About two decades ago, in what are increasingly feeling like Ye Good Olde Days, I was given a suspicious package. But rather than proscribed substances or used banknotes, it contained a large selection of photographs of old Dutch engravings.
At the time I was spending time reading a book of photographs about Tadeusz Kantor, the Polish artist and theatre director. One of the photographed scenes portrayed an old-fashioned camera and/or machine-gun trained on a group of uniformed soldiers - arranged as if for a photographic portrait. I redrew this, with a creature called a Modified Bear™ about to 'shoot' a creature called a Sperm Monster™, with one of the antique engraved landscapes as a backdrop.
I was drawing a lot of these creatures, and in idle moments I imagined them starring in a bleak sort of slapstick cartoon sitcom, a bit like Tom & Jerry, only with more existential angst. Unfortunately this idea never evolved into an endlessly repeated and massively successful animated TV series, but it did make the cover of a Radiohead record called Comlag. Which was nice.

I tinted the vintage engravings a sort of Delft Blue, hoping that would help the pictures evoke a civilised tone, kind of like a fancy tea set. I imagined myself inviting elegantly attired guests to afternoon tea, and we would sit in a rose garden while birds sang and I poured hot fluids from a china teapot decorated with my Modified Bears™. Obviously, from an objective point of view that was a very remote possibility, just as were my dreams of an incredibly successful animated TV franchise. But now, with the glittering magic of hindsight, I have realised that these pictures could make quite nice screen prints. But who knows? Not me, that's for sure.

Anyway, here they are, one with the potentially risky portrait photography and one with the angelic bears getting themselves into another fine mess. They are called Comlag and Angelic Vision. You may or may not be interested enough to click the blue button.