One panel from that third rejected strip (see below)

Back from Alpbach

Back from beautiful Alpbach in Austria to be greeted by 3 changes needed to comics I'd already completed and sent off. One needed the word 'Chinaman' changing. I had no idea that might be considered a racist term. I'm an Englishman but...oh well. The second strip needed the graphics moving from left to right rather than from right to left (Comic Strip rule #1 or #2, I think) and the third, well I'm being called to the principal's office on that one.
That'll teach me to send strips off before they've been approved.

Oh the irony...

I'm stuck in Austria because flights back to the UK are cancelled due to snow in the UK!

Alpbach, Austria

It's my mum's 70th Birthday on Monday and we're all going to Alpbach in Austria for a few days (so long as the snow that's due in the UK tomorrow doesn't arrive). We're in the middle of a big freeze and a lot of flights have been cancelled so I could be spending the next day or so in an airport departure lounge. Either way I'm not doing any comics till next Thursday! Happy Birthday Mum!

Two years ago today...

This was it, the first Ollie and Quentin that ran on Jan 8th 2008. Oh, how young and fresh faced it all looks. Look at those HUGE speech bubbles and that tiny text. Ollie is so thin and his nose has certainly filled out over these two years. Happy Birthday to us.

2nd Anniversary

Ollie and Quentin is two years old this week. Two years since I handed my life over to the Syndication Monster and its Deadline Hounds who snap at my heels every day. At my launch I was about 6 months ahead, now I am about a week behind. This is typical of me as I work best under pressure so only have myself to blame.

I still love writing my feature (my day touring the Guildford coffee shops is my favorite day of the week) and do enjoy producing the artwork. That said I always prefer my pencil roughs to the black and white artwork that gets reproduced in newspapers. I'm happy with the color final though. Ollie and Quentin looks much better on screen which is where I see its future.

Two years on I can see that Ollie and Quentin hasn't exactly set the comic world alight. I like what I've been doing, my editor at King Features is still a fan and what mail I get is always very positive but my feature isn't competing with the best at all, in fact, it's still back in the changing room tying its shoelaces. The biggest insult of the year was O&Q appearing on the website that asks readers for proof that a syndicated comic actually appears in newsprint somewhere. Take it from me, it does! I don't really know why US readers haven't taken to Ollie and Quentin, I know they are slightly odd characters drawn in an unusual way and with very British humor but I hope, in time, readers will notice my feature as it is a far better comic than its sales figures suggest... but I would say that.

So, what of year three?

King Features do have some great ideas in the pipeline which I'm very excited about. Can't say anything now but watch this space.

I'm hoping to free up some time to do normal stuff. At the moment I spend a disproportionate amount of time on my comic and see life passing by with me chained to my desk. My kids are growing up fast (18 and 21) and I don't want to miss these last few years they'll be with us. I'm considering investing (gulp) in a Cintiq Tablet which may save me some time at artwork stage. I produce very tight pencil roughs so a Cintiq would be perfect to produce the linework from.

I need to concentrate on my other illustration work more. I have completely lost interest in anything other than my comic this year which would be fine if O&Q were in 500 newspapers but not when its in just a handful. Need to advertise more and develop my style further.

All said, I still LOVE being syndicated and am very happy to be paid to do what I've always wanted to do. I love my characters and am very happy with how the strip is developing. I just hope others may one day enjoy reading it as much as I do creating it.

Here's to year three! Cheers.

No words

I think this is my first comic with no text whatsoever. I've always thought three panels with about 20 words is perfect but four panels and no words will do.

Happy New Year!

Happy Merry Jolly Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope yours was better than mine as I've been ill with flu all Christmas. Cough cough, sniff, wheeze...

Unedited

My editor asked me to change Ollie's arms in the last frame as he was worried that readers might think he's pushed the snowball into his own face. I agreed that it was a bit confusing and to have his hands by his sides would be better. Trouble is, I'd already sent it off so it was too late. Darn, that'll always bug me now!

And the answer is...

"Alien" of course! Here's the reference picture I used.

It's "Guess The Movie" Monday...

