Wish I was this brave...

No planes are flying over the UK at the moment due to the erupting volcano in Iceland. There's a fine layer of dust over all our cars and Londoners are enjoying the peace and quiet of having no planes in the skies.

Every saturday I take my daughter to her singing lesson and go for a brisk walk up on the Downs overlooking Guildford while I wait for her. This morning I watched this guy take to the skies on his paraglider thingy. Boy, does that look fun and I wish I was brave enough to do it myself. How long before we see Ollie and Quentin flying about on one of these do you think?

On my drawing board at the moment...

Working for the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) at the moment on some 'Spot the Dangers' Posters. Readers to this blog know that my comic strip evolved from a strip I drew for the RNLI so I owe a huge debt of gratitude to them. Here's a pencil rough for dangers you might find on a UK beach.

One Fine Sunday in the Funny Pages

John Reid, the publisher of the excellent "Stay Tooned" has had a great idea. He's curating a comic strip exhibit to travel through five major southern cities in the coming two years. He has over 100 comic strip cartoonists contributing their original artwork for today's Sunday comic (April 11th 2010). Alongside the framed original art of the strips will be displayed the actual comics section from the newspapers across the country, giving visitors a behind-the-scenes, before-and-after experience. The first showing will begin in late May/ early June 2010. For a list of contributing cartoonists please click here. Here's mine...

I like the above comic strip idea but think the image in the final frame is a bit weak. You can see my original pencil had a pink fairy drawing but we worried this might be seen as being a bit... well, gay? My final one is a bit... well, lame?

Anyone out there who fancies having a go at a better punchline graphic please download the last version and feel free to have a go at drawing something better. Remember Ollie should be in the same pose as panel three.

Jurassic Park

This is going to be lost on anyone who hasn't seen the first excellent Jurassic Park Movie. I'm referring to the scene where the T-Rex pushes the car off the road and down into the forest below. The young boy (the role Quentin is playing) is still in the car as it lands in a tree. He then has to clamber out of the car and down the tree as the car slowly tumbles down after him. The car catches him up and he ends up back in it at the foot of the tree.

Two reasons I don't write my comic at home...

These two great Between Friends comics from Sandra Bell Lundy perfectly demonstrate why I can't write my strip at home. The lure of email, blogs, tweets etc is too great. As for sleeping, I drop off moments after opening my sketchbook. In fact, I'd be gone before panel two above. No, it has to be a busy coffee shop with some strong coffee and maybe even a screaming kid in my ear.

Space Shuttle Discovery

Three different views of a Space Shuttle launch. The first is a ground level shot at this morning's blast off, the second taken by 'Astro Soichi' from The International Space Station five hours before today's launch, and the third Ollie and Quentin's experience of a similar event. Pardon?

Bon Voyage Discovery.

Sunday strip in full

On my lunch break...

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He acquired the lease of the house in my photo ('The Chestnuts') which is in my home town of Guildford. After his father's death Dodgson had to find a home for his six unmarried sisters and The Chestnuts was ideal.

Although Dodgson didn't live in Guildford but in Christchurch, Oxford, he was the householder and spent much of the university vacations here. In 1871 he completed the second Alice Book "Through the Looking Glass" while staying in Guildford. While spending Christmas at The Chestnuts he caught flu and died in January 1898. He is buried nearby.

During a break in my comic writing today I strolled round Guildford reminding myself of the town's link with the creator of the very weird 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'. It was quite pleasant.

April Fool?

A spiralling sculpture designed by Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor has been chosen as the monument to mark the London 2012 Olympic Games. The 115m tall piece, named the ArcelorMittal Orbit, will be placed in the Olympic Park and will be 22m higher than New York's Statue of Liberty. The £19.1m design incorporates the five Olympic rings and will offer visitors panoramic views of London. Click here for the full story.

April Fools' Day is an odd day to announce this and the name 'ArcelorMittal Orbit' is crying out for an anagram so I'm waiting till tomorrow to hear if this weird structure really is going to be part of our Olympic Park. Polls show it's not gone down well with the British public but I kinda like it.

I'll let you know tomorrow.

April Fool's Day

This is my third April first in syndication but this is the first time I've got it together to produce an April Fool's Joke.

Where's Quentin? The Answer

Where's Quentin?

I'm a big fan of the 'Where's Wally' books by British artist Martin Handford. (In the U.S. they're called "Where's Waldo" for some reason). For several years in the early and mid 1990's "Where's Waldo" was turned into a Sunday newspaper comic/puzzle and distributed by King Features Syndicate.

As a kid my brother and I used to draw epic battle scenes a bit like these. First we'd use a pink pen to draw hundreds of heads, then another color for the bodies and another for the legs etc. We'd spend hours sat in the back yard drawing these gory panoramas.

