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Bret Braddock beer mats

Posted on September 4, 2011 by David

I like drawing on beer mats, a.k.a. those disposable cardboard coasters you get in pubs. Always a bonus when you go to a pub and they have some beer mats there with BLANK BACKS! Some beer manufacturers get coasters made with their bullshit advertising on both sides. They are jerks (hello, jerks).

They don’t understand that beer mats are an interactive creative medium! If you leave one side blank, people will write and draw things on them, and often KEEP them. I think marketers call that “prolonged physical penetration”.

True, what people will write and draw are often obscenities and pictures of cocks ‘n ‘balls. But not always!

Here we see a nice drawing some little kid did in a pub. Sarah kept it. Kudos to Coopers for printing blank-backed beer mats so this youngster could develop artistically while his or her dad had a cold one.

I recommend local Melbourne cartoonists head to a pub where they’re serving 2 Brothers Gypsy Pear Cider: the coasters are very nice for drawing on, plus the company’s based in Moorabbin. Think global, draw local. Try the Metropolitan in Nth Melbourne, who also do a very nice chicken parma.

People who order a copy of my Bret Braddock vol. 1 book in the post at the moment are getting a piece of original beer mat art with it (see top), thanks to 2 Brothers! No idea if the cider’s any good. I don’t drink much. I think Sarah liked it, though.

Tags: Bret BraddockComicsIllustrationPimping
Category: Comics

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David Blumenstein

I’m a service designer, cartoonist and co-founder of Squishface Studio. I’ve done comics for The Guardian, Crikey and Australian MAD. Currently also deputy president of the Australian Cartoonists Association.

I usually write about things that shit me off, from bad bosses (The Bret Braddock Adventures) to pick-up artists (#takedown) to white supremacist trolls (The Internet’s Most Trolled Cartoonist) to predatory cults (Why Los Angeles is Scientology’s perfect city) and nasty tech bros (Octane Render: Cartoonists talk about A.I. art).

I’m working on graphic novels called Sciensatics (about cultists) and Free Money, Please (about wealth and passive income).

Sarah Howell

I regularly collaborate with my wife, Sarah Howell.

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