Well blow me down with a giant cartoon wolf if it isn’t a whole month since the stalk came to Don Studios and gifted us with a tiny squinty-eyed weak-necked little thing that expressed itself in wibbles and squeaks that sounded like miniature squidlings falling down crystal staircases.

My lord I do hate that “they grow up so fast” cliche, but holy cow if they don’t grow up fucking fast. Aged one month, slit-eyed Hercules is now wide-eyed Hercules, gazing around in wonder at everything and everyone, big bobble head held high by mighty neck muscles, exercised daily by a warrior godchild who crawled two inches and achieved multiple head press ups over a week ago.

The beautiful, fragile pearls of noise that once emitted from his tiny face have been replaced by an elaborate and ever morphing sequence of grunts, wails and Pterordactylian shrill expressions of surprise, confusion, and indignation. Meanwhile the black ooze that once emitted from his nether regions has been replaced by a thick bright yellow pase that explodes from his ass button like a TV art show experiment, covering all that comes in its path. SHIT DONE CHANGED SON.

(Ahaha! Accidentally joke! Bonus!)

HEAR YE THIS HUMANS! HAVING A BABY IS NOT FOR NOSTALGISTS! YOU WILL JUST BE STRAIGHT WEEPING AT THE TERROR OF THE PASSAGE OF TIME!

Luckily I live in the future, as you know well. And here in my cosy forever hindsight, I am able to digest the things I have discovered  and shit them out as PUREST ROSE PROSE for you, my good good people. And because you like lists, here’s a gem I’m dropping that goes by the name of  SIX THINGS I HAVE LEARNED ABOUT HAVING A BABY IN MY FIRST MONTH OF HAVING A BABY!

1: BABIES MUST BE BURPED AND BURPED WELL, ELSE THEY WILL LIVE IN AGONY AND YOU WILL ALL SUFFER

It took a few days of impassioned tragedy emanating from the general direction of Hercules to work out that our previously merry-tempered son had not transformed into a rabid hell monster but was just full of gas… gas that must be worked out of his system via firm  and well placed percussive slaps and Mr Miyagian wax on wax offing. I am a fucking master at this now, and everybody is happy again. An interesting side effect is that one becomes totally overjoyed to be puked upon, as it means your burping has worked, and your baby is going to be a lot more comfortable. The pride I felt when I forst got Herc to puke white chunks all over my shoulder was some heady shit that I will never forget.

2: BABY TECHNOLOGY IS TOO FUCKING HARD

I have no idea why this should be the case, but Baby technology is way harder to use than grown up stuff.  Like, there’s this baby massage chair we have that  that sort of vibrates and sings nursery rhymes. You’d think there’d be a nice easy off button that one could use to  - #MEGADUH – switch the thing off with one’s free hand when removing one’s no-longer-placated baby, but nooooooo… just some goddamna annoying squashy flashing panel that you have to hold down with two thumbs for five minutes before it stops, by which time one’s baby has gone into some sort of hyper-meltdown, has removed the wall tiles with sheer force of screamy anguish, and is climbing up your hair like you were that lazy chick in the tower in that story. And don’t get me started on fucking pushchairs. We have this Quinny Buzz thing, which had been recommended to me by James from The Hackney pearl, and I bought on a whim as after being recommended I went home an found one had been posted on Gumtree by a woman called Charlotte (!) at the same time I’d been getting recommended at. Anyway, I bought the thing, then proceeded to spend two days in a state of increasing rage and fury trying to put the thing together, while it inflicted a smorgasboard of creative injuries upon my ever despairing person. You ever read that Calvin And Hobbes strips about the bicycle? Just like that. I got there eventually, scarred and bleeding, and we took Hercules out to the park and it was a joy and a relief  but there is now way in hell that thing should have been so hard to make work, and the instructions were like some kind of cruel 4 Chan prank. Assholes.

3: BABY CRY IS ON THE SAME FREQUENCY AS EXTREME HEADACHE

Now this is come clever shit. Hangover/dehydration headache pain sits on the exact same frequency band as Extreme Anguish Baby Cry, ie that last resort, all else has failed, FUCKING FEED ME war cry wielded by babies like a sonic weapon, usually when you can’t find any water or parasetomol and the audio interface has crashed so there’s no nice music to block out the cries that tear through one’s brain like sheets of rusty roof aluminium. Fits neatly with evolutionary theory as there is no fucking way even the most smacked out caveperson could ignore the hungry little cave sprog, thus insuring nourishmentand the continuation of the species. Ale jaca est.

