Rants and Raves by RC Harvey

RC Harvey has written a short piece on 'Ollie and Quentin'. He's been fairly kind although there are aspects of my feature that he doesn't like.
He describes my strip as "Pastis-ische" which I'd never considered before. In my defence I hadn't even heard of the fantastic Pearls Before Swine till 2006 which is a good 5 or more years after I started my strip. He finds the simplicity of my drawing boring which is a shame but purely a matter of taste. I'd like to draw like Richard Thompson of Cul De Sac fame but I'm stuck with my own style which I'm very happy with. I hope that the simplicity makes for easy reading. In the words of the great Mort Walker I like readers to have "read the strip before they realize it". I do try to avoid lazy headshot strips and add more backgrounds than most. Where possible I do try to change the 'camera position' too.
However I do thank him for taking the time to study and write about my feature. Any publicity is very welcome.
Click here to have a read of his piece.

Strip Darts

I notice from my website stats that a number of visitors have come across the above strip whilst searching for "strip darts". The lack of saucy content must be a big let down.

Original Artwork

I thought you might be interested to see an original artwork. This shows how much I add on computer. The frames, speech bubbles, text and obviously the color are all done in Photoshop. Even my signature is added later. I draw backgrounds separately and add them later too. So my originals all look a bit strange and empty.

Lack of posts

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. Teresa has been away motorcycling in the Himalayas so I've been in charge of the house. By the time I've got my daughter off to school, done the washing, done the cleaning, done the ironing, done the cooking, painted the house and produced my cartoon strips for the day there's been no time to post. Pathetic, I know, but I'm a guy, I'm not used to doing so many things at once.

Hadron Collider

I drew this strip a while ago when the switch-on date for the Hadron Collider hadn't been decided. I took a guess at September 15th which was close but now I see it's 5 days AFTER the event. Damn. Not much good if we're all dead and pretty lame if we aren't. Unfortunately it's too late to swap strips around.

BTW, if you really think we're all gonna get sucked into a black hole on September 10th let me just quote Prof Brian Cox of Manchester University who says "Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twat."

Yin and Yang with Pros and Cons

These must be the Yin and Yang versions of the same joke. I love Pros and Cons by fellow Brit Kieran Meehan. Have a look at his fabulous website www.meehancartoons.com It's well worth a visit.

Tonic

When it's 1.30am, you're slogging your guts out and you're beginning to wonder if any cartoon strip has ever made less impact in the comic world than your own I can't tell you what a pick-me-up it was to receive an email (through my editor at King Features) from one of my favorite cartoonists, the great Dan Piraro of Bizarro fame. I really hope he won't mind my adding his note here but it was just the tonic I needed.

Hey, B,
Would you pass on to Piers for me that I really love his strip. I read it almost every day on Daily Ink and he has a terrific percentage of clever jokes that amuse even a battle-worn veteran like me.
D

If you want to read a really great blog have a look at Dan's at http://bizarrocomic.blogspot.com It's beautifully written and very funny.

Tube

This is one of those strips that when completed I wish I'd done a different punch line. The idea here is that you think Quentin is going to use the tube to beat Ollie down the stairs but it is, in fact, for Ollie. I wish the final frame still had Ollie in the tube but instead he's poking out of the bottom of it saying "I win again!". The tube would look a bit 'travelled through' and Quentin would be 3 steps up and saying "Aw!"