Stephen Collins

Cartoon strip by me who is Stephen Collins. The imagery of the comic starts off with a single electron and then each panel zooms out one step - first to the microchip, then the OLED screen, then the iPhone, the person holding the iPhone, and onwards Script: An electron, forged in the first fire of the Big Bang Courses through a deeply intricate maze of transistors and diodes mined with unfathomable ingenuity from our planet’s deep geological past and assembled from all over the world Into a device perfected through centuries of technological evolution to perform a beautifully synchronised pixel dance on an OLED screen in an intricate moving pattern of shifting light [Show a phone screen with an Instagram post featuring Ryan Gosling and bearing the legend:] WATCH RYAN GOSLING EAT A PASTY FOR THE FIRST TIME! whose choreography is powered by an global information network of unknowable complexity which is specifically tailored to the interests of the being observing the screen who is a member of the most advanced species on Earth [Show a shlubby looking GUY idly looking at the Ryan Gosling/sausage roll Instagram reel on his phone while sitting in his pants and a stained t-shirt and eating a massive bag of crisps] with a brain perhaps more capable of reconfiguring these signals into conscious thought than any other for billions of miles around [Guy has a thought]: “Mmm…" in this endless, silent void. [Pull back to show the Earth as a tiny blue dot among the stars with a thought bubble coming from it] "… I want a pasty.” [ends]

Zoom out 🙏 🤩 #wonder

Haha brilliant

I remember reading somewhere about how the people in the office next door to their writing room used to hear them both dying with laughter as they wrote it. Not wishing to afford him sympathy but as an arc it is objectively tragic.

I'd forgotten how wild and strange it was

My god Father Ted really stands up doesn't it. Watched it for the first time in decades tonight. Just beautiful

[Scene is ANCIENT GREECE - where SOCRATES and PLATO and others are sitting round, thinking] 1 SOCRATES: Plato.. PLATO: Yes Socrates? 2 SOCRATES: Can you tell me, are you human? PLATO: Why… yes, Socrates 3 SOCRATES: And would you agree, Plato, that a human knows what a chariot is? PLATO: Um, yep 4 SOCRATES: So you can tell me, then 5 [Socrates produces a papyrus, showing a drawing of the corner of a chariot wheel] SOCRATES: *Is that a chariot*? 6 PLATO: Well that’s more just a bit of wheel 7 SOCRATES: So not a *chariot*. PLATO: No. 8 SOCRATES: [Producing another papyrus with the full drawing of the chariot, chopped into boxes] So if a man were challenged to “tap the boxes containing chariots to prove you’re human” when he was just trying to check his ClubCard points... *where could he tap*? 9 PLATO: Well you can’t tap any of them really 10 SOCRATES: So are we not human? PLATO: ‘Spose not. 11 [Bleak pause] 12 PLATO: I’ll get the hemlock SOCRATES: Yeah [ends]

My email was successful and they will change it! I love that newspaper

No but they keep giving the joke away with headlines and I have finally snapped and SENT A POLITE EMAIL ABOUT IT

I love the Guardian they are the best people to work for. But yeah

Ryan Gosling’s pasty looks nice – but how did it get on my phone screen? The Stephen Collins cartoon We are so advanced yet so basic

Don't read this headline please, it spoils the comic!

Please click the link, read the comic, visit the Guardian! But don't read the headline!

Nnnnnng!

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

wow. What's 'teacher taught' and 'father flies' I wonder. Quite specific imagery to choose, it must have meant something to him

@dacs.org.uk

YouTube video by DACSforArtists DACS Payback - How to claim

Just got my DACS royalty payment through and I thank God for this organisation 🙏. If you're an artist who's had stuff published in books/magazines/TV/film and you haven't claimed DACS Payback Scheme before, do it for next year! It's free money, and you're owed it

youtu.be/aSOdV01vlEk?...

I should've clarified it's a reference to I'm Alan Partridge, a uk comedy show

8 minutes is so long for an apple pie but Lynn would definitely put it in for 8 minutes

I'm sitting in the hospital waiting for a thing and I keep laughing out loud to myself and trying to stop

Just remembered that Lynn put the apple pie that was hotter than the sun in the microwave for 8 minutes which is the perfectly chosen number of minutes

