Wednesday 30 March 2011

The proverbial...

This is one of those tricks of the trade we cartoonists tend to fall back on when the ideas well is temporarily dry. If in doubt, find a book of proverbs, choose one and take it literally. Use sparingly.

Monday 28 March 2011

Lavatory Humour

Here's a dependable stand-up comedy cliche twisted in a new direction. And redeemed by the use of French to make it seem a little less down-market.

I did have a cat once, Sunday, who would occasionally use the toilet if the lid had been left up. And the amazing thing is she did it completely of her own accord - there was no training or encouragement. I also once caught her peeing while sitting on a drain cover by the side of the road. Cats are much more resourceful than we think they are, but they prefer not to let us humans see it.

Sunday 27 March 2011

Mike Pike Essipode 9

This week's essipode is essentially an extended exercise in the use of a sound effect to create tension. Occasionally I like to do a continuous background. This is a continuous sound effect snaking over ten panels.

It's also a tribute to shows such as Land of the Giants and the Amazing Adventures of Paul on the Floor segment of the Beatles movie Help.

It's lucky that that table happened to have a reel of cotton and a drawing pin as well as a pickle jar on it, isn't it.

The gas fire was drawn from the one I had in the room at the time. The house I was living in had originally been subdivided into bedsits, and was reunited into one household again when my family bought it. Every room had a sink unit and an individual gas fire in it. My bedroom even had a coin-in-the-slot meter in it, and I had to keep feeding the same pre-decimal shilling into it over and over again to keep the electricity on!

Saturday 26 March 2011

The naked cartoonist

No, that's not me. That's a man from a stock photography website. But I will be in this show, and I'm afraid I will be one of the naked ones.

This is one of my other leisure activities, Am Dram. And  for some reason I seem to have settled into musical theatre over the years. Past shows have included Oklahoma! (Ali Hakim, twice), How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (Bud Frump), The Wizard of Oz (the Wizard, twice) and everything from a sailor in Anything Goes to the front end of a pantomime horse in The Threepenny Opera. But this is the first time I've shown my nadgers to the world.

You will have seen the film of course, and if you haven't do it now. For the musical the action has been transposed from Sheffield to Buffalo New York, but the characters and story are essentially the same.

Rehearsals are going on at the moment. More news and (PG rated) pictures as they arrive, but in the meantime, why not book your tickets early...

Millie, Week 9

Oh dear - another one of those that got rewritten before the Mirror and I worked out how to talk to one another. I can't even find the script for this one, so I can only imagine that it was cobbled together from the original daily scripts I submitted to the Mirror a year earlier when the strip was being developed. I recognise the jokes that are buried in there somewhere but the timing's gone all wrong.

The punchline in panel three is effectively defused by the stage direction shoehorned into the end of Millie's speech balloon. And as for "Frightful Freddie in Nightmare on Elm Street"- words fail me.

Writers and artists may recognise an inner cringe that they do when something of theirs comes out which they don't think is up to standard. This week's Millie does that to me.

Friday 25 March 2011

Sink

Once again based on observation of my own cats. They prefer their water to be moving, preferably fresh from the tap, and don't care what shapes they have to contort themselves into to get it. Cholmondeley used to sit in the sink opposite the toilet in my old house, and stare at you while you were trying to do your business until you turned the tap on.

I've now bought a pet fountain for my cats, which gives them the opportunity to drink from a moving aerated water source 24 hours a day. Highly recommended. See here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pet-Mate-06039-Fountain/dp/B001NYGB8W/ref

Other pet fountains are available but I don't recommend the Cat-it, which is noisy and needs a lot of maintenance.

Wednesday 23 March 2011

Occasional showers

This is how you know it's Spring in the UK - the weather changes every five minutes.

Strangely, I've discovered you can two two different seasons happening at the same time. I live in Hastings on the south coast. It's spring here - the two cherry trees at the entrance to our road are just starting to come out in bloom and the crocuses and daffodils on the road verges have been out for a week. However, I work in Tunbridge Wells, 25 miles inland, and it's still Winter there. I went for  a walk on the common this lunchtime, and nothing's stirring there yet.

Monday 21 March 2011

Summer plumage

Today is the first day of Spring. Therefore it's the day the strip switches from its faded winter palette to its more vibrant summer colour scheme. Then, round about the end of September everything will go a bit brown and orange and then we'll be back to the winter palette again.

Sunday 20 March 2011

Mike Pike Essipode 8

Note in Frame 2 an unsuccessful attempt at editing a background with Tippex, which looks exactly like a frame which has been edited with Tippex.

Igor. What else do you call a henchman?

Nim. An all purpose nonsense word, and one that I'd adopted rather extensively myself in the 1980s. I even had a music project at the time called the Nimband. Not so much a band - more someone experimenting with layering sounds on tape recorders who couldn't play any instruments. The tapes are probably best left in the vaults to decompose into sellotape and iron filings.

