Category: News

There’s a new Fudebakudo cartoon in the gallery, which appears in the latest (December) edition of MAI magazine. It shines a cold light on the different snowballing styles to be found in the martial arts.

Somehow, snowball fights never really worked for me when I was little. I used to hurl increasingly hurried, and therefore poorly-made, snowballs at my friend G___, never really hitting with any of them, until he’d come over, rugby tackle me, and rub my face in the snow. Every time.

Last year — which is actually about thirty years after those early battles — we had a snowball fight (with his kids) in which I lobbed snowballs at him that inexplicably and repeatedly struck their target. We were both bemused. In fact, he was so bemused he forgot to rugby tackle me and rub my face in the snow.

The Fudebakublog lurches back into life after a long sleep . . .

I’ve been giving all my attention to the release of the latest Beholder project, The Knot-Shop Man. Unlike the Fudebakudo book, The Knot-Shop Man is a limited edition art project. No martial arts*, no comics, not even a flick-man in the corner of the pages.

The Knot-Shop Man was published by Exploding Pen to mark the tenth anniversary of Planetarium, which was released on 9/9/99. It’s been a big project, and has resulted in a beautiful set of books (there are four books in each set). Unsurprisingly, some of the usual suspects were involved. Fudebakudo animator René did a guest illustration again, and we went back to Nick and his excellent crew at Nima Print & Design for the printing because they did such a great job with Fudebakudo.

The Knot-Shop Man is only available direct from the Beholder site. Because it’s a such a limited edition, unlike Fudebakudo, we are not selling it through other online sellers such as amazon.

* Well maybe, if you look very hard, there’s a hint of martial arts going on in one paragraph in one of the four books. But basically, no. Unless in some weird way you think drinking green tea counts . . . since there’s a lot of that going on.

I am back in the UK after a seven-week trip to Bangkok. It was good to catch up with old friends in the Big Mango. Special thanks to Ben (and Buddy and Tiger) for looking after me.

I also spent time hanging out with René, who did the Fudebakudo animations as well as the “guest illustrations” in the book. We had a number of cartoony adventures including almost — but not quite — having a climactic encounter with notorious yakuza boss Custard Kakamura*. The fact that I did not end up in one of the obese gangster’s bubbling yellow vats is a testament to how fast we ran away.

Most of the time was spent working on The Knot-Shop Man during the day, and training with the Thai aikikai in the evenings.

* Name has been changed to protect the innocent.

Finally, an announcement! Exploding Pen is publishing a special edition of The Knot-Shop Man on 09/09/09.

This is a Beholder project, celebrating the tenth anniversary of the story-puzzle Planetarium. And there are no martial arts in it. Sorry.

For more information, go to www.beholder.co.uk/knots/

There's a new illustration in the gallery on the topic of Shapes in the Martial Arts. This was drawn for the May issue of MAI magazine so you won’t find it in the book.

This one really span off from the well-known oddity that a boxing ring isn’t round.

 

I had some problems with the old blog software (so I’ve moved across to WordPress, if you’re nerdy enough to care). Currently this means some comments from old posts are missing. All in good time these will be reinstated. There are some other small tweaks still to be done, but generally I think most things are fixed now.

The old RSS feeds are well and truly broken, though. Sorry about that. The new one, available on this page, should be more reliable.

It's been quiet on the Fudebakublog because I've been busy — just back from Portland, Oregon, working on the current Beholder project. I must thank my excellent and long-suffering hosts, Judith and Eric of Foreworks, for putting up with me. The Chinese say, "After three days, guests and fish begin to stink," so those two were very tolerant; I was there ten days. It was a productive time, working on material that should be out in 2009.

It was also super-cool to meet up in Real Life with a long-time (no, really: well over a decade) online friend Robert, and his lovely wife and duty adult Elaine (it quickly became clear, I think, that Robert and I had a tendency towards childishness — in a good way, obviously). Oh, and talking of American critters, the raccoons and possums I had been promised failed to show up. Actually, I did see one raccoon, and that was on the way in from the airport, and it was lying peacefully by the side of the road, having tarmacadam dreams. But I don't think that counts.

While I was over there, I managed to catch a couple of classes at Portland Aikikai. I took these two unapproved photos as I snuck out the door, which was a bit rude since everyone had been very friendly. And I do mean friendly, even though, when I had first arrived, I could not help but overhear "casual" talk in the changing rooms about the Iron Man triathlon in what I now suspect was a subtle yet deliberate attempt at psychological intimidation. Heh, a nice trick, gentlemen.

