Tag Toys

OCCUPATION

Football is incredibly popular in Palestine but the occupation makes it difficult to flourish. The Palestine national team faces restrictions on travel and dozens of its most promising players have been frequently imprisoned, injured, permanently disabled, and killed after attacks and raids by Israeli forces. In 2014 two young national team players Jawhar Nasser and Adam Halabiya were shot repeatedly in the feet and legs near an Israeli checkpoint in occupied Palestine. Palestinian football stadiums and fields have been bombed by Israeli forces and sections of the separation wall were built down the middle of the pitch at Abu Dis campus of Al-Quds University.

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THE OTHER ART FAIR

Had a great time at The Other Art Fair last week. Massive thanks to the organisers for getting me involved, especially Sophie, Gina, Ryan and Jessica and for the life-saving and ridiculously generous help from Justin Carroll, Alison Johnson and Hannah Logic, and also hello to all the amazing people I met (including the brilliant Pandemonia, see below) and all the advertisers I tried to convince to quit their jobs. #PocketMoneyLoans

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POCKET MONEY LOANS @ GLASTONBURY

Many thanks to everyone who came to the Pocket Money Loans store at Shangri-La, Glastonbury 2016. Also massive thanks to everyone on the Shangri-La crew, especially Simon Vaughan, Kaye Dunnings, Moses, Willy, and the utterly brilliant Spider. Met some absolutely superb human beings and had an impossibly great time amid the mud and the misery. And of course gigantic super-thanks to everyone on the Pocket Money Loans staff who saved my life and my sanity on several occasions, David Jones, Hannah Logic and Justin Carroll. Smashed it. MORE PHOTOS

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ROSKILDE FESTIVAL, DENMARK

​Just two days after Glastonbury, Pocket Money Loans opened a new store at Roskilde Festival, Denmark, which has also unfortunately just had to close due to lack of child-customers interested in mindlessly expensive financial products. That said, it was a fantastic festival in a brilliant country. I can’t tell if I’m more tired from work, booze or laughing. Massive thanks to everyone who visited and especially those who helped run the shop and kept me on the verge of sanity especially David Matthew Jones, Gary Barber and Kirstie Fleck off of Is Tropical and her brother Tom Fleck. MORE PHOTOS #PocketMoneyLoans #Exhibitions

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ACTION MAN: BATTLEFIELD CASUALTIES

Three short films made in collaboration with Veterans for Peace UK to draw attention to Britain’s policy of recruiting 16 and 17 year olds into the armed forces and targeting children with recruitment propaganda. The Action Man: Battlefield Casualties film I wrote for Veterans for Peace UK, directed by Price James (Agile Films) and featuring Matt Berry was released in June 2015. It directed viewers to a purpose-built website battlefieldcasualties.co.uk which contained all the facts about child recruitment in the British armed forces and details about our MP letter writing campaign to try and end it. TABLE OF CONTENTS Action Man poster and postcards available. The films are based on the below fake toys I made while drawing Join the Army, an anti-army recruitment comic. The toys were included as a poster in the “Deluxe” edition. JOIN THE ARMY LINK

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The Must-Have Toy This Christmas

Multicoloured Bits of Plastic (2014) – I drew this poster as part of my Pocket Money Loans project and eventually turned it into a real toy. ⁠ ⁠ Posters and postcards of this are available from my website shop (link in bio) and I’m considering doing a run of the toys later in the year.⁠ ⁠ “From the movie of the TV show of the book of the board gamer of the rollercoaster of the ice cream”⁠ – that line was inspired by the fact that Pirates of the Caribbean was based on a ride at Disneyland and you can now buy novels based on a film that was based on a ride.⁠ ⁠ Available as a poster and as part of a postcard pack.

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ACTION MAN: BATTLEFIELD CASUALTIES – THE TOYS

As part of my Join the Army comic I made this poster of three Action Man ‘Battlefield Casualties’. If you’re not already aware of it, the British military have their own line of children’s toys which tend to focus on how much fun war is, (called H.M. Armed Forces). I wanted to make something of an antidote to that. I also recently wrote a short article for Veterans For Peace UK about the project and military advertising in general. You can read it here. These will been shown at the launch exhibition for the comic.

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BABY’S FIRST BABY PRESS

Baby’s First Baby has been getting a lot attention recently, featured on BoingBoing, Gizmodo, The Huffington Post and Dangerous Minds. Perhaps the crowning moment however, is the story today on the Daily Mail website. I look forward to seeing what that the Mail readership make of it. It seems like the majority of commentators have misunderstood my intentions however and decided I’m making a comment on reality tv shows exploiting teen pregnancies. I’m not. It’s about the way these toys intrinsically train girls to have and care for children while they are still only children themselves. If you look in any toy catalogue the girls section is wall-to-wall babies and prams, make-up kits, kitchen sets and hoovers. We complain that children are growing up too quick, getting pregnant too early, when the only toys we give them teach kids to act like adults and prepare to have babies. It’s goes without saying that teaching young girls that these are the type of things which adult women should and do concern themselves with is also a very narrow definition of womanhood. This image in particular inspired me to make Baby’s First Baby. #Toys

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