I like being able to put sentences like that into a cartoon strip about cats. It makes me strangely content.
Tag / Jones
Ptui
The sound effect ‘Ptui’ is taken from Peanuts. Not too sure where ‘Glom’ came from, though.
This is one of those four panel narratives where everything is a direct consequence of the previous panel and the action just flows in a satisfying way. And it has my usual wet liberal message about the futility of aggression.
Camouflage
I intended this just to be about Sandy seeing something that looks like a stick and chasing after it. But some people saw something more in it – Sandy seeing the twig as a tree, turning this into a pee joke in an unseen fifth panel. It’s actually a better punchline so I’ll let that interpretation go by uncontested. And we can add it to the long list of strange correlations between this strip and Donald Trump’s presidency.
Mauser
I mourn the loss of comments on GoComics. There were many good comments about this one, including one about the gun that provided the headline for this post. And now they’ve all evaporated in GoComics redesign. Lets hope that when we return to the main site (assuming civilisation lasts that long) they get reinstated.
Pun run
I thought this was a throwaway joke, but it grew into something much more. To my surprise it proved to be very popular, and then the invention of the tank provided enough jokes to keep me going up to the big Christmas storyline.
Return to Fort Jones
Written and drawn while I was in the States during the final surreal stages of the election. Was I inspired by an urge to hide behind a bunch of cushions until the tartrazine demagogue went away? Not really. I was inspired by being in a house which contained a dog, a sofa and lots of cushions. And I had an idea for a very bad pun which needed to be set up today…
And no, I don’t know how Sandy got in the house.
Rzzzzz
The creepy killer clown craze was possibly one of the least bizarre manifestations of 2016. Let’s face it, in a world where a nation can vote for Brexit without actually having a clue what it means or how to do it, or in which Donald Trump is President Elect of the USA dressing up as a clown and intimidating people seems to be a perfectly natural response.
I’m not sure why ‘Rzzzzz’ is the sound a creepy clown makes – it just seems right. It’s a reference to a Frank Zappa album I’ve never actually heard, but I get the feeling that the actual music in the album can oly pale in comparison to the weird stuff I’m imagining this cover art should deserve.
There was some speculation on the comments boards (remember them?) that the clown would turn out to be an owl, based on the shape of the eyes. It was actually my attempt to draw a scowl when just the eyeballs are visible.
Birthday
November 21st is by some strange coincidence my birthday as well. Funny how these things work.
Return of the stump
If the stump has a name, I suppose it has to be Donald. Donald Stump. It gets peed on a lot as well.
Design flaw
There was a hiatus of two and a bit weeks after this one. Sadly, after a long illness, Linda’s mum died and we were called over to the States at short notice for the funeral. I didn’t have any strips drawn in advance so I had to stop for a bit.
It was a odd two weeks. While we were there the Cubs won the World Series, Donald Trump became President Elect and the family celebrated a muted Thanksgiving a couple of weeks early while we were all together.