This year via my on-line shop I offered a £10 'blind valentine' where I would post a drawing to anyone a buyer wanted, but they didn't get to see it - not the message, not the materials, not anything. Valentine's day is good like that, you see, cos the normal stuff you can buy for it is so putridly pathetic that ANYTHING is an improvement.

MOONPIG YOU WANKY CHEESEMERCHANT BASTARDS JUST FUCK-OFF.

At the point of inception of this concept I was kind-of taking the piss thinking no-one would be brave enough, but amazingly I sold 9 out of the 10 I could produce, leaving 1 for my own girlfriend, which saved me buying an Asda card or doodling on a piece of wood, or something.

I asked all buyers to send me whatever details they liked about their relationship to the receipient, and that I might use it in some way. Interestingly 8 out of the 9 buyers were men, who had my girlfriend melting a bit reading their emails about how much they loved their partners. It was pretty emotional for all involved.

In the end I decided to design a base artwork, and customiseify it to fit the various recipients. I then etched the art onto copper clad boards and mounted in some craft-shop-from-hell chintzy heart aperture cards, which kind-of looked surprisingly good, and made a few people's day from the feedback received.

This mini-project could never have been completed successfully without my amazing girlfriend, Jo, who was totally supportive of my use of highly corrosive chemicals in her kitchen, and more-than up for getting completely covered in black gunk cleaning off the copper boards. I also couldn't really avoid her seeing her own one of these prior to Valentine's Day... Though I did insist on making this one myself from start to finish to prove that chivalry is not dead.

Thanks to all the buyers, I will be doing something similar next year, but for now.... It's mother's day approaching, and I have an idea in mind which I'll be talking about soon. If the new puppy doesn't eat my pencils.

You can follow my crappy artness on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/BoyVsWorld

<3

I've been drawing stickmen for about 4 years now. Probably as a kid I had drawn a stick man at some point, but school always said I shouldn't do art because I was a spaz, so possibly I was just typing 'BOOBLESS' using a calculator instead. Thanks QEGS you uninspiring set of capitalist bastards!

I've done around 400 of these drawings to date, a lot of which I've published on Facebook, and there is a small selection on this blog. There have been a fair few people who've seen these and encouraged me to release them properly in some way, as a product. I didn't feel like selling out for a long time, and also had that trial of self-belief where I thought they would be ununderstandable to anyone other than myself or the most dysfunctional of friends I have.

After talking at Cornerhouse before Christmas, where I randomly showed some of these doodles, I noticed people were actually laughing, or at least feeling sorry for me and going 'ahhhh' as they connected with the sentiment portrayed.

This lead me to do anti-Xmas cards featuring stickman and various course or crude messages summing up the realist's view of the paper-thin pseudo religious holiday. (e.g. 'Xmas - Responsible for 99% of domestic suicides. Have a good one!'). These cards sold out quickly, scarily quickly...

Thanks to the unquivering support of my number 1 fan, my amazing girlfriend Jo, I felt maybe this stuff did have a place in the world, and produced prints of 11 of my drawings, ranging in subject matter from the insanely loving, to the deepest depths of dark, depraved mental illness (over-dramatic to the end).

These prints are all very short runs, about 10 to 30 of each, and I probably won't reproduce these particular designs ever again. I've tried to keep them as affordable as possible in respect of selling price, and of the cost of framing them for the owner (they fit standard Ikea frames)... This isn't an exercise for profit, it's to make people smile, or cry, or at least some kind of extreme reaction such as being sick, or rupturing a spleen.

If you have 5 minutes to waste today on something other than Twitter, Facebook, and working for da Man, then please check out my shop, you can use the discount code 'BOYBLOG40' to get 40% off print prices until the end of February. I'll be adding new prints and products over the coming months, but for now, I've spent all my cheddar on what's there so far... Hope you like!

http://shop.weareboy.co.uk

+ all that other pointless crap you hold so dear.

Democracy implies a choice. In the UK there is no choice - they're all the exact same load of crap, taking turns at being crapper than the people before.

It doesn't matter which team you've been convinced is looking after your interests: They're not even thinking about you.

I talked at Cornerhouse (Manchester) on Saturday afternoon as part of their 'Show & Tell' series.

I could have spent some time putting together a relevant and interesting presentation with some kind of point, but instead (of course) I left it until a few hours before to throw together some unrelated slides featuring a polaroid of me on the verge of tears at age 3, some stickman doodles, and various other sketchy evidence of stuff I've done the last couple of years.

I found it liberating to be allowed to talk about my inane activities as though they had some creative or artistic merit, and was touched by the number of people going 'awwwwww' and looking sorry for me when stickmen came on screen.

Many thanks to Design by Day for recommending me to talk, and to Cornerhouse for the chance to participate, I highly recommend getting involved if you have the chance.

PS - I now have man flu, and have only moped around and grumbled at 100% of everyone I have come into contact since its official diagnosis yesterday. I cannot pass up this opportunity to let others know that they are not alone, and it will all be okay someday.

Happy Birthday dude! X

I could never have made this infantile masterpiece without the art-supporting Sarah Louise Jay - thanks for the loan of the yellow Sharpie :)