Sunday Daily

I wrote and roughed up this strip back in the summer of 2007. I like it and it's been approved by King's but haven't found the opportunity to use because it would involve explaining why Ollie's Mum is there. I'm sure, one day, I'll do a series when she visits but this week it occurred to me that I could explain it better in a sunday format. So here it is.

PS. I really wanted to use my mum's name for Ollie's mum but I've already used Barbara in a previous strip, as a baseball bat wielding attic pigeon! My poor lovely mum, she deserves better.

One for the guys...

I tried to sneak this one past my editor at Kings today but without luck. Can't say I'm surprised.
Brrrr

Self Editing

I'm working on a series of "Incredibly Exciting Adventures of Supergull and Wonderworm" and wanted to have an envelope exploding in Ollie and Quentin's faces. Trouble is, I knew I'd never get away with it. The spring loaded boxing glove was an ok alternative but not as much fun to draw.
(That's pigeons laughing).

Year 1: The Good and The Bad

Ollie and Quentin turned one yesterday so I thought it would give me the opportunity to look back at my first year in syndication. Here are the good and the bad of year one.

The Good:
1. The writing. I've enjoyed this much more than I expected.
2. Other cartoonists. They are all wonderful, kind, generous and particularly beautiful people. My thanks to the gorgeous Alex Hallatt (Arctic Circle), the very wise John and Anne Hambrock (The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee), the ludicrously gifted Richard Thompson (Cul de Sac), the delightful Sandra Bell-Lundy (Between Friends), the heroic Kieran Meehan (Pros and Cons), the scarily clever Mark Tatulli (Lio), the godfather Mike Lynch and the genius that is Dan Piraro (Bizarro) who all got in touch this year.
3. Brendan Burford. My brilliant editor at King Features (and only just out of shorts).
4. Comics Kingdom. A chance for us small guys to be seen and heard (and O&Q looks sooooo much better in color).
5. Fans. Make those late nights worthwhile.
6. Janine Pineo at The Bangor Daily News.
7. The dollar. Worth so much more against our weak pound here in the UK.
8. The Daily Cartoonist. Invaluable.
9. King Features sales guys. What a terrible year to be doing that job.

The Bad:
1. Comic Polls.
2. The state of the newspaper industry.
3. Comic "Experts" who aren't.
4. Nasty commenters. C'mon guys, it's just a comic strip.
5. My dwindling stock pile.
6. Strips past their sell by date.
7. My other cartoon illustration work. It's a nightmare to fit in and I'm really bored with it.
8. My family still don't really understand what being syndicated means.

Finally, if you're thinking of trying to be a syndicated cartoonist make sure you have a very understanding wife, husband, partner, girlfriend, boyfriend and kids because a comic strip is like introducing a new and particularly demanding member to the family. It shouts "Me Me Me" all day, every day. It's loud, selfish, nagging, frustrating and, in my case, not potty trained.

But it's worth it.

Ollie and Quentin are 1 today!

...and a Happy New Year too!

Happy Jolly Merry Ding Dong Christmas Everyone

No Farting

This week's series (where Ollie and Quentin have to go next door into Evil Mrs Cadaver's house to feed her pet canary, Boris) was meant to end differently (and more crudely, hence the change). Quentin gets so worried about what kind of animal 'Boris The Beast' is that he farts and kills the canary. The final strip has Ollie telling Nobby that Quentin is burying the canary not searching for him. Of course this was never going to get through but I decided to go with the rest of the series anyway but it doesn't really work. I like the first couple in the sequence but wish I'd rethought their adventure after that. Oh well, they'll go next door again I'm sure.

Imp of the Perverse

I took a long time researching this. There are a lot more phrases to describe that urge some of us get to throw ourselves off a high building so I had to edit some out just to squeeze the joke into a Sunday strip. I don't get the urge to leap myself but I do sometimes get the irresistible urge to stand up during things like a wedding service and swear at the top of my voice.

The trouble with detailed roughs...

I do very detailed pencil roughs to make the inking stage easier but if my editor at Kings doesn't approve the joke then I've wasted a good couple of hours, probably more in this case. I'm pleased with this drawing and I like this joke but my editor feels it isn't right yet. I'm always happy to work on something I have my own doubts about but I find rewriting jokes I'm happy with very difficult. However, too much effort has gone into this for it to be forgotten so I may just use the first few frames for a completely different joke.

Just as a matter of interest I'd like to know if you get it.

The Mischievous Eggs

Today sees the introduction of Ollie's sister's mischievous kids. They are two unhatched eggs and don't have name's yet because we don't know what they are. They're hoping to hatch out into something cool with sharp fangs and claws like a dinosaur or a...a chicken, anything but a dumb gull. They visit when Ollie's sister needs a break and are loosely based on my own nephew and niece, Spook and Rosanna.

If at first you don't succeed...

I loved the build up to this joke but I couldn't get the punchline to match it. Here are my various attempts. I was quite pleased with the final one.

Ollie and Quentin Stamp

The Royal Mail have this very nice facility to create your own stamps. They have an excellent online application you can use to design them. Click here if you'd like to do your own. Here's mine.

Cartoontastic!

I'm going to be doing some cartoon workshops in my home town of Guildford next May. Cartoontastic! is a day long workshop for adults and will be great fun. There should be a bit of publicity in the local press beforehand and I think I may be doing a (gulp) radio interview too but if you want to get in early the date for the adult workshop is Saturday May 9th from 10.30 am - 3.30pm at the beautiful Guildford House Gallery (built in 1660!). Click here for more details.
I'll also be doing a couple of kids' workshops. The date is Thursday 28th May at 10.30am-12.30pm for kids aged 8-12 and 1.30pm -3.30pm for 13-18 year olds. Click here for the kids workshop details.
See you there.

King Features Launches Comics Kingdom

This is the sort of thing that makes me so pleased to be a King Features Syndicated cartoonist. Comics Kingdom is an innovative comics platform that helps online newspapers create new revenue streams and increase site traffic. It features King Features’ complete portfolio of more than 60 strips (including a 30 day archive) presented in a visually stimulating, user-friendly and community-based entertainment portal. Okay I pinched that blurb from the King Features website but I've been using Comics Kingdom for a while now and it is really good. Now 'Ollie and Quentin' gets a chance to be seen by a wider audience and my strip looks so much better in colour...sorry color.

Visit www.comicskingdom.com to check it out.

Times Herald - Newnan, Georgia

The Times Herald, Newnan is giving 'Ollie and Quentin' a go. The next few weeks of my feature are really good fun so they've come in at the right time. Above is a little taster of things to come, I guess it's a comic trailer.

The real reason Quentin left his hole on the beach

This week saw the reason Quentin left his sand hole on the beach to come and live in the town. It was his irritatingly competitive neighbor Carl that drove him away.

Happy Halloween

Although only 2 days apart in newspapers these two strips were drawn about a year apart. The "Beast of Biggly Bay" was drawn last year and you'll notice the characters are smaller in each panel. The text is also smaller. I received some negative comments on the size of these aspects when I first launched so have upped the font size and increased the size of Ollie and Quentin when I can. I think the black line is a little more confident too.

Happy Halloween everyone.

The Basement

In the new year Ollie and Quentin go looking for monsters in their basement. I've really enjoyed coloring these strips because of all the shadows and highlights I can play around with. Here are a few panels to show you what I mean. The three panels here are taken from 3 different strips but, by chance, seem to tell a story in themselves.

Censored

So far this has been my only censored strip way back in March of this year. Shame really as I think it's quite sweet. Oh well, one out of the first 300 isn't too bad.