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.