Let me be frank. My sketch cards are raising a grand total of $2 for charity so far. That's not going to do bugger all to help the American Cancer Society.

Saturday morning (UK time, I guess midnight Friday night US?), time's up, and I really want to say I did my bit to help raise some cash and help a good cause. Last year, I got six cards and they did okay to a certain degree. This year, I was only sent four cards and I screwed one up, so half the number was all I could contribute anyway. I tried to change my style and choose two well-known Marvel characters (Cable and Wolverine) and one of my favourites (Marshal Law), hoping they'd be more desirable.

Nah. Not so far.

Happily, I have no pride so I'm perfectly comfortable with begging you guys to take a look and see if you can't put in some bids and get the total up. Other artists are doing okay, but it all helps, right?

Go take a look. Linkage? Below! Go!

Spoink!

Cancer. Ladies and gentlemen, 'tis a bad thing. I hate it, as I imagine you and every sane person in the world does. So why would I bring this subject up on what could be to many of you an otherwise bright and happy day, full of fluffy bunnies and (insert favourite flavour) pie?

It's because the guys at Comics2Games are holding a charity auction in aid of the American Cancer Society. They're doing something good there, and it's the second year they've done this. I'm going to try to contribute every year. I did Thundercats headshots last year, but they didn't go for as much as I'd hoped.

So if you feel like doing something nice, check out my cards and put in a bid. I'll be your friend.

Check out the whole auction here.

Due to an unexpected personal financial meltdown, I'm taking commissions all of a sudden! Ummm... yay!

Each commission will be priced at $7, so I'm almost giving them away. If you're not familiar with my style, they'll be along these lines: Bean Men: Series X

So that's the deal. Requests will be taken from now on and I'll do my best to do at least one every day. These pics will be seen only by you, the customer, unless you say otherwise (I'll put a watermark over anything that goes in my gallery).

If you want a unique high-res 'bean man' for the price of a really terrible videogame, either send me a message or e-mail me at: monkeyvsbadger @ yahoo dot co dot uk.

PS: More than one character in the same image? Let's talk.

This week, life has been a series of increasingly irrelevant questions.

How will I continue to cope with my new sleeping pattern?

Recently, I realised this kick in the backside I've been requiring for some time was not something that I thought about when I got home from work. It's all well and good having ten minutes of inspiration, but some people need reminders, some people need to totally adjust their life. In my case, the latter is true. So rather than getting home from work at 7pm and having no motivation after 8 hours of staring at a PC screen, I decided to cunningly get up at 6am and work on my art then. That way, when I lose motivation or start to feel tired, it's only my day job that suffers! Take that, 'the system'!

It's not going too badly, since now I have a laptop to work on, I don't even have to get out of bed to finish commissions and get some substantial progress going. Woo!

Why do McDonald's breakfast muffins and coffee make me hate myself so much?

That one's easy. It's because, like most people of intelligence, I hate McDonald's for what they represent and what they are. But damn, those breakfasts are goooood. And let's be fair, the coffee is good too and it stops me going to Starbucks. Although at least Starbucks have Fair Trade coffee... Knackers. What a quandary. To be continued.

How much is Watchmen going to blow me away?

IMAX. Tonight. Followed by beer with friends. I love the comic, and from the reviews I've read so far, it's faithful enough to please fans. So the answer to that one is... lots.

What's the best thing to spend £75 of Amazon vouchers on?

Thanks to my ace family, I had that decision to make. The answer?

DVDs: Rec, The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, Cloverfield, There Will be Blood, Labyrinth, The Dark Knight.
CDs: Fleet Foxes 'Fleet Foxes', Justice 'Cross', Midnight Juggernauts 'Dystopia', Smashing Pumpkins 'Siamese Dream', Friendly Fires 'Friendly Fires'.

Good times.

How is it possible for a crack to appear on your slide-phone's screen, but the screen itself to remain intact?

Dunno, but I'm glad I forgot to cancel the insurance I thought was unnecessary.

Is it weird to go to see a band on your own?

One of my favourite bands right now is Everything Everything. I don't get as excited by music and artists as I used to (but I am in my thirties now, so gimme a break) and this band are the first in ages I can just listen to at any time. The fact they're based in Manchester is a bonus, but their Manchester show is sold out. They played in Lancaster on Wednesday and I was really up for going. Sadly, my friends couldn't make it, and I was faced with the option of going alone or missing it and hoping I can get tickets for the rescheduled Liverpool gig when it's announced. I chickened out and opted for number two.

But if I had gone alone... would that have been strange? I mean, it's an hour's drive so I couldn't drink and do the social thing at the bar (I couldn't anyway, I'm criminally shy). When the band come on, of course, it's all irrelevant. The focus is on the stage. Until then though... potentially lots of time to kill.

The final question...

Not having moved since I started typing this blog, will I have any feeling in my buttocks when I stand up?

Unlikely.

Anyway, in case anyone's interested, I've done a series of Bean Men based on the X-Men characters over the last couple of weeks. There's a whole gallery of them here and here. Enjoy!