4: THAT THING ABOUT BABIES NOT SMILING TILL AFTER SIX WEEKS IS A MYTH

Hercules has been smiling with increasing purpose, duration and cuteness for many weeks now. He is particularly fond of baths, in which he does an impressive farting frog impression, powering himself backward and forward via bursts of gas from his button and impressive scissor kick swimming actions, occasionally switching his duckface for an expression of purest Happy. He smiles when one is showing him new rap videos sometimes also. Naturally, his removal from situations that bring him facially representative joy is mirrored in the intensity of his displeasure, which takes us back to the last point and a reminder to be highly hydrated at all times else suffer migranous agonies.

5: THEY GROW SO FAST

Like I said, OH, how I hate hearing that “ooh, they grow so fast” mantra, how I hate seeing it on Facebook updates, how it tears through me like nails on chalkboard… but it is bloody TRUE, word to Spandau Ballet. Hercules has already outgrown his first batch of clothes. Stuff that was baggy on his ass a few weeks ago is now Britpop Skinnyfit. It is like having a small but constantly swelling Hulk in the house whose rage can only be placated by serious massage and tits.

6: BABIES ARE TOTALLY AWESOME

On the surface it seems that all they do is eat tit, vomit, shit and scream, but they are a source of unparalleled joy and wonder and I cannot recommend them highly enough. I mean, like I said before we do seem to have lucked out on a pretty good one – he only drops one major poo per day, sleeps well at nightitme, is sweet natured and friendly, doesn’t mind loud noises or strangers… but then I suspect one’s child is probably somewhat respective of its parents, and we ARE pretty ace. So if you, too, are pretty ace, HAVE A KID! They’re super fun and exhausting and inspirational! And if you’re an asshole, HAVE A KID ALSO! Because it will be an asshole too, and make your life a misery, which will be deserv-ed. Amen.

HO HO HO! I only jest, you can’t possibly be an asshole if you’re reading this. So, since we’re friends, have yourself a big ass batch of photos of Herc’s past few weeks, taken by me and his Mum and his Nana. If you can’t see the slideshow (cough cough iPads) click here.

PAX!

— Thursday, February 7th, 2013

OMFG, look at that! It’s young Herculini The Great and his uncle Alexander Velky engaging in some kind of futuristic turbo comedy, in the immortal medium of GIF! Gadzooks!

That was actually taken the day Alex came to visit and I made him shoot this video:

All of, like, two weeks ago! Goddamn it time is liquid right now!

Anyway, I have been working very hard. I won’t tell you what the main thrust of my efforts has entailed, but outside of that I did do a new Art Brut comic to go with their Greatest Hits, a slice of which you can viddy here:

Me and Herc have been hanging out doing man shit:

Herc’s been cruising the streets in the manner of a G:

He’s also been doing push ups, after crawling two inches. HE IS THREE WEEKS OLD OH MY LORD.

Meanwhile I have been getting a bunch more fan art, like this ace picture of me and a unicorn wearing an Akira The Don shirt by Timothy O’Briant.

Send your fan art to akirathedon at gmail dot com! And keep it locked on this area of the interwebs for the fruits of my secret labours! Amen!

PS: My home Matt “The Eyeballs” Muir has a newq home for his legendary Web Curios internet digest, so go check that out, it is full of Interest.

— Saturday, February 2nd, 2013

Big up that fly as hell new fanart by Dr Matty T. Sent over last night via Twitter while I was testing out this Wacom Cintiq my neighbor Jamie McKelvie lent me. Here he is showing off his self-designed Captain Marvel kicks, like a G:

I borrowed the thing to draw this Art Brut comic strip I’m doing for their greatest hits LP, since my trusty DT5 520 is being a bit of a mardy ole dick, and as a warm up exercise (drawing cold is never a great idea, as I keep forgetting to my detriment) I decided to open myself to suggestions from you, the people. Facebook threw a bunch up pretty quick:

So I drew this:

It was very enjoyable.

Speaking of which, here’s a nice photo of Hercules looking super happy yesterday. Can you guess what he’s doing?

That’s right. He’s curling off a nice thick mustardy one on his Mamma’s lap.

AMEN!

— Friday, January 25th, 2013