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Andrews UK - Mel Croucher

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373 pages

English

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The unexpurgated, hilarious and unflinching history of computers, of the lunatics who create them, and of the idiots who use them, retold in cartoon strips by Mel Croucher and Robin Evans. Great Moments In Computing is the longest-running, most widely read and best loved computer cartoon strip in the world, and this unique collection contains every single episode ... along with unpublished and previously censored versions, and the behind-the-scenes secrets of how it all really happened.

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Graphic novel

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Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	16 mars 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781785387555
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	6 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Insπred
the collected artwork of
Mel Croucher
and
Robin Evans
Volume 3
Great Moments in Computing

Published in 2017 by
Acorn Books
www.acornbooks.co.uk
an imprint of
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 1988–2017 Mel Croucher & Robin Evans
The right of Mel Croucher & Robin Evans to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Any views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Acorn Books or Andrews UK Limited.

Introduction
This is Volume Three of a three volume special edition. It contains the unexpurgated history of computing, retold in thirty year’s of cartoon strips by Mel Croucher and Robin Evans.
Many years ago, a man with a beard invited Mel Croucher to come up with some stuff for the back page of a new monthly magazine to be called Computer Shopper . Mel managed about 900 words then ran out of steam. He filled the gap with a cartoon strip. It wasn’t very good, so he asked his chum Robin Evans to make it very good. They called their strip Great Moments In Computing . The man with a beard then buggered off without telling anyone this was only a temporary arrangement with no contract. Mel Croucher and Robin Evans have been waiting to get found out ever since.
Computer Shopper became the biggest circulation geek magazine in the land, and Great Moments In Computing is now the longest running, most widely read and best loved computing cartoon strip in the world. Here’s the story from Mel and Robin in their own words, byting the hand that feeds them.

Foreword by Mel Croucher
“Computers are really dumb. Computer users are really dumb too. When I started out in the computer business there were only a few hundred of us. Now, thanks to scientific progress, hackers can abuse billions of us all at once.
For the first few years of the Great Moments In Computing comic strip I would scribble down the words and scrawl some roughs. I’d then hand them to Robin so he could ignore them. Once a month I’d pay him too much of what I charged the publisher, and Robin would call me Boss in exchange. It was a pretty good deal. When he didn’t like my jokes, he’d just scrap them and come up with his own. After a while I knew resistance was futile, so I just let him get on with changing my scripts to whatever he reckoned was funnier. Turns out that of the two of us he was the funny one all along. I can’t help bunging in my own opinions. He just wants to make people laugh.
The idea has always been to contrast an actual great moment in computing with the idiocies of humanity. Every strip has the same triptych format: exposition, development, punch line. The text boxes below each panel are always serious, sometimes educational. Every one hundred months we repeat exactly the same cartoon we started off with, to see if anybody notices. No schmuck ever notices.
Back in the 1980s, I would send Robin’s finished artwork off as high-quality pen and ink originals, for shit reproduction in newsprint. I’d roll it all up in a slim cardboard tube, violate a post box with it, then just walk away. Somehow our work would appear on the back page about seven weeks later. It’s always been the final item in the magazine, the last word on the computer industry, which I find most satisfying. Sometimes the artwork went missing in the post, and Robin would have to recreate the whole thing again, but we’ve never missed a deadline yet.
A few times, when our copy got lost or we ran out of stamps, we used a new-fangled invention called a fax machine to transmit our cartoons down the wire, then in the 1990s we worked out how to copy an image with a scanner and save it onto a magnetic device called a floppy disk, which was rigid and square, hence the name. This meant we could send an electronic copy of Great Moments In Computing to the editor in a plain envelope and keep the original for the distant future, when a different publisher would be kind enough to turn everything into a book just like this, for possessive obsessives to buy.
The magazine owner was another man with a beard, who had been sent to prison for “conspiracy to deprave and corrupt the morals of the Young of the Realm” by allowing schoolkids to edit some very rude cartoon strips which he published in Oz magazine. Our kind of guy. Four years after we came along, the empire he founded was worth $2.5 billion. In other words, after four years he could afford to print Great Moments In Computing in full colour. This was about the time a thing called email became available to mortals, which meant we could procrastinate for longer before sending our stuff off for publication. That was a dangerous luxury. Sometimes we procrastinated until deadline day, then rushed out something spontaneous and ill-conceived. Usually for the better. One day Robin ran away as far as possible from our base on the South coast of England up to the borders of Scotland, so we just stopped talking to one another and used email instead. Our emails are usually funnier than our cartoons, but not as well formatted.
What’s bizarre is how often we seem to come up with original material based on technical innovation. It’s not because we’re very smart, more because our magazine readers are already computer savvy and we need to keep one step ahead. Anyway, we still try to slip in as much toilet humour as possible, because we like it and because we can. And I still try to hijack themes and variations in favour of my personal proclivities. Very often Robin claims he doesn’t understand what the fuck I’m on about, and very often neither do I. Sometimes we’re convinced a strip will get spiked, either because of a knob joke, or because we’ve mangled a trademark or copyright image. Or best of all when we take a pop at an advertiser in the magazine. But we’ve never had a strip spiked yet. And now we’re old, I don’t think we ever will. It’s a wonderful thing that our editors respect their elders. And even more wonderful when they stump up their pocket money to pay us for what we do out of love. I am very grateful. I’m sure Robin is too.”
Mel Croucher,
Southsea, Hampshire, 2017

