I really enjoy the Sunday format. Shame it takes so damn long to colour them up.

In fact Ollie got his name from an ankle ring he had put on him as a young chick. When he looked down at it (ie. upside down) the number 31770 looked like OLLIE to him.

My thanks to Brendan Burford at King Features for his input here. I had Ollie put the earpiece in Quentin's mouth. It's only when we discussed maybe distorting Quentin's speech that it occurred to me that it would sound funnier if his nose was blocked.

Apologies to Teresa's uncle Keith and all very exciting uncle Keiths out there.

Seagulls are hooligans! I'm surprised it's taken me this long to come up with a strip like this. It's so obvious. If ever you visit coastal towns you'll see seagulls attacking tourists for their chips.

I originally drew this with Quentin telling the story but something wasn't right. I think I have to be careful about how "human" Lugworms can be. Somehow a gull having a tummy tuck seems more believable than a worm whose body is simply too different to ours.

I've been thinking about using the frame gutters for a while. I had meant it to be where the ghost of Quentin's boring Uncle Keith is stuck. Maybe Quentin and Ollie would use a ouija board to summon him? Boring uncle Keith could talk for an eternity so this gutter is pergatory for him 'cos he can't get a word in edgeways. Thing is I couldn't get it right and this one just leapt into my head a couple of hours before I had to show King Features what I'd done this week. Amazing what a bit of blind panic will do.

Quentin: "Rory's made a mess on the carpet".
Ollie: "Well Rory can clean it up".
Quentin: "Rory IS the mess on the carpet".

Well, at some point I had to do a bird poo joke.

Well I finally got a ventriloquist joke out (see previous). Gottle o' Geer anyone?

This is unusually cruel.

Hmm, might be a problem with the name "FlopFlip". Could be inviting trouble having the word 'flop' in the title. Not too upset about changing it again. Perhaps I should simply use the character's names as previous. Didn't do Calvin and Hobbes any harm. Either "Quentin and Ollie" or "Nobby, Ollie and Quentin Too". Quentin and Ollie looks nicer. As Esme, my daughter, says it might help me remember Ollie's name for once.

Hang on... it should be Ollie and Quentin! Dammit, I'm gonna have to redo that logo again!

I could have filled in the first two of Quentin's speech bubbles here and just left the final one blank but I couldn't resist it. When I drew this up I did put all of Quentin's words in just so the speech bubbles were the right size.

Guess what he said in frame 4. I felt like a naughty schoolboy using such foul language in a cartoon strip.

This is one of those rare occasions that we see Ollie and Quentin interacting with the outside world. It won't happen that often.

I know this is absurd but Quentin is new to the outside world so everything is a bit confusing. This is how I explain this ridiculous joke. It'll be the first Sunday strip.

Unfortunately I can't use "butt" in the states. It has to be the lame "rear end"...yawn. Shame 'cos it ruins the flow of one of my favourite strips. Here it is as it should be.

Ollie and Quentin's neighbour is called the 'Evil Mrs. Cadaver'. We'll never see her.

Jay Kennedy

Very sad news. Jay Kennedy, Editor-in-Chief at King Features Syndicate has died whilst on holiday. My condolences to his family and friends at Kings.

Ollie's a Seagull but he spends next to no time on the sea. Sofa gull, TV Gull, Fridge Gull?

Again, this would have been difficult to fit into 4 frames.

Sunday strips are great. There have been a few times when I've struggled to fit a joke into 3 or 4 panels so the ability to use 6 or even 9 is fantastic. I'd never have got this story into 4 frames.

Boy, what a dull day. I've spent it doing about 40 black and white versions of my approved colour strips. Trouble is, when I look at some of the older ones they look so poor I can't help but change the really bad bits.

I used to own a hideous waterproof jacket that I called Colin. "Colin, Care in the Community" was it's full name. Boy, did I look like an idiot. Kept wearing it though despite it smelling of sick towards the end. Think it was going mouldy.