Coming to a Funny Page near you soon.

Samples Update

I've added a few new comics to the Ollie and Quentin website samples page. Click here to have a look.

Sunday strip in full

I'm a big fan of Tintin. My favorite adventure is 'Tintin in Tibet'. If you look closely you'll see Ollie is reading it in the drop panel. Quentin is enjoying 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'.

No snow in Spring, Summer or Fall.

I like this one but wrote and sketched it last February so missing the snowy season. It's been burning a hole in my 'to do' pile ever since. Finally it gets its winter viewing.

Sat Nav, Watch and Cash...

...it must be my son's 21st Birthday! Gaaah! Am I really old enough to have a son of 21?!

Champagne Breakfast, Socks and a new Bike...

...it must be my birthday!

Say hello to your neighbors

My mother heard a loud crash near her house. A car crash obviously. It wasn't till the next day when she went outside did she realize it was her car that had been smashed. An idiot (drunk) has rammed into the side of it totally destroying it. The creep then drove off. A neighbor saw this happen and leapt into his car to give chase. He caught the jerk up and managed to get his license plate. He called the police who arrested the moron. My mom didn't find this out till the next day. When I said what a good neighbor this guy is she said she'd never even said hello to him because she "didn't like the look of him". How wrong can you be? She feels awful and is going to pay him a visit with a big box of chocs.

Sunday strip in full

Mom's email

My mom isn't very tech savvy and often needs help getting her *@%*@%$ printer to print. We're buying her her own laptop for her 70th birthday soon so the swearing is only going to get worse.

Math

Anyone spot the deliberate mistake? Actually it wasn't deliberate to begin with but then I decided to keep my math error in.

Check Complete

Sunday Color

I like the look of this. This is the color file for a forthcoming Sunday. I always color my strips in Photoshop on a separate layer anyway and sometimes it's fun just to see what the color-only layer looks like. I think this works nicely because it's taking place in the snow.

Alex Hallatt interviewed on Scott Nickel's Blog

This week fellow Brit and fellow King Features Cartoonist Alex Hallatt is interviewed over on Scott Nickel's excellent blog. Every week Scott gets cartoonists to answer questions about themselves and their feature. It's well worth a read. I love Alex's answer to the best thing about being a cartoonist.

Typing Errors

I always seem to make the same typing errors. If a word has a double letter in it I always double up the wrong one. Eg. "Spoon" would become "Sponn" or "Green" becomes "Grren"
Another favorite is "Toady" instead of "Today", I think this is when a real word can be made out of another.

Thank goddness my work is checked.

Comma? Huh?

I have no idea why a comma has been added after "goodness" in today's comic but it wasn't me!

Rejeggt

I don't get many comic roughs rejected (which is a relief because I do such tight pencils) but this one didn't make it. I quite like it but, as my brilliant editor put it, "the clever factor is low!"

Our House

This is my lovely house. We've lived here for 18 years. Today we exchanged contracts so our gorgeous home is now sold. Teresa immediately burst into tears. Now I am frantically sorting, packing, ebaying, dumping and moving our stuff as well as doing my comic strip. The next few weeks are going to be crazy.

Newspaper v. Online News

I have little interest in reading news online and much prefer a newspaper. That said I prefer to read comics online. The size, print quality, choice and sheer number of comics in a newspaper puts me off. Apart from a handful of features that look better in black and white (Cul de Sac, Lio and Non Sequitur to name but three) I prefer color comics too so online is where I go. Ollie and Quentin looks a hundred times better in color than black and white. Thank goodness for King Features' 'Comics Kingdom'. In the UK daily comics are often printed in color, it's a shame that's not the case in the US.

6 foot 6

Of course there are exceptions but I really do think taller people are happier, calmer and generally more content than small folk. Apparently we're also perceived as being wealthier too (which is a joke in my case). The problem is the world isn't built for us over six footers as we hit our heads everywhere, can't squeeze our legs into airline seats and never get clothes to fit.

Rainbow

Moments ago outside my studio window.

Ollie's Flock

It was only a matter of time before we met Ollie's flock. What a handsome bunch.

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.