The Flatman Compendium

The Flatman Compendium, first published in 1976, is a book of environmental cartoon strips featuring the anti-hero, 'Flatman' – the biggest threat to the world since the discovery of oil – and his dysfunctional (all except for daughter Doora) family. The messages in this book are as relevant today as they were 44 years ago.

You can read it here in its entirety by scrolling down the page…

The Flatman Compendium is the result of people putting chemicals into marmalade that tasted better before. Also of fly-by-night characters digging around in Snowdonia National Park for a quick buck; of seabirds in oil; of floating islands of indestructible plastic; of blind over-procreation; of the conversion of the Q.E. 2’s library into a casino; of the conversion of animals into fur coats and candles; and the conversion of just about everything into money.

This book doesn’t attempt to explain the mentality of those responsible, but I can tell you roughly what they look like:

The Flatman Compendium isn’t so much dedicated to, as pointed at, Flatmen (and Flatwomen) everywhere.

Introducing THE MAN WITH THE POLLUTED MIND

FLATMAN

What they say about him:

'He's the biggest threat to life in the history of the world, and we can't do a thing about it.' -- Stockholm Conference

'Arrogant. Immovable. Selfish. Corrupt. How human can you get?' -- Author

'This man is suffering severe DDTs.' -- Hospital Spokesman

'There's room for him in the Department of the Environment.' -- Government Spokesman

NOT FORGETTING...

Flatys, Flatson, Flatlette, Cubert, Plenry (or Plank), Boxer, Doora, Lucy-Box, Bobby-Window, Checker and Gourdon.

SNOWGONIA

Frame 1:

'Anything in the paper, dear?'

'Nothing that would interest us, Flatys.'

(headline) 8,000 KILLED BY NO-DEPOSIT BOTTLE SLIDE IN FINCHLEY

Frame 2:

'Say, Flatys, our Rio Tinto shares are up again. Let's go on holiday!'

Frame 3:

Next morning, Flatman the wife and kids all pile into the car to begin their holiday in North Wales.

Frame 4:

Then... (sign) RIO TINTO ZINC WELCOMES YOU TO WHAT'S LEFT OF SNOWDONIA NATIONAL PARK.

'Dad, They've taken all the mountains down!'

Frame 5:

'Never mind, Gourdon. We've got pictures of mountains at home...

...besides, your father made 4,000 pounds on the deal, so shut up!'

N.B. When 'Snowgonia' first appeared, RTZ were still at the prospecting stage of their Snowdonia mining project. They have since announced that the copper ore found is 'low grade' and not worth the expense of extracting. However, with resources becoming scarcer. it may one day pay RTZ to return to Snowdonia.

Prologue: You wouldn’t believe some of the things that lived in Flatman’s garden – the grubs, grebes, breadfruit trees, alligators, flies, frogs, rabbits, shrews, gnues. It was like a small game reserve. A place where worms loved other worms to make more worms and where tadpoles played happily in the sun, UNTIL…

THE DAY FLATMAN WENT INTO THE GARDEN

Flatman: 'This garden has great possibilities, Flatys. All it needs is a little attention. Give me just 24 hours and I’ll create a paradise the whole town will envy. Get the tools out, boys.'

Receipt

Bear traps
DDT
Cement

NEXT DAY:

Flatman: 'Not bad, is it? You, know, just 24 hours ago you couldn’t move for weeds and animals. But I think it’s clear now who’s king of this jungle.'

Hippo God: 'WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO KID, FELLA!'

FLATMAN DRIVES TO WORK

Produced and direct by Mai Carr. Story: Noel Entry, Buzz Lane, Smokey Rhodes and Del Carriageway from an original idea by Herr Daimler of Wurtemburg. Camera: Axel & Fender Bumper. Continuity: Graham Preigh. Make-up: Petrel-Anne Doyle. Sound: Henry Ford. Fumes: Lord Stokes. Flatman's car by Henlys of Berkeley Square.

