HD

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how many pixels you broadcast in, until GoComics introduces its zoom facility to Sherpa we're stuck with a maximum resolution of 600 pixels across.

Of course, this blog has been in HD for the last two years. Click on any of these strips to see them at a glorious 1200 pixel resolution.

The right hand panel was drawn as small as I could make it using the thinnest pen I could find, and then scanned at 1,200 dpi - a good 600% higher than my usual sample rate when scanning. The idea was to get the rough finish and texture you'd expect when seeing something in much finer detail than usual. Of course, then I had to reduce the final artowrk to get it to fit into GoComics' 600 pixel width limit, and all the roughness vanished. So I've had to reintroduce it again using Photoshop filters.

Feinites Barley!

Memories of the playground at St Peter's Church of England Primary School, Tunbridge Wells, inspired this one. Some little herbert would always attack you with the pinching and punching routine on the first of every month, protecting himself with the incantation 'and no returns' immediately after. Of course you'd ignore that and get your punch and kick back, and it would escalate from there into all out war.

I've never seen Bart Simpson do this, and you can usually rely on Matt Groening to remember all the playground lore there is and use it in either The Simpsons or his Life in Hell cartoons. Is this a particularly British thing?

This was originally meant to run on April 1st, but the switcheroo with Snow Sez took priority over it so this cartoon was bumped to today. That's why this is numbered 196 instead of 222 - it's running out of sequence.

Today is also the first day of GoComics merger with Comics.com. I'd like to welcome all the new readers who have found themselves unceremoniously shunted onto this strange new site with the unfamiliar navigation. It'll make sense once you get used to it, I promise, and GoComics are slowly but surely curing all the glitches - it broke down two weeks ago but it's almost back to its old functionality, and the Sherpa strips have returned to the email feed so at least I can be sure that everyone that does sign up for the strip now actually receives it.

If you're overwhelmed by the enormous choice of admittedly wildly variable material on Sherpa can I recommend the following:

Snow Sez by T Shephard (currently dormant but due to relaunch on June 6th. Every strip is a gem.)
In The Sandbox by Vicki Jackoby (also currently dormant but flares into joyous life every now and again)
Zootopia by Mike Wilson (consistently funny, as was his previous strip The Divine Comedy)
Glenview Revue by Rene Lopez (for his ability to suggest voluptuous roundness with the simplest of lines)
Featherweight by Chris Mountjoy (Funny and a truly luminous colour palette that makes every panel look like it's lit from behind)
Sooky Rottweiler by 'Cynthia' (A quirkily drawn animal strip from a unique French Canadian perspective)
Police Limit by Garey McKee (From the opposite side of the political spectrum to me but well written, beautifully drawn and cogently argued - you can't help but sympathise with Officer Pig.)

If you're a Sherpa cartoonist and you're not on this list don't be downhearted - there's lots of other great stuff on there but too much to take in in one go. If you have the time also try Mad Mouse, Frank and Steinway, Oranges are Funny, Wendle's Life, The Willies, Whisky Falls, Beardo, Mary B Wary, Devin Crane, 0-60, The House of Uncommons and Ten Cats - strips as different from one another as cheese is to a Kraft Single. I'll give them all one line reviews in another post a little later...