Hi my name is Simon Misra and this is my wonderful website. At the moment I have lots of ideas & am covered in paint. I love to be covered in paint!
I am a Graphic Designer working in Manchester. I also screen print a lot of my own illustration work. I am passionate about what I do and enjoy it when an email pops through & says, "Hey Simon I'd like to commission you to do some work."
I have worked with such lovely people as Bren O'Callaghan's Abandon Normal Devices Events, Scratch & Sniff Cinema, The Cornerhouse Manchester, The Goodall Gallery & 1977 Design to name but a few and we had a great old time! Come join the fun!
As I look from the window I see the sun rising over the hills, a shape shifts in front of the heated yellow orb. Do my eyes deceive me is it really you running towards me? Suddenly other shapes join you. WOLVES. I race from the lodge, rifle in hand, running towards you & let rip a thunderous blog from my blunderbuss, the wolves scatter. We embrace as King Wolf turns on the hill, shaking his paw at us he growls, ” I’ll fucking eat you next time!!!”
I laugh up towards the heavens as we hold each other tightly & reply to our would be furry assailants, ” WILL YOU FUCK, YOU SHOWER OF BASTARDS.”
But back to the blog that saved our heroic lives, sometimes life hands you an opportunity which should be grasped. Yesterday I walked past Noel Gallagher in the street, if I had not gone to Boots the chemist & then to another shop where I ended up discussing the merits of online shopping with the store manager, I would never have walked past Noel at that EXACT moment.
Now, as one of the original Oasis fans from way back when this was an earth shaking experience for me. To see one of your idols walk past you in the street makes you question the space time continuum. I turned to look for Al from Quantum Leap so I could demand the odds from Ziggy on the chances of this event occurring. Alas he wasn’t there as he isn’t real.
The experience was ruined though as Mr Gallagher was on his phone & I thought it would be rude to interrupt him mid conversation, incurring his & his burly minder’s wrath. I watched them disappear down the street, ready to give chase should the king of Brit pop finish his conversation. But alas it wasn’t to be. OH WHAT COULD OF BEEN!
In a parallel universe Noel & I would chat & he would then invite me for a drink as he thought I was such a double mad for it top laugh. He would then employ me as his Svengali & I would change my name to Rudy Tiptop. Eventually I would become Prime minister due to my wise words & ability to avert a crisis with a hilarious pun. When I finally took my place as king of the world, riding a genetically engineered cross between a silver back gorilla & a stallion, I would look back on that fateful moment when I bumped into Noel Gallagher & think what a tragic turn my life COULD have taken had I not. I would then kick my trusty steed in the sides & gallop off to survey my next kingdom. HUZZAH!
Below is a sketch of the fateful moment went it all went fucking tits up.
I can see you, but you can’t see me. I have cut a hole in my newspaper & I sit with the world’s current affairs dripping down my face as I gawp at your beauty through my spy hole of love. Like a monkey drunk on the fermented fruit of the forest floor I am intoxicated with lust for your beautiful head & the face that sits on it’s noble & all conquering chin piece. But alas I have to turn away before I am engulfed in the flames of your extravagant exquisiteness & return to my blog before I digress into bed I will never rise from.
For as long as I can remember I have wanted to draw for a living. I was especially reminded of this when clearing out under the stairs at my mother’s house (this is not a euphemism). I found an old letter I had written to Marvel Comics UK. The letter oozed hopes & dreams of a future involving fast cars & GIRLS, I imagined myself sipping cream sodas with Stan Lee in New York, while we discussed the future of Spiderman & the Marvel Universe in general. We would then hit Studio 54 & get into a drug fuelled punch up with David Bowie & recalcitrant rock god Freddie Mercury. Life would be one long mad ride until I crashed & burned, retiring to Beverley Hills to live with the Fresh Prince’s Uncle Phil in his palatial mansion, a torrid affair with Aunt Vivian would take place, but I’d blame it on Jazzy Jeff.
The only problem to this dream was I can’t draw to a level that a comic artist would even deem laughable. Say the word ‘perspective’ or ‘anatomically correct’ to me & I break out in a cold sweat, froth erupts from my mouth & I try & kiss you on the lips to distract you from the question you just asked me, this would normally work. But it would only detract from the elephant in the room, which incidentally I could draw side on, but not as a bird’s eye view or with any depth.
