuring NEW BEING & TIM!

Well tomorrow is the opening day of compARTment, you may have seen the posters that I made in an earlier post. Just to get you excited (if you live in the Brighton area) I thought I'd post a photo of some of the zines that'll be at the Open Market, off London Road, at some unspecified time after 9am. Poetry and apocalyptic postcards from the Young Hanoverians, some stuff from Andy P (creator of Celph, there in the background) and some other stuff about zombies and social unrest....and apparently my friend Nicole is bringing her comic down, which apparently has something to do with Nietzsche! Score!

But eagle-eyed viewers might have noticed a new-looking-brown envelope! Yes folks, that's right, there's a new edition of Being & Tim, featuring 8 more ontological adventures...Still only £1! Available at all good comic shops once I get round to putting them in there. But available at the open market tomorrow from about 9ish....!!

Last thing now, too good not to mention, I finally got round to collecting my friend's spinning wheel, i am officially A SPINSTER!!! WOOOHOOOOO!!!!! And if you don't believe me that spinning wheels are related to the word spinster then check out the dictionary!

Cheerio, hope to see you tomorrow!

becca xo

almost what i said it would be...!

so, I got distracted from scanning in the first ever sketch of Being & Nothingness, by my friend. But on the up side I was distracted by drawing more cartoons! These are a couple of sketches for my new blog (which is still under construction) about humourous ways of dealing with cancer! My brother was diagnosed with a brain tumour in January, and it helps a little bit to be able to appreciate how bizarre the whole situation is. The cartoon on the left details how absurdly sensitive one becomes, while the one on the right focuses more on the homocidal tendencies brought up by tragedy. In fact, maybe I intentionally killed my pot plant out of suppressed rage? hum.

In other news, I'm going to be exhibiting Being & Tim in Sweden for the Dragonfly festival in August! I'm very excited about this, but also a bit scared, as it'll be my first proper exhibition, and there's still a lot to do....!

Anyway, I'll put that Being & Nothingness cartoon up soon, it's pretty cute

becca xo

Simone Weil STRIKES again!

Here's ANOTHER joke gleaned from the writings of Simone Weil featuring Nothingness, Being's binary opposite, who you may remember from  here and here. It's funny cos they're binary opposites!

Anyway, as always i'm in a permanent rush. I'll post some news tomorrow, with a little cartoon that my friend Kevin drew of Being and Nothingness (he kinda came up with him, so he deserves some credit!)

'Til tomorrow!

becca xo

a not very philosophical post with FREE Being & Tim Business card!

Exhibit A

well, the two things i've been working on this week are: exhibit A: Being and Tim business card! Print some off and pass them around your friends! You'll soon be the coolest kids in town! And if you live in Brighton, UK, you might be interested in printing out the other poster I made: another (better) design for my friend's open space regeneration group compARTment. I'm hoping to run a zine stand there in a week or two, so will probably have less time to draw cartoons cos I'll be e-mailing and doing all the boring stuff that you always seem to forget is involved in the glitzy glamourous world of zine fests. But come along if you're in the area, July 31st at Brighton's Open Market. There'll be music and zines and lots of elastic! (intriging no?!)

 Exhibit B

So sorry for the boring post, but I'll try and work on the long-awaited Schrodinger's Cat in the Hat for next time! Cheerio!

becca xo 

Well, you asked for it...

we

So, the votes from the poll are in, and Karl Marx and Simone Weil are the winners! (Although it was a pretty close thing as you can see.) To celebrate here's a Simone Weil 'joke', of which i have no idea about the reference. My friend Stuart is doing his phD on Forgiveness and he sent this joke to me once in a text message. Perhaps if you put a nice comment on the blog he will recall the reference for us. No pressure Stu!

Anyway, Simone Weil, despite being one of my favourite philosophers, doesn't exactly 'brim' with comic potential: in fact she's up there with Adorno as one of the most austere philosophers I've ever read. If you're unfamiliar with her work then check out these quotes for starters. Could be a good 'straight man' though? Custard pie in the face routine perhaps? All ideas on a Stamped Addressed Email to rasdyer@gmail.com please....

