A Comics Sherpa Editors Pick, probably because of the blank speech balloons in the first two panels.
Wait a few minutes
There’s a saying they have in Eastern New Mexico, on the edge of the plains where my in-laws live. They say: ‘If you don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes – it’ll be something else’. Strangely, in England we have exactly the same saying.
The cold snap has appeared on schedule. However, it’s only due to last for about a week or so, and then be replaced with more high temperatures, torrential rain and gale force winds. In this strip it’ll last until the beginning of March, as being stuck in Storm Goliath just after Christmas inspired a lot of snow and cold gags.
Sideways
Sometime I colour up a strip and think it’s turned out just right. This one, especially the last panel, is one of those strips.
El Nino
I’m doing some weather forecasting here. The UK has had a spectacularly warm winter so far – up to now I haven’t had to put the heating on once. The temperature has really dropped below 10°C and daffodils and other harbingers of Spring have started appearing early. However, that usually means a cold snap will turn up around mid-January, and that’s what I was banking on when I wrote this in November. So far everything appears to be happening bang on schedule.
Empty space
When you see a strip like this (or one which mainly consists of sets of eyes in darkness) you can usually guarantee that the cartoonist involved has fallen behind with his drawing and is desperately trying to catch up to a deadline. However, in this case, just for once, this was simply my reaction to how all the shops, houses and streetscapes in Hastings look now all the decorations have come down. Suddenly we move from the exuberance of Christmas to the bleak grey hangover of January.
Porcu-Pine
Thanks to Eric Salinas of the ’Something about Celeste’ strip for providing me with today’s headline in the comments section for this strip. I was going to go with something more like ‘Miaow-hican’.
Jet lag
I never get exhausted when travelling to the States, but the journey back always takes some recovering from. It’s trying to sleep on an overnight flight and never quite managing it that does it, I think. Not only that, the delay caused by the New mexico blizzard removed the two day of recovery at home that I was expecting to have. As you can tell by the tardiness on this entry, this year’s journey back in particular took a lot out of me. And Jones is feeling much the same.
2016
That’s it, I’ve caught up. Once again we had the journey from hell getting back to the UK. Clovis, the little town in New Mexico my wifes parents live in, was snowed in two days before our flight back. We were without power for a day, and all the roads into and out of town were still closed on the day we were supposed to set off. We finally got back to the UK at 12 noon on New Years Eve, and I slept for 24 hours and then scanned in the cartoons I drew in the States and put up the delayed strips from weeks set today.
Have a great new year!
Boot
Fun with shoes
