Bad Grandad studies the spellbook

Bad Grandad tries to learn magic from a book in a new Andy Fanton adventure that mixes old-school sorcery with the small, stubborn business of family life. The grimoire is ancient, the instructions are stained, and somebody has pencilled several corrections in the margins.

The central joke treats a wizarding manual like a flat-pack instruction booklet. Every incantation produces a manageable domestic disaster: a teaspoon vanishes, the laundry starts hovering, or a wizard’s hat settles over the cat. Readers need no knowledge of enchantment to understand that Bad Grandad has misunderstood something important.

That blend of pictures, jokes and performed material fits Fanton’s wider creative portfolio. Alongside his work published in The Dandy, including George vs Dragon, Boo!, Carrotty Kid and Bad Grandad, the site gathers comic strips, mini-strips, written pieces and television projects for readers who enjoy following the same comic world across different formats.

A bargain grimoire finds a grandfather

At a weekend bookseller’s market in Brunswick, Melbourne, Bad Grandad spots a thick purple volume beneath a box of dictionaries. Its cover reads The Practical Wizard’s Handbook, while a pencilled note inside says, “Use outdoors when possible.” For the price of two coffees, it is exactly the sort of bargain that promises trouble.

He carries it home on a tram and leaves it beside his reading glasses. The first test begins at arvo with a cuppa, because Bad Grandad likes a spell to have a proper brekkie around it. He traces the sigil, says “sparkle bother” and turns one teaspoon into a small silver bird. Success makes him suspicious, since sensible magic rarely behaves this tidily.

Testing spells at the kitchen table

By dusk, the kitchen table has become a laboratory. A broom refuses to fly because it has seen too many renovation ads, while a protection charm sends every sock to the laundry ceiling. The running gag is an uncooperative familiar, a grumpy cat who treats each spell as an unreasonable demand for attention.

For a filmed test, the hands, book and reaction must remain readable in the same frame. A white reflector opposite a clip lamp kept the page bright without throwing glare across Bad Grandad’s face, and the practical advice on using reflectors helped during the shoot. The effect still depended on the simplest technique: Grandad misreads one word, pauses for belief, then performs the correction too slowly.

Melbourne gives the magic its tempo

Melbourne gives the magic its timing, with laneway coffee queues and trams supplying interruptions, while Sydney commuters can dodge a runaway spell near Central Station. Across both cities, the humour rests on recognisable routines: a neighbour’s servo sausage sizzle, a shopping trolley with one squeaking wheel, and an arvo argument about where the remote control has gone.

The expanded cast lets the magic spread without losing its shape. Boo! could test a ward against a washing machine, Carrotty Kid could mistake a wand for a cricket bat, and the dragon from George vs Dragon could provide a loud, unhelpful review of the finished spell. Their involvement keeps the premise moving and gives each character a distinct comic problem.

From Dandy page to television test

The episode develops differently on the page and in a television test. In print, the reader can linger over a suspicious footnote or notice the cat stealing the missing ingredient before Grandad does. On screen, timing carries the same information through pauses, glances and the deliberately terrible pronunciation of an incantation.

Fanton’s television work is therefore not a separate showcase but another way to test the strip’s physical rhythm. The pitch pages, scratch drawings and related comic notes are collected in the Andy Fanton blog archive, giving interested readers a place to see how the medieval joke travels from a single doodle to a multi-panel performance.

Drawing the failure with confidence

The final sequence gives Bad Grandad his best lesson: magic requires confidence, concentration and absolutely no improvised amendments. Each panel widens the mess by one small step, so the reader understands the cause before the last page reveals the consequence. The last image is clean enough to work as a shareable reaction picture.

An AFL match on the telly provides the final distraction. Bad Grandad blames a mysterious gust on a dubious free kick, while the cat claims the vanished teaspoon. The joke lands because the character treats ordinary Australian life as a laboratory for impossible magic, rather than asking the reader to learn a new fantasy system first.

Read the finished Bad Grandad adventure, share the strip with someone who trusts instructional diagrams, and follow the site’s social links for more drawings, mini-strips and comic projects. Readers with a favourite spell or a suitably suspicious handbook can send it through the site’s contact details.