Modern Classical

Originally published 22 April 2010

Speak for yourself, Jones, I like a nice bit of atonal madness now and again. And besides, there a lot of good nicely behaved modern classical out there as well.

Here's a particular favourite of mine, Alan Hovhaness' Mount St Helen's Symphony, the first movement of which takes us on a gentle walk up the slope of the mountain as it was before the cataclysmic eruption of 1980...

This strip was published on a Thursday, so I could crowbar in the following day's time sensitive strip...

Jones' favourite show

The only way the real world imposes itself on the cats in this strip is through the TV set, which is why I use photographs and screenshots on the TV screen. Well, that's how I explain it now - it was originally a device I used to save having to draw caricatures of famous people. The irony is, the picture research takes twice as long as it would to do the drawing.

Arpeggio

Originally published 21 April 2010

Downbeat

Originally published 19 April 2010

This explains how the cats operates the pedals on the piano, but the answer to how Jones manages those finger stretching boogie bass riffs remains a mystery.

I know I've copied the music from some sheet music I found via Google, but I can't remember what it is. Is there anyone out there who reads music that can play these fragments on the piano and identify the piece?

Plan cute

Originally published 16 April 2010

Having crystallised the premise of the comic, 'what do cats do when they're not being observed?', I felt I had to answer the question of what happens when they ARE being observed. This is it. If you've ever wondered why your cat is looking inexplicably guilty when you suddenly come into the room, but can't figure out why, it's because a split second earlier something similar was going on…

Boogie Woogie

Originally published 14 April 2010

As I've mentioned before - Smith and Jones were real cats who lived next door to me when I was a kid growing up in Tunbridge Wells. I had a friend, Eric, who lived directly opposite my house on the other side of the road. We both liked cats and all the cats in the street knew us. As kids do, we made up stories about the cats, developing a sort of mythology where the human race had vanished overnight in some unexplained but very convenient apocalypse and the cats were now in charge. Smith was effectively king, and Jones was his queen. We were kids, these things don't have to make sense.

Eric's dad was a trombone player with a Trad Jazz outfit The Expedient Jazz Band, based in the unimaginably distant and exotic town of Hastings. Their house had a wonderful battered stand up piano in the dining room, and on top of the piano was a mound of old sheet music from the days of ragtime and boogie boogie. In our stories, this piano was given to Jones, and the image of Jones playing it has stayed with me ever since.

Here are the Expedients playing at the Rye Jazz festival. The personnel may have changed but they're still a proper New-Orleans style street band.

This is the strip where I crystallised the whole premise of the comic: what do cats do when they're not being observed?

This is also the point at which Smith and Jones' house turned into my own one. The Ikea sofa, the fireplace full of ornaments, the TV, the stand and the boxes underneath are all essentially drawn from life. The wall colour is not as grotty, though.

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.

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."

I like lamp

I'm hoping you're noticing the difference between the daily strips drawn four years ago, and the current Sunday ones. I'm finding that the more panels I have, the less dialogue I have to use, and the last few have been pretty well silent. Also the colouring is less brash and the drawing is looser. The cats expressions convey their emotions more clearly as well.

Very much a Billy and Annabelle inspired strip, this one. The last few months have been flutterby season. Any moth or crane fly that dares to enter our house gets stalked, caught, and then toyed with for a quarter of an hour before finally being eaten. Bella is the tactician, Billy is the muscle. And if we had an invasion of moths like these not an ornament in the house would still be left standing.

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.

Forgiveness

Originally published 31st March 2010

Of course as soon as Jones is gone that post is off running around with squirrels, badgers and all sorts of undesirables...

Seagull on a stick

Originally published 29th March 2010

The carved wood seagull on a stick is one of my favourite tacky souvenirs out of the many that are available on Hastings' seafront. No mantelpiece is complete without one. They mainly sell to tourists who don't have to deal with the ASBO breed of gull that we get around here on a daily basis.

Post envy

Originally published 26th March 2010

Cats do tend to fall in love with inanimate objects. Cholmondeley once decided he liked his pot of cat grass so much he lifted it out of its pot and walked around the house with it in his mouth, trailing earth and roots everywhere. Bella has become very attached to a plastic carrier bag - but don't worry, she's not in any danger. She never attempts to go inside it, she just likes to chew on the handles. (In fact, Smudge and Cholmondeley were both prone to this as well - what is it specifically about the handles of plastic bags that cats like so much?) Billy has Linda's office chair for a special friend.

A second stretch

More Billy inspired stretching material.

First post

Originally published: March 24 2010

Anyone who has a cat will recognise this behaviour. Note to self - when the daily starts up again in January, bring back The Post.

Meercat Manor

Originally published: March 22 2010

Meercats - officially the cutest animal in the world right now. Posters, cuddly toys, Reality TV shows, they're everywhere. They even sell us insurance. And they're not even real cats for heaven's sake! And they did it all simply by standing up on their hind legs, looking for gullible camera crews. Simples!

Shamrocks

Originally published: March 19 2010

It's an old joke, but it's good for it to get an airing now and again.

St Patrick's Day

Originally published: March 17 2010

Continuing the series on plants associated with British national patron saint's days. OK, does anyone know the difference between shamrock and clover?

