Unit 7. 'Bleeding Ink'.

Some stereotypically 'dark' backdrops for fairytales.

Some hand-drawn typographical play, specifically with conflicting fonts, direction, colour and authority of the page.

Character Design 1: The innocent 'goodie'. The story will be manipulated in order to show her perceived 'goodness' as a negative trait of personality. A trait adopted as a pointless moral adaptation. I was sick of fairytales polarizing 'right' and 'wrong' and 'good' and 'evil', a construct inherently religious in its nature.

Character Design 2: The 'villain'. The narrative will be written to show his apparent fluid morality as an epigenetic attribute, maybe even an illness conceived through desperation or possibly even pre-natal learning.

Character Design 3: The 'Love Interest'. His personality was formulated as a retort to the 'Prince Charming' character, abundantly found in storybooks. He will be more complex-a-person, with conflicting thoughts, a negative, pessimistic outlook on the world in which he lives, but not to the point where he becomes 'monstrous' or his traits synonymous with those of the 'villain'.

Character Design 4: 'The Wise Man'. His persona was influenced by characters like Albus Dumbledore, Rafiki and Gandalf, characters whose age is somehow redolent of their wisdom. However; I created this character with the idea of obsolete ideoligies in mind. The elderly (as a huge cultural generalization), often dismissing new ideas without even considering observation, shared experience and accumulated knowledge. 'The Wise Man', in this instance will most probably be a religious fundamentalist, attempting to read the stars and impose his beliefs on the futures of others. His character was designed to question whether ancient wisdom can, in fact, be called 'wisdom' at all.

The Illusion of Altruism. Part 2: Antiquated Hatred and the Catholic Church

Well, looks like it's time to incite some more anti-theistic pique, time to release one's closed, but heavily opinionated mind from its apathetic shackles, time to verbalize one's seemingly irrational abhorrence of all things Christian, time to appear a self-indulgent, conceited, condescending human mud-slide one more time! How I notice your easily-offended arse cheeks twitching on the edge of your Ikea desk chair, (you don't want to appear anti-Scandinavia, now do you), at the hope of being affronted. How I notice your internet-assembled, ill-researched, quasi-liberal riposte in a different window, ready to be copy and pasted. How I notice your pathetic, conscious attempt to appear acceptant in a divided society quivering from your bottom lip, ready to spew incoherently into a comment box, whilst you sit, pedestalized on your inflated ego and misplaced sense of self-righteousness.

'Hello, up there! I hope you can hear me, in-between writing boring, half-arsed letters of complaint to the BBC for hearing the word 'fuck' on Buzzcocks and assuming your A-level textbook world-view entitles you to debate equality. Hello! When you've finished straightening the hair of your pet Fawn, why don't you fly your winged manatee of delusion over the fields of objectivity and accumulated knowledge and dump your face in the nearest magma-pit door to the afterlife?'

That was an irony test, hopefully, anyone who gets this far has at least an iota of intellectual gravitas, will realize that to write something is not to be some obsequious sycophant, and that everything I say is backed up by evidence which, with out current knowledge is mostly incontrovertible.

Straight to it; on 12th March 2000, Pope John Paul II made an unprecedented apology for the 'sins of the Catholic Church'. The admissions ranged from the persecution of the Jewish people, injustice towards women, the Crusades, the Inquisition and the forced conversion of indigenous peoples especially those in South America (note - that is over half of the world's population). These admissions preceded 94 previous apologies made by the Pope of appalling crime, error and cruelty and crimes towards the free intelligence. I shall list a summary few of these preceding apologies, note the dates in which they were mentioned.

Apologizes for The African Slave Trade in 1995.

The admission that Galileo was right about the Earth's relationship to the Sun and other orbs (after being legally tortured) in 1992.

Legalized and institutionalized violence and torture during the Counter-Reformation in 1995.

Apologizes for the Church's silence during hitler's Final solution. (I apologize also, I can't find the year in which this was said, though I expect it to be mid-nineties).

These were but four apologies made for countless, horrific crimes which I haven't mentioned, however; there were a few notable omissions. The pact signed with Hitler 'the Concordat' which, effectively gave the Nazi party a clear run to power, the first pact that dictator ever signed, and the 'Lateran Pact' signed with Mussolini, the first pact that dictator ever signed, and the celebration, in Germany, of Hitler's birthday from the pulpit every year until he died.