Finally, how can you tell someone who was born in Kent from someone from the rest of the world. Get them to pronounce the name of the following small town: Wrotham.

I'll give you a clue. It's in England so it can't be pronounced the way it's spelled. For example: Gloucester - Gloster; Worcester - Wooster; Towcester - Toaster; Bicester - Bister; Holborn - Hobern; Chiswick - Chizzik; Beaulieu - Bewly; Lympne - Lim; Kingston - Hull.

It's 'Rootem', which not even the BBC can get right despite having an enormous transmitter plonked on top of the down there. As we shall see...

Saturday 19 March 2011

Millie, week 8

Daily Mirror 19th May 1990.

Just for the record, what happened to Richard never happened to me at school, but there were rumours about the initiation ceremonies new kids had to endure at the comprehensive school down the road.

Friday 18 March 2011

Manic cat moments

This was very much inspired by the difference in temperament between Smudge and Gizmo. Smudge is very happy to stay asleep on her beanbag no matter what is going on. In the meantime Gizmo will be waging his war on feathers, newspapers and anything else that may catch his eye and running the wall of death around the living room.

Today's bit of Smith that I forgot to colour in: the back leg in frame four. Collect the set.

Thursday 17 March 2011

Stan

A bonus strip, outside the usual schedule. It's an in-joke for those in the know.

Stan is a supporting character in my neighbouring strip on GoComics, Snow Sez.., by T. Shepherd. If you haven't seen Snow, take a look - it's excellent. You'll find it at http://www.gocomics.com/snowsez And while you're at it, vote for Snow in the Cartoonist Studio's Strip Search competition and help Snow get a syndication deal. http://www.thecartooniststudio.com/CartoonStripSearch.aspx?name=snow

So who is Stan? Here he is, the first time we see him.

And here he is again

...and that's all you really need to know about Stan. Everyone knows a Stan, which probably explains why he's had an impact way out of proportion to the number of appearances he's made.

He's now started visiting other comic strips. He went to Canada visit Buzz, the catnip freak in Sooky Rottweiler last week and now he's crossed the Atlantic to bother Smith. Where will he turn up next?

Boing!

I've seen this happen so many times with real-world Smudge. She spots something to pounce on, her eyes dilate to black holes, her whiskers move forward, she crouches down, her bottom starts waggling, her head tips jerkily to one side and then she pounces... and it all goes wrong. It's like cats sometimes get so excited that they short circuit.

Incidentally, I should have coloured in Smith's tongue in panel three.

Monday 14 March 2011

Smudge vs the butterfly

Another continuous background strip to add to the collection. And boy, I can't wait for spring to start so I can just draw trees as masses of foliage again. The bushes are, of course, evergreen.

Saturday 12 March 2011

Playing catchup

Due to what I can only assume is an error at TalkTalk, I have accidentally had my internet access returned to me. They must do this every time someone gets so frustrated with them that they cancel their account. Too late, TalkTalk, I'm moving to Zen on Friday.

Anyway, let's catch up on the Smith cartoons from the past two weeks...

It's good to do a continuing story every now and again. I have a few stories set up for the summer, but we'll be moving on to a series of of one-shot gags for the next few weeks, before we dive into the purple tinged schmaltz fest of the Royal Wedding.

I was in London last week, at a fairly pointless trade show for magazine publishing (it asked the question 'Whither Publishing?' and came up with the answer 'Buggered if I know'), and took the chance to cruise the bookshops for a copy of Archy and Mehitabel. I finally found the last copy in London in the Gower Street Waterstones (thank you to the man in Hatchards Picadilly who tracked it down on his stocktaking computer). And guess what - I didn't buy it. It didn't feel right. I can't help but feel any copy I have needs to be second hand and covered in sardine stains.

I love Jones' growing hysteria as the situation appears to get stranger and stranger. And, as people have pointed out, there are parallels between the last strip and the Chuck Jones cartoon 'One Froggy Evening' starring Michigan J Frog, something I'd never noticed. That's what I like about the comments on GoComics - the readers come up with some wonderful stuff.

Friday 11 March 2011

Regular postings will begin again on Friday 18th March

I've given up on the ISP formerly known as Pipex, and am moving lock stock and barrel to Zen Internet. Expect a splurge of catching up on Smith over the first few days - and a return to regular posts for Millie and Mike Pike.

Friday 18th March is also Comic Relief day. How apt is that?

Monday 7 March 2011

Temporarily off the grid

I'm having issues with TalkTalk (which used to be Pipex), my soon to be ex-ISP. At the moment I am only able to get my emails and post cartoons and blog entries by using any other means than my home broadband connection. And it's been like that for the past three weeks off and on (usually off).

I'm moving my account to another service provider - a small one that cares about customer service, does the things it says its going to do, works with instead of against its customers to solve problems and speaks English as a first language. I hope to have completed the transition in about a week's time.

In the meantime, enjoy the strips that are up at www.gocomics.com/smith , I have enough in the system to last till the end of April. I must be back up by then, surely!