Tag / Jones

by Andrew Pilcher

Buttercup

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You can tell that I was sitting on some rocks in the middle of a grassy meadow when I was writing this batch.

The legend is that if you can see the gold reflected under your chin, then you like butter. Which is a bit pointless, when you think about it. Surely it would be better to hold 500g of Kerrygold under your chin, and then eat the Kerrygold.

I’m being pulled in two directions at the moment. The Hastings Independent has a preference for biting satire, something I only occasionally indulge in, as the last thing I want is for the strip to turn into a bitter whine-fest like Mallard Filmore. So, contrarian that I am, I did a week of gentle cutesy humour, in the way that sitting in a grassy meadow only can, and then didn’t bother to submit them to them. Instead I sent the following week’s three Olympic strips, and all three of them got printed.

by Andrew Pilcher

Fashion

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You can always tell the people who have cats by the pummel holes in their clothes. I have a wardrobe full of jumpers with pulled threads.

by Andrew Pilcher

Morris Minor

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Today’s car is a Morris Minor ragtop from sometime in the 50s and 60s. The Morris Minor was a predecessor to the Mini, and if the live action movie of the Borrowers is to be believed, it was the only car that was available at that time.

The Borrowers wins the award for most gratuitous use of colour grading in a movie, with a colour palette seemingly based on the different kinds of mould you can find in a shower stall that has been left to rot for a few years. That’s definitely a British provincial high street you’re seeing there – so why are the cars driving on the wrong side of the road?

You can see lots of variants on the Minor in the picture above. There’s the wood framed Traveller, station wagon where the wood at the load-carrying end was actually structural rather than a stuck on decal. There’s a red GPO van, which at the end of their useful life you used to be able to buy for £10 at auctions – British indie bands couldn’t have survived without the ready supply of these in the 80s. And on the right, fourth one up, there’s a convertible.

We love convertibles in England. On those rare occasions that the sun does come out we tend to make the most of every fleeting moment of it, which is why we have more convertible cars per head than any other country in Europe. It’s the triumph of optimism over experience.

Note that I’ve drawn the car afresh in each panel – there’ll be none of that cut and paste stuff in my strip if I can possibly help it…

by Andrew Pilcher

Solarium Volvo

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I was sat at my little drawing desk in my study, trying to think up an idea for for today’s cartoon, when a big blue estate car drew up and parked outside. I drew what I saw (editing slightly for clarity) and that’s what you see in the last panel.

This happy accident led to a full two weeks worth of cartoons on the same theme, as I swapped the car parked outside for something different each time.

Todays guest car is a Volvo estate. Yes, that’s what a Volvo looks like these days. Somehow it just doesn’t seem square enough.

by Andrew Pilcher

Now trending…

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Well, the box is there. Who can resist jumping into it?

by Andrew Pilcher

Old Town

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This one was drawn on the iPad, after the polls closed but before the results came in.

The drawing was traced over a photo of the Old Town taken from the West Hill – the Old Town nestles in a valley between the West Hill and the East Hill. Smith and Jones and the speech balloons were layered over the top and then the layered file were sent to my Mac for processing in Photoshop. The grass in the foreground, the sky, the sea and the gorse and brambles on the East Hill in the background were repainted, and the photograph of the buildings was filtered with the cut-out filter to create the hard-edged blocks of colour that match my colouring style.

And the results got published in the Hastings Independent at a huge size! And I was amazed at how good it looked (though the lettering needs attention).

The castle on the East Hill is actually the top station of the Victorian funicular railway that leads from the fishing beach to the top of the hill.

 

by Andrew Pilcher

By their fruit shall ye know them

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by Andrew Pilcher

Denizens

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Hmm. Beard? Check. Mad hair? Check. Zany shirt? Check. ‘Interesting’ spectacles? Check. Hat? Check. That’s me, that is!

The main floor of the Observer Building doesn’t have a catwalk, so excuse the artistic licence, I’ve added one so the cats can observe, without being observed themselves. It also helps convey the post-industrial vibe of the place.

by Andrew Pilcher

Gotham

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This is the back of the Observer Building. You can reach it by either driving half a mile from the front door in a circuitous route that takes you from the top of the cliff to the bottom – or you can walk down a set of stone stairs at the side of the building. The graffiti strewn fire-escape bedecked space at the back is known as Gotham Alley, and is often used for street festivals.

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I’d better explain some of Chumley’s incantations. Open Seame and Abracadabra are obvious enough, but Izzy wizzy let’s get busy is the catchphrase of Sooty, a beloved glove puppet of a bear that has been entertaining children since 1948. I used to watch Sooty avidly on the telly and he gave me my first taste of the stage when I was a child, when I was invited to go up on stage to meet him and Harry Corbett during a live show in Tunbridge Wells.

Alaam kazaar (as I remember it) was the incanation of Fareik the Magician in Hanna Barbera’s Arabian Knights, an animated segment of the Banana Splits show.

Of course, in Britain, the magic words that will get you into any house party is ‘We’re friends of Dave‘ as there’s guaranteed to be a Dave there. A party isn’t a party without a certified Dave present.

The referendum was still a week away. And that particular incanation is more likely to make doors slam in your face than anything else.

Note that Smith has noticed the window in the second frame, and it’s there, open, in plain sight in the penultimate frame. And aren’t the colours lovely? This is one of those strips where everything worked.