I first came to Japan in 1966 as a roadie on the Beatles tour. I lied about my age. I was 5 at the time but I told Brian Epstien I was 17, and he believed me. It was only going to be a matter of time before they found out, but it was fun while it lasted. Not that it was easy to work for them. Lennon always complained that the Smarties bowl had too many orange ones and not enough blue ones. In 1966 there were no blue Smarties, but John didn't care, he wanted them and that was that. Paul used to complain that there wasn't enough meat at dinner times, "Where's the bloody beef?!", he would shout. George would sit around all day practicing the accordion, but he never really got the hang of it. I suggested that he should try the sitar instead. "What the hell's a 'sitar'?" he said. And Ringo...well, we never knew exactly what Ringo did. He'd appear 15 minutes before the concert was due to start, smelling of grapefruit, wearing a snood and whistling selections from Gilbert and Sullivan. Well, none of us dared ask.

It was certainly interesting working for the lads, but after a while the constant demands for an ever increasing supply of drugs, women, cups of tea, scones, biscuit, cakes and confectionary of all kinds became too much and I quit.

For a while I tried working for The Stones, but they were even worse. What with Mick's obsession with buying and restoring old steam locomotives, and Keiths's demand for a gallon of fresh, organic blueberry yoghurt every morning (God knows what he did with it all!), I'd soon had enough and decided to go back to school and finish my O levels, and try for university.

I took a first in Modern Medievalism from Jesus, Cambridge, and I'd have it to this day if they hadn't have caught me. After a spell in a circus working as Bingo the Dog-Faced Football Boy ("He dribbles, he shoots, he scores! Woof! Woof!"), and an ill-fated attempt at reviving the Albanian monarchy with myself as monarch, ("I am your King! You are my people! Together we can make it all work. Everything is going to be O.K.!" ), I decided to become an English teacher in Japan. Many people said I was crazy to do it. That it would never work. That I was mad even to contemplate such a thing. But I ignored their warnings and came any way. Sure there have been hard times, difficult times. I can't deny that there have been times when I was close to the breaking point. Like when I was on the train one time and I went past my station. God! I had to get off at the next station, cross over the tracks and take another train back! The whole thing must have taken me nearly 15 minutes! Was I pissed. Then there was this other time when I bought some shampoo at the supermarket, but when I got home I found it wasn't shampoo at all, it was mayonaise! It cleaned my hair pretty good though I must say; soft and creamy, you know? The next week I put conditioner on a salad. Mmmmm! Try it! You'll like it.

All I'm trying to say is that life in Japan is no picnic. In fact it's a daily struggle against the forces of darkness who want to destroy utterly all that we hold most sacred, namely Duty, Honour, and Country.... err... no... wait a minute...I think I was having a Vietnam flashback. I was there for 2 weeks in 1994. Got stuck in Narita Airport for nearly...oh must have been a good 40...45 minutes, and you know the bloody coffee was 300 yen a cup. Nothing to read except my boarding pass, which quite frankly lacked any kind of depth or narrative flow...

Anyway, Japan: an enigma, wrapped in a puzzle, inside a paradox. They always have to overwrap things, don't they? You know I had a sembei once that had 7 separate layers of wrapping! Japan is very much like that sembei, or like one of those Russian dolls; every time you open one, there is another smaller one inside. Or like an onion...well, you get the idea, Japan has many layers, and as an outsider you are never going to get to the deepest layers. I've been peeling Japan for over 8 years now and I still have no idea what they're up to, really up to I mean.

Steven Segal once said to me, "John, if you really want to understand Japan you must...you must..." and then he passed out. Never could hold his beer. But in a way he was right, and that's what I'm trying to express in my cartoons. One of these days I'm going to get it right.

Let's get to the manga, already!

Past manga:

Can't get enough of John?
CLICK HERE