How to Draw Superheroes

[cosmolinguist]

Holly [looks over at Andrew, sitting cross-legged on the bed, holding up a pad of paper so it mostly obstructs his face, laughs]: You're so cute.
Andrew [with frequent sounds of erasing]: What? Why?
Holly: I think it's because you're a little kid, only bigger. (This is something I tell him a lot. With varying degrees of affection or frustration.)
Andrew: I'm sitting here teaching myself how to draw superheroes!
Holly [laughs]
Andrew: It's a proper book and everything!

Comments

[etoilepb.livejournal.com]

*is wondering if Andrew and dopplex were separated at birth*

[cosmolinguist]

You mean there are more like this? And you found one too? I don't know whether to offer my sympathies or congratulate you.

[etoilepb.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether to offer my sympathies or congratulate you.

Heh, funny... I was thinking the same for you. ;)

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

replace "andrew" for "chris" and "drawing superheroes" for "improvising songs about monkeys and other random words that pop into my head based around medleys of whatever song comes to my fancy" and that's the sort of thing that happens with me and sarah...

[cosmolinguist]

Somehow that doesn't surprise me. You two have, I think, one or two similarities. It's just the details that differ. :-)

It's even better when he models the "heroic postures.". "I didn't make that up; it says that in the book. I tried to draw someone running, but that's too hard. I can only draw people like this [stands with feet shoulder-length apart, arms at sides but sticking out slightly, stern expression on face]." It's great.

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

see i can comment no further here because that seems to me to be less adorable just - well - normal, but sarah seems to be set off by anything with me. i've no idea what i'm doing frankly... ho hum!

[cosmolinguist]

It wouldn't be as cute, or amusing, or whatever, if you guys didn't think it was normal. :-)

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

nagdabbit. grumble. i'm definitely pointing sarah this way...

[mrs-fhqwhgads.livejournal.com]

haha, yes- whereas crispy will be in the kitchen making tea and singing an improvised song about "oh I'm making the tea/and it's so tea-ey and warm/and now there's some milk in it/and some monkeys/and some potatocaaaaaaakes!" and then gets all confused when I tell him he's the cutest thing alive

and you should hear the songs he sings when he's in the bathroom...

[cosmolinguist]

Andrew does that too! Not with tea, because he hates tea, of course, but he'll sing about whatever's going through his head, or sing "I have a nice Holly, and she made me egg butties, and they're nice too." I didn't know other people did things like this, too!

[mrs-fhqwhgads.livejournal.com]

YES! he does that too- sings songs about me while making toast or whatever- I think it's the sweetest thing ever but he sees nothing strange about it

we need to get these two together again, this is too weird (but still sweet! heh heh!)

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, they go together well. He knows he's welcome to come see us any time he wants. But I hear he's going to see you instead? :-)

[mrs-fhqwhgads.livejournal.com]

he IS! and I am very happy for this indeed. one of these days though we do all have to get together, by hook or by crook...

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

it's just - what i always do and have done! lemme alone! grumbles...

[cosmolinguist]

By the way the grumbling, more likely than not, is cute as well. You just cannot win. :-)

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

this is a ruddy conspiracy this is! shakes fist!

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

this is a normal and natural thing to do! what's the oddness here?

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

I have absolutely no idea. Maybe it's an American thing.

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

must be. mentalists....

[cosmolinguist]

It's not odd as such--it's a thing we like! But if you really think that everyone goes around doing little stream-of-consciousness songs all day, you must know more interesting people than I do.

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

I do that one as well - although since seeing Richard Herring the other night the songs have been far less innocent (he has a whole routine about how lyrics are important and only minor changes can cause major results - "Come on over to my place/hey you, we're fucking a monkey" , "Hey hey we fuck monkeys", "Imagine fucking monkeys was socially acceptable/It's easy if you try"
Several of these have now stuck in my head.

[cosmolinguist]

I was going to point that out, but thought it wasn't worth bothering about, plus it's not nice to subject other people to songs about monkey fucking.

And your dad wants you to call him.

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

oh dear

sadly this does rather confirm why i dislike richard herring i fear...

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

It was far funnier than it looks when written down.
Have you ever read his blog? I think you'd probably like more of his stuff than dislike now...

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

i sort of liked it for a while and then the sort of revelling in his own peurility thing that annoys me about him clicked in. lee seems to act as intelligent as he really is, herring seems to enjoy acting like a fool which is why i'm not a fan. i certainly think they're the most frustrating comedy double act of recent years because potentially they're great but i also think they're lazy and reliant on bad, lazy catchphrases such as "ah..." "no not ah" which overbalance moments of sheer genius such as the curious orange

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

I can sort of see that. Herring acts a lot more intelligently live now than he used to, though - at least when dealing with hecklers. He comes across as an amiable buffoon half the time, and the other half very cutting indeed, and the switch between the two personae, which can be half way through a sentence, is very effective. I think that's something he does mainly in order to reuse old material from the childish 'Herring' character from L&H, but it works very, very well.
Lee is definitely the better stand-up though - his new routines contain practically nothing from the old L&H days and are very, very clever (the only comedian I can imagine using the word prelapsarian and not having it come out sounding forced).

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

lee has always struck me as far more intelligent than the lee and herring material suggested, mainly because of bits like his love of the fall in the fist of fun book. i've just never seen anything that suggests herring is more intelligent than his tendency for lazy comedy suggests. i've always found them frustrating - they are funny people. they're also astonishingly, ASTONISHINGLY lazy and reuse jokes so bloody much... i've had to fall down on the side of "not a fan" because of this. the capabilities that they have and the end result... it's not looking good for them

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

Lee has really upped his game in the last few years - he took some time off from stand-up, and some research he did into Hopi clown rituals (for his novel, The Perfect Fool) made him radically revise his ideas about what comedy is and should be. As a result, his stand-up now is *FAR* more focussed than it used to be, and has none of the reuse of material that plagued him before.
Herring comes across as far more intelligent than his stage persona when you listen to his structured shows (like Talking Cock and Christ On A Bike) or the book version of Talking Cock. He, too, is using a lot less old material, though that varies from gig to gig - when we saw him a couple of months back, it was almost a greatest hits routine, while all the material he did this week was stuff that he'd come up with in the last few months.