So, can you spot Quentin? He's the only lugworm dressed like he is in the first frame.

Answer tomorrow.

Passport Photos

My dear old dad went to one of those high tech photo booths to get some new passport photos done. He paid his £4, pressed 'yes' to all the questions on screen and waited to receive his photos. This is what popped out 4 minutes later:

Happy Easter Everyone.

Toenails

I don't make this stuff up, you know. Seagulls do have toenails.

"Where do you get your ideas?" #895

Anyone out there ever slipped a disk? My sympathies because I did that 16 years ago and have suffered ever since. For 6 years I couldn't do any sport but about 10 years ago I started running again (my other passion besides drawing). I'd suffer with back aches etc but managed to keep running all the same. The pain seems to have settled now which I should be grateful about but the payoff has been pressure on a nerve that feeds my calf and foot resulting in a weakness that makes running difficult and a foot without a reflex. The above cartoon has been the only good to have have come out of this long, miserable predicament.

Times and Sunday Times Websites to charge from June

The Times and Sunday Times Newspapers will start charging to access their websites from June, owner News International (NI) has announced. Users will pay £1 for a day's access and £2 for a week's subscription.

This is a bold and interesting move by Rupert Murdoch. I'll be interested to see if it works and who might follow. I hope it does as I've always felt premium content could and should be paid for. Let's see.

To read the full story on the BBC website click here.

Wonky Widget

Comics Kingdom still works, it's just the widget that's gone wonky. I've replaced it with a static graphic that takes you to the same place where you can see my daily comic. Just click the graphic top right.

Comic Strips

Every now and again I check out my web stats to see how people have navigated to www.ollieandquentin.com. Today, I got a laugh when I noticed someone had typed into Google "What are Comic Strips?" I'm guessing they're either visitors from another planet or the newspaper industry is in a worse state than I thought.

Comics Kingdom Widget

I'm not a techie but I think the Comics Kingdom Widget (top right) might be the reason you're getting a Google Malware Warning appearing when you enter this site. Seems everything's fine when the widget doesn't work but when it does you get that alert. I'm sure the engine room at King Features are working tirelessly on fixing this so please be patient. In the meantime here's today's comic which I do like but it does look a bit like Quentin's found himself a particularly unattractive girlfriend in the first panel.

Centurion Trailer

We've known our good friends Clare and David since all our kids were babies. I don't know how it happened but suddenly all our four children are adults. Their son, Ashton, spent a few weeks last year running around the woods not far from here pretending to be a Roman soldier. Next thing I know I'm sent the above movie trailer saying he's one of the soldiers chopping each other up. In fact he says he's more than one soldier as he's been duplicated a number of times. I'm so jealous. It beats my extras moment in 'Chariots of Fire'.

(Be warned the trailer is a bit gory).

Sunday strip in full

Moviezzzzzzzzz....

Today's comic reflects my opinion on so many movies these days. They tend to look fabulous and the acting is fine but they are so often let down by a poor story, a plot full of loopholes and lame dialogue. They come across as "Movies By Committee" too. I can almost hear some idiot executive around the table saying:

"Hey, let's put an alien in somewhere."
"But it's a romantic comedy, Brian."
"I know, but everyone loves aliens, ET made lots of money. Let's make the star a divorced, washed up cop with a drink problem and a daughter that hates him."
"The star's a college kid, Brian."
"She'll love him by the end of the movie."
Pause.
"Ok, let's add Brian's ideas. Anyone else?"

My biggest gripe, however, is WHY DO THEY HAVE TO BE SO LONG? It's not that I have a short attention span but what happened to good editing? I'd happily pay to see a great hour and a half movie rather than sit through a poor three hour one. Quite often that boring three hour movie might make a great hour and a half one. Less is more, leave it on the cutting room floor. Hey, that rhymed.

2010 NCS Reuben Divisional Award Nominees Announced

Tom Richmond's excellent blog has the full list of this year's Reuben Divisional Nominees. I'm delighted to see John Hambrock's "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee" has been nominated in the Newspaper Comic Category as this is one of my favorite strips. Congratulations too to "Zits" and "Non Sequitur", both deserved nominees too.
Also congratulations to another one of my favorites, Hilary Price's "Rhymes With Orange" has been nominated in the Newspaper Panel division.

Darth Vader

Today's comic gives me the excuse to post this fantastic lego animation set to Eddie Izzard's brilliant stand up comedy routine. If you haven't seen it prepare for a good laugh but, be warned, the language is a bit blue.

Lost in Translation...

I have a pretty good comic rough on the chopping block (see above with the text removed). It hinges on readers knowing the 'Counting Crows' rhyme. Here in the UK we have a very well known version counting Magpies. It goes:

One for sorrow
Two for Joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret never to be told.

