That was the year that was

2012 was a year that was fantastic and miserable at the same time.

On the fantastic side, we had a Jubilee that exceeded all expectations, followed by on Olympics* and a Paralympics that were so good we all thought we'd been magically transported to another country. Locally, Hastings broke the record for most Pirates in one place at the same time, the Jerwood gallery opened, The Hastleon's Oliver was a huge box-office success and Keane played a blinder of a set in a concert just behind my back garden.

On the miserable side it started raining on January 1st and hasn't stopped yet. My work load appears to have doubled but my income definitely hasn't. Smudge died, and Gizmo's kidneys have packed up and he's not responding to treatment so he's not going to last much longer. (Though it must be said, he's baffling the vet - he has so much urea in his system he should be dead by now, but apart from the fact he drinks water by the bucket, pees it out by the flagon and smells faintly of pee, you'd never know there was anything wrong with him.) The BBC is imploding, the press isn't. And George Osborne is about to invent the Triple-Dip recession, at about the same time as the Republicans are forcing the US over the fiscal cliff with their childish intransigence. (Honestly, triple-dip is a word that shouldn't be heard outside of an ice cream parlour.)

I'm playing with Osborne's excuses for his economic illiteracy. The past few excuses he's used for the ecomomy performing worse than expected have been 'a cold winter', 'a wet spring', 'Christmas' and 'The Royal Wedding'. When he uses 'The Eurovision Song Contest' as an excuse we'll know he's finally lost it completely.

* They're over - it's safe to use the O word again.

Millie Week 69; Mon 30 Dec 1991 - Sat 4 Jan 1992

It's the new year, so it's time to buy that Gym membership that's going to last all year even though you'll never visit it again after 12th January.

Shell suits were very in at that time, gaudily coloured garments made of woven grocery bags, and sold at a premium to the kind of people who have never taken a day's exercise in their lives.

Comic nerds may be interested that, rather like the Mayan calendar, the Daily Mirror's date codes reset themselves every twenty six years. Tuesday 31st December 1991 was coded Z316, and Wednesday 1st January 1992 was A1.

Totter

Its how I've always felt when seeing footage of the coronation from back in 1953. How did she move under all that stuff?

Queen Smudge

Dedicated to the real Smudge, who died on Sunday.

Smudge was the kitten who chose me when I came round to visit her litter. There were two female blue and white cats and one hen pecked all-blue male. Smudge saw me and climbed up my trouser legs and up my jumper to say hello. I knew I was going to be hers from that point onwards. And that's how it remained. Linda says I had a special smile I only reserved for Smudge, and I guess that's true, she was always a daddy's girl, and she had me wrapped around her little paw.

She'll be greatly missed, but she'll live on to boss her brother around in this strip. May she bring laughter to other people's lives in the same way she brought joy to mine. And whenever you see a wall, think of her.

My original notes for today: There's very little surplus Jubilee tat in the shops but Sainsbury's and John Lewis are awash in unsold Olympics stuff, which only now has started to reach the sort of price where you would ever consider buying it. But only if you're a fan of Olympic fuschia.

Twas the night before Christmas

Merry Xmas Everybody, as St Noddy of Holder would say. Have a great time, eat loads, and fall asleep in front of the telly. It's the one time of the year when we're all allowed to act like cats.

Millie Week 68, Mon 23 - Sat 28 Dec 1991

Two strips missing this week. One is because newspapers don't publish on Christmas Day in the UK. The other is from Boxing Day, and I obviously couldn't be bothered to go out and buy a newspaper on that day.

Here's the missing script...

1. CAPTION: THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS
Millie and her mother in the kitchen, wrapping Christmas presents. Mum is producing beautifully wrapped packages while Millie is having problems - she'sone of thsoe people that require three hands to wrap anything.
MILLIE: I HAVEN'T GOT A CLUE WHAT I'M GOING TO GET FOR DAD THIS YEAR - HE'S SO DIFFICULT TO BUY FOR.

