Archive for ‘Comics’

115 results.
Apr07

Crash!

by Mark on April 7, 2011 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics, French, Italian, Translations
Crash!

Compared with most of our recent comics this one might seem a little simplistic, and the joke a bit on the old side. But If you listen carefully you should hear the classic strum of a harp to indicate that we’re about to enter a flashback…

The year is 1996. Windows 95 has been out for a few months, and although it’s generally been received as a vast improvement over Windows 3.1, some people find that it crashes or hangs from time to time. Thumbing through our existing comics, we come across the very first Greys strip that we drew (sadly now lost in its digital form, and only existing as a printout):

(Yes, this is where The Greys all started. Bonus points for understanding the joke – it might help to imagine yourself watching sci-fi back in the mid-nineties)

So we took some of the elements from that first strip, moved them and tweaked them a little (don’t look surprised – you know that’s how we create most of our comics), and produced “Crash!” to honour the growing pains of Windows.

Now as the strumming harp and wobbly fade brings us back to the 21st century, you might be wondering why it’s taken so long for this comic to go online. It actually fell into the group of old comics that we converted for use on the new site two years ago, and was originally intended to be the second comic we posted. At the time we had a bright idea for an Easter Egg to go with it, but unfortunately we found that web technology was still a little immature for what we had in mind. Two years later and things have progressed significantly and finally, a couple of weeks ago, the launch of Firefox 4 brought the technology we need to the masses. At last the Easter Egg would be visible to more than just a handful of Opera users. It still won’t work in Internet Explorer though, not even IE9. Maybe in another couple of years…

Cette bande dessinée est aussi disponible en français
This comic is also available in French

Questo fumetto è disponibile anche in italiano
This comic is also available in Italian

Click here to download the SVG source for this comic

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Mar24

It’s Your Fault!

by Mark on March 24, 2011 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics, Italian, Translations
It’s Your Fault!

The idea for this comic was scribbled down several months ago, long before we thought of the previous comic, “Greys in the Hall“. As Vince was drawing his nice suburban hallway we realised that both comics dealt with a similar idea, albeit from different perspectives, so we decided to post them sequentially.

“Greys in the Hall” plays with the idea that The Greys become aware of the reader spying on them. One Grey talks directly to the reader, such that if we were working for TV or theatre we’d be “breaking the fourth wall“. Of course, having broken something, the least we could do is try to repair it. So with this comic the fourth wall is now intact again, and we can carry on safe in the knowledge that The Greys are, once again, oblivious to our voyeuristic presence.

Questo fumetto è disponibile anche in italiano
This comic is also available in Italian

Click here to download the SVG source for this comic

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Mar10

Greys In The Hall

by Mark on March 10, 2011 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics, Italian, Translations
Greys In The Hall

You may have noticed that most of our comic panels are far wider than they are tall. Yes, we occasionally create a taller panel, or use multiple smaller frames, but those are the exceptions. We realised that our view of The Greys’ world is like that of a child peering through a letterbox – and this strip was born. Enjoy your voyeurism while you can…

Questo fumetto è disponibile anche in italiano
This comic is also available in Italian

Click here to download the SVG source for this comic

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Feb28

Welcome To Aylesbury

by Mark on February 28, 2011 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics, Italian, Translations
Welcome To Aylesbury

This is the first comic for our local Town Council’s quarterly magazine, Aylesbury Town Matters. This strip appears in issue #20, together with an article introducing the comic. A low-resolution copy of the page is available here, in case you really want to read the accompanying text. In order to differentiate the strips we’re producing for Aylesbury Town Matters from our usual comics we’re giving them all a green border. That should make it easier for you to skip them if you’re not interested in them, or find yourself visually assaulted by the larger font we’ve had to use to ensure it’s still readable in print.

