Happy Halloween (2008)

Happy Birthday Esme

Happy Birthday to my wonderful, gorgeous, lovely daughter Esme who is celebrating her 18th with friends in beautiful Dublin, Ireland.

And to the lowlife that stole her purse and all her money on her birthday, I hope something particularly disfiguring, embarrassing and painful plagues you in the years ahead. Something like leprosy.

Ruder and Funnier

My thanks to Jonathan Lemon of Rabbits Against Magic fame for alerting me to this. It's taken from Dean's Comic Booth blog and it looks like he alters comics to make another joke. In my case a much ruder and funnier one. Here's his version with mine above it.

Lost in Translation (USA)

I'm not sure if cafetieres are widely used in the US so this joke might fall flat for many of you. Here in the UK this is actually quite funny. You see the plunger on the cafetiere is very like those plungers you get when detonating explosives in condemned tower blocks. Every time I plunge I think about a building collapsing somewhere.

Lost in Translation

Did this work in Swedish? It's a dreadful English pun. I wrote it when I didn't have any foreign clients so didn't expect to have translation issues. I know the Swedish translator of my comic does a really good job usually so I'd like to know what they did here.

Earthworms

Can you guess what's going on here?

Leaves

This week's Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Chuck Ayers reminds me of a guy in Guildford who doesn't wait for the leaves to fall off this one tree near his house. Every year at this time he actually snips all the leaves off the branches before they get a chance to litter the grass!

The Return of the Eggs

The Mischievous Eggs are back! Originally based on Spook and Rosanna, my nephew and niece, they've come for a prolonged visit this time. They've burnt their nest down and Ollie has to Eggsit them while his sister rebuilds it. She takes her time. It'll be weeks before she collects them again.

Coincidences

I love my coincidences. Today I've been inking and coloring up a sunday comic all about a meteor and look what my Astronomy Picture of the Day home page photo is today.

Mop

I like today's comic but I HATE THAT MOP! Why did I draw it like that? It looks like a crazy haystack or something. I should've drawn it like the above. Darn.

Controversy

I am not surprised this comic didn't make it through the final approval stage. What was I thinking? Because 'Ollie and Quentin' isn't controversial, isn't cynical, political, topical and rarely has a message of any weight I guess I hoped people would read this strip as it was intended, just to be a bit of fun about two eggs not really existing until they hatch. How naive can I be?

Today's Drop Panel

Rabbits Against Ollie and Quentin

I think Jonathan Lemon's 'Rabbits Against Magic' feature is 'Ollie and Quentin's' long lost comic strip twin. We obviously share a sense of humor as we seem to touch on such similar topics. (Remember our "Homophone" coincidence recently?) Not at all surprised to learn that Jonathan originated from the UK, after all it's where the best sense of humor comes from. Cough.

Cow Attacks

The world is definitely getting madder. There have been a spate of cow attacks here in the UK, usually on people walking their dogs too near cows with young calves. This reminds me of a story my mum told me when she was walking her little fat pug in a field of cows last year. The cows got spooked by little plump Otto and chased after him. Trouble is he has a habit of fainting when exerted and promptly keeled over in mid stampede. My mum had to scoop him up and run out of the field with him slung over her back like one of those soft animal backpacks kids buy.

Stupid Idiot Gary

Gary is Quentin's rival for Rosie's affection and is always referred to by his full title of 'Stupid Idiot Gary'. Apologies to all those Gary's who aren't stupid idiots.