Riverfields was the cartoon strip I originally drew for Comics Sherpa. It tells the story of a motley crew of people working in a newly opened out-of-town shopping centre, somewhere in England.

It’s a bit unusual for me as it’s about people rather than animals, and people invariably irritate me – even the ones that spring out of my own head. It eventually petered to a halt when an officious health and safety character annoyed me so much that I couldn’t bring myself to draw him any more. And then the economy collapsed and the imaginary mall went with it.

I’ll be posting Riverfields strips in this blog in the days between Smith strips, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Please excuse their smallness – these date from 2006.

Here’s how introduced the strip on a defunct Riverfields blog I created to accompany the strip in the days before I realised you could combine words and pictures in a blog.

In the States, they’re called Malls – in the UK they’re called Shopping Centres. Whatever they are called, they’re ubiquitous and they’re taking over the world.

Riverfields is the largest Mall in Europe. It’s so large it straddles two time zones! It has 14 themed shopping experiences, including three so specialised not even the centre’s management understands what they are, but they looked really good in the PowerPoint presentation. It’s still being built, but there are 1,257 stores in phase one, including 50 anchor stores. It has air conditioning throughout, five climate zones and an atrium so large it creates its own rain. Just on the outskirts of both London and Manchester, it’s a mall so large that they had to build a second mall next door just for the people that work there.

Of course, it doesn’t exist in real life. It’s an amalgam of all the malls I’ve visited in the UK and the States. But if there are malls that can be considered to be Riverfields parents they are these:

Bluewater, Dartford, Kent. When it was built it was the largest mall in Europe, with a catchment area of most of Southern England. Architecturally, it’s stunning, with sculptures and carved inscriptions placed on any flat surface the architects could find. It occupies an abandoned chalk pit and is surrounded on three sides by floodlit chalk cliffs. It would be a great place to shop if it wasn’t so crowded all the time.

Royal Victoria Place, Tunbridge Wells. When I created the strip this was my local mall. In typical Tunbridge Wells fashion, it’s simultaneously very posh, and cheap looking at the same time. It doesn’t have a food court, it has a palm court. A palm court with a MacDonald’s. It was opened by the Patron Saint of Shopping, Princess Diana, in 1992.

Coronado Mall, Albuquerque. I always check this mall out when I’m visiting my wife’s folks. It’s a mature mall where every shop unit has changed hands a few times, so nothing fits the space it was built for any more. It’s a good example of a mall that’s having to be creative to attract a clientele that would otherwise go to the sexy new mall out on the Westside. I especially like the indoor blacklight minigolf course. And it has a mean Fudruckers.