Category Archives: AWARDS & OTHER POSTS

Looking Back, Hoping Forward

TONY: Hoo boy… 2020 was an absolute train wreck, wasn’t it?

TATI: Do you think so?

TONY: Totally! You don’t agree?

TATI: Nope. (Give me Fresh Salmon please…)

TONY: Really, Tati?! So, you loved 2020? (Erm… here ya go.)

TATI: It is not the year that makes us, but we that make the year. Do you agree, Button?

BUTTON: Bring on 2021, I say!

TONY: Hm. I never thought about it that way. Makes sense, I suppose…

TATI: Let’s not think about what 2020 took away from us. Let’s recall what we added to 2020.

TONY: Making lemonade from lemons, huh? Yeah, let’s do that. You start!

TATI: I am pretty proud of relaunching Trottersville. (Okay, Pale Coral now…)

TONY: Yeah, that was pretty cool. (Pale Coral comin’ right at ya… I guess?) And we made a new postcard series with the characters from that strip too. I love those postcards! Do you, Button?

BUTTON: Hells no! Nothin’ but silly talking pigs. (And their pinkest piggy arses!) You should make a comic about me instead.

TONY: And we joined Tapas and WebToon, two cool comics websites that are now home to Trottersville. It’s great to have somewhere to put this strip after reworking many of the old scripts, then redrawing and recolouring them.

TATI: I participated in a translator’s contest. I also began translating our comics into Russian and Ukrainian. And we contacted some comics publishers and got some rather warm feedback. It’s cool, don’t you think, Button?

BUTTON: What?! Why bother with silly translations when you could be ghost writing the memoirs of my extraordinary life?

TONY: All of this kinda makes 2021 seem more hopeful, right?

TATI: Don’t you feel so? And we’re in the middle of preparing some new books and launching a cool new video channel too! (Tony, that’s Shadow Rose! Can’t you tell the difference?)

TONY: How the hell are we managing to do all this?! We must hate sleep or something… (Sorry. Is this it?)

BUTTON: Sigh. Why does no one listen to me?

TATI: I don’t know… but, Tony, do you still think 2020 was a train wreck and gave you nothing but a deficit of hand sanitiser and toilet paper? (And I asked for Fandango, not Flamingo! Even Button knows the difference!)

TONY: God. Those empty store shelves still haunt my dreams… Still, I have to agree. It hasn’t been all bad, has it? What do you think, Button?

BUTTON: That’s nothing! I’ll show you what a real wreck is!

TATI: I agree that it hasn’t been all bad. And I believe our dearest Readers will have at least one nice thing to remember from 2020. (Crazy Strawberry now please…)

TONY: We can hope! (Jeez. Aren’t they all just the same stupid pink?! Just point at the correct freaking one already!) And anyway, we should at least wish all of our Readers a Happy New Year. May 2021 be a year of renewal and reconstruction!

TATI: As for us, we promise to continue making cool stuff—despite pandemics and closed borders—and (hopefully) bring you some joy with our creative effor…

TATI & TONY: BUTTON!

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

Open-Source Poetry Five #4 (The Last Gasp)

Dear Readers,

It seems that our belief in Santa is fading away…

We put our all into the poem we dedicated to him. We did our absolute best. We also behaved. Tony hasn’t picked his nose for a whole year, and Tati hasn’t… well, let’s not get into that here.

The point is, we went all out for this overweight ho-ho deer torturer! What a sack of crap!

Seriously, what did we get in return?

Вензель

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An auto-reply from someone that even our mailbox can’t bring itself to believe in. An ‘unverified sender’ no less! Hm… Perhaps we need to take the hint?

But no. Hell, no! This shall not mean that our belief in miracles is fading away. We are soppy romantics, god damn it! And no corpulent, bearded no-show is going to take that from us.

That’s why Tati—in her icy cold homeland of Ukraine—finds a bottle opener made from kangaroo balls in her Christmas sock. And Tony—in his blisteringly hot homeland of Australia—finds in his sock a tiny bottle of horilka and a half eaten salo burger. Because someone has to do this job, even if Santa fails.

Someone has to protect our belief in miracles.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA, TONY SINGLE & SONOFDEWANGAN
© All rights reserved 2020

SPAM® Sushi #16

This relationship is a therapeutic one, quite than a 236 purely musical one, though the end product might be heard as artform. The compression occasion should grab half of the run and should be unruffled, not jerky.
— Gunockkeync

When Tony needs some therapy, he slams on some heavy metal and fills his gob with jerky. When Tati needs some therapy, she squeezes Tony’s jerky until he squeals. His squeal is quite musical, and can be thought of as a bold new artform. And then they sneeze 236 times.
— Tati & Tony (Two Unruffled Partakers of Absolute Poppycock)

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

Open-Source Poetry Five #3 (Final)

Hey-ho!

This went a lot quicker than we expected… like a sleigh out of hell that careened across the sky in flames. Even baby Jesus himself is reeling!

Our Dearest Readers, because we didn’t receive any contributions for our last installment of Open Source Poetry, we feel it’s time to finish it. Yes, you have spoken and we have listened.

We have fashioned an ending of sorts and—as promised—we’ve mailed it to Santa. We’re dying to see his response…

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by TETIANA ALEKSINA, TONY SINGLE & SONOFDEWANGAN
© All rights reserved 2020

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // The Sailor-Boy by John Clare

Tis three years and a quarter since I left my own fireside
To go aboard a ship through love, and plough the ocean wide.
I crossed my native fields, where the scarlet poppies grew,
And the groundlark left his nest like a neighbour which I knew.

The pigeons from the dove cote cooed over the old lane,
The crow flocks from the oakwood went flopping oer the grain;
Like lots of dear old neighbours whom I shall see no more
They greeted me that morning I left the English shore.

The sun was just a-rising above the heath of furze,
And the shadows grow to giants; that bright ball never stirs:
There the shepherds lay with their dogs by their side,
And they started up and barked as my shadow they espied.

A maid of early morning twirled her mop upon the moor;
I wished her my farewell before she closed the door.
My friends I left behind me for other places new,
Crows and pigeons all were strangers as oer my head they flew.

Trees and bushes were all strangers, the hedges and the lanes,
The steeples and the houses and broad untrodden plains.
I passed the pretty milkmaid with her red and rosy face;
I knew not where I met her, I was strange to the place.

At last I saw the ocean, a pleasing sight to me:
I stood upon the shore of a mighty glorious sea.
The waves in easy motion went rolling on their way,
English colours were a-flying where the British squadron lay.

I left my honest parents, the church clock and the village;
I left the lads and lasses, the labour and the tillage;
To plough the briny ocean, which soon became my joy–
I sat and sang among the shrouds, a lonely sailor-boy.

by JOHN CLARE (1793-1864)
Public Domain Poetry