Hello, friends,
A new character is making her first appearance in the Merrie England strip today; a new witch, indeed.
In creating this strip I’ve read a fair amount of the history of the witches in England and this latest character is very loosely based around one of the real-life “witches” of Lancashire, most of whom were executed by hanging. Her name is taken from the original records of the time.
The shameful truth about these beldames is that of course, they had no magic powers and couldn’t put a curse on anyone. They lived in the most crippling poverty, were virtually starving and freezing, had no education of any kind and so traded on their supposed powers as a way of achieving some kind of repsect or standing in their communities.
Equally, the rest of the poulation was grossly under-educated and cripplingly credulous. They had almost no real critical faculties when it came to magic and beliefs. They had seldom been far beyond the edges of their own villages, had little formal schooling and had all been raised to believe that their local priest had a direct line to God. And that the folk who still followed “the old ways” were evil witches, in league with the horned one himself.
These were hard times for free thinkers or for anyone who didn’t conform.
All that said, these very real characters of the time provide fertile ground for an imagination such as mine; somewhere between enthusiastic six-year-old boy and world-weary, ageing skeptic.
So occasionally, my witches do have powers!
As always, the last strip is the latest and the preceding three pick up the story line afresh..
Cartoon Channel on You Tube | A New Departure
I started on this idea back in February. I would film myself drawing cartoons and put the resulting videos up on YouTube. It seemed like a good plan and might even result in something of a new career for this old advertising hack.
It’s surprising how cheaply you can do this stuff. In fact, for many, their mobile phone is enough.
But it’s a tough old market to break into with any impact and I’ve now posted a great number of video films and “shorts” without making much of an impression at all.
You can go and take a look at the channel here, if you wish. Maybe you could give me a bit of a “roasting” and tell me what’s wrong with these films. Whatever you think, YouTube doesn’t serve them up to many people at all! You can’t expect to be getting tens of thousands of views if YouTube is only showing your film in a few hundred viewers’ feeds.
Most galling of all is when I watch videos uploaded by some pretty ordinary artists with no special screen charisma or clever film planning and see that they’ve had 150,000 views and have 25,000 subscribers. There’s something about their work that makes YouTube serve it up to millions of viewers, with predictable results.
I’m not talking about people well-known in the cartoon sector, either. One or two just have a pencil, a piece of paper, and a bored TV manner.
My “click through rate”, or CTR as we media types call it, is respectable. All I need is for YouTube to serve up my little “thumbnails” for people to click on. But they don’t seem to want to.
Maybe I should do the films in the nude, or in drag? “The Cross Dressing Cartoonist Presents…”? “The One-Armed Cartoonist!” Or possibly “How To Draw Cartoons During a Parachute Jump”? “Watch As I Draw A Cartoon Cowboy Whilst Riding an Elephant”!
It’s hard to know what to change but in truth, I suspect that I simply haven’t done enough films to have perfected my style. After all, the usual reason for not making a great success of something comes down to hard work, doesn’t it? There’s no use blaming anyone but I can assure you, I want to!
I’ll be making a few changes soon. I’ll spend time on a script. I haven’t done much scripting before because I’m actually demonstrating something, rather than telling people about it. So it’s all a bit “here are the eyes, which I draw like this” and “here is the hair” or perhaps “this is how to draw in perspective”. You’d think that precise scripting would be unnecessary for that sort of thing, wouldn’t you?
But then, when I think about it, David Attenborough narrates wildlife action that we can all see for ourselves, and that is most certainly scripted.
Maybe the thing to do is create the drawing video and then do a voiceover?
Hey, that’s a great idea! I’ll give it a go! Maybe I’ll add music, too..
That’s the great thing about proper communication. Once you talk it through, you very soon come up with a viable answer. I’m so glad you took the time to help me out.
Voiceover it is, then!
On the subject of voices, I have been told on multiple occasions that I have a very nice voice.
This is not a boast, as one can’t take credit for things that are just genetic or accidental.
When Leona and I were first together, I used to phone her at work. Her colleagues - all nurses and mostly female - would, it seems, put me on hold and say meaningfully and with flashing eyes, “It’s for you. It’s THE VOICE!”
So, let’s see if I can put it to service.
In the meantime, here’s a video for you. See you soon.
The Church, with a capital C, was rather like today's Taliban. If you didn't turn up at church on a Sunday, you could be fined an amount far greater than these folk could afford. Essentially, they had no money of any kind and the Church, with a capital C, used that to crush them. In 14th Century England, Christianity wasn't a choice; it was an obligation. People were burned at the stake during Henry VIII's time just for suggesting that the bible should be written in English so that ordinary people could make up their own minds about its content. Henry preferred the prevailing idea that only priests should really understand what was in the "good book".
Glad you're seeing the fun side of this, though, and thanks for the comment!
Love it! Pretty crazy thought that the church would insist on burning and hanging people who still wanted to follow ‘the old ways’.