Sunday Strip in Full

Henley Royal Regatta

Me, my cousin Tim, my other cousin Toby, my brother Giles and my other brother, the real Quentin all enjoying a nice, quiet, calm, alcohol-free day by the river at Henley Royal Regatta yesterday.

Missed Birthday

My electronic calendar with everyone's birthdays on went PHUT! recently meaning I forgot some important birthdays. So, this is to say sorry to Ben Askins for forgetting his big day. Sorry Ben.

Spot the Difference

I know you're supposed to say "an herb dispenser" but "a herb dispenser" sounds better to me. I didn't get away with it though as the eagle eyes at King Features corrected it. Sometimes I think the more colloquial version should run.

Apologies for the dreadful pun. Made me laugh though.

Sunday Strip in Full

There's a story where someone did this to get a better tan. He shot up to a terrifying altitude where he almost got hit by passing planes. By the time he got back to earth his friends said they'd never seen him look so pale.

Drop Panels

Here's a small collection of those Sunday Drop Panels. It's tempting to just do a handful of title panels that I can use in rotation but they're always fun to do so despite only a handful of people ever seeing them. I can't help myself. I usually do them last after I've finished drawing the main joke. My favourite is the Alien one. Love that movie.

Dawn and Dark

When you're writing, drawing and coloring 365 comics a year it's nice to do something a little different with the color from time to time. This is why I like painting night time scenes (as the third frame above). It's just a change from the norm. Here I have tried to capture a fiery dawn sky. Think I've gone a bit over the top but you get the idea.

Poor Nobby. That's gotta hurt. 

Retail by Norm Feuti

This is looooong overdue. You may remember I whinged on recently about Ollie and Quentin's lack of newspaper exposure and how I feared for my comic's future. I received lots of messages of support and encouragement from all quarters but I especially want to thank the multi talented Norm Feuti of the wonderful Retail Comic who kindly offered me some practical help by putting an ad for Ollie and Quentin on his website. This was generous beyond anything I expected and I want to thank him here for such an amazing offer, it really is very much appreciated.

So, please go and look at Norm's site and enjoy his funny and beautifully drawn comics. You won't regret it. Check out his 'Gill' comic too! Well worth a read.

Sunday Strip in Full

This is a bit mean of Quentin. Poor John, he does look sad.

Sunday Strip in Full

My Favorite O&Q comics of 2011 (so far...)

I've put some of my favorite Ollie and Quentin comics of 2011 (so far) onto my Facebook page. Click here to have a look.

Where've I seen him before...

Ollie and Quentin started life, many years ago, as comic characters for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution here in the UK. The main character was a lifeboatman called Stormy Stan who, unfortunately, was owned by the RNLI and so couldn't be used in my comic. This was a real shame as he was a great character and would have worked really well with my two guys. I mention this now because he had a beard and looked identical to Nobby with that beard. I still draw him for the RNLI. Here's a recent comic I drew for their children's magazine using him and his new crew that replaced Ollie (or Eric as they knew him).

Sunday Strip in Full

Sunday Strip in Full

Map of the Sea

What I quietly like about this comic is the map Ollie is holding which obviously just shows a blue sea... nothing else.

Sunday Strip in full

It should have been Worm-man and Gullman but that double 'm' in Worm-man scuppered that.

With Editors like these...

My daughter and her friend are in New York, the home of King Features and my brilliant editor Brendan Burford. I received an email from Esme this morning saying they'd met up with Brendan and been jamming with him in Central Park. He blew them away with his banjo playing. Is there no end to the guy's talents? 

This is the kind of editor I have.

Daughter in the USA

My 19 year old daughter is in the US for 6 weeks. She's never been away that long before. If you see an eccentric, tall, funny, beautiful, red haired English girl carrying a Ukulele on her back that's my lovely Esme. She's with her best friend Flick (Felicity). They've started in Buffalo, and are then heading down to Manhattan and then south to Florida and across the southern states through Texas, Arizona and California, ending in Las Vegas in 6 weeks time.
If you see them please check my daughter's been eating some vegetables and if you can offer them somewhere to wash and lay their heads for the night I might sleep well that night.