2. Mum gives her advice as she finishes tying the ribbon on a dainty little box.
MUM: THE BEST THING TO DO WITH PEOPLE LIKE THAT IS TO BUY THEM SOMETHING YOU'D LIKE YOURSELF.

3. Christmas morning by the tree. The family is unwrapping their presents. Dad has just unwrapped his one from Millie. It is a video. He's totally noneplussed by it but shows gratitude all the same. You know - the 'Genny's knitted me another hideous jumper; goodie!" kind of gratitude. Richard is laughing. Mum just looks up to heaven.
DAD: NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK LIVE IN MILWAUKEE - JUST WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED...

Silly souind effect note: "FRANT" is a village just outside Tunbridge Wells.

Postponed

I tell you, those shops are going to be so busy on the 22nd!

I'm drawing the view from my bedroom window here. I can wake up in the morning and if the curtains are open I can check the time from the clock on the church over the road. Better still, at Christmas they put an animated Santa illumination up on the steeple so it looks like he's ringing the bells.

Festive

It's sad really, Snoopy and Schroeder bore placards and counted down the days to Beethoven's birthday, but Scrumpy counts down the days to the apocalypse. And the main difference between them is that Beethoven's birthday always happens, while the end of the world won't.

Last of the sparkles

The animated sparkles seem to have gone down really well, which is good. They were well worth the extra effort it took to create them.

The tech specs are quite simple - this is an animated GIF with three frames set to loop endlessly. As most of the strip remains the same in each frame, with just the sparkles (created with a random scatter brush in Photoshop) different, there isn't much of a size overhead. I'll do this more often, whenever I can come up with a gag that warrants it...

Millie Week 67: Mon 16th - Sat 21st Dec 1991

Yes, you have seen strip number four before. Smith reused it a couple of Christmases ago. Here's that version... Interesting to see that when I'm drawing it myself I reverse the dark panels and the light panels so I have less to do.

There's a strip missing from my scrapbook again, though in this case I think it's a pasting-in error. It's Tuesday's strip, and the script goes thusly...

1. The sitting room - Millie's house. Millie watches as Richard manhandles a trussed up Christmas tree into the room.
MILLIE: YOU'VE GOT A REAL TREE, RICHARD!
RICHARD: YES - I'M FED UP WITH THE ARTIFICIAL ONES.

2. Millie holds the earth filled pot that the tree stands up in, and ensures that the tree stays uproght while Richard puts a pair of scissors to the bit of string that is holding the branches to the trunk.
RICHARD: MIND YOU, THERE IS ONE PROBLEM WITH THEM.

3. He suts the string. The branches spring up violently and needles go flying. Richard is caught full-on by the fallout. Millie, by the base, misses the worst of it.
SFX: SPROING!

4. Millie stands up to observe a now naked Christmas tree, and a Richard who looks like the victim of a natural materials only acupuncturist.
RICHARD: THEY DO TEND TO SHED THEIR NEEDLES A BIT.

Glitter rock

Here's the song Jones is playing on the Piano: Roy Wood and Wizzard's incomparable 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day'. Fantastic music, terrifying Glam Rock costumes, appalling miming, some bored children and a video that has 'contractural obligation' written all over it.

Glitterbomb

To get the full animated effect click on today's post and then click on the strip.

Fire!

Another childhood memory, from the days when we had a real fire in the front room. The main problem with it was that once you'd started it, it wasn't adjustable. However, it was quite useful during the many power cuts we had during the 70s.

Millie Week 66: Mon 9 - Sat 14 Dec 1991

I always wanted Millie and her friends to operate inside their own little bubble, free from parental influence. Sure, they'd have to interact with adults at school and in the outside world, but not at home - that would be unreasonable. At that age parents are just obstacles to getting on with your life.

The Mirror wanted otherwise, and so, here they are, in a week of strips specially written to introduce them. They're strictly traditional parents, Mum's in the kitchen and Dad's in his chair reading the paper - tabloids can be very traditional when it comes to family. And it must be said, Dad does look rather like Terry Scott from the world's cosiest sitcom, Terry and June. Mum's hair started out brunette but quickly changed to yellow.