THE END

And he's not even half-way there yet!

FLATMAN'S TRIP TO VENICE

FLATMAN: That's Flatys standing in St Mark's Square.

FLATYS: And with that crack in the tower you can see why we didn't stay there long.

FLATSON: We didn't really like those pigeons much either, did we Dad?

FLATYS: Here we all are at the Lido where we spent most of our time. Lucy-Box foolishly went into the water and had to have her stomach pumped.

FLATMAN: It ruined the whole afternoon I can tell you.

LUCY-BOX: How could I know? The sign was in Italian!

FLATMAN: On the Thursday we took a day excursion to Mestre on the mainland. It's an industrial town. Really alive and vibrant. That's me standing beside one of their Mercurozinc Effluidacid Egesters on the lagoon.

FLATMAN: None of the other pictures we took came out due to something in the air.

FLATYS: Yes, and what a dreadful waste! But I'm glad in a way that we saw Venice before it disintegrated aren't you dear?

THE FASHION SHOW

Frame 1:

C.B. Murdur

Specialists in extinct and diminishing species.

Frame 2:

Monique is wearing a Monitor Lizard housecoat with genuine bald eagle beak toggles and Javan tiger lining... just 3,000 pounds.

'Why's it so expensive, Betty?'

'It's because they're getting near the end of the monitor lizards I suppose. Same thing happened last year with snow leopards. Better buy it, Flatys. You may not get another chance.'

Frame 3:

BACK HOME...

'Oh mummy, it's beautiful! Can you buy me a new coat like yours?'

'Not yet, dear. When you're older I'll take you to Murdur's for something really nice.'

Frame 4:

TEN YEARS LATER...

Gaby is wearing a St. Sandi creation in kitten fur with genuine white mouse lining and poodle bone toggles... just 4,500 pounds.

'Buy it, Flatlette. It's the last one!'

A PARTY POLITICAL BROADCAST

Flatman: Pay attention, Checker, you might learn something.

Edward Heath: Good evening. I’m going to speak to you about two things beginning with ‘E’… the Environment and Unemployment. Why isn’t the Minister for the Environment here to speak to you? Because he’s out doing something about it. Let me tell you what he’s out doing. Steps are being taken AT THIS MOMENT to clean up our rivers, and we have told heavy industry in no uncertain terms that if they don’t clean up their filth, who will? This is being done now.

Edward Heath, cont’d: As for unemployment, we’ve never had it so good. The Maplin Project, for example, will provide MORE jobs for traffic wardens, MORE jobs for lung specialists and MORE jobs for petrol pump attendants than any other programme this century.

So, you see, this government is very definitely doing something for EVERYONE.

Edward Heath, cont’d: To those critics of Concorde I will say this: Concorde or no Concorde, we will press on with the project regardless. And that goes for many other things as well. So you see, things aren’t as bad as my Think Tank maintains. Why, there are more Colour TV sets… cars, caravans, continental holidays…

Flatman (thinking): Certainly the best Prime Minister we’ve had since Neville Chamberlain.

THE ECONOMICS LESSON

Starring DOORA, the black sheep of the family

Earlier that month...

Teacher: Who can tell me what GNP is? Yes, Doora.

Doora: Gross National Paradox, Miss. The paradox being that you can't have increasing growth with finite resources.

Later that month...

END OF TERM REPORT

Economics. Doora tries hard but should pay more attention in class. She has far too many hare-brained opinions and her marks will continue to suffer until she can get her head out of the clouds.

(Note from author)

Never mind them, Doora, you're doing all right. --Chris

THE IMPRESSIONIST

ADAM BOMB

"Go forth and multiply!"

"Now do it again!"

A MESSAGE TO PROSPECTIVE INVESTORS

We started with next to nothing, Eve and I. From a small cottage industry we have built up one of the biggest concerns in the history of the world. And you know, if we hadn’t been so bored we probably never would have even considered procreation as a career.

