Blogshank delights

I'm like a nun chasing her second lover, or a dog finding its second bone. I'm amazed and delighted and wanting to go back again and again.   I've just discovered Blogshank, the illustrated blog of Mike Smith, freelance graphic designer.

In his words:  There are plenty of blogs by illustrators in which they upload their latest work, and loads of webcomics, but not many whose illustrations ARE the blog.

Mike draws and colours the entries in a little pocket diary - a week to a page - and simply posts the photos once a week. While the illustrations themselves are sweet enough (and the layout is very clever) what really marks out this diary is the wry sense of humour.

I haven't been so entranced by a pocket diary - not one so magical anyway - since Harry Potter destroyed Tom Riddle's in The Chamber of Secrets.

The waterways connection here is that a couple of years ago he bought St. Kilda, the very first narrowboat to have its own website.   (Not a blog, but nevertheless the first website.  In the 1990s St. Kilda dominated web searches for canal subjects, and I think I remember first reading it about 1996 or 97, although memory can play tricks.

Now Mike's in the process of moving ashore near Leicester, and the diary records, among other things, 'the final voyage of St. Kilda', of buying a house, boating there and selling the boat.

The blog's improved over the years.  Early versions simply show a written diary with occasional mono pen/ink illustration, but now it's a full-blown comic, complete with adventurous layout and colour wash.   Either he's missing a lot of appointments now, or he's keeping a separate 'normal' diary.

Boating first makes an appearance in Blogshank in February 2007, and he finally buys St Kilda in June 2007 - there's a sweet picture of the vendor and purchaser exchanging key and cheque on Friday 15th (see below).

An odd corollary of an illustrated blog like this is that while it's got a search box, it can't search the pictures.  So there's no real substitute for slowly browsing through. 

In later entries Mike has put keywords and descriptions behind the pictures, which does help the search, but you have to construct the story by reading it properly.  It took quite a bit of reading for me to learn how he came by his boat, and latterly the ups and downs of getting a mortgage and buying a house.

Mike also has a Best of Blogshank page - his own personal favourites:

Blog entries get pushed off the page and into obscurity, which is a bit sad. (Not so sad if they're crap ones.) So here are some of my personal favourites in chronological order, with a little bit of background info for the curious, and to get the page indexed in Google.

While that's handy, he might like to try a service like Outbrain.  This is the 'star ratings' system I use, allowing you (loyal reader) to mark the posts that you like (and dislike).   It sorts the wheat from the chaff, the flotsam from the jetsam, the coal from the slack and the dross.  It's not a personal choice, however; it's voted by the readers themselves.

I love the way Mike automatically grants you permission to use his illustrations on your own private blog, so long as you link back.  That ought to  give you reason enough to write about his work, no?   It's the main reason I've spent over two hours researching and writing this post.

If you want to use his work for commercial purposes and in print, well, naturally, separate conditions apply.  But I'm surprised I haven't seen this diary in a waterways magazine already.   Unless it's because they perhaps can't afford the high fees it's clearly worth.  Or maybe it already has appeared, and I don't read enough waterways magazines.  Or perhaps they want all the content to be about the waterways, and Blogshank isn't all about waterways.  In fact, very little is, really.  But enough to pass through Granny's filter, I think.

More information about Mike and his work on Blogshank's About Page. 

(Big thanks to Halfie.  Mike Smith might be the first boater to draw a blog, but Halfie was the first boater to draw my attention to it.)

Update: Amy of Lucky Duck comments that she mentioned Blogshank a year ago - her post here.

Comments

[Mike]

Mmm, interesting! The 'children's book illustrator' thing is the direction I'm heading in, but I've got to pay the bills (especially now I have a mortgage...) and I'm always interested in the possibility of work.

Will send you an email.

Mike

[Andrew Denny]

Mike,
I wondered how long it would take you to spot my comments !
Actually, I've just been asked by a certain small waterways business, noticing my post, what it would cost to have you illustrate an occasional newsletter for them. They failed to see that you really think of yourself as a children's book illustrator, but if you are interested in the occasional comission let me know. I work on PR in my day job and also commission photography and design.

Best regds
Andrew

Sent from my iPhone

[Mike]

Hi

I just wanted to say thanks for your very kind words about blogshank. I wondered why my stats had gone up for a day!

You're right about St Kilda being a very early narrowboat website. I used to live on another little boat in Cambridge (Barkley), and it was Robert Laws' website that encouraged me to do it. Although I think it annoyed a few people back then (2002) who wanted Cambridge to remain a quiet backwater, the subsequent rise in number of liveaboards encouraged the council to build a mooring scheme that actually works in everyone's interests. Cambridge has a wonderful little community.

We thought we had a buyer for St Kilda who was going to take her back to Cambridge, but that fell through, sadly.

Anyway, thanks again!

Mike

[Amy]

Our blog and Kestrel's have had Mike's on our blogrolls for about a year!

I blogged about him in 2008: http://nbluckyduck.blogspot.com/2008/10/blogshank.html

i love looking at his blog, its a real joy to read.

Amy

nb Lucky Duck

www.nbluckyduck.blogspot.com

[annrvs@yahoo.co.uk]

Hi Andrew,
Perhaps I should have pointed you to Mike as well, I assumed you knew about him as i alsways feel that you are all-knowing and informed about everything to do with the canals/blogs!
I think it may have been Halfie from whom I picked up on Mike, and boy am I glad i did! Mike has given me permission to use his "wordless alphabet" pictures at school on our "Blackboard" page, the first thing that opens when going to the internet. I publish one each Monday, and the boys are already buzzing over it and trying to guess exactly what the letter stands for....
(I teach Design and Technology, specifically graphics)
A great blog, great graphics, and , as you say, a lovely wry sense of humour.

Ann