Neighbourhood watch

Incise incise

Originally published 12 April 2010

This is one of those strips that doesn't make sense in black and white. What is Smith doing to Eric the Circle? Only once the post production and colouring has been done does it become apparent that Smith is standing behind a big picture window.

So this is the first example of me taking the standard TV production method of 'fixing it in post' and applying it to comics. Beforehand I would have laboriously tried to convey the shine and transparency of the window in black and white. But now I'm working in colour, in Photoshop, it gives me a whole bunch of new effects I can use. But I always try not to binge on the effects - at heart I still want this strip to look hand drawn.

Dolly shot

Originally published: March 8 2010

Comics can be very cinematic - this strip is essentially a dolly shot, with the camera pulling back gradually to reveal the bush in the final panel.

Smith's house at this point appears to be a red brick Victorian house, of the sort I used to live in in Tunbridge Wells. It gradually changed over the following year until it turned into a 1960s sitcom house of the kind Samantha and Darren lived in in Bewitched - essentially a bigger posher version of the flat I now live in in Hastings. The sash windows you see here have become picture windows, and the first floor has developed a balcony.

In, out, in, out

I've caught Bella doing this. I wouldn't mind, but we live in a first floor flat. (That's a second floor apartment if you speak North American English - the first floor is called the ground floor in the UK.)