[Scene is a 19th century drawing room with a sign outside saying TRANSPORT INVENTORS CLUB. Inside, the German Engineer KARL BENZ is addressing a meeting of gentlemen about his new transport idea] 1 KARL BENZ: OK guys - you’re gonna love this 2 KARL BENZ: So it’s like, a box made of metal that goes at up to 120 miles an hour, yeah? [Karl shows them a diagram of a car] 3 KARL BENZ: And your drive it down one side of the road, and the boxes going the other way go on the opposite side, so we don’t need to build two roads! 4 OTHER GUY: What’s down the middle? KARL BENZ: A white line. 5 OTHER GUY: So like, a white barrier… KARL BENZ: No a white line. Drawn on the floor.  6 OTHER GUY: And who’s piloting these machines? KARL BENZ: I was thinking: random members of the public. 7 [Pause, the other guys all look with concern at Karl] 8 OTHER GUY: Karl are you OK KARL BENZ: No listen it’s fine  9  OTHER GUY: You know we’re worried about you, don’t you?  KARL BENZ: No really it’ll work - 10 KARL BENZ: Once hundreds of millions of people have died and the world’s started ending because of the fumes it’ll all be normal. 11 OTHER GUY: Is that normal like the ‘commuter travel device’ you brought in last week which was just… 12 OTHER GUY:  …an iron maiden fired from a catapult? [The other guy displays a diagram of an iron maiden being fired from a catapult] KARL BENZ: THAT WOULD’VE WORKED! [ends]

Carl Benz has an idea

Who was also the perfect drummer for that band! Poor Tony

‘It’ll be fine!’ Meet the visionary who invented the car: the Stephen Collins cartoon Random members of the public will pilot these things – it’ll be fine

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

The richest man on earth owns X.

The second richest man on earth is about to be a major owner of TikTok.

The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post.

See the problem here?

I did a wall illustration for a new mega-building of UCL Neurology last year which got cancelled because the construction company tanked. As part of the illo I had to read up a bit on what they do there. The place is astonishing. I really hope they get their new building eventually.

Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time One of the most devastating diseases finally has a treatment that can slow its progression and transform lives, tearful doctors tell BBC.

Oh my God this is so wonderful. Bra-fucking-vo UCL
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Another side note: in 1996 a choir in Norfolk refused to sing it and walked out because of the military reference in a hymn. Weird thing to get picky about

The 'jet planes' line was inspired by teaching in a school near a military airfield, around the time she wrote the song. Though I'm pretty sure there's no way she or the kids could possibly have witnessed them actually refuelling - it happens way too high and fast. Happy to be corrected on this tho

One of the striking things about the Mother of all Assembly Earworms is how secular it is when you look at the lyrics. Most of the things mentioned in the song aren't about God, or even autumn, but rather just a joy of being alive and vitally interested in the world.

Estelle White wrote the song and there's not much info about on her. Seems she was a pretty impressive woman, did a lot of good. In her obituary her family described her as having an electric blue convertible sports car and always being wreathed in fag smoke from a long cigarette holder

[Scene is a 1960s suburban sitting room, with a grand piano in it. The religious songwriter ESTELLE WHITE is sat at the piano, with a rotary phone sat on top of the lid. She is on the phone to her music publisher, someone I've made up called JERRY] 1 ESTELLE WHITE: OK Jerry I’ve got another banger for you 2 ESTELLE WHITE: Listen to this! [She slams the receiver on the top of the piano]. 3 ESTELLE WHITE [hammering on the piano]: AUTUMN DAYS WHEN THE GRASS IS JEWELLED AND THE SILK INSIDE A CHESTNUT SHELL! JET PLANES MEETING IN THE AIR TO BE REFUELLED, ALL THESE - JERRY [voice from the phone handset]: Eh? 4 JERRY: What was that last bit, Estelle? ESTELLE WHITE: “Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled”… 5 JERRY: Is that a thing you often see in autumn? ESTELLE WHITE [Smoking from a long cigarette holder]: All the time, Jerry. Aaaaall the time.... 6 JERRY: Nothing to do with it being the only thing that rhymes with ‘jewelled’? ESTELLE WHITE: No! 7 ESTELLE WHITE: It’s one of the high-speed, high-altitude feats of military aviation one often sees in autumn time. 8 JERRY: What about leaves and squirrels and - ESTELLE WHITE: Now listen, Jerry. 9 ESTELLE WHITE: Do you want a crap hymn about conkers… 10 ESTELLE WHITE: Or do you want an all-time earworm banger that everyone who hears it will sing in their heads, every single time they see a fallen leaf, until the day they die? 11 JERRY: OK… sorry… carry on… 12 ESTELLE WHITE: FROS-TY WINDOWS ON HARR-IER JUMPJETS AND THE SMELL OF NUCLEAR SUB-MAR-INES… JERRY: How about acorns? [ends]

Autumn days when the grass is jewelled

I think it's because we only ever encounter them one at a time in life, so it is only when in B&Q that we are presented with a buffet of all the different shapes. We forget!

My people!

"Almost all" what kind of shapeshifting phantasm is this, Jim?

It must have had a connector fitting with about 20 holes!!