The real Cholmondeley tended to do this a lot. He’d start of scraping at the litter, then move on to scraping the floor and the walls. Bella has taken this one step further, by trying to fold in the sides of the litter tray once she’s done her business. She can’t manage it, but she uses so much force trying to do it that she ends up propelling the litter tray across the bathroom floor.
Tag / Smudge
Harvest
When I was a kid I went to a Church of England primary school, and every autumn around this time we would celebrate harvest festival. It was the 1970s, and we were no longer the sons and daughters of farmers, so we thought milk magically appeared on doorsteps every morning and potatoes came in packets which you added water to. So when the call went out for charity donations from this autumn’s bounty to be given to ‘the old folk’ of the parish at a special service on a school day, the Reverend Ford invariably found himself with about 60 cans of baked beans and not much else.
That confusion of agriculture and supermarkets led me to this week’s set of strips. But first, a scene setter. We’ve seen this tree before, but last time Smith tried this trick it was an entire branch that fell on him.
Furspray
Putting the world to rights, Part 3
I’m surprised to find how popular this series of finger-wagging strips has been – the cartoon doesn’t normally get shared on Facebook but these ones have been promiscuously shared from the GoComics site. I always thought these were fairly weak cartoons saying obvious things in an obvious way. It just goes to show that that last person who should be consulted about the worth of his work should be the author!
A full cast of cats appears in the last frame, with three extras.
To the bottom left you can find one of Val Ware’s cats from the Paws for Thought strip. I’m not an aficionado of one panel strips normally but I love this one. When it first started I thought it was just going to be a bit of Hallmark Cards style sentimentality, but it’s grown into so much more. On one day you might get a piece of fine art recast to star a ginger cat, a piebald cat and a boxer dog – the next you’ll find a well observed bit of animal behaviour – and then an illustrated bit of philosophy. Try it. Work your way thru the back catalogue – it works best in bulk.
Fluffy from Snow Sez is directly behind The Cat That Stares At Stuff. Snow will be promoted to the GoComics main page soon, and about time too!
The tortoiseshell-and-white cat lying on the window ledge is a drawing of my first cat, Sunday. She had so many beautiful colours in her fur that she was perfect as an illustration of what this strip is about.
Give ’em enough rope
Yes, this is a bit late, I’m afraid. I drew it yesterday but didn’t manage to colour it in until today. Unfortunately colouring is so soothing and restful that I fell asleep at the computer doing it. So I had to do it this evening instead, with a break halfway through for Bake Off (I like to think I have my priorities correct).
This is my first strip created using tracing paper and tracedown sheets in order to get the backgrounds in each frame looking much the same without looking mechanical. The process involves drawing the first background as normal, and the tracing it onto a sheet of tracing paper. Then, using the traced copy as a template, and sandwiching a tracedown sheet between the tracing paper and the final artwork (imagine carbon paper without the waxiness, so pressure leaves an erasable graphite mark on the paper below) I draw the same background into the other frames. The characters get drawn into position over the backgrounds. Then the art gets inked and the pencil marks erased as normal. It’s a very involved process but it works – its stopped the tree from mutating from one frame to the next.
Des Res
The last few weeks’ worth on strips have been very much drawn on the run, whenever I mange to snatch a few moments of drawing time at home, at lunchtimes, or during rehearsals. Especially during rehearsals.
Yes, I’m back on stage again, and after a fallow patch of doing rather staid old musicals that just don’t deserve the attention they get (The Sound of Music and the so-dire-I-didn’t-even-audition-for-it Carousel) The Hastleons are back doing a show which I think is absolutely wonderful and deserves a huge audience.
I’m playing the Monsignor, which means I get to play to my strengths: act a lot, sing a bit and do very little dancing. But the show really belongs to Deloris and the nuns.
Above: Sister Act in rehearsal – Deloris and the nuns face down Curtis, Deloris’ gangster ex-boyfriend. By happy coincidence, the Hastleons’ rehearsal hall is a deconsecrated chapel, we still sit on the old pews which are set around the edge of the rehearsal space. The pews you see in this photo, however, are prop ones originally built for Guys and Dolls.
If you’re able to get to Hastings next week, see this show. It’s going to be fantastic!
Sitting in a box – sitting in a cardboard box
Pow!
Growl
I have only ever heard Bella growl in one situation, and that’s when she’s guarding her feathery toy from Billy. The rest of the time she’s sweetness and light, but woe betide anyone that tries to separate her from her feathers before she’s ready.
Mousee!
The phrase ‘It pains me to think we are of the same blood’ is a direct quote from Geoffrey Willan’s Molesworth books. Except, of course, Nigel Molesworth would have spelled it ‘it panes me to think we are ov the same blud’, as any fule kno. It’s probably an allusion to another quote, anyone know what it might be?