Tag / Snow Sez

by Andrew Pilcher

Putting the world to rights, Part 3

smith-pilcher-842-150826I’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.

by Andrew Pilcher

Red hot crossover action

707-141015One of the odd things about drawing is that the simpler a character appears to be, the more difficult is it to Draw it. Rene’s Lopez’s Bunny from Alison Ward (the only character in that comic to be naked ALL the time) is a case in point. I’ve followed the rules – I’ve even done the animation-derived thing of building the character up from ovals and circles, but it still doesn’t come out quite right.

Our other guest stars are Winky from Snow Sez… by Theresa Shephard, Girth from GIRTH by Steve Powell, and, of course, Rat from Pearls before Swine by Bill Watterson Stephen Pastis.