work process
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I’ve been writing this incarnation of Arctic Circle for over three years and despite being a female cartoonist, the main cast of seven are all male (it’s sort of a default setting for animal characters without eyelashes). When I wrote the Antarctica series, I had great fun with the introduction of a female character, Gwen. So I’ve brought her back. I’m not sure if she’ll stay – I’ve been writing more strips with her in this week – we’ll see how things work out.
My editor thought some of these strips a little sexist, but there are differences between men and women (in general) and the amount of luggage they take is definitely one of them.
I have a whole lot of facebook friends I don't even know and I'm petrified of deleting them
So this is my approach for a lot of my Facebook "friends" whose witterings mean nothing to me
Gwen moves out of the bachelor igloo
My mum actually did this to Dad's shirts once.
Inspired by the Gondola in Christchurch. A pointless apparatus, if ever there was one - you can walk or drive to the top of the hill it goes up!
Tags: cartoon, cartoonist, female, women
I doubt Hector’s is a good place for coffee, but I imagine free wi-fi is scarce in the Arctic.
Hector puts in free wi-fi
Hector turns off free wi-fi
I wrote this after noticing the number of laptop users in my local cafe, Presse. They sure know how to eek out a cappuccino.
Tags: arctic, cafe, cartoon, Circle, comic strip, free, melbourne, wi-fi
This series was inspired by living in Melbourne, a UNESCO City of Literature. Which reminds me, I better hurry up and finish “Everything is illuminated” by Jonathan Safran Foer – Elwood book club is next week.
Snowpeak is shortlisted to become a City of Literature
Or not.
Tags: book group, books, city of literature, reading, typo, typographical error
This rejected rough was written after I read about an iPhone app that provides ripostes to the arguments of climate sceptics. BB felt that the underlying [English] sarcasm wouldn’t come through and it would be playing into the hands of the sceptics. Probably right.
I do like the insult of "monkey-brained doofus"
Tags: anti-sceptic, cartoon, climate change, rejected rough, sceptic, skeptic
I had a feeling this wouldn’t fly – can’t go attacking particular brands. But it’s an irony that that luxury brand’s logo is so similar to CND’s.
Tags: cartoon, comic, pencil, reject, rough
Ed knows Aikido
This strip came out of doing a self-defence course with an Aikido instructor. I found the course really useful, but one of the thing that bothers me about this and other martial arts is that you can’t just do it in your track-suit. Once you get serious, you have to wear a daft-looking outfit that you will never be wearing outside should you need to use the skills you learned…
Tags: aikido, fight, hoodlums, hoods, looking for trouble, louts, self-defence
The view from a brainstorming point by the canal
A beautiful day for brainstorming in Melbourne
I like to think up ideas for Arctic Circle in several locations – cafes and along Elwood Canal to the beach are two favourites, but I’ve just added a third – the State Library.
The La Trobe Reading Room
The La Trobe Reading Room is old school gorgeoous and even has desks that can be set to slope. The only problem is that it must be examination time and the normally quiet room has been inundated with twittering wittering students.
A warm up sketch from the library
Tags: brainstorming, I loathe people talking on their mobile phones in libraries, I love libraries
If I could have one superpower it would be to know where everything is. That would mean I could know where Snooty is now (Snooty makes a guest appearance in today’s strip which is part of the Lost City series below). Snooty was the toy elephant I had as a little kid. I think I was car sick on him too many times and one day he never came back from the wash…
The penguins find the map to the Lost City
The Lost City is not Atlantis
Gordo finds Snooty
Tags: childhood toys, lost city, murdoch, soft toy
This upcoming Sunday drop panel was inspired by a favourite crayfish shack near Kaikoura, New Zealand.
Oscar gets his hands messy at the crayfish shack
The crayfish shack near Kaikoura - Nin's Bin
Tags: crayfish, kaikoura, lobster, NZ, seafood
I had a good chat with Brendan this morning and I’m pleased to be working on a whole series of AC strips that see Oscar return to Antarctica for a visit. A couple of other strips didn’t make it though:
BB thought this bizarre and not in keeping with the strip. He's probably right.
BB thought that the use of gunpowder was too risky for the comics page
Stuff that Bugs Bunny could get away with is too risky for the newspaper comics.
Tags: editorial, nixed, rough work