(The other crimes can easily be found by research).

If you build your church on the grounds of moral authority, and the supposed ability of those within that church to forgive the 'sins' of Catholics, then hypocrisy should never, NEVER have been found, never mind to the obscene degree of abundance in which it has. If Catholicism is so virtuous and ethical and it wishes to impose said virtuosity and ethics on others in society, then one could assume they can expect some fucking wrath, when you can draw colossally strong links with the Church and Nazism, Fascism (on the same page), child-molestation, sexism, racism, torture, the suppressing of free intelligence and genocide. Is there actually any crime that exists in which the Church has not participated?

Aside from the fact that Catholicism has effectively advertized pseudo-science throughout history (by telling parents that unbaptized children would eternally be lost in limbo), aside from the murderous atrocities committed in forced conversion, aside from the execrable persecution of homosexuals and Jews, we now have a most apropos crime committed by the Church. A crime that wasn't committed in World War II, or in Fascist Italy. A crime that seems to occur frequently throughout Catholic institutions worldwide. I've previously touched upon it, (probably not a most appropriate choice of words given the circumstances), but, that crime is child-abuse. You know what, fuck that, it's not child-abuse is it? It's child rape.

In the Pope's comment, one of the very few he has made, on the institutionalization of the rape, torture and maltreatment of children in Catholic institutions he said 'it's a very severe crisis, which involves us in the following: in the need for applying to these victims, the most loving, pastoral care'.

I hope I'm not the only one with the perspicacity to see just how unspeakably disingenuous that comment is. Even the most deluded Christian must admit, that is not admitting any form of responsibility in any adult sense. It is a disgracefully flippant attempt to reflect blame. And it's fucking horrific.

Joseph Alois Ratzinger, the most recent Pope, in 2003 was the 'prefect of the congregation of the doctrine of the faith'. It was his job to deal with the child abuse scandal that was brewing. His first act was to write a letter to the Catholic bishops, on pain of excommunication, not to talk to the police or anyone else. Investigations should be handled in 'the most secretive way, restrained by perpetual silence'. That is a direct quote. The Mexican founder of the Legion of Christ Movement, Marcial Degollado, was shielded from his own catalogue of child-abuse, 'one can not put on trial so closer friend of the Pope' said Ratzinger. When the allegations could no longer be denied, he was 'sentenced' and I use that term in the Katie Price of all senses, (loosest), to a life of prayer and penitence. Ratzinger's solution was to stop homosexuals being allowed in the Church. Thus, assuming all homosexuals are guilty of a 'moral evil' (another quote), and are all paedophiles.

An example to prove my 'institutionalized' statement goes thusly: Cardinal Bernard Law, who was the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston and his resignation was finally, indignantly demanded by fifty members of the Church and the whole laity of Massachusetts who demanded the prosecution for the promotion and protection and defence of people whose crimes against children are too revolting to specify. He is no longer in the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, he is now the supreme vicar of the Church of Santa Maria Majuri in Rome, and was personally appointed by the Pope. He was also one of those voting in Conclave in 2005, to choose the next Pope.

Fucking homosexuals, eh?

Shouldn't be allowed in the Church, eh?

All homosexuals are evil, eh?

The denial of the child-abuse in the Catholic Church, and any attempt to conceal or downplay the Christian role in it makes you as morally-misguided as the motherfucking Pope himself.

Now, I seem to remember on my last narcissistic, intellectual tantrum on the gold and crystal staircase of my self-regard, I was questioned when I said something along the lines of 'if you don't follow every word in that monotheistic doctrine, you are not of that religion'. A sentiment often questioned in the modern day climate of leniency, acceptance and moderation, I accept. Well, here's your evidence. The Church is founded on the principle of intercession. Only through the apostolic succession from Christ himself to his apostles to St. Peter to anyone ordained now, do they have this extraordinary power to change the molecules of wine into blood, literally, to change the molecules of bread into flesh, literally and to forgive the sins of the peasants and poor who they routinely exploit throughout the planet. 'Outside the Church, there is no salvation'. That is a dogma of the Church. A fucking dogma.

'Well, we've moved on now. That's all in the past. Let's look to the future. We, as a religion and a nation state have one billion followers and have routinely advanced equality and charity in this world.'