 

This weekend saw the retirement of a much-loved member of the Exploding Pen team . . . Mr Bike was the unimaginatively named, two-wheeled, shaft-driven workhorse of the team. Technically speaking he was a Honda NT 650V, also known as the Deauville, unkindly nicknamed the Dullville or Duvet, and considered by more sporty bikers as one of the most unexciting bikes on the road.

Sadly Mr Bike started losing compression in one cylinder last year. On the last run down to Eastbourne he began backfiring rudely at innocent pedestrians. So his number was up — too expensive to fix, it was time to let him go. On Saturday he left in a van in a manner that seemed awfully reminiscent of the workhorse Boxer leaving Animal Farm.

If you've bought a copy of Fudebakudo through Amazon, or from a chain bookshop like Borders or Waterstones, then your book got to you thanks in part to the power of petrol exploding inside Mr Bike's 645cc engine and pushing his Japanese (actually, made in a factoy in Spain) pistons. It's one of the joys of self-publishing — no, really — that eventually you get your hands dirty in every part of the process. In this case that means doing runs down to one of the national UK book distributors, Gardners, to deliver consignments and collect signatures. (Incidentally, if you bought your copy from Foyles in central London, that may have been delivered by bike (there's no congestion charge for bikers in London — yet) although it is equally likely that I delivered your book by tube).

On the last run down to Gardners, nobody was about in the goods bay when I arrived. So I punched the "Deliveries" button, which set off a satisfying industrial klaxon. About a minute passed and then the bay door rolled up. I could hear the 2001 music but that may have been in my head. Presumably the dry ice must have run out just before I got there too. And then they came out to unload the books with a forklift truck. Yes, they gave Mr Bike full cargo honours by coming out to unload him with a forklift.

I got my signature on the POD (proof of delivery, don't you know) and we rode back, backfiring through the 30mph built-up areas of the A22, waking the sleepy villagers of Nutley and rattling the cultists of East Grinstead. I knew it was the end, but then Mr Bike must have known too. After all, he'd been given a respectful forklift send-off, which had never happened before.

So farewell Mr Bike. When the current consignment of Fudebakudo is exhausted, the next one will be delivered courtesy of Britain's unevenly managed and increasingly expensive railway system. I will probably be obliged to use Tim's sack-barrow. He bought it especially for hauling books for Seni last year. It has two wheels and can carry 50 books at a push . . . but it's just not the same.

 

This weekend Seni, the UK's big martial arts expo, was held in London. Exploding Pen didn't have a stand this year and the event was, of course, poorer as a result.

I did attend though, to have a look round and to see the staff on the MAI stand, especially Moira. She's the one who continues to put Fudebakudo into the magazine despite the awkard suspicion that the other regular cartoon in there, Surviving the Martial Arts, is funnier, uses full colour, and is drawn in considerably more detail by Chris Perry (the man is a cartoonist and, according to his own website, an O Sensei too — some people have all the luck). Meanwhile, back at Seni, the MAI staff treated me to what can only be described as lavish corporate hospitality by Huddersfield standards until eventually my minder returned and I had to go away.

This year's Seni had the usual inverted-iceberg of public martial arts events — a large number of disturbing people doing some preposterous things for uncertain reasons, with a considerably smaller number of people doing some quality stuff if you take the trouble look hard and deep enough under the surface. Still, no Fudebakudo tattoos on display, again.

Browse the Exploding Pen Seni reports from previous shows to see days of former glory. 

 

There's a new illustration in the gallery on the topic of Women Fighting Men. You won't find this one in the book — it was drawn for the May issue of MAI magazine (the one with Shannon Lee on the cover).

Working on this one reminded me of something that I didn't have enough information to include, although it fitted the theme perfectly. Years ago a friend told me that he had come across some amazing rules for conducting fights to settle disputes between men and women in medieval Germany. I remember him showing me copies of the illustrations that accompanied the detailed descriptions. At the time I understood that the book from which they originated was illustrated by Dürer and my friend was working on a collaborative translation; but now I suspect that I may be combining two different works because Dürer's fechtbuch is rather well-known and I don't think it includes such things. I've never seen the finished result, if indeed it ever was finished (the person concerned has since died). But I should chase it up because the rules were very odd indeed — for example, very specific about the different (and unequal) types of weapon each could have, and that one of the combatants (I forget which, but I think it was the man) was obliged to stand in a pit. I'm not making this up. If I can find the details there may well be a second illustration, a part ii to this topic.