However Mark Steel has recently opened my eyes to all the comic potential available from Marx: he sure was a colourful character! So expect lots of cartoons based on this video very soon! (I'm sort of in love with Mark Steel now)

Also, despite my attempt at garnishing your opinion about the direction of Being & Tim, I'm still a Nietzschean and therefore don't really believe in democracy! Should I have mentioned that before hand?!

See you soon suckers!! ;-)

becca xo

SUPER KANT VS. UBERMAN!

What ho! I'm feeling better, and during my convalescence from 'strange-zombie-tiredness disease' i not only watched numerous sci-fi films but manage to finish Super Kant 3! Just in case the reference to 'uberman' isn't clear, the cartoon's actually a sort of lame attempt to summarize Nietzsche's critique of Kant's aesthetics in On The Genealogy of Morality (Third essay, Section 6).

The bare bones of Nietzsche's argument here seem to be that something just can't give pleasure without interest: we're precisely interested in being right. Nietzsche thinks the idea of 'pleasure without interest' is a 'non-concept and absurdity', which relies on the presupposition that we are all possessors of a transcendental, purely rational will. I guess if we could hold such an objective standpoint then we could really understand the idea of being non-interested, but Nietzsche points out that every standpoint is couched in the conditions which allow it to thrive: it's self-preservative, and for Nietzsche, shouldn't be imposed upon others who live under different conditions. I'm not sure if it's really this that leads him to call Kant a catastrophic spider, but he does, in The Antichrist. (The Portable Nietzsche. Penguin. 1954. pp578). And Kant's comments at the end are to do with his view on animals, how we should treat them as examples of how we should treat humanity, I forget where he says this but I know I read it in that Philosophy Anthology that I had in the First Year of Uni! It's like when tamagotchi's came out and everyone was worried because if young kids starved their computer-generated dog creatures that surely meant they'd do the same to their little brother.  (Incidentally, I pretty much used exactly the same joke in another cartoon....don't tell anyone!!!) 

Also, I thought it would be funny to see how much I could get Uberman to look like John Matrix, seeing as Arnie's about as close to the stereotype of the ubermensch as you can get. However it's worth pointing out that Nietzsche's use of the German term ubermensch is gender neutral, therefore 'superhuman' is more accurate than the term 'superman'.......there are lots of other ways in which the typical view of Nietzsche-as-fascist is wrong but that's another cartoon for another time...!

Oh, and if you have time, fill out my poll! Just was interested who the coolest philosopher is!

see you soon! becca xo

first draft for Super Kant 3!

Oh dear. I wasn't on time again. And now it's time for dinner!
 Here's a rough draft of my new comic, Super Kant 3 featuring UBERMAN!

Explanation, and final copy to follow! Enjoy becca xo

uh-oh spaghetti ohs!

Well, I'm gonna come clean. I've not done a Being & Tim for today. I've been super-busy working on a poster/flyer thing for my friend's organisation compARTment (see left). They work to use derelict sites for workshops and community events and brilliant stuff like that. Anywayses, they've got some stalls at our local market, and said I could do a zinefest there if I made a poster. I kinda like it, and I definitely enjoy geeking out on photoshop! (the words are gonna go in the blue bit, I don't know what they are yet!)

But, just so you're not entirely bereft of some bad philosophy puns and toilet humour, I've also included a couple of very old sketches of Being & Tim, back when I was still working out how to draw them. They'll probably never make it into final pieces. But you never know, I've got to run out of ideas at some point!The second one's for all the Cavellians in the house....good old Stan :-)

(although for the record, his reading of Nietzsche in Cities of Words is appalling. E-mail if you wanna discuss...!)

Anyway I'll do my best to do a proper one for Monday, have a good weekend in the meantime!

beccaxo