Little Donkey (Advent 7)

If you don't get this read on...

You have 80 miles to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, your wife is heavily pregnant so she can't walk it, you can probably afford an animal to take with you - so why would you select a Little Donkey.

There I've explained todays advent cartoon for you - the only other clue I could have given would be to sing the lyrics of Eric Boswell's song 'Little Donkey, Little Donkey on the dusty road.  Got to keep on plodding onward with your precious load...'


Eric Boswell died in 2009 and was remembered for this catchy song which was all in one octave and easy to sing for children but perhaps overshadowed all his other work (see BBC obituary).

I just can't help thinking that he's not doing Joseph any favours in saying that he couldn't pick a suitable animal for his wife, and anyway there isn't an mention in the Bible that there even was a donkey (if you don't believe me see bibledonkey.com's discussion of every donkey reference in scripture) although it isn't beyond the realms of possibility.

Abominable Snowmum (Advent 6)

Today's advent cartoon has no direct link to Christmas except that it has snow in it and as we all know there was snow at the first Christmas.  Also the weather in Scotland has been wintry but not as wintry as last year when I was drawing Santa stuck on the M8 and people really did get stranded.  Instead today we had all the media hype of major weather warning snow including the minute-by-minute as-it-happens coverage from the BBC news website but disappointingly for those outlets it wasn't too bad.

Usually I like drawing snowmen at Christmas but couldn't come up with a good gag to beat last year's Empire Strikes Back cartoon and the less successful Glaswegian snowman.  Still we have plenty more days left and hopefully I will get to build a real snowman for inspiration.

Instead you have to put up with the Abominable Snowmum mother of the fabled Yeti.  In this, Big Foot and the Loch Ness monster we often forget that you need to have a population of monsters to maintain sightings as one solo Abominable Snowman or Big Foot would quickly get lonely and unable to find a mate be consigned to the pages of myth and legend.

South Pole Santa (Advent 5)

Today I went to see Arthur Christmas from great British animation company Aardman Animations who always deliver with great comedy and imagination.

All this led me to thinking about why Santa (who is obviously real) comes from the North Pole which led to another discovery about how cartoonists have shaped modern culture.

Thomas Nast (1840-1902) was born in Germany but moved to America where he drew for Harper's Weekly and other papers.  His illustrations gave us:

• The Republican Party Elephant
• The Democratic Party Donkey
• The popular image of Uncle Sam

He is also famous for his Christmas drawing where taking his inspiration from 'Twas A Night Before Christmas' he was the first to produce our modern version of Santa who is fat and jolly,  Santa having a workshop and elves and Santa coming from the North Pole.

Why does Santa come from the North Pole?  Perhaps because Nash felt he shouldn't belong to any one country.  However in today's cartoon I imagine what a rival south pole Santa may look like (perhaps sponsered by Pepsi).

As well as Wikipedia this article on Thomas Nast is also interesting
http://www.historybuff.com/library/refnast.html

Moo They Know It's Christmas (Advent 4)

I learned from a friend at work that farmer's don't get Christmas off (something to do with animals still needing looked after).  Which brought us to the pun 'Moo They Know It's Christmas'.

So being me I attempted to rewrite the lyrics of the famous 1984 charity record.  I remember my sister and I had a special EP record version of the band hit and the general satisfaction from the general population that we'd done something good through contributing to it and the Live Aid concert the following year.  Ironically Bob Dylan was critical of the other Bob's (Geldolf) effort saying some of the money could have gone to helping American farmers pay their mortgages to the bank which led to Farm Aid.  In response Geldof called him crass while saying Farm Aid wasn't a bad idea.

So I don't want to appear crass as starvation in the Horn of Africa is an ongoing disaster but I have some spare love for farmers who have to work on Christmas day so here are the lyrics I had worked out for 'Moo They Know It's Christmas'

It's Christmas Time
There's no time to have a feast
At Christmas Time
We let out lamb and battle sheep


And in our world of poultry
We can spread a bale of hay
Throw your arms around a hog
This Christmas Time


But say a prayer
Pray for the udder one
At Christmas time
when you're having
Beef Wellington


There's a world outside your window
And it's a world of hedge and field
Where the only liquid flowing
Is for butter, cream and tea


And the Christmas bells that ring there
Are the cockerel's crows of dawn
Well today thank God it's them instead of you.


And there might be snow in Archers-land this Christmas time
The greatest gift they'll get this year is light.
Where turkey stuffing grows
The eggs of egg-nog chose
Do they know it's Christmas time at all


Here's to them hay and grass for everyone
Here's to them underneath that winter sun
Do they know it's Christmas time at all


Feed the herd, let them know it's Christmas time...

National Elf Service (advent 3)

It's tough doing a advent challenge and a CCGB caption compedition at the same time.  This one is on the theme of 'HEALTH'.

Alternative Advent Calendar (Advent 2)

This is the sort of advent calendars my kids would have if you didn't repeatedly tell them that it was just one chocolate a day.

Originally there was 4 cartoons on this page but the rest (Doctor Who Austerity, Lego True Builder Calendar, You Won't Get Any Chocolate Until You Finish Your Dinner Calendar) was lacking the punch of this one.

Advent Calendars were invented by Germans in the 19th century although the much improved advent calendar featuring chocolate didn't appear until after World War Two.

Angels and iPods (Advent 1)

Here we go again the first Advent cartoon of 2011.  An alternative caption would be "While Shepards watched their FLACs by night" but I think fewer people would have got it.

ps. Advent itself started last Sunday.  Tomorrow we will investigate Advent calendars.