Clowns 1

In 1998 I was in a band that practiced in Brunswick. That meant I had to take the 96 tram along Nicholson St.That meant I had to do a fair bit of waiting at tramstops. I drew compulsively and would never be without a pad and a pen if I had to amuse myself. I'd buy A6 sized pads and had a fantastic Rotring Art pen with a fine nib. One afternoon at the Nic St tramstop I drew a circle which I crosshatched until it looked like a shiny ball. Or a nose. I drew eyes around it, a mouth and so on and soon had a clown. I flipped the page and started another from the circle, shiny nose outwards. Over the next year, at the tram stop, at gigs, in the National Library of Australia's restaurant,  give me about thirty seconds and I'd do you a clown.  I started naming them and then, at the suggestion of a friend, assigning roles.  This turned into a kind of ministry of clowns. I had a theme and reason for finishing the parliament of them and putting it out as a book. It would accompany the third edition of my mini comic Hysteria, as a bonus. Hysteria #3 never came out. The clowns languished in the A6 book .... until now. Here are four to start off.