by Andrew Pilcher

Meet the siblings

Smith-Pilcher-723-141121Actually it’s my birthday today, but Smith and Jones get to share it. And you get to see the rest of the family for the first time (though you only get to see Taylor and Browne as kittens).

Smith and Jones are the first and second most common surnames in the UK – Taylor and Browne come third and fourth respectively. Madgwick-Blenkinsop-Delarue-Jenkins sounded like a firm of solicitors or accountants, so I made him a mouser in the archives department of an old fashioned firm of lawyers. I’ve been in rooms like this – smelling of ancient parchment and festooned with faded pink ribbon. I’ve even met the cat.

by Andrew Pilcher

Riverfields 9 – Flinch

0009I would like to apologise unreservedly to the estate of Barbara Cartland for spelling her name incorrectly. Barbara Cartland was a quite remarkable woman – by turns deb, aviatrix, playwright, campaigner for Gypsy rights, local politician, writer of Mills and Boon romances by the yard (23 different books of hers were published in 1983), and inventor of a style of make up that has only ever been surpassed by Tammy Faye Bakker.

You may have heard of her step granddaughter, Princess Diana. Cartland once remarked, “The only books Diana ever read were mine, and they weren’t awfully good for her.”

by Andrew Pilcher

Sea Fog

Smith-Pilcher-722-141119

Sea fog is funny stuff. It comes rolling in off the sea and then decides to stop, and there’s a sharply defined edge to where it starts and stops. I’ve been driving down the seafront in Hastings on the seaward side of the road in thick fog, while being able to see that the cars passing on the other side of the road are still in bright sunlight.

The first time I visited San Francisco I was lucky enough to be sifting on top of one of the Twin Peaks at dusk, just as the fog started rolling in from the Pacific. It was quite magical – the fog rolled over the Sunset district, up the escarpment to the peaks, and then divided into three as it rolled around the two summits, and flowed down the other side to the Castro. In five minutes I was sitting under a clear starry sky on a small island in a sea of clouds, with just a few other islands and telecoms towers poking out of the mist. Jones is doing her best impersonation of the Twin Peaks in the last frame.

by Andrew Pilcher

Riverfields 8 – Millennium

0008This goes to show what sort of a protracted gestation period this strip had. These first strips were actually drawn sometime around 1999, so we’re looking at a world which was getting ready for a brand new century to begin. Bookstores were full of ‘millennium’ editions of pre-existing books. Millennium Bibles, Millennium dictionaries, Millennium books of Child Care, Millennium books of Princess Diana photos, Millennium survivalist manuals for when the Millennium Big caused the end of civilisation – you name it there, was an expensive violet and silver foil-blocked millennium edition of it…

by Andrew Pilcher

Oh what a lovely war

Smith-Pilcher-721-141117We’ve been saturated in khaki this autumn, what with it being the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. There’s been a strange mixture of disgust at the horrors of war and military sentimentality and hero worship. Much as I respect our armed forces I’m finding the commemoration of the centenary is slowly morphing into a celebration of the slaughter, and that leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

by Andrew Pilcher

Calvinist discourse

Smith-Pilcher-720-141114OK, I’ll shut up about the ‘Be More Dog’ campaign. This is my equivalent of one of those cartoons of Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes pissing on the logo of whatever your football team’s arch enemy is.

by Andrew Pilcher

Riverfields 7 – chairs

0007It’s early days so Peace’s surname hasn’t bedded in yet. It would later stabilise as McKenzie.

by Andrew Pilcher

The great debate

Smith-Pilcher-719-141112Just to make it clear, there’s nothing wrong with being a dog, I just resent being told to be more like one. And the big irony about dogs is that most of the breeds are man-made, as frame four shows. The shivering whippet, the bug eyed chihuahua, the basset that is barely able to waddle three steps without injuring a joint, the ridiculously coiffed toy poodle – all selectively bred to the point of malfunction in order to serve man

Sandy, the friendly dog from this summer’s big storyline makes a guest appearance as the dog spokesman.

by Andrew Pilcher

Riverfields 6 – Margins

0006There are, of course, no time zones in the UK – everything runs on Greenwich Mean Time and the rest of the world’s time is subservient to us. We OWN time, do you hear me? OWN it. Nyah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

Introducing Margin’s bookstore, an obvious Borders knockoff. For the younger readers of our blog Borders was one of the first big warehouse bookshops with sofas and coffee. For the even younger readers, a bookshop is a sort of big room full of books you can buy and take away with you.

The bookshop’s manager is Peace McKenzie. Her name is what you get when you combine the names of Peace Anyiam-Osogwe, a magazine editor I knew in the 80s, and Precious McKenzie, the diminutive weightlifter who won gold medals for England and New Zealand in the Commonwealth Games in the 60s and 70s.

by Andrew Pilcher

Cattist discrimination

Smith-Pilcher-718-141110Cattist discrimination: it’s everywhere in the media. You can in see it in movies like Lady and the Tramp, and Cats and Dogs. And now the advertsiers are moving in. Cats are lazy and untrustworthy, they say, so be more dog.

This campaign is for O2, the mobile phone company. Be more dog, be more sociable, be excited by gadgets, do exciting new stuff with mobile phones, and above all, be subservient to your telecommunications overlords or they won’t throw you any bones.

Incidentally, O2 have a quiz where they determine how dog you are. According to O2’s marketing department I am 42% dog, which is about 40% more than I was hoping for. I’m so cat I don’t even have a mobile phone. Why should I want one anyway? Idiots will only ring me up and woof at me.