'If only it were so easy, hypothetical, ecclesiastical friend, (thank you, by the way for joining me again, I understand you have a busy schedule being a deluded, God-fearing bore and that), I have something else for you, very modern'.

At the UN-Cairo Population Conference, where they were trying to do something about the world population spinning out of control, the Vatican City as a nation state, made a joint statement with the most extreme Islamic countries of the world which began thusly: 'On behalf of the revealed religions of the world...'

It essentially vetoed any possibility of women's sexual freedom, and, as we know, neither religion have been anything other than implacably opposed to women's sexual choice.

Let me pose these questions:

How can one who is a celebate virgin dictate and orchestrate the sexual destiny and sexual career of others? How can one who is so sexually dysfunctional denounce homosexuals being morally perverse and 'evil'?

How can one who is so ignorant to (normal) sexual activity command those in uneducated parts of the world to first, consider abstinence to avoid the AIDS virus? To spread the blatant lie that the correct use of condoms actually increases the possibility of AIDS?

If you follow your thoughts to conclusion, the current Pope and the backwards, malicious views of the Catholic Church are actually influencing the spread of AIDS. They are complicit in the killing of millions.

As Stephen Fry put it, 'the Church is obsessed with sex, absolutely obsessed... It's a bit like food. The only people obsessed with food are anorexics and the morbidly obese, and that, is the Catholic Church in a nutshell'.

Self Portrait as a Cynic and a Pervent.

Case History

The under-bed box kept by an anonymous anthropophobic lunatic, disillusioned with the veil he's been sold named 'freedom'. The letters sent by an increasingly irritable and decreasingly concerned ex-girlfriend, autobiographical scribblings named 'Memoirs of a Madman' and a book named 'Bonitas'.

Fuck the motherfucking Pope.

Page by page compilation.

Case History Character Development

Preliminary sketches.

The Illusion of Altruism. Part 1: The Holey Bible

This month, I’ve been looking into the ancient ‘Nature vs Nurture’ argument, and I suppose a crucial root to this debate is understanding evolution. I read a survey, or perhaps for want of words, a meta-analysis of many surveys that were taken over a fifteen year period in America. The surveys were primarily focused on beliefs. I shan’t procrastinate further, here are the findings:

48-51% of the American populous don’t believe that evolution is a valid explanation to human existence. All in this bracket said they do not believe we, as a race, evolved. That’s half of the country. Half.

On top of that, a further 38-40% believe evolution may have happened, but that it was initiated and administered by God. So, effectively, 38-40% are God-fearing Christians who simply do not understand their religion. You are either Christian, or you believe in Darwin’s theory. The Christian belief is that the human race is 5,000 years old and we are the offspring of Adam and Eve. We came to this planet as humans and have been such since. The perceptive amongst you will notice hypocrisy.

Leaving an iota of Americans that, that were ... well ... right.


After discussing my findings with a friend at university, a particularly irksome, close-minded, stubborn individual who seems to answer any penetrative and though-provoking questions with cliched, pre-conceived answers must have overheard. To which she simply said ‘evolution is only a theory’. You know what, that’s fair enough. A really constructive avoidance of answering questions about gaping crevasses in theological morals and perspectives by stating that which is obvious and known by all believers in Darwin. Oh no, wait, sorry, my mistake, it’s a steaming sack of horse shit. I found myself cowering like a lone construction worker, standing before a cracking dam, watching open mouthed at the erupting surge of vacuous ignorance. Maybe you feel the same way about the ‘theory of gravity’? That’s ‘just a theory’, too right? Hopefully you’ll float the fuck away into space. Funnily enough, the answer she gave to the first question was the very same that the Intelligent Design Movement uses in the high courts of American states to try and surreptitiously sneak its pseudoscience into American high schools. The difference is, science alters its views depending on what’s observed and recorded. It is a growing, learning entity that is always relevant. Religion denies all that isn’t written in the book from whence it was born to ensure preservation.

Now, I’m not going to pretend for a second that I would understand the subject-specific lexis used in fully explaining the Theory of Evolution, but given our capacity to comprehend and seek answers through rational and logical thought and reason, it really isn’t too difficult to understand the basic concepts.

Evolution - the change in inherited traits, (whether they be, behavioural, anatomical or biochemical so I hear), in an entire population of organisms through generations. These changes could be mutation or genetic recombination. (Which are fairly easy terms to understand just by studying the words). Some changes are adaptive, (ie. Natural Selection), but not all, some are random mutations. This occurs when the changes do not strongly influence a species’ survival. So, the environment in which the organism lives is a minuscule factor.