Wednesday has come around very quickly for me this week. No surprise there, as I took this week off work, to catch up on artwork and just to get that bit of breathing space. The last day off I had was in August last year, and Christmas... well, it's hardly a time to put your feet up, is it? So, it's nice to not have to be somewhere, although the January finances won't stretch to many activities or journeys.

One journey I am definitely soing to have to take soon (maybe this week, but I dunno) is a trip to Glencairn in Scotland to visit the Laird's Retreat. Oh yeah, I'm the proud owner of a square foot of Scottish land, which means I am now officially a Laird. I can change all my official documents if I want! Maybe I'll buy some tweed and a flute, and just stand on a rock up there pretending to be Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull.

So... anyway. I'm being a productive little monkey this week. Working on an 8-page colouring job for Nightmare World (it's comin', Dirk! I'll update very soon!) and once that's done, I've got a couple of short commissions to finish. Stuff that's been on the back burner is finally ready to be moved to the... well, the front burner, I guess. Steve and Scott, that means our respective projects. Then there's the small matter of my solo efforts; submissions to 'The DFC' and my webcomic.

"Webcomic? Pull the other one and a large trapdoor will open to reveal a dancing camel and a neon sign saying 'Yeah, right! You've told us that one before!', you slacker."

How rude. But fair. There have been more false starts to this project than some kind of amusing simile which is just out of my reach right now. And I've had plenty of coffee today, too. Jeez.

The point is, I honestly want to get on with it and I have new ideas every day. Sketches, dialogue, ways of creating reader interaction... I want it to be revolutionary (very apt, considering the subject matter...) and like no comic you've ever read. Art style is nothing like my usual stuff. There'll be more graphic design elements than you would normally see in a comic. I'm trying to incorporate other media. Seriously, I have big plans for this. Somewhere on the internet is the webspace and the site, just ready for me to start. See? Progress (after a fashion).

The truth is, my own creations can wait until I fulfil my commitments to my collaborators, or at least get it down to a manageable workload. Let this be a lesson to thee, fellow creators. A lesson in how to resist the temptation to just say "Yes!" to everything you are offered. Everything has value, whether monetary, in terms of exposure or just keeping your interest, but be realistic about what you can achieve. And never, ever let a setback put you off.

If you stop believing you can make it based off of one rejection, or one negative review/comment, a collaboration that fell through, or months of hard work on something that never saw the light of day... remember that nothing's changed with your ability or your goal. Just your attitude.

Rambling now. Before I sign off, here's a few music recommendations for ya.

Everything Everything
http://www.myspace.com/everythingeverythinguk
Ida Maria
http://www.myspace.com/idamaria
Dinosaur Pile-up
http://www.myspace.com/dinosaurpileup
Santogold
http://www.myspace.com/santogold
Stars and Sons
http://www.myspace.com/starsandsonsuk
Ten Bears
http://www.myspace.com/tenbearsmusic

So I've started to fall into that trap of over-doing artwork. I spend a looong time on some of my li'l bean men and although I like the results, I'm losing sight of why I started doing it in the first place.

I love designer vinyl toys and collectable packaging, I love Munnys and Cardboy and Tado and Squink and all of that good stuff. When I go into Magma (a cool store in Manchester's Northern Quarter; probably a chain, actually) and see DIY pinhole cameras and sketchbooks and pop-up calendars, I feel so stunted, creatively. Time to go back to basics and think back to why I first made the switch from purely comic book art to my current output.

So I've started simplifying things. I'm trying out a template (still illustrating comic book characters, but that's my passion, after all) that I'll only change to a lesser degree than before, and only when absolutely necessary. Simple shapes, flat colours and ultra-cuteness. If it works, and I'm still enjoying it next month, I'll think of practical uses. Here's hoping.

2009.... I dunno. Kinda indifferent to the ringing in of the New Year, for once.

I always have this idea that a new year means a 'new me', which is just helping to perpetuate the ridiculous myth brought on by dieticians, lifestyle magazines and reality TV. Not my contribution per se, but anybody that buys into it.

My previous attitude towards it has pretty much incorporated my strange belief that 'later' is an actual time. Mentally, subconsciously, it's almost tangible. It's the time that I'll finally sit down and work. It's the time that the bills are going to be paid. It's that point in my life where somebody turns up and hands me a cheque for a billion pounds, gives me an Audi R8 and a Domino's pizza and tells me I can just work on my creator-owned comics for the rest of my life (if I feel like it). But that's just ridiculous. I mean, really! I'm very nearly 30 years old now and before that very real date occurs, I want to be rid of this attitude. Here's a true truth for you... I always saw the word 'procrastination' in magazines, books, on billboards and on TV, but I took ages getting around to finding out what it meant. Honest!

2009 has no real relevance. January isn't a massive change from December, and nobody has just 12 months to achieve something before they have to reassess on December 31st.

This probably isn't news to anyone but me. But now I've realised it, I can do something about it. Here's hoping.