Butterfly or moth?

A passing Badger has informed me that as the butterfly has a furry thorax it's actually a moth. Which is a pity, as I consider the moth to be the evil twin of the butterfly, though I have no idea why that should be. Maybe it's because moths are nocturnal and are always frying themselves on my halogen lamps.

Wasp on a wall

I love Chumley. He's such a gentle soul, and his laid back live-and-let-live approach to life is one I try my best to emulate. Sadly, his lack of internal or external conflict makes him very hard to write for, which is why he doesn't appear as much as I'd like.

Chumley is Smudge's brother - which is why he's the only other creature alive that is allowed to sit on Smudge's sacred wall. Not that he sees why a wall has to be sacred anyway.

Clumsy

Originally published 6 August 2010

Cholmondeley always was a clumsy cat, so I gave him the same trait in the cartoon. The clumsiness gene was soon passed on to Smith, however, as I concentrated on making Chumley a placid and trusting gentle giant, to contrast with his sister Smudge.

Chumley

Originally published 3 May 2010

And here's the first appearance of Chumley, Smudge's brother. He's a gentle giant, simple in the best way, totally without side or guile. It's like he was never given the manual on how to be a cat, and Smudge has to teach him. But Chumley won't learn. Like his real-life counterpart did, Chumley lives his life with his claws perpetually sheathed - there's really no need to act like a bruiser when you're his size.

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.

Parp

Three hundred and sixty one strips in, and this is my first fart gag. It's boy humour - I wouldn't expect girls to understand.

It's Ideal!

I got a Mouse Trap Game for Christmas around 1970. I think I played the actual game just once, that was really dull, but assembling the wonderfully Heath Robinson-esque trap and seeing it operate gave me many hours of enjoyment.

For the uninitiated, this was how it worked. Turning crank A cause cog B to rotate. A tab on the cog caused a stop sign on a lever tensioned with a rubber band to move backwards. Once the tab released the lever, the stop sign sprang forwards, propelling an old boot hanging from a lamp post into a bucket, which tipped over, releasing a ball bearing. This tumbled down a flight of stairs, and then into a sinuous drainpipe, at the bottom of which it barreled into a spring loaded pole with a hand on top. A bowling ball is balanced precariously on top of a crazy complex of plumbing - this is disturbed by the hand on the pole and guided through a thing-ma-jig (that's what they called it), dropping down into a bath tub and then down onto a seesaw. A diver is perched on the other end of the see saw - he is propelled into a hot tub and the vibrations caused by his landing causes the cage balanced on top of a serrated pole to fall down onto the space where the mouse used to be. The mouse is now in the next county.

I'm shocked to discover that MB Games have redesigned the mouse trap. Is nothing sacred? I mean, what is going on here? There's a toilet on top, for heavens sake!

Perspective

Oooo. Treasure this. I don't use perspective very often, preferring to use a more straight on approach of the kind used by Schulz and Herge.

Close up of a bunch of toy plastic cows... the kind you'd get with a toy farm set. Pull back to reveal Ted and Dougal. Dougal frowns, puzzled.
TED: ...OK, one last time. These are small, and the ones out there are far away. Small... Far away...
Dougal smiles and shakes his head, uncomprehending.
TED: Ah, forget it...

Father Ted Series 2, Episode 1: "Hell" by Graham Lineman and Arthur Matthews

Eek a mouse!

Here's Chumley, Smudge's brother. Like the real cat he's based on (Chomondeley, now sadly deceased) he's a gentle giant. His first response to any problem is to purr at it it to see if it'll be his friend. Or to run away from it (see the Scrumpy Jack story from last week).

Here are a few photos of the real Cholmondeley. 

Mew!

It's time to bring Smudge and Chumley into the strip a bit more now. I'm being a bit unfair on the real Smudge here, but in our house she's definitely the cat that likes to rule the roost. She used to rule her brother with an iron claw, despite his being twice the size and having twice the strength of her. In the next couple of months we're going to see more of Smudge's sense of self importance and Chumley's gentle nature.