This particular strip references a well-known, and somewhat contentious, local building, Aylesbury County Hall. It towers over the other buildings in the town, and dominates the landscape for miles around. Despite often being derided as little but a concrete monolith, even this building can look interesting given the right photo:

Image courtesy of Mark Rutland

Finally, as this is our first appearance in the magazine, we’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Town Council staff who are responsible for Aylesbury Town Matters: Keith, Hilary, and particularly Danny who was kind enough to champion our proposal for inclusion. We’d also like to offer huge thanks to our friends at Bluepepper Designs, who lay out and print the magazine, and were incredibly helpful and understanding as we went through the learning process of getting our Inkscape file onto the page without losing any quality on the way.

Questo fumetto è disponibile anche in italiano
This comic is also available in Italian

Click here to download the SVG source for this comic

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Feb17

Star Trek vs Blakes Seven

by Mark on February 17, 2011 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics
Star Trek vs Blakes Seven

I have to admit to a little bias on this one. We’re both fans of Blakes 7 from (the) way back; even our domain name of “peppertop” takes its cue from our pet name for the Federation’s mutoids who quite frankly all looked like they were wearing large black peppers on their heads (well done BBC costume department!).

Blakes 7 was, in many respects, the British answer to Star Trek (the original series). In many other respects it was a blatant rip-off, as the direct translation of transporter/teleporter and photon torpedo/plasma bolt indicates, not to mention the cunning ruse of simply spinning the Star Fleet logo through 90 degrees and ironing out the curves. But where Star Trek was filled with American aspirations of a better universe, B7 was cursed with the British mindset of a corrupt, authoritarian regime, suppressing its citizens 1984-style.

Whether it’s sci-fi, comedy or drama, we Brits have never really been very good at aspirational. We do have a good line in the heroic underdog, though. It’s one reason why so many British programmes fail to make the transition to an American audience and falter at the pilot stage, or after a few episodes. It’s also why a lot of Americans appreciate the existence of BBC America (there’s less need for an equivalent channel going the other way, as we’re used to having a lot of American content in our schedules anyway).

So while Star Trek struggled with exploring the universe as one big, (usually) happy family on board the Enterprise, Blakes 7 threw an ensemble of criminals together who didn’t really like each other much, had few overlapping motives, and were bound largely by sharing a common enemy. Principal cast members were tossed aside in narratively pointless deaths; alliances were made and broken; they were forced to side with their arch enemies against an even bigger threat from outside our galaxy; and all the while they had to contend with computers which had obviously dropped through a wormhole from the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

B7 was, at times, dark and depressing – particularly with its now famously bleak ending – but as fans of science fiction it gave us a whole lot more to chew on than the relatively lightweight episodic fare of Star Trek. For that we loved it, wobbly sets and all, and only wish it had seen the revival that Terry Nation wished for it. While Star Trek was largely salvaged from the dustbin of televisual chintz by ST:TNG, leading to several more series and films, Blakes 7 never got that treatment and the world of science fiction is a poorer place for it.

Click here to download the SVG source for this comic

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Feb03

The All Natural* Universe Bar

by Mark on February 3, 2011 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics, Italian, Translations
The All Natural* Universe Bar

Natural. Organic. No artificial colours, flavourings or preservatives. They’re great marketing terms, but pretty meaningless in the real world. Just how natural is that flapjack from the health food shop? I doubt it was picked from a flapjack tree by organic fairies. Instead it was made, by humans, from oats and other ingredients grown in bulk on farms outside the plants’ natural habitats. They were harvested, usually mechanically, then processed by more machines. The mix wasn’t left to cure in the heat of a mediterranean noonday sun, nor even baked in a clay oven heated by wood. Rather it was cooked in an artifical oven, powered by gas or electricity, before being sliced, diced and packaged by more machines, loaded onto an air-polluting truck, and delivered to the shop. Naturally.

The problem is that there’s no clear definition of what is “natural”. We generally get the gut feeling that an apple is natural, but that chewing gum is not – even though that apple was probably stored way beyond its usual shelf life in a not-so-natural atmosphere rich in carbon-dioxide. Taken to its logical extreme you could argue that any processed food is the result of the action of natural organisms – it’s just that those natural organisms happen to be human beings. Taken to its illogical extreme it becomes clear that every atom in nature started out in a star or accretion disk, so absolutely everything is natural.

