You know I can’t resist making cards for people.

I was over in Edinburgh earlier this year and I was in a Paperchase shop and it was that day that I realised I was a queer. I sent scalding hot jets of liquid magma all over the cashier’s spots as she wrapped up all my purchases, coloured envelopes, glitter pens, fancy paper. I love it! I really do.

Here is my first Spanish card.

And a Chinese one for the cutest little woman I work with.

This is the best thing I’ve seen in ages. Creepy stuff.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

So I was 9. My family had decided to leave Ireland and move to Canada. It was deadly. That year changed my life. Coming from the knacker fest of 1980’s Tallaght to the model civility and opulence of middle class suburban Toronto was such a shock and a mind broadening experience.

My parents were blown away too. They couldn’t believe how our neighbours would leave perfectly usable thing likes sofas BMX’s and radios out on their lawn for refuse collection. We changed our furniture regulary thanks to the kind disposers. We soon became the knackers. My folks would have constant Barbeques and outdoor drinking sessions to the annoyance of our neighbours. We were all giddy. It was like living in a corny TV show, in fact the Kids from De Grassi was filmed locally and everybody knew kids who had starred in it.

Everything was great, school was a doddle, me and my brothers were the smartest non Asian kids ever to hit that place. I ran circles around the teacher. I had 2 girlfriends on the go and they both knew about each other. The sweets and soft drinks were incredible, the pizzas were amazing, if fact our school would have a Pizza Day every month or so were we all got Pizza. I’m digressing but here are some of the things I did IN school:

-Made a tie-die T-shirt
-Flew in a hot air balloon
-Wrote a rap version of Cinderella and performed it all over the school
-Produced a book about Court Jesters
-Won 2 massive art competitions (prizes were a small ghetto blaster, crisps and a gift voucher
-Became a reading tutor to a dyslexic kid 2 years younger than me (got paid in gift vouchers)
-Learned to ice skate, play baseball and handball

But the single most amazing thing was Canada’s Wonderland. A huge theme park only 40 mins away from our house. It had record breaking roller coasters and all that but the most enthralling feature was Hanna Barbara world, a mini theme park based on all the cartoon characters. It was huge. HUGE. And within that theme park within a theme park was Smurf Village.

The place where I would change from a casual, disorganised boy-thief to a concentrated adolescent shoplifter……..

The Smurfs have had a profound effect on my life, work and attitude. Over the next few days I will tell all about me stealing endless handfuls of Smurf figures in Canada, my attempts to capture a real Smurf as a kid and my ripping off of them in my professional life as a half-arsed designer.

We went to the Smurf Exhibition in the Comic Museum over in Brussels a couple of weeks ago and it rocked my world.

The comic museum is great but let me emphatically declare that I hate Tin Tin who hogged a fair bit of the attention over there. People always ask me if I liked Tin Tin growing up and I politely say no. I was into OINK. Tin Tin is like James Blunt or the Lighthouse Family while OINK was Minor Threat. No comparison.

The museum exhibition was to celebrate the 50 year anniversary of our witto blue fwends and featured loads of original artwork, details and photos from Peyo the creator’s life and a few lame things thrown together. But it was swell though.

The Smurfs were originally ancillary characters in an otherwise boring Prince-on-a-quest comic series, But the public loved the little blue men so much that they quickly eclipsed the Prince character. Here are some early designs from an animated short Peyo worked on when he was young. Undoubtedly the prototype Smurf

When they first appeared in the comic, they looked like this.

Nearly there but far too elongated. Shorter, stout figures are much more suited to the format Peyo worked in. You lose a little in pose-ability but they’re much easier to ‘read’ when the proportions are shorter and stubby. The Smurfs are a master class in Character Design and should be studied for that alone even if you’re not fond of them.

NEXT: I am Gargamel. I stole my weight in Smurf figures.

PS: No inane comments please about all the Smurfs riding Smurfette etc. We ALL want to bang her so leave it at that.

Yes yes, it’s true, I’m planning a night course in storytelling and comic production. I have a lot to impart to beginners or frustrated artists. I can teach you all the sneaky shortcuts used by the masters, all the horrible boring things like lettering and colouring and an in depth how-to on drawing digitally.

The plan is to have 8 x 90 minute classes with about 12 people. I’m struggling trying to find a venue though so if anybody knows somewhere decent where I can hook up a laptop and a projector please let me know.

I’ll post a full syllabus soon but from people I’ve talked to already I might need to have two separate courses. One for people who want to concentrate on art and another that covers production; from writing, drawing to publishing a comic.

So it’s all good in the hood. Post a comment or email with venue suggestions.

Anybody close to me knows of my addiction to Howard Stern. I listen to his 5 hour show 4 days a week and then specials over the weekend. I love it. I file all the shows away on a special hard drive dedicated to Stern.

Before stumbling on to a torrent download of a show around 3 years ago, my only exposure to Stern was the mediocre movie Private Parts and he’d pop up in MAD magazine now and then. The first show I downloaded was Artie’s Roast and I became hooked. They were slagging him about his Dad falling off a roof and becoming quadriplegic and how nurses had to scoop his crap out with their fingers. No holds barred comedy.

Stern moved away from terrestrial radio 3 years ago and is now on satellite radio completely uncensored. Uncensored. I now have an incredible, deep hatred of Irish radio and all the dunces who listen to it. Ray Darcy, Sean Moncreif etc are horrible, sedate phonies. You COULD listen to them for hours everyday no problem the same way you could eat grey sludge everyday for dinner. I hate Irish commercial radio. If you think you enjoy listening to it you are wrong.

Artie Lange is a part of the Stern Show. I don’t like his stand up but his wisecracks and impromptu one liners are classic. But the most enthralling thing about Artie is his personal life, a litany of drug addictions, and fucked up stories. I listen to these people for 5 hours a day so I know them better than anybody in my real life. He’s kicked heroin and drink recently but it’s always possible that he’ll die over the weekend. I’m addicted. I’m sucked in.

His autobiography Too Fat too Fish is out this month, I’ve pre-ordered the thing. I’m going to save it for Christmas.

Firing and attacking his assistant

Artie cracking up at a granny porn clip

You can get Stern shows on any torrent site. If you’re stuck at a desk all day it’ll save your life.

Drew lots of nonsense on holidays a few weeks ago

And here’s an oldie but goodie