London Zine Symposium This Sunday!

I'm rather looking forward to the weekend ahead.  Having spent the last weekend doing vile, debauched things, it's going to be really rather awesome to have quite so much to look forward to for the beginning of May, plus I'm quite sure you'd much rather hear about cute little zines and comics I've picked up rather than sordid details of my sex life, right?  Right?

Anyway, moving swiftly onwards.

There's a Thingbox party this Saturday.  I'm worried that it all sounds a bit like an OUTintheUK meet or something, but, like a fool, I will be going along anyway.  Luckily, I can't stay terribly late because of having the London Zine Symposium on the Sunday.

I'm really rather excited about having a tiny bit of table space for this, as it's horribly over-subscribed so there's a vetting process for who gets a table there.  As such, I'm hoping that it means there'll be some really good stuff to see and a wonderful, discerning crowd of comics fans and zinesters coming along to spend their way out of the pig flu crisis.  Or the recession.  Or terrorism.  Or whatever it is we're meant to be panicking about this week.

Then, it's the Recon Full Fetish party in the evening, so I'll probably lose any money I earn by spending it on beer.  Woo!

How is Pig Flu Spread? Am I At Risk? Let d20 rules help

Swine Flu
Necromancy [Evil]

Level: Clr 4, Destruction 4, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 5
Component: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: 10 ft cone
Target: Porcine, human or metahuman creatures within range
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

Swine Flu is an advanced form of Contagion cast most often as the death-curse of a high-level Were-Boar Shaman.  Material component is a herd of pigs, boars or similar porcine creatures, who are also affected by the spell.  Upon casting, the caster sneezes a 10 ft cone, forcing all within the area of effect to save vs Fortitude or become infected with the specialist disease, Swine Flu.  Unlike Contagion, the disease still has an incubation period.  Characters with Evasion may substitute a reflex save for the Fortitude save, but cannot automatically dodge the effect.

After one day, infected porcine, human and demi-human subjects become carriers for the disease.  Every 1d20+20 minutes, they sneeze a 10 ft cone as above, causing the rapid spread of the disease.  While sleeping, the interval between sneezing fits becomes once every 1d4 hours.

After three days, the subject is allowed a second Fortitude save.  Failure causes 1 point of temporary damage to all physical abilities.  This save is required every day from then on until the victim has successfully saved on three consecutive days, at which point the victim is no longer infectious and can begin to recover lost ability points as normal.  The DC for the save becomes one point easier for every successful saving throw. 

Victims of Swine Flu whose physical attributes reach zero are killed.  Once infected, victims cannot be cured except by Remove Curse, or a Limited Wish.  Cure disease allows the victim another saving throw which can count towards their recovery.

Total bed rest gives a +2 to saves against this disease.  Medical attention grants a stacking +2.

Sources:
D20SRD.ORG : http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#disease
BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8019882.stm

I hope this helps us to understand this hideous disease a little better.

Remember when Amyl Nitrate was Some Guy's Name?

Poor Bea. I like this video - goes to show how fucking tame stuff like Avenue Q really is. We're so very, very repressed as a society today.

One more Golden Girl at the Pearly Gates...

Tweaker Mum's Thoughts on the Budget

Tweaker Mum's Thoughts on the Budget, originally uploaded by zombiecoterie.

True Story.

It Wasn't Your Fault

It Wasn't Your Fault, originally uploaded by zombiecoterie.

Put this together to learn more about making shapes in InDesign. It's based on a biometric installation at the Wellcome Collection that creates an image based on your heart rate, fingerprint and other details. The mantra around the outside is something I should learn to believe.

Vaguely tempted to use it as a tattoo.

Cute But Sad 5: Untitled

Cute But Sad 5: Untitled, originally uploaded by zombiecoterie.

The new comic has arrived from the printer and it looks beautiful. It's a 12-page story based on an idea of writing short, poetic stories from the other lives I could have led if I'd made different choices in life. This one tells the story of a life where I love a beautiful young woman and the heavy sense of loss that follows.

If you'd like a copy, I'm selling them for £2 plus £1 postage (UK, £2.50 international) and you can have a copy if you paypal the money to hhardiman at gmail.com with your address in it.

I might have to have a little launch party for it. I'm thinking next Wednesday, the 22nd of April up at the Retro Bar. Fancy it?

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=71264143903

Punk Love

Punk Rock Love BW, originally uploaded by zombiecoterie.

So, we went to Tate Britain over in Pimlico to see the Altermodern exhibition. It had looked so very promising, with the Simone Lia history of modern art and then, as we approached, the mushroom cloud of tin cans looked incredible and made an interesting (if slightly tired) point about the climate.

Went in, spent some time adoring Bob and Roberta Smith's work, and... well... that was about it for the good stuff. I felt a tiny bit cheated when the site was all manifesto and allusions to novelty and what there was just felt like another failed attempt to re-create the buzz around the Sensations exhibition, just with the visceral shock of it watered down to a slightly infantile level. Poo Jesus? Please.

After tea and disappointment cake in the Members' Room (heh), Robin and I went up to the Cafe in the Crypt for lunch and I did a little doodle of the crypt, but got too annoyed with the woman staring over my shoulder from the table next to us and instead drew the Crypt with all the patrons fleeing from a tiny fire-breathing dragon. It was meant to be huge, but perspective is a bitch.