But this hasn’t stopped me my friends. NO NO NO! I continue to battle on with the pen & the ink. Much like Sean Connery, I never say never again. I have decided to send a new letter to Marvel Comics now that I have honed my skills. I have been training for YEARS, much like a really slow version of Ralph Macchio in the Karate Kid. Obviously they couldn’t have drawn out Ralph’s training in the film over a period of years as it would have been properly boring & the film would have been called the Karate Man, which has straight to VHS written all over it. My submission to Marvel will be the life story of Harry Nilsson, below is a sneak peak at part of the graphic novel. New York beckons…
I slip a crusty dollar bill in-between your beautiful teeth & you continue to dance, oblivious to the filthy lucre clenched among your pearly whites, you are taken by the music, nothing can stop the ancient rhythm coursing through your exotic veins.
But then the music stops as abruptly as it started, you collapse in a heap at my cuban heeled feet. As you look up into my smitten eyes you pull the currency from your avant garde chops & realise it isn’t tainted tender after all but my latest blog!
So my friends, once again we find ourselves together, you there, I here. I sit behind your computer screen. I’M TRAPPED! LET ME OUT!
Of course I jest, but this week’s blog is no laughing matter. I come to rest on a very serious matter, the work of David Attenborough. More precisely his latest master piece FROZEN PLANET. Many moments through out the series have made me pause the TV, drop to my knees & weep at the majesty/ cruelty of nature, my mug of hot chocolate suspended millimetres from my mouth as I stare transfixed at some new marvel unfolding before my eyes.
The five hour death match between a She wolf & a Bison was beyond belief. The seals got it pretty bad as well, those poor fuckers aren’t safe anywhere. Sit on an iceberg & you’ll get eaten by a marauding group of killer whales, pop up out of a hole in the ice & a Polar Bear will swipe your fucking bounce off! Unbelievable.
I was also inspired by my erstwhile friend& living legend Stephen Maurice Graham aka 400Facts, check his business here https://twitter.com/400facts an illustrator of true talent & rare form. So as a homage to the Arctic equivalent of the doomed rabbits from Watership Down I have created the Ghost Seal. I will write a theme tune over Christmas & get it uploaded to You Tube. It will go something like this, “GHOST SEAL! HE’S A FUCKING GHOST. GHOST SEAL! HE’S A FUCKING GHOST .E.T.C.”
The earth shakes beneath your moccasin clad feet, the very bones & marrow of you vibrates as your heart pounds with unknown fear, but as you throw yourself to the ground & scream for mercy you realise it is just my latest blog thundering past your prone body on the buffalo plains know as the internet!
As you can already see my friends, my blog this week has a certain High Plains Drifter feel to it. I am immersed in the world of Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy of books. At the moment I am languishing in jail with his two heroes in Mexico. I hope to have escaped by the time I get off the train this evening. BUT WHO KNOWS!!! Ah, the wonder of books, how the commuter world around me falls away as I am whisked to exciting new places by words. Words, words, words.
The last book I read was Empire Of The Summer Moon about the Comanche tribes of America, a thoroughly riveting & blood thirsty read. All of it true as well which made it all the more terrifying. I am stuck on the proverbial bucking bronco of American literature at the moment & holding on for dear life as I am tossed & battered around by the eyes & mind. Tis a thrilling ride, though I fear saddle sores at the end of my journey.
Having read the Empire Of the Summer Moon I decided to create my own interpretation of a totem pole. It’s in honour of Quannah Parker, the greatest of The Comanche Chiefs & a man of considerable genius. BEHOLD! BELOW!
You awake with a start, your cold clammy hand reaches up to mop your feverish brow. It is then that you realise how complex & beautiful you really are. As the realisation dawns on you a spider crawls under the bed sheets & sinks it’s malicious mandibles into your sweat prickled skin. As the venom courses through your veins you shriek in terror as you realise it is my latest blog!
At the moment spiders seem to be a hot topic of conversation on social networking sites & in the media. The two are intertwined like urban foxes making sweet love to each other. Their demonic baby like howls piercing our ears until we have no choice but to respond by running naked into the alley to join their vicious tryst. But I digress, arachnids. I suffer from arachnophobia, I fear the spelling as much as the ailment. These eight legged creatures strike fear into my very soul & this year there is an abundance of fear, under the sofa, in the bathroom, scuttling through the kitchen, crawling down my mouth as I sleep & laying eggs in my ears so that their hairy fang wielding offspring can munch on my brain over a period of weeks until nothing is left & they inhabit my skull socket & take over my life.
