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.