The Feedback section at the back of New Scientist often pokes fun at products which purport to contain “no chemicals”. But such is people’s distrust of science that the word “chemical” has negative connotations, rather than the benign associations it should have. When faced with such attitudes it’s hardly surprising that vendors have discovered the benefit of marketing “natural” products to an almost anti-science public.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m happy for products to be labelled as natural, organic or free-range. Where it leads to better animal welfare and more informed customers, it can be a good thing. But as consumers we should definitely be a bit more cynical of such claims. After all if it’s natural, it might also mean that it’s full of insects.

Click here to download the SVG source for this comic

Questo fumetto è disponibile anche in italiano
This comic is also available in Italian

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Jan20

Writing for House M.D.

by Mark on January 20, 2011 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics
Writing for House M.D.

Hugh Laurie is an incredibly versatile actor. Quite how the same person can so convincingly portray both Gregory House and the Prince Regent in Blackadder is hard to fathom.

For those of us in the UK he’s perhaps best known for his portrayal of humorously foppish English gentlemen – whether it’s Prince George, or Bertie Wooster. The pitch of his voice rises, a large plum develops in his mouth, and he becomes a naive artistocrat, lost without his faithful (or conniving) butler. So successful was he at these parts that he also made a regular appearance as a voice-over artist for adverts with similar intonation.

Compare that to House. Gone is the bright-eyed stupidity, replaced with dark, brooding intellect. The voice is deeper – and American – and the fresh-faced youth of the past has given way to a craggy, characterful visage. It’s such a convincing portrayal that it’s sometimes hard to remember that he’s the same actor who urged Stephen Fry to “pass the marmalade” in full Pythonesque drag-and-falsetto mode.

When House was first shown on Channel 5 in the UK, however, there was one subtle clue that reminded us of Hugh Laurie’s past on this side of the Atlantic. Almost every break featured an advert for Tiscali (a broadband supplier) with a voice-over performed by Hugh in his foppish Englishman guise. What a great way to destroy the suspension of disbelief!

Questo fumetto è disponibile anche in italiano
This comic is also available in Italian

Click here to download the SVG source for this comic

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Jan06

Unbelievably Stupid Bus

by Mark on January 6, 2011 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics
Unbelievably Stupid Bus

Another year, another collection of dubious Christmas presents. Let’s see what we’ve got here… an MP3 player, an iPad. a USB cup warmer, a USB desk fan, a USB missile launcher and a Hello Kitty novelty USB hard drive. Perhaps next year I should ask for a new USB hub so that I can actually plug it all in.

Does that sound familiar? Was your Christmas marred by an arm-scraping incident with the corner of your PC as you tried to blindly seek out a USB port at the back. Or perhaps you’ve got a bad case of housemaid’s knee after worshipping prostrate at the altar of the front-mounted ports. If USB plugs slid smoothly into place first time, every time, there would be no need for the arm-mangling routine of dragging the plug around the back of the PC hoping it will slip into place. There would be no need to descend to the computer’s level when accessing those front ports.

But instead we all do the jiggling courtship dance of technology in our efforts to mate male with female, plug with socket. The plastic moulding is inspected, the USB logo sought, and we know which way is up. Alas! We also know that the computer’s idea of “up” may not be the same as ours. Certainty flies out of the window, but still we hope for that stroke of luck that will put everything into the same frame of reference.

You fumble, plug in hand, fingertips eagerly seeking out a rectangular space that you think just might be a spare USB socket. Good luck to you if you’ve inadvertantly found an HDMI or eSATA port; the deception they offer will keep you distracted for ages. But even if you’ve identified the right type of socket, your troubles have only just begun. You slide and scrape the tip of the plug around, hoping desperately that it will slip into place, but instead you feel nothing but resistance. Time to try a different tack.

