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Email subscriptions now via Jetpack rather than Mailpoet.
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The end of the line in Austria, and a floating opera house.
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Rare plants high up in the Alps.
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Austria does charity shops right.
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The home of Milka chocolate and spectacular views.
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A pretty market town on the Czech border.
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A paper on the connections between Diana Wynne Jones’ Fire and Hemlock, T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, and other literature.
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A roundup of the books I read in 2023.
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A recipe for salted caramel and chocolate brownies.
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A preview of my travel writing book.
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See the other thrills available in Reichenthal.
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In which I venture through the infernal woods, protected by a tiny horse shoe.
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A visit to the Kafka Museum in Prague.
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The works of Czech Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha.
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Prague in the winter of 2022 when there were no tourists.
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A Baroque monastery in Upper Austria.
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The Hanseatic merchant hometown of marzipan (and Thomas Mann).
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The former last town in West Germany.
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High up in the Kalkalpen National Park.
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Austria isn’t an alpine utopia.
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2023 diaries now available.
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2023 calendars now available.
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Goat comics for fans of Borges and Le Guin. Volume two is finally here.
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No is a great word.
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This is a tape that doesn’t exist.
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The former Checkpoint Alpha between East and West Germany.
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German supermarkets are wild places.
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A small town on the old border with East Germany.
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In and out through Alexanderplatz.
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Bratislava after a long break.
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In search of Heidi.
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An idyllic time in the Austrian Alps.
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October 2021 was the first time I returned to Vienna in 18 months as well. I was born and grew up in the UK, but have spent a chunk of…
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A detour to the Kent countryside.
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On my way home from Milan.
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When I was doing the artwork last November for my 2022 calendar, I had two dreams of what the pages looked like. My brain was firm that the April artwork…
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While in Milan, I also bought a ticket to the cathedral and attached museum.
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When you say to people “I’m going to Italy for work” they think you’re going to go to some sun-kissed medieval tourist spot to live la bella vita, when the…
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In September 2021 I returned to teaching EFL abroad. I had come home from Austria in March 2020, and then not taught at all for 18 months. It was a…
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I recently did some more illustrations/cryptic symbolism for my friend’s band Dawnwalker. All to be revealed later.
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My goal this year is to read 100 books, but also regularly write small reviews of them. Here’s the first instalment, with Alan Garner, Seanan McGuire and Matt Wesolowski.
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I was reading about a Chinese tradition similar to an advent calendar that starts on this day. It’s 81 days until the Spring, and that makes a neat grid of…
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My 2022 calendar is now ready – you can order calendars and prints of the artwork here.
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I got some vinyl stickers of my artwork printed up (after some long twists and turns with printing companies and the current goods/delivery shortages in the UK). £1.75 each (inc…
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Something I have been thinking about recently is how much the internet itself has changed in the past few years, possibly not for the better. I like the convenience of…
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(Palazzo Orsini in Italy photographed by Herbert List in the 1930s) The weather has turned sunny and hot, so here is a playlist of gloomy synthpop and darkwave (with a…
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I’ve made a children’s activity book about various locations in Margate, with open-ended drawing and writing activities that encourage observation, exploration and creativity, with very clear layouts and instructions. Suitable…
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This is probably the end of the line for me making zines. There’s no big dramatic or bad reason, I just hadn’t been feeling it any more for quite a…
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Another Dr Oetker cookbook from a charity shop in Austria, focusing on winter and Christmas treats this time. I don’t really have much to say about this one, I just…
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Secrets! Mysteries! Forbidden powers of the forest!
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I’ve been tired and busy lately. Here’s a great bubble gum advert from the 80s with a Kraftwerk-meets-Eurythmics soundtrack, and some odds and ends of interesting links.
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In the UK we’ve been in pandemic lockdown since December. I’ve used the time to make a book of comics. It’s finally finished and I sent the files to the…
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A short interview with my friend, illustrator Sajan Rai. I first met Sajan when we were assigned adjoining tables at a zine fair, and he was offering to draw people…
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If I remember my dreams I try to write them down in a notebook, to use for later inspiration. The one I’ve been using suddenly fell apart yesterday. I tried…
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In the Bonesetter’s Waiting Room, The Making of Home and Woman on the Edge of Time. Indian medicine, social history, the brutality of psychiatric hospitals and ecofeminist utopias.
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I’ve been working on these comics for a while now, and the first collection is now available for pre-order. It has some older black and white comics redone in colour,…
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My reading for January and February
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After multiple people asked me, I did a print design of everyone’s favourite neotenous, cute but somewhat cannibalistic Mexican salamander.
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I had dream that there was a craze for parmesan-infused mineral water, and everyone was obsessed with the stuff. I didn’t like it, and was considered extremely uncool.
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I haven’t eaten meat since the late 90s. Vegetarianism was on the rise at the time in the UK, but the selection of meat-free products was very poor compared with…
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I did the artwork for this quite a while ago, but had to keep it under wraps until it was on TV. My friend Melanie King was commissioned by ITV…
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I got this postcard from a supermarket in a small town in NW Germany near where the festival is held. I hope it has genuine Rammstein tears in the soil…
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The building I live in was built in the 1870s, and still has the original wooden windows. Well-looked after original examples are highly prized in the UK. Unfortunately mine were…
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(Forbidden Books by Alexander Rossi) Every year I do the Goodreads Challenge. In 2020 my target was 52 books and I ended up reading 56. It looks like I won’t…
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I was given this book as a gift as a child. I never made anything from it because it’s definitely much too difficult for children, I just admired the projects.
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Happy Christmas, if you celebrate it. I was brought up unreligious, by unbelieving parents, in a not very religious country, and there are no young children in my immediate family,…