What would a spider do if it took on human form or could control our bodies like the little silver men in Zoids? (A toy of the eighties, google the shit out if it).
Well my friends the human spider would run rampant! Eating anything in sight, but they would mainly congregate in fast food shops, really crap ones that imitate the bigger multi national food chains. The establishments called things like Kenny’s Fried Chicken or Beef Royalty. Here they would meet to plot sinister crimes & stare hypnotically into the deep fat fryer.
I know you were hoping for the reality to be so much more Peter Parker, but the grim truth is spiders would eat us all if they had the chance. A dog’s bark is often worse than it’s bite, this is not the case with spiders as they can’t bark. Therefore biting is their only option.
So on these damp late summer evenings when you’re sat at home watching repeats of Terry & June, if a spider crawls into view, leap from your chair & run for your shit ridden lives!!! Abandon all belongings, loved ones & hope for we are doomed!!!
Now I normally do an illustration at the end of my blog to ram home my salient point like a samurai sword into the skull of a ninja assassin. But I’ll be honest, the thought of illustrating a spider scared me so much that I had to illustrate my second greatest fear.
This fear is of being in the sea, drowning, as I can’t swim. (I have lead shins, medical fact). But not only am I drowning I am being attacked by a Great White Shark, as things can’t get much worse a performing bear falls of a passing Russian Cruise ship & joins the killer shark in the vicious life ending attack.
The illustration is called, ‘WELL THAT WAS AN ANGRY EMAIL.”
You cower in the corner like a small hairy Mexican boy in a freak show. I lean forward to caress your supple overgrown face, but you recoil, remembering the glaring hungry eyes of the dime paying spectators as they watched you cavort & perform your mysterious South American wet dance. My hand holds forth a paper bag full of exotic beans, your nose twitches as your beautiful nostrils realise the smell is my latest blog!
Monsters lie in wait for you, either under the bed or on the news at Ten. Whichever it is, one of them will get you in the end. Death comes to us all my friends, I was reminded of this only last night while watching the superlative Bill Hicks documentary by Matt Harlock & Paul Thomas. The visuals were astounding & I squirmed in my seat as I guilty regretted having never succumbed to Mr Hick’s charms before.
I had always wrongly assumed he had died at an early age due to excessive living. I shall now be checking out his oeuvre with the passion of a lusty nun.
And so, after this enjoyable programme I retired to bed, some people think bed’s are like ball pools at a childrens’ theme park. To be jumped in, cavorted on & slammed into. I slip under mine like a lizard under a cool rock in the noon sun. There I dream, of late my dreams have taken on a stressfull turn. On the night in question I dreamt I was a rampaging lactating elephant, running amok through the streets of suburban Sydney. It didn’t end well, I crashed, full pelt into a conservatory & collapsed next to a small stone sculpture of one of my grey skinned brethren.
I awoke trying to fathom the meaning of this night vision, but soon gave up. On a subsequent night I dreamt I was conversing with a suited skeleton who was sporting a glass bowl on his head. I have illustrated this dream in the picture below this blog, it captures the event that took place in my night brain, which is never to be confused with my day brain, altough on occassion it has & with disastrous consequences. Sometimes it is best not to delve into the inner workings of the human mind, I often yearn for the simple dreams of a young terrier, chasing rabbits o’er hill & Dale, nipping ankles & pissing on posts. Maybe tomorrow night…
Well it’s time to vomit my words at you again, I’ve brought some baby wipes to tenderly dab your beautiful rosy cheeks with after I’ve spewed vocabulary all over your lucious computer blouse. As always you look like an Eighties dream straight out of Dynasty.
So it’s time cut to the chase, anyone reading this will probably know what a bitter & twisted man I have become in middle age. I spent many years playing drums in a band, sadly we had to part ways when I realised I was sharing the stage with bands I was old enough to have fathered. My life flashed before me & I recalled being a young man & the contempt/scorn I used to heap on anyone older than 25 who was in a band. Suddenly I found myself much older than 25 & still pounding away at the same brick wall that had refused to topple or let me climb it for 10 years.