Mel then

Mel now

Foreword by Robin Evans
“Drawing Great Moments in Computing is often something of an education. Of course, Mr Croucher’s text is generally factual, and in amongst the visual non sequiturs of the visual brief are people, concepts and objects related to the subject, and the mere act of drawing this stuff up is enlightening. Or, it would be, if I didn’t have a hole in my head. The fact is, although Mel has been my friend from Day One, and that was many, many days ago, we are, in many ways, different species of loony, and rendering his ideas and his humour in a visual form does not always come easy to me.
Ignoring the main body of a brief or script without conferring with the author is both unprofessional and plain bad manners, so I try not to do that too often. More than once, having looked at the script and outline that Mel has sent, I’ve just gone ‘Aaaarrrgh! This doesn’t make any visual sense! Doesn’t he realise this is actually impossible to draw?’ And yet, somehow, I draw it, and send it in, and Mel tells me how great he thinks it is, which always surprises me.
It’s not as easy as retailoring it to suit my own humour or visual style, but although self-indulgence is gratifying, self-discipline is nobler.
Here’s something. About 1993, I was driving through Devon, and my car got a flat tyre. A passing motorist stopped for me, and let me use his telephone to call the rescue service We got to talking, and it turned out he took Computer Shopper, and read Mel’s page, and the strip. When I told him that I was the artist, he didn’t quite believe me at first, but he soon realised that he’s rescued a real live cartoonist. I promised to somehow pay tribute to this kind fellow in the next strip. Which I did. So, next time you see some poor sap standing in the rain next to a car with a flat tyre, help him out. You might get to appear in a panel in a comic strip.”
Robin Evans,
Kendall, Cumbria, 2017

Robin then

Robin now

1 : BASE NUMBERS : cover date March 1988

A load of readers claim they don’t understand the mitten joke or the hook joke in Frames 2 and 3. They get the finger.

2 : THE BAUD RATE : cover date April 1988

A load more readers claim they don’t understand the bored joke or the bidet joke in Frames 2 and 3. The original graphic of genital cleansing is changed because Mel and Robin don’t want to get fired yet.

3 : DESK-TOP PUBLISHING : cover date May 1988

Desk-top publishing gains popularity. That’s Mel’s dog Flynn in Frame 3, who pees at the tomb of John Napier in Frame 2 every morning.

4 : THE WORD-PROCESSOR : cover date June 1988

This is originally about a popular word-processing package called Word Perfect, but Mel takes against a popular entertainer called Terry Wogan, and aims the bullshit joke at him in Frame 3.

5 : ASTRAL PREDICT