It's no secret, my real name is Frazer Diamond. My Tax Return identifies
   me as a freelance cartoonist and writer operating out of Elgin, in the wilds of
   North-East Scotland, but in reality, I seem to have donned the mantle of
   Unpaid Cartoon Researcher on the Great WWW.

         

   Now that there "Star Wars" piccy, above left, isn't just a gratuitous inclusion to
   boost my search engine ranking. It's a picture of me and my brother Warwick
   with C-3PO Anthony Daniels. See, we both played Jawas in "A New Hope"
   back in 1976. Just a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance inside the Jawas'
   Sandcrawler (well Elstree Stage Eight, anyway) but it was one hell of a
   Claim to Fame for a seven year old, I can tell you.

   It's all been down hill from there. I've an interesting CV, which has in turn
   generated an underdeveloped career. When I finished school I spent a short
   spell working as a trainee puppeteer on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" before
   moving on to be a runner for Disney on the film. I was then employed in various
   production capacities by The Monty Python team, Jim Henson, and others.
   I even featured on screen again in the "Storyteller: Greek Myths". Well,
   I say "featured" but the brevity of my appearance surpassed even
   "Star Wars". I played Perseus in silhouette, in "Persues and the Gorgon"
   throwing a rather lethal discus towards the head of my unwitting father.
   And that's a screen grab, above right, with Frazer the Frisbee Killer
   winding up for action.

   Off screen, I spent eighteen crazy months working in the stills department
   of Elstree Studios whilst Brent Walker's wrecking balls demolished the
   sound stages around us. I also went to Cannes with The British Pavillion,
   and a year later, with Majestic Films Intl. That second visit I found myself
   stumbling blindly into the offices of New York's "unique" independent studio
   Troma, Inc. I blagged myself a twelve month contract as their Director of
   London Operations, which sounds very impressive, but in reality meant
   running up and down Dean St. in London dressed as a Radioactive Mutant
   Squirrel. And worse.

   I'm always writing up spec script ideas and in the mid-90s I formed a creative
   partnership with an industry friend, Mike Key, where I wrote scripts and together
   we packaged and presented projects for commission left, right and center.
   Our piratical adventure series "Smollett" had a cast and crew on board and
   got within a whisker of a greenlight. So too did our documentary series
   "Hollywood, Herts." all about Elstree's various film studios. That one had a
   sizeable amount of industry support and indeed, had its whisker twitched
   twice by The Powers That Be. Sadly, though, Mike died suddenly and
   with him, the energy to keep these projects alive.   

   For a year-or-so I contributed unpaid animation reviews and articles to
   "Movie Collector Magazine". I was also paid to write two scripts and contribute
   several storylines to a German cartoon series from Hahnfilm called "Renaade!"
   Then there was "Up into the Apple Tree", a French screenplay which I was
   hired to rewrite and which subsequently received funding from MEDIA and
   was attached to Norma Heyman Productions for a while.

        

   In and around all of the above I was always cartooning. Just bits and pieces
   on a freelance basis, here and there. I've drawn toons for tv's "You Bet!" and
   "Scofield's Quest". My toons got me down to Cannes for a third time when I
   was employed as official cartoonist for "Moving Pictures Intl." Wilbur P Dogsbody
   appeared in all the Cannes Dailies and, upon my return, inspired a new toon
   creation called Flick, who's still with me today. Indeed, in 1998 I self-published
   my first volume of Flick Cartoons called "When Films Collide", which sold
   rather nicely thank you - albeit through a limited few venues like the now
   sadly defunct film memorabillia store "Flashbacks" in which, in true
   Tarantinio-style, I spent a fair few years working part-time to supplement
   my shrinking income. Copies of my Flick book are still available to buy
   from me, if anyone's interested. Just drop me a line for more info - I'll even
   sign 'em for you, if you want.
   
   In July 1999 I married Claire and three months later we fled the rot and grime
   of London for the delights of a north-east Scottish city which thinks it's a
   market town. And nowadays you're most likely to find me ensconced in the
   attic of our 250yr old semi by Elgin's ruined cathedral. We have two new
   additions to the houshold, too, in the form of Ollie and Stan, our Springer
   Spaniels. And eight years after moving in, we're still crawling through an
   expensive and substantial renovation. It'll be worth it in the end, I'm sure.

   Toonhound was born in January 2000. It started as a bit of fun, really, filling
   a gap on the web for information on British cartoons. Now it's a 700+ page
   behemoth with 800+ links to keep updated, and new stuff bloating the work
   load, week-in, week-out. It's been self-built using Dreamweaver, but I don't
   profess to having any professional computer skills. I'm sure if you try validating
   the HTML you find the source code is all over the shop, but the site loads and
   works okay in the browsers I've tested it on, so that'll do for me. And when
   it first launched, it was well-received by the PC Press.

                
                Internet Monthly                          .net magazine                              Web User

   Our friends at Amazon and Google supplement the site with ads and links,
   which in turn generate the cash to cover the running costs. Still, there's always
   a wolf at the door, hungry for money, and I've taken up a series of additional
   shift jobs over the last couple of years to keep those snapping jaws at bay.
   But the desire for a commission burns bright within me still. I always seem to
   have a dozen projects on the go, as I pursue that ellusive "greenlight". Most
   recently, I've spent far too much time drawing the first in a lengthy series of
   seafaring adventures. Then there's "Brimstone" and "Stormboy" and far too
   many others to identify here. Someday, somehow, one of these will set the
   world alight, I'm sure...
   
   If anyone wants to talk toons with me, just drop me a line. Better yet, if anyone
   wants to tap into my cartoon mind for ideas, scripts and storylines, I'm here
   and ready for deployment...

   Stay tooned!