Which brings me to my second point. Homosexuality.

Despite GBLT rights and awareness being more widely accepted than ever before in predominantly Western arenas, there still exists a most monstrous monolith of a benighted beast; the homophobe. I’m not talking about your Grandad anecdotally referencing at the kitchen table ‘that poofter Martin’, or whatever. That sort of ignorance is, to a point, relatively harmless and has been spawned of social acceptance in different eras. I’m talking about advisors to presidents who support capital punishment of homosexuals, of those who partake in hate-crimes, of the goddamn Pope. It is incontrovertible that it is written in the Bible to stone homosexuals to death.

‘But what about all the good that the Bible teaches?’
‘What about all the good that The Three Billy Goats Gruff teaches? I don’t persecute those who don’t abide by those morals’.
‘You’re the one who is claiming absolute confidence in evolution. Homosexuality isn’t natural. They can’t continue the race’.
‘Too true, my ecclesiastical, hypothetical friend. Too true. And thank you for leading me so fluidly into my next point’.

If the world was exclusively homosexual, then the human race would most probably die out. (Unless some super-baby was born with the ability to asexually reproduce).

...But it isn’t.

The human race has expanded and existed for countless millions of years. We no longer live in a world where we can be hunted by predators in such numbers for us to be concerned for humanitarian apocalypse, nor is there a disease known yet with the capacity to wipe out every living being. We don’t have to kill each other for food on a global scale, nor is there a shortage of women with the ability to conceive. Our environment no longer obliges exclusive heterosexuality because it doesn’t need to. Maintaining the race is currently irrelevant. We’re fine. Homosexuality has as much-a place on this earth than heterosexuality does given our current gene-environmental cohesion. Not one single person should have the power to say otherwise. Especially a fictional, allegorical, astrological book of outdated myths and morals (and I use the word ‘morals’ loosely) which ceased to serve as a guide to unite humans through good by using anthropomorphizations of natural phenomena to teach us to know our mortality and our insignificance, but moreso, our connection, and is now used to divide, fragment, persecute, tax and pedestalize.

In the words of Rusko, ‘wake the fuck up’.

This institution is the orchestrator of the miseducation and indoctrination of future labourers (children). We’re taught to feel ashamed of feeling basic human emotions, which at some point in our lives serve a worthy purpose. ‘Don’t drink excessively, don’t take drugs, don’t have sex before marriage’ like we need goddamn basic direction. Every fucking person on this planet, in a Christian belief structure, is going to hell. Everyone has done something condemned in the Bible. If you haven’t, why the fuck are you living a boring half-life with none of the sweet little luxuries that being a human has? Fuck off to heaven already. That’s what you’re waiting for isn’t it? We’re taught to see things as right or wrong in accordance with the Holy books. There are no mitigating circumstances.

Here’s some brilliant life lessons from the Bible:

If you eventually have a daughter, a beautiful daughter and she’s raped and doesn’t marry the rapist, she should be killed.

We shouldn’t manipulate human genes or perform experiments to help solve the problems of disease or famine.

We shouldn’t abort children, whether or not they are wanted. (Probably because it gives the Clergy more ‘fish in the sea’ as it were).

We should murder all homosexuals on account of their sexual preference.

But hey, when terrible things happen, the Christian response is ‘God works in mysterious ways’. Wonder if that’d hold up in court...


The question I’m posing here, I guess, is that it truly baffles me why some people will believe outright what has been written in a book of magic tricks without actually reading it, and condemn all who do not believe in it. Why there is so much fear surrounding death that we have to invent something ... else, that we don’t die, we live on, elsewhere.

What I want to know is, what does this world so lack for you not to be satisfied? Why must there be an afterlife, a supernatural, an all-knowing few who could associate every situation in a fictitious book with those we have in this modern day? What is wrong with this world and all its beautiful sights and phenomena; powerful acts of nature and weather; amazing people with stories, feelings, emotions, that you share, so you can feel those too; human creativity and connection, music, art, literature; sex and drugs; the miracle of birth; chaos and order that you feel you need more?

In the words of Tim Minchin, ‘isn’t this enough?’

Image Intervention Final Pieces