[Drawing of an apple with the label, ‘Eat me’.]

In the beginning we suffered some major upsets but managed to keep our heads just above water.

[Drawing of Noah’s Arc]

You can’t keep a good product down for long and, sure enough, by the year 10,000 B.C. we’d made our first million.

There’s a lot of truth in the saying, ‘People make people’, as we found. Profits snowballed. Our doubling time went down from a thousand years to 180 years, then 100, then 55 and today, well it’s just fantastic! 32 years is all it’ll take us to increase our present capital 100%. Why, at our present rate of growth, we’ll hit the FOUR BILLION* mark by 1975 with no trouble.

Let me conclude by putting the record straight regarding our future. To those people who forecast a stork market crash I say NONSENSE!

[Drawing of the Vatican with the caption: ‘Some of the world’s biggest P.R. firms work for us’.]

Sure we’ve had to devalue our currency here and there in the cities and so on, but if we balked at every little setback, well, there wouldn’t be any growth at all!! Who would gain from that, I ask you? What’s the point in merely breaking even on your investment? That’s what’s called a ZERO RETURN. So if you have yet to make a commitment, remember this: There’s millions, even BILLIONS to be made if you LET YOURSELVES GO! So get out there and

SPEND!

*Since this cartoon first appeared, the world’s population has ballooned to 7.8 BILLION

HI!

On their European tour, Mr and Mrs Pointyhead, and son Pointer, of Babylon, L.I., USA, have a couple of days to do the United Kingdom and decide to call on Flatman & Flatys who they met once in 1965.

Mr Pointyhead: ‘Remember us? Mr and Mrs Pointyhead of Long Island?'

LATER, Flatman and Mr Pointyhead engage in some philosophical chit-chat in the library…

Flatman: ‘How’s business?’

Mr Pointyhead: ‘S’real good. We got 500% growth factor in the plastics division an’ vigorous activity in… uh… polyurethanes and… uh… uh… er….. uh… enamel. And you?’

Flatman: ‘My office development scheme in the city is going excellently. But you wouldn’t believe the troubler we had getting hold of St Paul’s north trancept. Even then, we had to leave some of it up.’

Mr. Pointyhead: ‘Oh yeah? Why’s that?’

MEANTIME, IN THE KITCHEN…

Mrs Pointyhead: ‘Flatys! Are you still buttering bread by hand? If only I’d known, dear, I would of brought over a little General Electric ‘Butter-Pal’ for you. Buzz and me simply love ours and… OH MY GOD… you don’t mean to tell me you’ve only got ONE dishwasher! You do your Indian Tree and your Pyrex in the SAME MACHINE?’

WHILE, UPSTAIRS…

Flatson: ‘Did you see my Dad’s new Jag when you came in? Does 190! 0-60 in 8 seconds and cost about 10,000 pounds.’

Pointer: ‘Sure. We got one of them! An’ a Lingkin Continental an’ a Caddalac. My brother Dale’s got 2 cars an’ he’s gonna give me the one he doesn’t like when…

[AUTHOR’S NOTE: This strip has been stopped as the characters are so boring.]

CUBERT, Flatman's no.3 son in...

THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT

or

The Day Cubert's Landfill became Cubert's Windfall

In 1973, at the age of eight, Cubert received 40 acres of Romney Marsh from his father, the idea being that the land would be reclaimed and then offered as the site for London’s next airport. They’d make millions! So, for 25 years, rubbish from all over southeast England was tipped into Cubert’s marsh until eventually the landfilling operation was complete and it was time to make the offer to the Airports Authority. However, when Cubert was on the phone to them, the world’s oil ran out. Not only were plans for London’s twelfth airport scrapped, but the other eleven were auctioned off and turned into holiday camps.

