The power of carrots

Sometimes that happiness just comes bursting through, like an unwelcome ray of sunshine on an otherwise perfect rainy day.

The yolks on Jones

By law, in any cartoon strip in Britain, if eggs are involved you must involve the old hackneyed pun "the yolks on you" or similar. Read a copy of the Beano, Cor!!, or Whizzer and Chips from any Easter in the 70's and marvel at the way this pun is used in the final frame of every single comic strip. "Ho ho - now for a feast..."

Out of character

Reading a Wikipedia article on Diner Slang, I am assured that terms such as this are unknown outside the US. Sorry, but we know the difference between sunny side up and over easy. In fact it's so ingrained into our culture that Wings' final LP 'Back to the Egg' had both sides of a fried egg on its label, one side sunny side up and the other side over easy.

When Easter Bunnies get bored...

Incidentally, Lindt have started accessorising their chocolate bunnies with chocolate carrots - though at first glance I thought they were umbrellas...

The encroaching Spring

Realistic Goals

Here’s your first new dose of Scrumpy for the new year. I have no resolutions this year, in the hope that if I set no targets I may actually achieve something instead.

In which Pooh goes visiting and gets into a tight place

Originally published 15 October 2010

Of course, in the original story by A A Milne, Pooh got stuck in the entrance to Rabbit’s house. Here we have a rabbit stuck in the entrance to Smith’s house.

Coney gloom

Originally published 15 November 2010

Back to November for this one, New strips start again on Monday 6th January, so I’m now putting in stand-alones I haven’t run in this blog until then, rather than republishing a storyline that won’t ever get finished. And Scrumpy, the grey rabbit of melancholy, always goes down well.

I'd better get drawing again I suppose...

Therapy

Originally published 15 September 2010

I know it sounds simplistic, but this is good a way of getting rid of the blues as any. Given the voice between a session with a psychiatrist and a pile of leaves I’d say the pile of leaves wins hands down any day.

Scandinavian Noir

Originally published 13 September 2010

If I wasn’t doing reruns at the moment, I’d be running this strip upside down or playing some sort of practical joke today, what with it being Friday 13th.  But instead we have a Scrumpy strip, professing his love for the terminal gloom of Scandinavian Noir TV.

Actually, he’s referring to the BBC remake of the original Swedish shows, which occasionally break with tradition by having some scenes filmed while the sun is actually out. Another plus is that some of the shows have my old friend Roz Smith (under her stage name of Jessica Lloyd) playing Dr Malmstrom, the police mortician.

Fall

Originally published 7 July

The relentless cycling of the seasons is a theme that I keep returning to, something that was especially true in this first year. This was published on the 9th of July, so we’d just passed over the hump of the year, and the nights were very slowly starting to draw in. There are some people who can’t just live in the moment though - the dog days of high summer are just a harbinger of the chill winds of winter to cone. Some people call it Autumn, other just see the Fall.

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?

Rabbit Punch

Originally published 9th April 2010

If this was one of Aesop's Fables it would be called The Cat and the Hare and it would end with the moral "Never argue with a moody rabbit."

Scrumpy and Jones

Originally published 7th April 2010

This is one of the best strips I've done in my opinion. It sets out the dynamic between the essentially sunny Jones and the perpetually gloomy Scrumpy perfectly, and unearths a seam of jokes I've been mining ever since. I don't know who is winning in the battle of optimism versus pessimism - it seems pretty even handed at the moment.

Easter Bunny

Originally published 5th April 2010

Published on Easter Monday. I think I was still searching for the right shades of blue and green to use in the summer at this point. This combination was rejected.

The debut of Scrumpy Jack

Originally published 2nd April 2010

Here's the first appearance of Scrumpy, the surprisingly popular bunny of ultimate misery. I've told the story of his origin already, here. But it surprising how much he's changed since his first appearance. Here he actually looks like a rabbit - he's got more and more stylised over the years, and he's also grown a lot so he's no longer a dwarf Lop and more like one of those monster German rabbits.

Scrumpy was never intended to be one of the main characters in the strip, but he keeps on moaning at me so I have to let him make an appearance now and then.

Purr purr purr

The first sighting of one of the strips preoccupations - the battle between the happy and the professionally miserable. In time this theme would coalesce into the form of the strip's breakout character, Scrumpy the depressed rabbit.

No wall required

OK, hands up everyone that thought this sequence would end with Smudge knocking Smith and Jones apart as they attempted to get onto her wall.

Carrot Thief

OK, I do know how to spell weird really. Jones, however, is a cat, and therefore doesn't. Always remember, I before E except after W.

The incredible elastic ears of Scrumpy the rabbit

Yes, Scrumpy's ears are getting longer and longer every time I draw them. Maybe it's because he uses them so much, they're stretching with overuse.

In sadder news, Gizmo died on Tuesday last week, his renal failure having finally caught up with him. It's been a tough month, losing Smudge and Gizmo within a month of one another, but not a surprise. It's hit us both hard, though - today's been the first day I've had the strength to write about it. Linda and I would like to thank everyone at the Chase Vets Practice in London Road for helping us to make their last few months so comfortable.

Smudge and Gizmo, 2010

A house that is suddenly without cats feels so empty. The water fountain no longer burbles merrily away in the corner of the living room. There are no food bowls to trip over in the kitchen. Gizmo no longer perches on the far edge of the bath whenever I take a shower. Smudge no longer gives running commentaries while trying to talk to Linda's parents on the phone. There is no furry body blocking the view of my Mac as I type. Every now and then I catch a moving shadow in the corner of my eye and have to remind myself there's no longer a cat there to cause it.

Over to Linda, who wrote this obit on Facebook on Tuesday.

Hi, Everyone. Andrew and I are saddened to tell you all that our little big scrawny ol'Snaggedypuss boy Gizmo went to sleep this afternoon at the vet's office, with me holding him as he went. He might have been about eight or nine years old. He came to us about two years ago, when a friend had to give him up to keep him safe. He was a great source of fun for us, and I've never seen a cat who was better able to imitate Stevie Wonder or someone who should have been spread on the top of a grand piano, singing torch songs.

His hind legs were weak when he was a kitten and never got any better, so among other things, when he would crawl up into your lap for a cuddle or a Stevie Wonder pummeling session, he would sit, not on his haunches like other cats, but flat on his butt. He only had one tooth, which made him all the more lovable because his tooth was on the lower jaw in the front, so he had a snaggle tooth. He was bright eyed and earnest, and had a peep that sounded like a dog's squeaky toy. I think, though, before she died, Smudge must have told him he needed to learn how to meow, because for a little while, he was able to MEEEAAAAOOOOOUUUUWWWW in a very deliberate fashion.

I am at a loss...I have had an animal in my life constantly since 1995, and for the first time in nearly 20 years, I am alone with my human companions, which is fine, but there is some life missing. As I always ask, please donate to your favorite animal charity in Ol' Momo's name.