My sister always used to call me Fred. I don't know why. Family names are always a bit embarrassing.

The economics of enlightenment

Written at the height of the Barclays Bank LIBOR exchange rate scandal this Autumn. I have some sympathy with Smith's analysis of human economics affairs - how can something so abstract bring so much real hardship to so many?

And say hello to our next door neighbour on Comics Sherpa, Snow of T. Shepherd's excellent 'Snow Sez...' I've always been struck by Snow's acumen when it comes to the economics of enlightenment. It's always seemed to me that every guru's advice has boiled down to these two sentences:

1: To achieve contentment let go of all material things.
2: £1,000 quid, please.

Nigh, I tell you! It's nigh!

No it isn't. Just because the Mayans need to buy a new calendar, it doesn't mean the world is coming to an end. It's a moot point anyway, the Mayans came to an end in the 8th and 9th centuries, so they overestimated the end of their civilization by about 1,200 year.

Scrumpy doesn't believe in the apocalypse either. He just recognises it as an easy way to make everyone else as miserable as him.

Pester power

I don't have any kids, but if I did I imagine this is how I would spend most of my time at the moment, when I wasn't hiding the Argos catalogue or disabling access to commercial kid's TV.

Note to Hastings Borough Council: this is a recycling bin. It's big, strong and re-useable, and can hold a week's worth of discarded newspapers and magazines ready for collection each week. It is not a flimsy pink polythene bag which will break as soon as you lift it up and which will end up as landfill anyway. Hint. Hint.

Millie Week 65, Mon Dec 2 - Sat 7 Dec 1991

Strip four was a variation on an advert for the Royal Mail, (or was it the Post Office?) that was on the telly seemingly every fifteen minutes at the time. From what I remeber (I can't find it anywhere on YouTube) the set up was the same -  a tongue tied young suitor was on the phone unable to say the one thing he really wanted to say to the girl on the other end of the line. The last shot was of the girl getting a letter the next morning and reading: 'Did I say "fine"? I meant I love you.' Aww.

The very idea of a teenager writing something on paper and sending it in the post suddenly makes this strip as dated as a Victorian three volume novel.

Magic paws

End of story, end of November. Next week, we begin the long run up to Christmas.

The soot thickens

The soot's been a real pain to generate in Photoshop. I think next time I have to do anything like this I'll go back to creating the effect on the original drawing using a chinagraph pencil. I'm starting to rely on post-production too much.

Aaaaak!

A sequel to a strip from a month ago - the one that started the train of thought that led to this set of strips...

Millie Week 64, Mon 25 - Sat 30 Nov 1991

Back to the hypotenuse of our eternal triangle. One again, a strip is missing. The script is reproduced at the bottom of this post.

Mr Byrite was a very low end menswear shop, famed for the kind of suits that would only ever be worn once, usually at a court appearance:

It's strange to think there was once a time when Channel 4 was the intellectual pseud's TV station. Alas, no longer; Big Brother put paid to that.

Thursday's script:

1. Richard challenges Gemma outside the tuck shop. Gemma is eating bonbons out of a paper bag.
RICHARD: YOU'RE REFUSING TO GO OUT WITH ME BECAUSE I'M NOT TRENDY ENOUGH?
GEMMA: UH-HUH.

2. As before. Gemma finishes her last bonbon.
RICHARD: OK, TELL ME WHAT I HAVE TO WEAR TO GO OUT WITH YOU AND I'LL DO IT.

3. Richard now has the paper bag over his head. Gemma has one of those little smiles of triumph.
RICHARD: ARE YOU SURE THIS WAS IN i-D?

i-D is a fashion magazine, originally started in 1982 as a youthful street-level alternative style magazine. The neat thing about i-D is that it invented the emoticon 15 years early. Turn the title on it's side and it's a wink and a smile, and the model on the cover has always had a matching wink and smile to match.

"Yt's a Jollye Ollyeddye wiv yoo, Mayrye Popppinssss."