And so it was that Cubert became a millionaire overnight. Because it wasn’t just the oil that had disappeared but also the tin, aluminium and copper (among other things). Before he knew what was happening, Cubert was running one of the richest rubbish mines in the world. Which just goes to show that one man’s rubbish is another man’s riches.

THE AUDITION

Mr Pointyhead of Long Island’s plane lands at Heathrow where Flatman waits to greet him…

Flatman: ‘Here long, Buzz?’

Mr Pointyhead: ‘Fraid not. Today I drive to Wales for negotiations on the Irish Sea Bridge and Anglesey Development Progrim. Tomorra at oh nine hundred hours I fly to Rome an’ll be looking at some Iddaly areas. Then back to Kennedy. But what about you? Hey, I read your quoted index was 3.7 this morning! How about that, huh?’

Flatman:

shares b

invest

motorwa

Mr Poi

and pr

margins

growth

on the

(Page ripped off)

No better, are they?

And now, while Flatman is making up for the next strip, there will be a short interval…

Two mule-mounted wanderers wound their way over the rugged rolling ridges of the Raggedy Mountain foothills.

‘On our way seeking adventure and excitement” said the fat one. “But so far no luck. This joint is dead. No adventure in the whole place.”

They continued their ascent, nearing 46,928 ft. and beating their half-dead mounts to renewed effort.

“FASTER!” their whips snapped.

At the summit both mules collapsed and died. Surely, here was the adventure and excitement for which the two men had been searching, for now they would have to WALK down the mountain…

BOXER GETS THE BIRD

'Hey spotty! What are you doing here, snotnose, picking grass?!'

'I... I'm w... w... watching the leaves fall, B... Boxer.'

'YES!? Well hop it nature boy! I want to sit there!'

The Royal Shakespeare Company presents

'WHAT'S FOR DINNER?'

A traditional one act play

'What's for dinner, Mummy?'

'Steak and chips.'

CURTAIN

The 20th Century Players present

'WHAT'S FOR DINNER?'

Translated from the original by D. D. Teegarten, Sol Erosion, Walter Shortage and Dusty Bowles.

'What's for dinner, Mummy?'

'Emulsion base, simulated beef extract, artificial flavouring (imitation), plastic pretend gristle, hyper-hydroproteins and French fried potassium.'

CURTAINS

Flatman: To refresh your memory, the nominations for Flatman of the Year 1973 are… Richard M. Nixon for his performance in cutting the U.S. anti-pollution budget, whilst at the same time increasing defense spending – a vastly underrated performance you may have missed...

AND...

Georges Pompidou for his part in the French version of ‘South Pacific’ where he defies the entire world and drops the H-Bomb afterall.

And the winner… Gosh, I’m so excited I can hardly open the envelope. Flatman of the Year for 1973 is ---

THE RESULTS OF FLATMAN’S BRAIN X-RAY

One feature of this patient’s cerebrum is that it is almost totally devoid of brain matter.

When he advocates open cast mining in Snowdonia National Park, therefore, it’s not through stupidity but rather a total retardation of imagination, sensitivity and foresight.

The occipital lobe, as you can see, is not only back to front, but upside down as well.

So, it’s not as if the patient is afraid to face up to the problems of the world, it’s simply that he can’t see them. Those dark glasses don’t help.

CAN FLATMAN SURVIVE?

Looking on the bright side, there’s nothing much wrong with this man’s brain that a good transplant couldn’t solve. Unfortunately, we can’t find a cockroach in the same blood group.

Flatman (thinking):

Fools. The bloody lot of them.

DESSERT

Blah blah.... Rubbish... Rhubarb... Really? [DOOR BELL] I'll get it.

It's a telegram. It says, 'The world has just ended. Hope you've enjoyed your stay.' And it's signed God.

HA! HA! TEE HEE.......................

The Flatman Compendium may be reproduced in part or whole for non-profit purposes provided the author is first notified and credit given, including this website address, when used.