One of the criticisms...

I try to address the criticisms I sometimes receive about my comic, in my comic. (Every now and again I mention how Ollie and Quentin look nothing like a seagull and a lugworm. Perhaps I should say this is a strip about a duck and a severed thumb). Anyway, this isn't an answer just a gag about my characters not having very expressive faces. Subtlety isn't everyone's cup of tea I have learned.

Sunday Strip in full

This is completely daft.

Tragedy

I think some will struggle to get today's comic. If you're old enough to remember the Bee Gees you'll know they had a #1 hit called 'Tragedy'. You should get the joke now. Click here if you'd like to hear the song.

Clang!

This cartoon is crying out for a damn good Tom & Jerry-type "CLANG!"

A recent favorite

This is a particular favorite of mine. Not only do I like the daft joke but I enjoy drawing boxes (yeah, I know) and love coloring dark scenes like this. Also, who hasn't wanted to joust at least once in their life?

Sunday Strip in Full

Sunday Strip in full

My lovely daughter works at one of those fish pedicure places where you dip your feet in tanks of Garra Rufa Fish and they eat all the dead skin etc off you. That 'familiar' title panel is taken from my favorite movie 'Jaws', not the first time I've used that image.

Sunday Strip in full

Daily Ink readers will notice Ollie and Quentin has miraculously become Oh Brother today. This is what you should be seeing:

Lexilassitudinous

I had to make up "Lexilassitudinous" because I couldn't find a word that means 'fed up having to use a dictionary'. I didn't pluck it out of anywhere. If you break the word down it does mean what I want it to mean.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to my best friend and cousin Tim. 51 years young!

Sunday Strip in full

Some of my favorite drawings in this comic. I'm particularly pleased with the high shot in that top right third panel. 

Sunday Strip in full

Blowing my own mute trumpet

I am producing a really good comic here and my editor at King Features is delighted with the quality of my work but 'Ollie and Quentin' is not connecting with newspaper editors. My editor says there is nothing I can do to improve my strip. We are both surprised at the reaction to it. He did not pick it out of the other 6000 submissions that year for nothing. Sadly newspaper sales are the measure by which a comic is judged and it doesn't take a genius to work out that there is only so long a syndicate will carry an unviable comic before it is forced to admit that it doesn't work and will have to cancel it. I suspect Ollie and Quentin is going this way unless something changes soon.

We have one final card up our sleeves which I can't talk about but if that fails we are gone. I am sure of it. I do not expect to still be doing this in a year's time if things do not improve. It will be sad that a lifelong dream that I sacrificed so much for failed at the final (big) hurdle but I won't slog my guts out every day for no reason. It has been very soul destroying to produce great stuff which just falls on deaf ears. Working up to 8 hours a day every day to earn little more than the minimum wage is not what I saw for my career and not how I expected to bring up my two children.

I would be the first to admit it if I thought my comic was garbage. It isn't. I know this is what I am meant to do and will miss it enormously. I have enjoyed the writing more than any other part of my 25 year career. I know I can compete with the best. I don't enjoy having no life outside my comic but am happy to dedicate my time to it because I am good at it and want to share what I can do. 'Ollie and Quentin' is fresh, new and different. It is clever and charming. Even the drawings are unlike anything else on the funny pages. The potential is enormous. Yet, American newspapers don't want it. Perhaps this is where we went wrong. I have a great British sense of humour, it just doesn't translate.

So, if you're a fan (and I do have plenty) please make some noise. It will be no good moaning after we are cancelled. Let people know about 'Ollie and Quentin' now. Write, talk, text, post and tweet about it, write to your newspaper editor or see a really good strip confined to comic strip history.

Sunday Strip in full

Well, this was one of the easiest comics to draw up. Thank goodness for the lazy 'copy and paste' feature in photoshop!

I never thought this would be allowed...

I was convinced this comic wouldn't be allowed on health and safety grounds. In fact, I only sent my editor a tiny thumbnail sketch because I was sure he would say no. He didn't, as you can see.