Sometimes it's good to go full out silly. (By the way, did I mention that Perkins, the cat that inspired this set, was owned by Charles Dickens' Great Great Grandson, Gerald? That has nothing to do with P L Travers and Mary Poppins, but has a tangental relationship to kids being bunged up chimneys.)

Whumpf

I used to live on the top floor of an old Victorian house. In the flat on the floor below me there was a cat named Perkins. When his folks decided to open up their fireplace and start burning solid fuel again, Perkins found the tunnel this uncovered to be fascinating. Before the chimney had a chance to be swept he decided to try it himself by climbing up the flue. With the results you see here. 

The pattern of the fireplace surround is a tribute to the ranch style fireplace Samantha had in her open plan house in 'Bewitched'. One day I will have a house with that fireplace. One day...

(PS. Ssssshhhh. I'm 49 today...)

Come home to a real fire

The strips for the next two weeks were partly inspired by this delightful old advert - but we're going to go off in a completely different direction. Enjoy...

Millie Week 63; Mon 18 - Sat 23 November

Children in Need is the BBC's annual telethon in aid of disadvantaged children. At this point it was eleven years old, and it's still going strong. (If you're one of those bloggees who likes to check this blog on the stroke of midnight GMT, this year's BBC1 broadcast is still going and you'll be able to listen to some of its side activities on BBC Radio 2 here).

"The annual Woganfest" refers to DJ and national treasure Sir Terry Wogan, still hosting the show after all these years. Children in Need without Wogan is like Comic Relief without Lenny Henry - somehow not quite right.

The last strip has gone missing. Not to worry - here's the script:

1. The sitting room at Millie's; the three girls are watching the appeal on the telly - well, Gemma and Sammi are anyway. Millie is watching the second hand on her Swatch sweep towards the magic hour.

2. Millie looks up from her watch and startles the other two as she speaks.
MILLIE: PHEW! MIDNIGHT! IT'S GREAT TO BE ABLE TO SPEAK AGAIN!

3. The other two point at their own watches. A carriage clock on the mantelpiece goes Ting! Ting! Ting! Millie slaps her forehead in annoyance as she stares aghast at her watch.
MILLIE: DON'T TELL ME - MY WATCH IS FAST ISN'T IT?

Fluff!

Further to my musings about the obviousness of verbal jokes, here's it's opposite. It doesn't matter what the gag is, if the drawing makes you laugh, you know you're onto a winner.

Obvious?

I think this joke is too obvious and and slightly ashamed of it. However, whenever I post whatever I consider to be a sub-par gag, I usually find the reaction that comes back is more appreciative than for the jokes I'm actually proud of. Maybe I'm a gag snob - forever producing tartes aux citron when I should be serving up custard pies.

Pssscht!

One of those observational strips, based on the real Cholmondeley who would always run out of the room whenever a carbonated drink was opened too near him. It took us a while to realise that what he was frightened of was the noise, which sounds like a hostile cat spitting.

I note I've used the word 'soda' here. This is what happens when you live with an American for too long, you start adopting their vocabulary. There's no such thing as a 'soda' here - it's a soft drink or a fizzy drink. Soda is what you bake with.

Millie Week 62; Mon 11 - Sat 16 November 1991

A very autobiographical set here. Rugby was compulsory at my school for the first five years. Now, I've got nothing against Rugby, I feel the same about it as I do about homosexuality - it's fine between consenting adults but it shouldn't be forced onto schoolkids by dodgy adults in tracksuits. It's taken me thirty years to get over my revulsion for the game and can now watch a Six Nations match without nausea. The last strip actually did happen to me.

Soaraway

The Sun is Rupert Murdoch's bestselling daily UK tabloid newspaper. The one with the breasts. The one without the breasts is called The Times.

2016

It's all over. Time to start preparing for the next one.

At least our elections up to now have only lasted a month, and the new PM's usually installed in Number 10 the morning after the elections. None of that waiting two months for an inauguration business for us. However, that may change. David Cameron announced that from now on we'd have fixed five year terms between general elections. So far we haven't seen any sign of us starting to enter the state of perpetual campaigning that the US seems to suffer from. But it's only a matter of time.