With deftly practiced movements the plug is spun effortlessly between your fingertips. Or more probably you drop it, swear a little, retrieve it by pulling on the cable, and start again. But one way or another you manage to present the gift of a new connection to the awaiting motherboardly recipient. Clang! Clash! Scrape! Bash! The feel of metal on metal, plastic on plastic, tells you that this mating just isn’t meant to be.

For a second you pause, confused. You’ve tried the plug one way, and that didn’t work. You’ve tried it the other way, and that didn’t work either. Then the fog of technology lifts and suppressed memories flood back of previous encounters with USB connections. You rotate the plug once more, back to its original orientation. Still it won’t slip into place, but you slide it around nevertheless. You circle the tip in wider and wider spirals until, at last, it clicks into a recess. A little extra pressure and it slides home. It turns out that you had it oriented correctly the first time after all, but that tiny aperture in the back of the computer was just a few millimetres from where you thought it was.

Finally you mumble and groan, promising that you’ll buy yourself a USB hub some day to avoid all these problems. But before you do, you replace the computer with a newer model with even more USB sockets. No need for a hub now. And so the cycle begins again… only this time you’ve almost certainly got an HDMI or eSATA socket to contend with. If only these were commonplace.

Click here to download the SVG source for this comic

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Dec23

Nativity

by Mark on December 23, 2010 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics
Nativity

Usually when we post a bonus comic we use it as an opportunity to push the next scheduled comic back by a week, to help ease the pressure on our permanently under-filled queue of finished strips. This time, however, we’ve decided to stick to our original schedule, despite last week’s “Wikileaks” bonus comic, giving you three strips in as many weeks! No wonder I feel exhausted.

Of course the incessant repetition of the same Christmas songs over and over and over again, across every shop and radio station, is probably also doing its bit to add to that exhaustion. But it’s also the reason for sticking to our original schedule. Yes, it’s that time of year again when we feel compelled to rack our brains for a suitably festive comic strip. Last year it was “Frosty Reception” – a strip whose only connection to the season of goodwill was the inclusion of some snow and a snowman – and a show of the typical lack of goodwill that military powers around the world tend to show. What happened to the days of calling a truce for a nice game of football?

This year we’ve gone for something more obviously referential (though perhaps not reverential) to Christmas. We hope the Christians reading this won’t take any offence, as none is intended. And for the non-Christians reading this, we’ll be back with more secular humour in the New Year. In the meantime we hope you all enjoy whatever seasonal festival you wish to celebrate, and remember that the Greys will be back, on schedule, on the 6th January and each fortnight thereafter throughout the year.

Click here to download the SVG source for this comic

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Dec16

Wikileaks

by Mark on December 16, 2010 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics
Wikileaks

From time to time we like to produce a topical bonus strip. The last time was when the iPhone 4 was launched, and the media was full of woe about its antenna problems. This time we’re touching on a couple of recent developments – one more widely reported than the other. The first, of course, is the latest round of information to be revealed courtesy of the wikileaks website. With so much classified information being released, what’s an orbiting alien to do, but to check the content to ensure that their presence hasn’t been revealed.

The second topic that this strip references is the launch of the FirefoxLive. For anyone not sufficiently versed in über-cute endangered bamboo-eaters, there are two animals with the name “panda”: the large black-and-white Giant Panda, and the smaller, unrelated, raccoon-like Red Panda. The latter is also known as the “Firefox”, which also happens to be the name of one of the most popular web browsers. What’s a browser vendor to do when your main product is named after a cute endangered animal? The obvious answer is to partner with a Firefox-breeding zoo in order to set up a live webcam monitoring some young cubs, and encourage people to download the beta version of your next browser release in exchange for treats for the cubs. That’s basically the purpose of the firefoxlive.org website, which was launched last week. If you like your critters almost too cute for words then you owe it to yourself to visit the site.

[EDIT, March 2012: The Firefox Live website is now closed, as explained in this blog post]

Click here to download the SVG source for this comic

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