The Early Days

Where to begin? Whilst living in Birmingham in the mid-seventies, I had started working on what became the beginning of a variety of cartoon characters and the early stages of my work in the cartoon/comic industry.

Wishy, Washy & Wig were created predominantly for young children as a programme which was transfered from AV/Video to cable Tv. Because of my first love towards comic books, the intension was to take the characters and produce them as a cartoon strip. It was still to be some time before they would appear in a young readers comic for 11 years. Following a number of phone calls, I was pleased to meet up with a really great guy who was the features editor of the Bradford Telegraph & Argus newspaper. The original reason for the meeting was to look at the samples of the Wishy, Washy & Wig cartoon strips, but to my amazement, what happened next was the start of a new character that was to play a main part in my life. In the midst of the pages was a small sketch that was the basis of a new idea I was kicking around. Whilst from a visual point of view, it wasn't too descriptive nor dramatic, but it was enough for the editor to say that if I could take and develope the character into a strip, he'd go for it. Needless to say, I agreed and what followed was the first of a daily cartoon strip entitled Matt which ran for six years in the Telegraph & Argus and later with the Manchester Evening News.

The main core of the cartoon was the interaction between children, and whilst its influence came from the more famous strip from across the pond, Charlie Brown, I wasn't short of much needed ideas, as my older sons were both of pre-school age at that time. However, as the weeks went by, I realised two things about doing daily strips, firstly, it was like birth, once you've taken your first breath, you're committed for life, and secondly, I required a new ingredient. This was to come in the form of a feline with silly big feet and cheeks, a love for comics and a real attitude, he was Humph The Cat!

Okay, so a number of things have changed over the past few years. At the time of writing this, sons, Matthew and Nathan are 30 and 27, with little brother, Jakob age 2. The cat on whom the cartoon was based upon has sadly gone to the cat basket in the sky, but thanks to both the newspaper strips and more importantly, a great british comic, The Transformers from Marvel UK, over the pages of this Blog, we can enjoy both past and future artwork involving everyones favourite feline.