TecSpy.com Michael Erskine's Domain

A while back I created a cartoon of the LugRadio guys in the style of John Leach's Everybody Loves Eric Raymond. I love using the GIMP so I did a few of them then stopped working on at Xmas 2005 because my creative endeavours were directed towards the arcade machine and I thought the joke had been exhausted!

Since then I've faffed about with my website to the extent that nothing is where it used to be and I get gazillions of 404's looking for the ellr RSS feed! Now I give those aggregators the ol' 410 so the smart ones will stop their fruitless begging.

I'm putting the cartoons up here in the meantime for posterity. I've dug out the xcf sources so you can all play cartoons!

Episode1: Series 3 Begins

Use The Source: ellr01.xcf (5.2Mb)

Posted 13/11/05. This first one was done for a laugh - I had been waiting for series 3 to start after the break following the incredibly successful LugRadio Live '05, expecting perhaps some change of direction: Nah!

Highlights include the bookcase stolen from ELER and the tiny writing on the mic!

Total hours put in: mibbee 3.

Episode 2: The Disturbing Truth

Use The Source: ellr02.xcf (8.2Mb)

Posted 20/11/05. I tended to listen to LugRadio in the kitchen when the kids had gone to bed and I was washing the pots or doing some other chore. I was struck with the idea... no, cursed with the idea that the whole team lived in Jono's kitchen and quite specifically that Matt lived in the bread bin! Then the Bagpuss idea grabbed me and the characters found their natural places! It was at this time that Jono blogged the arrival in his home of little Banger, now sadly no longer with us :(

Highlights include Jono's T-shirt from Wacken, Gimped into "Wacken Off" (ho ho) and the corner of my kitchen in frame 3.

Total hours put in: about 10.

Episode 3: An unthinkable crime

Use The Source: ellr03.xcf (2.8Mb)

This episode, posted 30/11/05, was so fun - I spent ages finding the images to use and then getting everything I wanted into each frame. The file size has reduced quite a bit - I had my technique down and was working on individual frames in separate images before merging them from time to time in a master document.

Highlights include use of the official Ubuntu font, Mr Shuttleworth's Shaolin monk forehead tattoo and the guys ducking under the table!

Total hours put in: well over 20.

Episode 4: The Linux Guy at Microsoft

Use The Source: ellr04.xcf (1.9Mb)

This episode, posted on the 11th of December '05, came with an apology to Bill Hilf but I retract that apology in light of MS patent threat shenanigans!

I was more interested in getting the dialogue in so it was the same frame used over and over! I had a good speech-bubble technique going so I spent most of the time on the ridiculous pseudo-tech language coming from the MS camp!

Highlights: So many! The drumkit, the conference call phone. "interoperability"! How many times did BH say it? It's just a word but it had lost any meaning to me by the end of the interview! Oh yeah and my fave gag "what we've already done in the future"!

Total hours put in: about 10 I'd say.

Not surprisingly, there isn't any source for this one!

By now I'd run out of ideas and out of time to do anything with them... erm, the ideas I didn't have... well, whatever, it was kinda over but I thought it best to say why!

Total hours put in: 0.08!