I was out running (see previous posting) in the rain when I thought of this. Unusual, because I rarely think of ideas when I'm running. Maybe I will in future.

How many times do I do this?!

The first strip ever to only feature Quentin. Doesn't he look small?

My brother in law 'Giovanni' owns an Italian Restaurant. He's very happy for me to use his name for Ollie and Quentin's local pizza takeout especially as I'm not gonna be very nice about the pizzas.

In real life Giovanni's food is excellent, by the way.

Lucky number 13!

Ran the beautiful Guildford G3 cross country race on Saturday. Very tough 10k. 40th out of 264 and 8th in the 'old blokes' category.

Ok, so it's a fart joke but I couldn't resist it. I should be able to drop it into the feature a few months down the line once editors know I'm not the type to give them grief from their readers.
Talk about trapped wind!

Two of my favourites here. So pleased King Features think the 'Baboon Butt' is acceptable.

At first I had the Butterfly saying the punchline but then I thought it funnier if details of his short life came as news to the him.

This is my youngest brother Quentin who is 'delighted' to have a lugworm named after him!

Three options of the same joke here. I really like this idea but I've worked on it too much and got too close. Anyone out there get any of them? Comments welcome.

I came up with the idea of the seat flipping up once the popcorn was taken away but wanted to take it further. Wherever possible I like to do this. Most of my strips start life with pretty ordinary punchlines that I then develop by imagining what happens before and after the scene I'm showing.

In this case Quentin has bought a heavy box of popcorn to weigh the seat down but Ollie has assumed it's for them to share. At the end Quentin has either got jammed or Ollie has pretended he can't get the seat back down so he can stuff all the popcorn himself.

Er...No, I can't say 'Goddam' apparently. It'll have to be 'A lousy Snail...'

This would be a slow motion robbery. The idea of a snail 'snatching' anything makes me smile. They could just follow his trail but maybe Quentin's hoping Ollie will share his fries. Ollie is frantically stuffing his fat face in frame 4 so I don't think so.

Wonder if I can say 'Goddam'?

This is the name of my new cartoon feature.
Why?:
It comes from the punchline to an early strip.
It could almost be the sound Ollie and Quentin make when they walk.
A flop flip is, in fact, 'A Success'...(ie. the flip side of a flop!)
To me it's a phrase that describes an unlikely relationship between sworn enemies such as a gull and a worm...."A flopflip relationship"
'Flop Flip Cartoon Strip'...it even rhymes!
What finally sold it to me was that it sounds great in an American accent..."Flarp Flip".

I'm supplying King Features with about 4 or 5 pencil sketches a week but I 've been a bit slack in keeping up with the finished colour ones. Here are colour versions of three of the pencil sketches posted back in early December.
30lb TV: I had to change 3 stone TV to 30lb for the States. I'm told I can't use "Barf" either which is a real shame. "Hurled" isn't nearly as good.
Fishy: Have a close look at this one.
Model Plane: I've given Quentin a sicky green hue. Notice how I had to draw the clouds so that you wouldn't work out which way up they're meant to be. My other cloud pictures have a definite up and down side...(jeez)... that must be one of the oddest things I've ever written.

Article by Andrea Foster of the North Devon Journal. Online version available here.

I messed about with this one for ages. When I just had Ollie and Quentin swopping places (ie. half rotations) to simulate the spinning of the draining water no-one else got it. So I've included quarter rotations too in the second version. Think it's better. What do you think?

So, I'm 2 months into my development period with King Features Syndicate. At the moment they're only after 3 or 4 rough strips a week which is fine (see above). Really quite enjoying it. By my launch in September 2007 I'll have to be supplying 7 a week including the big Sunday strip which is twice the size of a daily. Hopefully by then I'll be accustomed to the higher output rate. The problem is I've still got to earn a living so all this is extra to my workload and probably will be for a few years to come. Even then the strip could fizzle out and I've worked my brains out for nothing.

Wouldn't change it for the world.