Boris the Spider

Originally published: March 15 2010

This puzzled my overseas readership when it first appeared. However, since the London Olympics I think everyone now knows about Boris Johnson, unbelievably (but very entertainingly) twice elected as Mayor of London.

Boris is a bit of a contradiction - he's a liberal leaning Conservative, a highly intelligent man who acts like a buffoon, and a man with an unerring ability to get into scrapes like this…

Getting stuck on a zipwire while publicising the London Olympics
Boris causing chaos in a river
Boris on Have I Got News for You
Boris making one of his speeches, being simultaneously inept, erudite, embarrassing and baffling to wonderful effect

Why did I make Boris a spider? This is why.

Pfeffel is one of his middle names. What is it about weird middle names that turns people into politicians? It seems to work for American presidents as well.

Finally, here's a book recommendation. Johnson's Life of London. He may not be able to walk in a straight line but he writes like a dream. How can you dislike a book that starts a chapter on the life of Hadrian with the word "Clonk"?

Citroen

Originally published: March 12 2010
I have a soft spot for Citroen, the eccentric French car manufacturer, so don't take this strip to be a criticism. This looks at a car strictly from a cat's point of view. Cats just look for four things in a car:

1) Can I fit on the bonnet?
2) Is the bonnet warm?
3) Does it show up paw prints really well?
4) Is it so cramped inside that I can't be taken to the vets?

The C1 is great car in its petrol form. The electric version less so. The technology wasn't ready then - I'm still not convinced the technology is ready now. Its time will come, say in twenty years time, once range, recharging and infrastructure problems have been sorted out - though it still does leave the question of how the electricity that runs the cars gets generated in the first place. Go down the energy chain far enough and your green Prius is probably powered by a coal burning power station.

Stre-e-e-etch

Inspired by Billy, who is a very elastic cat. I've never seen any cat stretch to the lengths that he can manage.

Incidentally, if you're wondering why I'm not drawing these Sunday strips in the traditional three-bank funny pages format, it's because I don't think that's how Smith will be seen in the future. Print is dead, and the parameters we have to work to nowadays are not those that suit newspaper production, but those that suit smart phones and tablets. It's an interesting space to work with, and it's let me try several ideas that just wouldn't have worked before. This is a strip I could never have done in the daily format.

Top Gear

Originally published: March 10 2010

Yes, I am a fan of Top Gear. It's one of the best situation comedies on the television - the story of three men who never quite grew up sitting in a shed bickering with one another, and occasionally driving a car. Though (and I know this is sacrilege to some people) I prefer the US version of the show, as they spend more time driving cars, and the presenters haven't become caricatures of themselves yet.

It's a pretty poor representation of the Jaguar XF, but then it is possibly the blandest looking car Jaguar have ever produced. Subsequent models like the XJ and F-Type have rectified this, but the XF just has nothing about it that makes it stand out from the crowd apart from a certain lumbering size. And a comfy bonnet. And a cat would like a Jaguar, wouldn't he?

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.

Parp!

Originally published: March 5 2010

Many commenters have suggested that the Parp noise the daffodil makes is essentially a fart joke. Nope. It's not that I'm above fart jokes, I'll employ them from time to time, but its used here because it's a plant with a trumpet. What other noise could it possibly make?

Ptui

Originally published: March 3 2010

Once you have a plant with a trumpet, it seems perfectly reasonable to explore all the things you could do with it. It's like that prop game on 'Whose Line Is It Anyway'. How many uses can you get out of a Daffodil?

St David's Day

Originally published: March 1 2010

This is the first appearance of The daffodil in this strip. I just planned to use it this once to celebrate St David's Day, but then I remembered the daffodil I'd introduced in Millie as a companion to Des the Weed, other ideas started developing, and it all sort of grew from there.

Jones has a tendency to nibble plants that she borrowed from the real Smudge, who would eat anything green and growing that she could find. Whenever Linda got a bunch of flowers we'd have to display them in a vase on top of the highest bookshelf in the house, somewhere near the ceiling, as that was the only place she couldn't reach.

Kitchen

Originally published: Feb 26, 2010

The final surface cartoon. This was Smudge when we replaced the vinyl floor with wood laminate. She'd come running in and then realise the friction from the floor she used to rely on to stop wasn't available to her any more, and slide into the wall.

There's a sound effect that should go with frame two. You know it, you've heard it get used in so many Hanna Barbera cartoons. It's the number one sound effect in this top ten...

Humbug!

Regular reader, Scott the Badger, this is for you.

Let's say thank you to whoever put that conveniently placed hillock there, which made the job of the reveal on the last three panels so much easier.

Also, thanks to the two badgers who were cavorting outside my study window on the night the controversial badger cull began. You wouldn't believe they noise they make when they're playing - there's scuffling, there's snorting, and best of all, there's the cartoonish galloping sound their claws make on the concrete drive way when they're chasing one another.

The badger cull isn't happening around our parts, thank heavens - that's a trial that's happening in the west country. I have every sympathy with the farmers who are blaming the rising incidence of TB in cattle on the badger population, but I'm not sure shooting badgers is the answer. Maybe if cattle vaccines were a more sensible price it would be more economical to vaccinate the herds than hire badger shooting posses.