How to end a sequence

First published 21 May 2010

This was to became the default ending for a lot of my extended story lines beaded on one of the cats having a delusion of some sort. Eventually the cats delusion would lead them to think they could sit on Smudges' wall, and Smudge would wallop some sense back into them. I now try my best to come up with a different ending, but it tempting, and besides, it's one of the things that defines the strip. After all, the Doctor's sonic screwdriver is a similar 'get out of a situation easily' device, but you'd be disappointed if he didn't use it at least once in an episode of Doctor Who.

An imperceptible speck floating unnoticed in the void of eternity

Note Scrumpy's smile in the last panel. Is he really as miserable as he says he is, or is he just mucking about with people's minds?

Ur Buzza Wuzza

first published 17 May 2010

This strip strikes me as pure Buzza Wuzza, If you haven't seen him before, he's a loosely drawn yellow cat who lives out his life on a beach with his friend, Riggs the red cat, his pal, Pal, an alien called Dr Guam, a host, and a single solitary spiky bush. Looming behind them all, manipulating their moods and controlling their destinies is a mysterious entity only known as The Sea Wall. He popped up on Sherpa earlier this year and he's quickly found an appreciative audience, drawn to to uniqueness and completeness of its vision. Nothing and everything happens - it is like a mixture of Waiting for Godot and Lost populated by funny animals. External influences very rarely intrude on Buzza's little universe - though occasionally a girl cat appears called Judy Moon. Nothing is explained, but everything makes sense in its own strange way.

This strip strikes me as the kind of thing that would happen in Buzza Wuzza., only the characters would then worry about the philosophical ramifications of invisibility for the next few days.  Jones' pose in frame two is also very Buzza - only with more realistically proportioned forelimbs.

Teel hee!

Originally published May 14, 2010

"Tee hee"? How Beano can you get? Every now and then the influence of those old DC Thompson comics I used to read as a kid comes back and makes its presence known.

Four panels

Originally published May 12, 2010

When I was a kid, and my interest in cartooning was becoming apparent, I remember my Mum and an auntie (I don't remember which - I have more aunts than a book by PG Wodehouse) talking about cartoons and whether there was any future in it. The comment that stays with me to this day came from the aunt: "Well, I think its clever. Have you ever noticed the way the stories always stop exactly at the end of the page? How do they do that?"

It's not as dumb a question as it first appears to be. There are some comics, Garfield being one, that have a rigid format that has to be stuck to at all times. This gag wouldn't work in Garfield, it has to be paced at four panels. You can't lose a panel without losing the premise, the set up, Smith's reaction, or the punchline. 1 and 2 could possibly be melded together but the timing would go all skewiff.

I have a space to fill. The strip ends when the gag is delivered on the right hand side of the space. Other than that, everything is up for grabs, I can have as many or as few panels as I like. I revel in that freedom. And I've been really enjoying doing the Sunday strips - when I return to doing the dailies in the new year I think I may do some Sundays as well.

The real question is, how does the Jim Davies organisation manage to churn out so many gags with just three frames (middle one borderless) in them?

Cheshire Cat

Originally published May 10, 2010

This was based on an original strip I did back in 1982. In it, a cat called Perdi, who doesn't appear in the modern version (Smudge takes her place in the strip's ecosystem of gags), was seen grinning like Jones does in panel 3. She repeated the same pose for two panels, with gradually more and more beads of sweat radiating from her. In the last panel she thinks "I don't understand this. Maybe you have to come from Cheshire for it to work". I took the premise and twisted it in a completely different direction for this storyline.