Eventually, full of pork sandwich and rage, I parked myself in the ICA bar and sketched on in peace (other than the cruising guy who kept ignoring his meeting to stare at my crotch. Nice.) and put together the drawing you see above, for http://howfuckingromantic.blogspot.com where they set the challenge for a bunch of comics artists and illustrators to do something based on each of The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs. I picked out Punk Love and Nothing Matters When We're Dancing. The lyrics run up to just three words, so I figured I'd get Punk Love out of the way first. I did do a colour version (on Flickr) but I think I prefer this.

Forgot what time it was and didn't leave myself any time to actually look at art at the ICA and had to rush off to meet Caroline for dinner in the ultra-alternative haven of indie-rock bliss that is the Westfield Shopping Centre. So much for West London's throbbing art vibe. Still, it's always good to see her and I picked up a book that might help me prepare for the Illustration MA interview.

I've still got no fucking idea how I'm going to pay for that course if I'm accepted on that and can't find a job in the meantime. Pish, though. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Nachos for Breakfast!

Yep, it's Bank Holiday Monday!

The weekend's been a funny one. Last night, I wound up in a sex club because it was the only place that the music wasn't too loud, ranting at a man about Titian and Caravaggio until half three in the morning when I thought perhaps he might want to go off and have sex, rather than listen to me wax about colour and chiaroscuro. So, I took my penis out of his mouth and sent him packing.

It's made me think, though, that I really missed out on a fuck load of brilliant things over Easter because I've just been too busy being in a bit of a funk and spending too long either drawing or talking to people on the internet about Battlestar Galactica and looking at yet more hilarious links on facebook talking about how Jesus is a zombie. Woah, that's new, kids!

So, I've decided that I need to spend more time up to the elbow in the love of my life. Yup, I'm going to fist this city for all it's worth this week. First off, a gentle little poke with a trip to Alternamodernism at Tate Britain tomorrow, then a knuckle of coffee at the ICA, a poke of dinner with Caroline, then a deep breath and the next finger goes in. London looks at the bottle of poppers and I dive in to the Wellcome Collection on the day when I should have been having my arm hacked open and bone chiselled out. Third finger goes in. London says it needs me to take it slowly. So, Thursday, I'm going to try to do an illustrated version of one of The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs, then play superhero games with the boys. On Friday, London's all lubed up and ready for the last big push. Deep breath, wince. Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea? New Whitechapel Gallery? Can London take it past the knuckles? I'm hoping that on Friday night I can convince people to go to see Johnny Woo, Le Gateau Chocolat and Underground Velvet at a Warhol-inspired night at Shunt and that this will send London's head into a spin, my fist right up in its seedy, grim arse and I can just push forward into the weekend with its pulse on my wrist until I can find so much to do there that I can get my fingernails into the city's throbbing heart and rip it out and eat it.

Fuck you, Vauxhall, with your stupid discos and your pupils the size of the craters in your face. My love for the gay club scene's vanishing faster than the hair on the scalp of a trans woman who heard about the Charing Cross clinic too late. Saying I love London but only seeing Chiswick, Vauxhall and the roads to Brockley just isn't good enough.

Who's coming with me on this adventure? Got any recommendations for fucked up strange places to go, see or do? I'm thinking seedy performance spaces where ugly men cut themselves while we cheer them on, I'm thinking martinis with a view over the world below, I'm thinking awful, stumbling cabaret. I'm thinking acid, not G. I'm thinking life drawing in the Eating Disorders Clinic. I'm thinking London needs us.

Take my hand, London. Take it, like the dirty fist-pig you are. Take it until the culture bleeds out.

Bunnies and Dead Men

So, now I'm moved across to Chiswick, I might even get back into blogging - especially since all the mundane stuff like insurance and bills and the like are sorted and I can think about other stuff, without boring you to death with the details. Suffice to say, we're settled in and didn't get thrown out for having a flatwarming party where we watched 1man1jar with a lot of people who haven't seen it before. There were actual screams of horror. It was really very satisfying, although you could still hear the wonderful little *ping!* as the glass breaks inside him.

I'm still struggling to find the wild, decadent, seething, bohemian underbelly of Chiswick. I suspect it might be as impossible as it sounds, but it's been really good in any case to be able to re-connect with people who live out West. Obviously, I abandoned them all the moment I last left West London so it's a good chance to make amends now I'm a bit closer. People of South-East London beware, though - I still have a car, so no-where is truly safe!

Should any of you know of any wild, writhing bohemian etc. side to Chiswick, please do let me know. Spring's certainly in the air at the moment with all of us - the number of tracks I've had on Gaydar has pretty much doubled and I almost walked into a tree on the way to the supermarket earlier looking at a cute bloke walking past, so I suspect I should find myself an outlet for all this creative energy.

The last couple of days, I've been taking commissions to do sketches for a fiver for people. It's been really interesting to do sketches that are explicitly for other people and are expecting something good in return. The temptation's been to change my drawing style, or spend too long on them, but people seem happy with the results so far. I'll post them on here in a bit, they're like Polaroids from parallel worlds or something. I might have to try to do something with that idea. Hmm.

Anyway, I'm off to join the herd and head down to Retro Bar to watch Doctor Who and then I'm going to head over to Duckie for the night! Jonathan's out for most of the weekend after that, leaving me plenty of time to find that wild underbelly!