Don’t get me wrong I loved being in a band, we had many great times, one thing I miss is creating the artwork for the group & especially the fanzine I used to design. You can’t beat a good fanzine & I loved designing & writing what was essentially a load of bollocks with alot of in–jokes for the rest of the band. As a group you develop your own humour & it can become so obscure only you’ll get the crap jokes. I translated this to the fanzine & it became popular at gigs, but we eventually had to stop producing it as our managers felt it was going too far.
Well I miss that fanzine & so I’m starting another one!!! I was going to screen print it but decided that to put so much effort into something that will just get thrown away, soaked in booze & pissed on, only needs to be a cheap photocopy. So here it is, ‘BRAIN FRUIT’ the first issue is a seagull special, everything you ever wanted to know about our feathered friends & more besides! Below is a downloadable PDF of the first issue, I’ll leave some copies in Common Bar in Manchester if they’ll let me… I’ll try drop it around some bars in Manchester & hopefully people will pick it up & read it, it could save your life…
Boom! Flash! Ka-bang! That my friends is my magnificent magician like entrance to this blog. You look up from your cocktail with those heavy lidded & beautiful eyes, the indifference in your majestic retinas is plain to see as I prance about the stage like a gazelle in a tuxedo.
Magicians, Pfft. Wizards? YES! At last the final Harry Potter film is upon us, I shall be dressing as Dumbeldore or some other crack head wizard king & getting my fuck on at the local picture house. I’ll be shouting spells at fellow audience members & having duels & shit at the back if the cinema!
“PASTARAGUCHOPS!” that’s a spell I invented, it basically turns your legs into tagliatelle & your face into cheap tomato sauce. It’s a good one, I may pass it on to JK Rowling. I imagine the cast of Harry Potter are very hungover today as last night was the premiere, oh to have been in that illustrious group, hobnobbing with the likes of Jonathon Ross & getting celebritied out if my tiny mind.
I could content myself with the Manchester International Festival, but I didn’t get any tickets & must console myself with following people on twitter who have been to events, & live my life vicariously through the great & the good. Occasionally sending them sickening tweets about how much I love them & wishing I was their house elf. I did tweet JK Rowling this morning asking if she fancied collaborating in a spin off TV Series of Harry Potter called ‘Desperate House Elves’. I await her response with baited breath…
But as always my beautifully lobed reader I have digressed, let us cast our mind back to the Manchester Festival, I was commissioned by Manchester Chimp to create two illustrations for an article about the aforementioned celebration of music & art. The first illustration is my interpretation of an opera based on Bernard Manning’s life written by Noel Gallagher. The second illustration is an unholy depiction of St Bernadine, the patron saint of gambling, PR & California amongst other things.
I do enjoy a bit of editorial illustration, so if you need any doing give me a fucking shout. Right, I’m off to inject Pimms directly into my sex glands in an attempt to bring summer back in a new take on the Native American Indian Rain dance. If the weather’s good this weekend you have my pubic bone to thank.
I dismount from my trusty steed, lift my head up & clear my throat, “RAPUNZEL! RAPUNZEL! THROW DOWN YOUR HAIR! I WILL CLIMB UP AND READ YOU MY LATEST BLOG!” You of course, are Rapunzel. I am the Prince who has stumbled across your prison, I am also a master wig maker. I yearn to steal everything that erupts from your beautiful follicles. But I shall bide my time, your hair will be mine.
If i were a prince I would like to look like Ryan Reynolds, I am not sure whether I have a man crush on him or if my lust has turned into a sinister infatuation. But he is a dream boat & I would be his captain any day! I was going to paint a picture of Ryan, he would be stood atop a mountain, wearing the skin of a bear he had just slaughtered and screaming up at the moon as lighting strikes his brilliant white teeth. At this exact moment he would BECOME nature.
As it turns out this would have been a mammoth task & would only have been done true justice if painted over 10 feet high in oil paint. I have neither the time nor the skill to carry out this work. Instead I have produced a poster for the mysterious DJ duo known as ‘Cloth Ears’. It’s based on my love for Indian street art. Have I ever told you how much I love Indian street art? A fucking lot. It is but a small homage to the great talent that goes unsung on the highways & byways of the Asian giant known mysteriously as ‘India’. Check some images out on the t’interweb, you will not be disappointed. If you are send me an email, subject title, ‘Disappointed’. I will respond with an email, subject title, ‘LOOK AGAIN. INDIAN STREET ART IS AWESOME!’
