Focus x Meal Deal Humpty Gloob Deck - 9" Black

Meal Deal is a brand new comic collaboration from Malcy Duff and Paul Thomson

"Paul and Malcy first met outside the Liquid Rooms in 1995, the only 2 to arrive for a cancelled show by the group Elevate (a bit like an English Slint: neither of us had heard of Slint at this point) 

Soon they were making music together and self publishing the zine MEAT DEPT. (1996).

Paul moved to Glasgow after joining the group The Yummy Fur which led to forming the group Franz Ferdinand. Malcy continued making comics and co-founded the group Usurper. Paul found the pressures of touring left him with none of the headspace required for drawing and so did not pick up a pencil for 20 yrs. In 2021, when Paul left Franz Ferdinand, Malcy suggested they get together and draw again. Paul asked "how does that work then?"

Malcy replied "we sit in a room together and draw."

And that's what they did. 

It was decided that the project be named MEAL DEAL for no good reason whatsoever. Regular drawing sessions led to the creation of an imaginary island inhabited by a rotating cast of characters. Issue zero is a limited edition 4 page broadsheet newspaper that serves as a brief introduction to this world and its inhabitants.

The collab with Focus marks a lifelong goal of Paul's to design a skateboard. While never particularly graceful on a board, he did own a blue Off The Wall skateboard (£30 from Ali's Cave, North Bridge) as he could not afford a decent concave board. One afternoon he came off the board and found his leg fused with a wire mesh fence and that was the end of his skateboarding days. Malcy also owned an Off the Wall skateboard, but a pink one with a rat wearing sunglasses on it. He fell off this skateboard at Livi when he was 11, and didn’t get back on for another 27 years. He now enjoys skating slowly over drain covers, when his knees will allow it."

Paul Thomson and Malcy Duff, August 2026