I googled this rhyme and learned that in the US there is a Counting Crows version that goes:

One crow means sorrow
Two crows mean joy
Three crows a wedding
Four crows a boy
Five crows mean silver
Six crows mean gold
Seven crows a secret that's never been told.

My question is, how popular is this rhyme? If I made reference to it would you know what I meant? My Editor didn't know it and seeing as he's one of the brightest people I know I have a feeling my comic is doomed, but just in case...

...Anyone?

Hever Castle, Home of Anne Boleyn

It's Mother's Day here in the UK, so took a day away from the drawing board to visit Hever Castle in Kent which was the home to King Henry VIII's second wife Anne Boleyn. A lovely place with some great artwork. I particularly love the drawings of Anne by Hans Holbein the Younger, copies of which hang in the castle.

Left to Right

You'll see the difference between my rough and the final comic. I made the basic error of having the action moving in the wrong direction (right to left instead of left to right). Fortunately my editor at Kings pointed me in the right direction.

Sharks and the 'real' Quentin

Regular visitors to this blog will know that Quentin is named after my younger brother Quentin who is today in South Africa diving with sharks! Here are a couple of his photos which I'm posting because, by coincidence, I recently drew the above comic not knowing his plans for this week. Apparently 7 of them dive in that cage at once to see the Great White circling their boat. Gulp.

Less is more

In a discussion on The Daily Cartoonist Website there's talk about simply drawn comics, namely Stephan Pastis' Pearls Before Swine comic. I quote "... the infantile scrawl of his drawings in the strip. Stick figures, slightly modified." The writer goes on to say "...when he draws his characters in a way that they resemble hors d’oeuvres on toothpicks, we know he’s doing minimal work, artistically speaking. In effect, he’s ridiculing his hard-working fellow cartoonists, many of whom spend almost every waking hour making the elaborate drawings in their strips. I can almost hear him scoffing: “You fools! You spend your lives pushing ink around on paper, but I have achieved fame and fortune with the barest resemblance of drawing in my strip. Don’t you wish you’d thought of this?” Scorn drips from every syllable."

This same writer once wrote about my comic. He was quite complimentary but on the subject of my artwork he wrote:
"...Piers Baker draws his Pastis-ische strip, Ollie and Quentin, with a line that is as unvarying and monotonous as Scott Adams’ in Dilbert..." he continues "The simplicity of the drawing bores me. Shouldn’t a visual artform present pictures that are interesting? A worm as a character is probably the apogee of uninteresting art. And a seagull with a beak that never opens isn’t much better. Only Stephen Pastis tops this performance by giving Rat and Pig stick-figure arms and legs in Pearls before Swine."

Ok ok, that's enough copying and pasting. What I want to say in reply is that it is a mistake to think an unvarying line or a simple character is an easy or lazy option. I, for one "spend almost every waking hour" drawing the simple pictures in my strip. I spend as much time on my feature as any comic strip cartoonist out there. And it's not because I'm slow. I take great care to get everything just right. Every aspect of every frame is thought through carefully. I draw most items individually so they can be dropped in in exactly the right place. It takes a lot of hard work to reproduce characters of a similar look frame after frame with only the simplest of lines. In fact, in my experience, I'd say that the scratchier, more complex and 'interesting' the line the easier it is to achieve the same look to your characters. I am certainly not taking the easy option by choosing one simple line. It's damn hard.

The unvarying lines in Dilbert and Pearls Before Swine are genius. Making it look easy is what clever people do. They make you think "I can do that", but guess what... you can't.

CritterTube

I prefer not to change real names in comics so was quite keen to use YouTube in this week's series. However the series ends with me needing to use the YouTube logo which I was told I couldn't do. I therefore had to go back and find a new similar name which was really hard as so many of them already exist. CritterTube was one that doesn't yet have a website that I could find.

Sunday strip in full

I hope 'Ollie and Quentin' is a comic that appeals to readers of all ages. Every now and then strips go through that probably appeal to one end of the age scale more than the other. Today's is so stupidly goofy I'm hoping older readers will forgive me and younger ones get as close to a giggle as they can. Actually, a groan will do.

3 minutes 53 seconds of absolute genius...

Hang in there a few seconds, it's not just another one of those slightly boring falling domino things and the guy at the start is only covered in red paint (it looks a bit grim). At the end you'll see why. I especially like the cutlery tapping the glasses to make part of the song. Enjoy.

Pickles by Brian Crane

As an iphone user this really made me laugh this morning.

Comic Error

Note to self: If you decide to have your characters say two different things in one panel make sure their expression matches the second statement and not the first. In frame two of today's comic Nobby should be looking disappointed/surprised rather than cheerful.