Amateur analogue cartoonist

I've been drawing cartoons since the moment I could hold a pen. Really bad ones. Especially early on. Which is why I didn't get a job as a cartoonist.

My first ever digital cartoon was probably in the early 1990s when my grandmother (whom I referred to as Banana) had a cyst surgically removed from her nether regions. To cheer her up I drew a cartoon which was faxed to her hospital ward - and bingo, my first digital cartoon. Here's what's left of the scrappy original. It's even got the hospital address written on it by my mum.

This is the same cartoon tidied up, now that I know how. The original shows how bad I was at cross-hatching.

So I didn't get a job as a cartoonist, but after a year in the professional services firm I'd joined, I had second thoughts. Maybe I should give it a go?

Being a relatively quick decision-maker on most things, and an incredibly slow one on others, I tried my hand at a few cartoons based on the daily news. This was in 1995 and the day I chose was both miserable and bland.

A prominent member of Islamic Jihad had been assassinated by Mossad in Malta, pretty much kiboshing any chance of peace negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Okay, let me give this a shot, I thought.

Hmm. Grim. Perhaps I took it too literally. Maybe another angle?

They just seemed too bleak to me. And the other big news wasn't much inspiration either. Australia winning the World Cup in Rugby League which in 1995 basically involved two states in Eastern Australia playing a bit of the Midlands in England.

And then there was the anxiety about Quebec breaking away from the rest of Canada in their upcoming referendum.

And I just thought, well, these aren't terribly funny. Maybe I chose a bad news day with Canada, Australia and Israel - perhaps these aren't the humour capitals of the world. But it made me think this is pointless. I'll go back to my job and stick it out.

I still did the odd cartoon. But not with the same enthusiasm - the last one I tried in 1995 I didn't even finish. I inked it today.

Now 28 odd years later, I've got my mojo back. Perhaps it's 28 years of having lived a full life that makes it easier to see the funny side of practically everything that happens. Or maybe I've just discovered that my cartoons look better in colour.

Dunno. I'm not that deep.