Pyoing and other sound effects

When I was a kid I decided I would compile a dictionary of sound effects as used in comics. I went through my wardrobe of comics (when you're 9 years old what's the point of using a wardrobe to store anything as dull as mere clothes?) and catalogued in sort of alphabetical order all the onomatopoeic words I could find. You've seen several of them appear in the strip. But there are some which I've never been able to find a home for.

The most imaginative sound effects came from 'Look-In' magazine, the Junior TV Times. It was full of comic strips about the TV and pop stars of the mid 70s, drawn to order by some stunning Spanish artists whose grip on the English language was as bad as their sense of comic layout was good.

My two favourite sound effects I've never been able to use are:

KLEEKA! - The sound of David Cassidy's cheap retractable ballpoint pen being used as a weapon.

THOOOOOM-BANG! - A coconut exploding in a fairground.

One day I shall find a home for these...

I say wysteria, you say wisteria

The Chelsea Flower Show is happening this week, so I thought I'd use it as the peg to hang the next batch of cartoons from.

I like a nice garden but I wouldn't know a hollyhock from a sweet pea - whenever we're in the park and Linda asks me what a particular flower is, I can only answer 'That's a plant'. If pressed I can narrow it down to 'a blue one' or 'a red one'.

Wysteria can be spelled 'Wysteria', 'Wisteria' or even 'wistaria', but I'm sticking with the first one, because I'm the kind of guy who spells 'Colour' with a U.

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.

The paw of doom

One of the odd things about 'Smith' is that it makes no sense to anyone reading it in black and white. Jones and Smudge look exactly the same as one another before the colouring is added, and there are a few strips that rely on the colour renderingbefore the joke appears. In this case the shadow of Smudge's paw doesn't appear in the original artwork.

I saw Bella playing with a wasp today, and she got stung on her paw before I could stop her. She licked her paw a couple of times and then went back to her game of bashing the wasp, letting it go and bashing it again. She's hardcore.

Jasper

Time for some Smudge and Chumley strips I think - we haven't seen them for a while.

Billie and Bella are turning into an efficient bug killing team. No moth, fly or wasp that dares to enter our house gets out again alive. Especially the wasps, which somehow they are able to pluck out of the air without getting stung. A trick which Smudge hasn't learned yet, alas.

Cats always land on their feet?

Originally published 1 September 2010

Yes. If they’re allowed to. Setting the template for several other stories over the following couple of years, this sequence ended with Smudge’s wall.

Watch the birdie

Originally published 6 August 2010

A rewrite of an old strip from the 1980s, which had Perdi (Smudge’s predecessor) install one of those old fashioned dome shaped security cameras of the kind that used to be installed in department stores. You don’t see those about any more - or maybe we’ve become so used to them they’ve become invisible, which is a bit of a sobering thought.

GATSO

Originally published 4 August 2010

That’s a Gatso camera you’re looking at there - one of the many speed cameras that infest Britain’s roads. If they actually did their job, reduced speeds and kept the roads are I wouldn’t have problem with them. Unfortunately they only cause cars to slow down in the direct vicinity of a camera, and the sudden braking an encounter with an unexpected camera tends to cause more accidents than the speeding the cameras are supposed to stop. To add to their ineffectiveness, they have to be signposted with warning signs well in advance, and because of austerity cuts, a fair proportion of them are now empty shells with no camera inside.

The word Gatso isn’t an acronym, even though it sounds like one. It’s actually made after its inventor, the Dutch rally driver Maurice Gatsonides, who made the first one so he could measure himself driving round corners and develop the prefect racing line. So they were first developed to help increase vehicle speeds.

Evel Kinevel

Originally published 4 June 2010

Evel Kinevel would have managed this, but he never had Smudge to counted with. One for all those of you who like to collect my cartoons with continuous backgrounds.

How to end a sequence

First published 21 May 2010

This was to became the default ending for a lot of my extended story lines beaded on one of the cats having a delusion of some sort. Eventually the cats delusion would lead them to think they could sit on Smudges' wall, and Smudge would wallop some sense back into them. I now try my best to come up with a different ending, but it tempting, and besides, it's one of the things that defines the strip. After all, the Doctor's sonic screwdriver is a similar 'get out of a situation easily' device, but you'd be disappointed if he didn't use it at least once in an episode of Doctor Who.

Back to the storyline

Originally published May 7, 2010

This firmly establishes the gulls as being at the top of the pecking order in this strip, mainly because of their ability to peck.

Set up

Originally published May 5, 2010

So who is kidding who here?

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.

The other side of the wall

Originally published 30 April 2010

It's never been explained what the wall is doing in Smith's garden. I rationalise that once upon a time there was a big Victorian house with a big perimeter war, but it got bombed in an incendiary attack during the war. After the war, the house and its grounds were razed and Smith's housing estate got built on top of it, planned with a big communal garden in a typically optimistic post-war sort of way. Somehow, the wall survived all this, and it has been jealously guarded by generations of British Blue cats ever since, the most recent one of which is Smudge.

Actually, it's a transplant from Tunbridge Wells. This was the wall that divided the front gardens of the houses two doors away from me - and you would always find a cat called Perdi sitting on it. It's another hangover from those stories Eric and I made up when we were kids.

Lucy's football

Originally published 28 April 2010

It has been pointed out that Smudge's wall is Smith's equivalent of Charlie Brown trying to kick Lucy's football. And yes, I'll go along with that - though I do allow Smudge to be the fall guy occasionally.

Introducing Smudge

Originally Published 26 April 2010

Here's the prototype Smudge. along with the first appearance of her wall. Smudge in this strip still sports the smudge of blue on her nose which gave her her name - but that was removed after a few strips to give her face more clarity. You'll notice I've also carefully drawn in where the blue bits of her coat start and finish, which is why she looks a bit strange.

180°

A bit of a variation on the usual 'pull back and reveal' technique of producing punchlines. Instead this shows Smudge's wall on both sides. Alert readers may have realised we're looking at the other side of Smudge's wall in the first two frames when Smudge runs on from the left instead of her usual right.

Off the wall

If in doubt about ending a sequence, I usually bring in Smudge and her wall. And just for once she gets bested.

Incidentally, this is proof that The Cat Who Stares At Stuff isn't a stuffed toy, as some readers have speculated.

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...

Magic paws

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