The rat-cam

I was going through some of my old writings and found this picture. It illustrates how one might attach a small camera to a rat. It’s still a tremendously useful diagram. I dig those back legs.

A souvenir…

…for all the people who had to sit behind me at the cinema over the years. I hope you’ll forgive me.

The briefly popular game of squalf.

Some of you out there will remember the Squalf cartoon – part of the Western Nostril collection that I did with my brother Patrick. (www.thewesternnostril.com & www.patricklatimer.co.za). And if you don’t remember that particular cartoon, here it is.

With the popularity of Squalf growing, we decided to make a short film version of the idea. Thanks to some expert negotiations courtesy of my friend Nic, we managed to smuggle five guys and a lot of golfing equipment onto the Med Campus squash courts late one winter evening. We dressed two other friends, Matt and Chris, in suitably sporty attire and filmed this gem. It’s not the kind of evening you easily forget, unless you misjudge how low squash court doorframes are (Gus, you were there too). Since that day four years ago, this video has lurked on back-up disks and in the depths of my computer – most of the guys who helped make it haven’t even seen it. Today it gets its first screening.

We all know that feeling.

Bath feet

Sometimes your feet get so cold that socks won’t help.

Urban jungle gym

I did this pic toward the end of last year. Some people liked it enough to even ask for copies. I suppose that’s the best kind of compliment you can get.

This is the close up.

And this is the whole picture.

Animated shorts.

With all the cool animated shorts I’ve been watching on the Interweb, I was inspired to make my own.

Lifeskill #17.

I’ve been doing some quick illustrations for an NGO called GoLD. Their mission is to equip children with essential lifeskills. The lifeskill behind this illustration is – “Don’t be a charismatic despot.” It’s a lesson to us all.

Shan reading.

We went up to Silvermine dam on the weekend. Shan read Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I drew her reading it. The clouds rolled in and it started to get pretty cold, so I finished this drawing at home. (Plus there was a Scout convention at the dam that was freaking us out.)

An extract from a short story I’m writing.

Sometimes there’s just a paragraph that works. Here’s one that I like:

“Hardy was small and thin, as though he was half prisoner of war and half undernourished spider monkey baby. What little food he’d consumed in his formative years went exclusively into the growing of his ears. Whatever left-over molecules of nutrition remained were then distributed to his bones, teeth, hair and freckles. If by chance there was a lone vitamin still hanging about, it would head for his brain where it would join a mineral, a germ and the herpes virus.”