Blogging The Suburbs

Bow wow. Currently, the I Thought I Told You To Wait In The Car offices are in the process of being moved. It's a lengthy, tedious process: the caviar-dispenser needs recalibrating, the naked slaves have been promised new Giant Wafting Leaves, and (SATIRE ALERT!) the previous tenants left the moat and duck island in a shocking state. More importantly, I'm currently without an internet connection.

So, once again, in the time-honoured tradition of lazy blog-hacks worldwide, here is a list of blogs of note, all of which are proferred under the guise of 'I recommend you go look at these'.

EmiTown is quite possibly my favoutie blog in the internet. It's written entirely in comic-book format, with stream-of-consciousness autobiography as its subject. Emi's twin superpowers - both her art skills and the fact that she posts almost every day - means that, if you want to, you can browse through the blog-posts for hours on end which will, if you're anything like me, leave you with a jealousy-tinted sense of awe. More than that, it's one of the few blogs in which someone I don't know writes about their day-to-day life and I don't find it unfeasibly dull.

Similarly, another comic-book site is Craig Thompson's Doot Doot Garden. I suppose what I'm really recommending here is Mr Thompson's publications, which include, among other things, cult indie comic Good-Bye, Chunky Rice and landmark graphic mega-novel Blankets. But the blog on his site is worth a look, concerning, as it mostly does, the writing of his next book, Habibi, another giganto-comic. Mr Thompson is torn however: on the one hand he's perpetually (and infectiously) enthusiastic about the five-year struggle to get the book written and drawn, and on the other he is fiercely protective of the content. So, instead, you get sketches of page-layouts, discussions of which pens and brushes are the best, details of his various side-projects and, very very occassionally, a completed page from one of the projected 600 plus that make up the story.

In an entirely different patch of 'The Blogtrix' (I've decided 'Blogosphere' is too twatty a word to remain in current use - other potential contenders, I'm sure you'll agree, are 'Blogocaust', 'The Bloginci Code', 'The Good, The Blog And The Ugly', 'Blognosis Murder'... no, I'm sorry, this is getting beyond ridiculous. Anyway) The Secret Little Portabello Mushroom, a delightfully swear-heavy blog written by Katie Taylor (aka 'Shinybiscuit'), consists of the sort of 'musings' I'd write if I had proper journo-skills and the requisite knowledge of contemporary culture, and if I didn't have the sort of attention-span which makes me lose interest in what I'm writing mid-sentence. It's also a blog which

Cancerous Capers is a blog written by Jamie Ross: he documents his diagnosis of, treatment for and recovery from Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Like, I imagine, most of you reading this, the idea of reading a 'recovery' blog fills me with an odd mixture of feelings: 'this is going to be upsetting/heavy/boring/littered with more references to a younger man's 'junk' than I feel I'm comfortable with.' Don't think any of those things, though (except the 'junk' bit): it's a funny blog. That is, not in a 'pity laugh' inducing sense, but genuinely, properly and 'amused laugh' inducingly funny.

I feel thoroughly unoriginal recommending My First Dictionary, as it's quite possibly one of the most popular blogs in the world. There's a reason for this, of course: the posts - pages from childrens' dictionaries given a twisted reworking - are both frequent and consistently hilarious. Ross Horley, who maintains the blog, also posts on the equally brilliant Musty Moments, a scrapbook collection of 'found items' from old local newspapers.

Another I-can't-believe-you're-recommending-this-blog-everyone-knows-about-you-might-as-well-say-hey-I've-discovered-this-awesome-thing-called-'chocolate' blog is Awkward Family Photos which, as the name would suggest, is another blog of 'found' images, this from time the strange and terrifying world of family photo albums, culled from various corners of the internet.

And that, I think, should keep you busy until I return from the new, futuristic, fully-modernised offices...