Back in the early 00s, I was self-publishing a comic called Breakdown, which made it to seven issues. It didn't set the world alight in terms of sales, but every issue sold out (after a fashion) and there were enough people who enjoyed what I was doing to make it worthwhile. It was very much a 'Marmite' publication - those who liked it really liked it, and couldn't get enough of it. One reader constantly begged me to make it a weekly publication, rather than the 'as and when' schedule the comic tended to haphazardly follow for financial reasons (i.e. I was broke). Those who didn't like it... well...
The first issue of Breakdown was publicised on Channel Four's now defunct Teletext service, on the Planet Sound page. I'd been contributing various bits of acerbic whimsy to their 'Planet Sound' music section for a while, and I was on good terms with one of the staff members, John Earls. I sent him a copy of the first issue of Breakdown and much to my surprise, I received a free plug, which in turn generated a healthy number of mail order sales. One of the buyers, an individual who called himself 'Joincey', responded with an atrociously written letter in which he said 'Can I be blunt and honest? I didn't think Breakdown was very good. I won't go into any further detail, I'm just too polite'.
Another response came from a cartoonist called
James Harvey. Not that I knew he was a cartoonist at the time - he claimed he was on the staff of an arts magazine called
Raise and he wanted an interview. The tone of his letter seemed somewhat gauche and over-enthusiastic, and I could smell mockery, but I decided to grant him an interview anyway, which was conducted via e-mail. I even published part of his letter in the second issue of
Breakdown, which you can see below...
As you can see, the tone of his letter varied between overdone praise and unsubtle mockery. There were no spot-on, well-observed depictions of homosexual men, they were straight out of the John Inman / Larry Grayson school. I was playing around with public perceptions of gay men, much as the early Viz strip, PC Rea - the cop that's queer. When I later asked Harvey to elaborate on the reasons why he'd chosen to make a stealth attack on Breakdown solely so he could slag me off on his blog, he said he thought my comic made for 'uncomfortable reading'. Honestly. If it's comfortable reading you want, buy a bloody Mills and Boon novel, not an underground comic.
I was also aware that the idea of a TV host who swears on live television was hardly new (Roger Mellie had been saying 'bollocks' for well over two decades by that point) but my spin on the foul-mouthed presenter trope - which I thought was a credible one - was that Des O'Horror appeared to be a model host, greeting his guests effusively, before gradually destroying them with snide remarks and unflattering comments about their work, before descending into torrents of apoplectic abuse. He was indirectly inspired by Les Dawson's Cosmo Smallpiece character, whose efforts at appearing respectable were always undermined the moment the thought of sex crossed his mind, at which point he became a gurning, dribbling wreck.
Harvey was obviously drawing parallels between myself and my Jerry Winston character, a small-town chancer who's constantly trying to break into the big time with his hopeless rock band. His efforts are further hampered by the fact that he's an absolute car-wreck of a human being who even manages to drive his staunchest fans away with his foul personality. It wasn't based on me, although there is of course a small part of me in all my characters - rather, Jerry was based on every bumptious hopeful I've ever met, the pub loudmouth who claims the only thing standing between himself and his band's total world domination is the apathy and indifference of the pub audiences they play to.
Anyway, I answered all Harvey's questions, published his letter and sent him a copy of the second issue. Then he went quiet. As it turned out, the whole thing was a ruse so he could bolster his own fragile ego and slag me off on his website, a screengrab of which appears below...
This is so full of bullshit and distortion it's hard to even know where to begin. "Certain individuals who think it's funny to go around sending insulting letters to cartoonists less talented than themselves", indeed. More like 'Cunts like me who think it's funny to request interviews for non-existent arts magazines from cartoonists who don't slavishly copy Jamie Hewlett and add fuck all of their own except banal uni-student whimsy and adolescent angst whilst simultaneously
describing the likes of Charles M.Schulz as fucking dinosaurs'. That's nearer the mark, James.
I did not ramble on about anything for two pages. I may have mentioned that the kids at school didn't 'get' my work, but only because it was true. Even when I was producing fanzines at secondary school, the simplest of jokes had to be rigorously explained to the usual numpties who'd only bought my comic so they could get a cheap thrill from the swearwords and tit jokes. As for my disillusionment with electoral politics, the last time I voted in any election was in 1997... and we all know how well that turned out. Since then, I haven't bothered voting at all. To me, politics really is showbiz for ugly people, a series of sick and disgusting power games played out by narcissists and egomaniacs with the lives of ordinary people at stake. No doubt young James was the type who considered himself 'political' because he went on protest marches and fully expected the whole rotten system to crumble the moment he picked up a placard and shouted his first 'When do we want it - NOW!'
Image stolen from Wobbly Goggy's blog.
Check it out here. It really is very good.
'TC Raymond thought I was his biggest fan' - no, I didn't. I was acting out of common courtesy, something Harvey obviously lacked. Neither did I 'keep' sending him copies of my comic - I sent him a copy of issue two, and that was that. I think the last paragraph of his article - an imaginary letter he supposedly sent to me, with gratuitous tramp abuse thrown in - says it all. "Oh hwa hwa hwa! Let's have a jolly good laugh at the expense of someone I regard as beneath me! Let them eat shit!" Ugh.
Eventually, I did get Harvey to open up more about exactly why he'd taken against my comics, and as you'd expect, it boiled down to this...
He also offered what he thought was sound advice on improving my drawing skills. That was very big of him, wasn't it. When I attempted to continue the discussion, he advised me to 'go back to wanking over Bill Oddie'. Because, you know, I like
the Goodies - something which is probably so far off his hipster radar it might as well not even exist. Classy.
Not content with sneering down his fucking nose at everyone who doesn't crank out
rape comics, for fuck's sake and being a loathsome, pretentious
weeaboo dickhead, he also looks like this...
Yeah, that's a face no sane person would ever tire of slapping the shit out of with a shoe.
In short, if James Harvey offers you praise or criticism, be very wary indeed. He might just be planning to stitch you up behind your back to make himself look big in front of his chums.
