I never got around to posting about this, here on my main website!
For two years, from 2013 to 2015, I worked as an ALT (assistant language teacher) at a senior high school in Utsunomiya, Japan. During that time, I put a lot of extra hours into creating illustrated worksheets, games, and other lesson materials for my classes. I shared some with other teachers and got some enthusiastic feedback, so I started compiling and formatting the materials into PDFs, with full instructions so that any teacher could download and use them.
(At the time of writing, there are still some materials yet to be formatted and uploaded. I’ve been busy!)
These lesson materials represent two years of my work as a cartoonist and creator, and include some of the best and most worthwhile illustration I’ve ever done. I even made a board game! So even though it’s not comics, I’d encourage you to take a look, if you follow my work. I feel like this is my humble equivalent of Will Eisner’s army manuals — those actually useful things he made, in between The Spirit and helping to invent the graphic novel.
And along with creating lesson materials, it was also a part of my job to do… The Morning Speech. (Again: Volume 2 yet to come!)
I don’t do a lot of fan art, and when I do I don’t know if ‘fan art’ is a suitable term for it because I’m basically making fun of everything 100% of the time, even the stuff I like. Well, here are a couple of pieces from my sketchbook that I ended up going all the way with. I love Die Hard with all of my heart, and I have mixed and complicated but broadly affectionate feelings about Archie comics.
Both of these pictures are available to buy as prints from society6:
John McClame, an original character, was sitting in the office of the dad from Family Matters, who had risen to become the boss of all the policemen in America. They were both old, grey, and world-weary, but only John was grizzled, and that was really the only way to tell them apart because I’m not a racist.
“You look like hell, John,” said the dad from Family Matters.
“I feel like it,” smirked John. “Nine-thirty in the morning and I haven’t had several beers yet.”
The dad from Family Matters laughed, and not a sympathetic chuckle like you would expect, but a big, bellowing guffaw, with his head thrown back and his palms slapping the desk, for about 90 seconds; it was startling and weird. Then he said: “How’s Holly?”
John did a sad squint. “She divorced me, Carl. She divorced me again. We’ve been divorced seventeen times now. That means we could get married sixteen times and we’d still be divorced. You got a light?” John had put a tobacco smoking cigarette between his lips and was patting his pockets, but he was only wearing a singlet and underpants so he didn’t have any pockets. “She don’t want nothin’ to do with me. She changed her name to Maximillian Whippet-Sharpener. She moved to France and got a job as the front half of a pantomime giraffe, in a pantomime zoo. They’ve got this… this whole pantomime zoo, Carl. Just people in animal costumes. You’ve gotta see it to believe it.”
The dad from Family Matters listened and nodded with the kindly eyes and simple wisdom of no race in particular. Suddenly fifteen trucks exploded.
“So how about you, Carl?” John said with a smirk. “Still a desk jockey, huh? Couldn’t take the heat?” He leaned out the window and lit his cigarette on a flaming truck that was flying past, demonstrating that he, John McClame, could take the heat.
The dad from Family Matters pursed his lips and looked up at the ceiling, and his hands balled into fists on the desk. You might think, “Oh, he’s inspecting the light fittings, and some mosquitoes landed on his palms so he’s squishing the mosquitoes, and also he doesn’t want any mosquitoes to fly into his mouth,” but actually it means he was sad. John noticed this due to his sensitive side.
“I shot a kid, John,” said the dad from Family Matters. “I shot a kid.”
“Jeez, Carl, I’m sorry man,” said John, smirking as little as possible.
“I just keep shooting ‘em, John. Water pistols… candy bars… yo-yos… tricycles… they all look like guns to me. I just keep shooting kids wherever I go, man. I shot fifteen kids this morning.”
“You’re a good cop, Carl,” said John, barely smirking at all. “You’re a good cop. You gotta believe that.”
“Hands, John. Hands look like guns; you ever notice that? The teacher says, ‘Now children, does anybody have a question for Officer Winslow?’ and blam! That’s twenty-five dead kids. Blam!” The dad from Family Matters put his face into his hands and began to sob. “Blam! B-blam!”
“It was an accident, Carl,” said John, smirking not even once. “Everybody makes accidents.” Gently but firmly he drew the dad from Family Matters’ hands away from his face and dried each tear with the burning tip of his cigarette. Then he put the cigarette back in his mouth and kissed the dad from Family Matters softly on the lips.
For a crucial moment they gazed into each other’s eyes. “Was that an accident, cowboy?” breathed the dad from Family Matters at last.
John pressed his calloused palm against the new friend standing between his old friend’s legs. It was as hard as a leftover twinkie from the 1980s, and bigger than average, though purely by coincidence and not for any specific, innate reason. “Yippee-ki-yay,” he whispered into the dad from Family Matters’ ear, “me-fucker.”
They got naked and made hot love inside each other; rough, determined dick-fucking with an undercurrent of grim patriotism. They were both eighty-five years old. They fucked and fucked until their pendulous old balls had run out of cum and they were shooting dusty air up each other’s arseholes. John was chain-smoking the entire time.
When it was over, the dad from Family Matters said, “America needs you for one last mission, John McClame.”
“No can do,” said John. “I always get unappreciated and I’m tired of that.”
The dad from Family Matters nodded. “I respect your decision and won’t try to change your mind. You’re an old man and entitled to a peaceful retirement. Thanks for coming in, John.” They shook hands and John McClame went home and had a nice, hot cup of tea.