For the record, I'm predicting a narrow Obama victory, at least as far as the popular vote is concerned. Whether that converts to electoral college votes is another matter. I expect no change in the House or the Senate. In short, paralysis as normal.

Smith endorses Guy Fawkes

It's Guy Fawkes Night tonight. Hence the fireworks.

It's also the day before America going to the polls. Once again, hence the fireworks.

Somethings gone wrong this year. Who to chose? The so called messiah who turned out to be a huge disappointment, or the man who might be a right wing nutter, might be a centre right moderate, but is most likely to be a stuffed shirt filled with absolutely nothing. It's very dispiriting.

If your candidate doesn't get in, better luck next time. If he does get in, remember, it's your fault. And if you can't be bothered to vote, you have no right to spend the next four years grumbling.

On balance, this cartoon strip endorses Obama. Mainly because he's the one least likely to involve Britain in a third senseless war in the Middle East. And there actually appears to be someone inside that shirt.

(The original title before I edited this post, due to a mistype, was 'Smirg endorses Guy Fawkes'. Smirg. I like that. It has a Middle Earth ring to it. Smirg may return...)

Millie Week 61, Mon 4 - Sat 9 November 1991

A week of one shots as light relief after the eight week epic story of DEF and it's aftermath. I think I must have been on a stationery kick at this point as three of these gags have a school supplies theme. The fourth strip demonstrates effectively why I don't use a ruler for my frames in Smith, and prefer to draw everything freehand.

The Guy Fawkes strip (No. 2) is very of its time. It's strange to consider what an optimistic time 1991 was. Germany had reunited the year before, and this was the year in which the Soviet Union imploded. After spending the 80s convinced that the world could blow up at any moment, it seemed  to me that the world was getting better and better. Of course, we now know that Germany was sowing the seeds of the Euro Crisis, and most of the former soviet states have simply replaced one dictator with another. But back then, there was just a glimmer of hope that things might be getting better.

The last strip is very much a self portrait. I'm still like that at the weekend.

Mini

'The plague of footsies' is something that every new car in our street has to undergo. A gleaming new car gets parked in our street and overnight it gets covered in footprints. It's not just the cats that get involved. I think the cats start it off and then pass on the job to the foxes, the seagulls, and finally, the pair of badgers that live in our communal garden.

Halloween II

Just in time! My schedule over October hasn't given me much time to do any cartoons - I was hoping to do a lot of drawing backstage while appearing in Oliver, but found myself on stage doing chorus work much more than I was expecting. So, here, just in time, is today's cartoon. I think I'm going to be spending most of November catching up with myself, working through to the new year. And then I shall rest, and start writing again...

'Bumme', fake Olde English for 'Bum', like 'Shoppe' or 'Reneaiesseancee Fayreeeee'. Not a request.

Bobbing

We're at that time of the year when the strip starts to follow a regular pattern, as the calendar follows its usual path toward Christmas and the new year. Halloween is followed by Guy Fawkes, Remembrance Day and then Thanksgiving (or my birthday as it is known around here) and the long haul towards Christmas. My usual habit is to have the strips written months in advance and then draw them just in time for posting on the site, and this year my main inspiration for ideas has been the calendar. There are a couple of extra events this year that have been added to the schedule, you'll recognize them when you reach them.

So for the moment we're at Halloween, that bizarre celebration of the macabre that originated in Europe, mutated into something else entirely in America and recently got sold back to us in its new orange and black polyester clad form. Here's Smith's take on apple bobbing.

Millie Week 60 - Mon 28 Oct- Sat 2 Nov 1991

Philip Schofield is a TV presenter. At that time he would have been working on Children's TV, presenting the Saturday morning show on BBC1. He was that rarest of creatures, a children's TV personality who wasn't creepy (yes, I mean you Mr Savile), patronising or exhaustingly over enthusiastic. He's now Mr ITV, presenting all the prime time shows that Ant and Dec have turned down. And I'd still trust him with my problems more than the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition.

Ironically, I don't think we ever saw Hazel Montebello again. She became one of those hanging plot threads that never got attached to anything.